Eugene Edward Blosser (March 27, 1917 - June 8, 2008)

Just a note to thank all of you for your kind thoughts and prayers for my father, Eugene (age 91), who passed from this life peacefully in his sleep last Sunday morning at 9:17am as my daughter and I were taking a turn sitting with him. We had several good days of sharing happy reminiscences, praying together, and saying our goodbyes before he slipped out of consciousness two days before his death. During those days, he was surrounded by family and friends, several groups of which came by not only to visit but to sing favorite hymns for him. Though there were difficult moments, as when he struggled for breath in his fluid-filled lungs before his medication could be adjusted to allow more comfortable breathing, it was, all-in-all, the kind of death for which one could readily hope for himself -– to be surrounded by loved ones, and happily resigned to meet his Maker.

The funeral was last Monday.

Thanks again for your many expressions of thoughtfulness and prayers.

Kind regards,
Phil

Gone for several days

I will be driving out to Iowa tomorrow (Wednesday) to see my father for the last time and make our final farewells. I thank in advance any of you who are able to remember us in your prayers.

Should liturgy be mysterious or transparent?

Evelyn Waugh, in his book When the Going Was Good (1946), describes assisting at a Mass during a sojourn in Abyssinia (Ethiopia):

As the sun mounted, it became intensely hot. We lay in the tent smoking and dozing until the abuna [Arabic for 'Father', used by Arabic-speaking Christians in addressing a priest] came to conduct us to Mass.

I will not attempt any description of the ritual; the liturgy was quite unintelligible to me, and, oddly enough, to the professor also. No doubt the canon of the Mass would have been in part familiar, but this was said in the sanctuary behind closed doors. We stood in the outer ambulatory. A carpet was placed for us to stand on and we were given praying-sticks, with the aid of which we stood throughout the two hours of service. There were twenty or thirty monks round us and some women and babies from the tukals [small huts or dwellings]. Communion was administered to the babies, but to no one else. Many of the monks were crippled or deformed in some way; presumably they were pilgrims who had originally come to the spring in the hope of a cure, and had become absorbed into the life of the place. There seemed to be very little system of testing vocations in the community. The priests and deacons wore long, white-and-gold cloaks and turbans, and had bare feet. Now and then they emerged from the sanctuary, and once they walked round in procession. The singing was monotonous and more or less continuous, accompanied by a drum and sistrums [Egyptian percussion instruments]. For anyone accustomed to the western rite it was difficult to think of this as a Christian service, for it bore that secret and confused character associated with the non-Christian sects of the East.

I had sometimes thought it an odd thing that Western Christianity, alone of all the religions of the world, exposes its mysteries to every observer, but I was so accustomed to this openness that I had never before questioned whether it was an essential and natural feature of the Christian system. Indeed, so saturated are we in the spirit that many people regard the growth of the Church as a process of elaboration -- even of obfuscation; they visualize the Church of the first century as a little cluster of pious people reading the Gospels together, praying and admonishing each other with a simplicity to which the high ceremonies and subtle theology of later years would have been bewildering and unrecognizable. At Debra Lebanos I suddenly saw the classic basilica and open altar as a great positive achievement, a triumph of light over darkness consciously accomplished, and I saw theology as the science of simplification by which nebulous and elusive ideas are formalized and made intelligible and exact. I saw the Church of the first century as a dark and hidden thing; as dark and hidden as the seed germinating in the womb; legionaries off duty slipping furtively out of barracks, greeting each other by signs and passwords in a locked upper room in the side street of some Mediterranean seaport; slaves at dawn creeping from the grey twilight into the candle-lit, smoky chapels of the catacombs. The priests hid their office, practicing trades; their identity was known only to initiates; they were criminals against the laws of their country. And the pure nucleus of the truth lay in the minds of the people, encumbered with superstitions, gross survivals of obscene nonsense seeping through from the other esoteric cults of the Near East, magical infections from the conquered barbarian. And I began to see how these obscure sanctuaries had grown, with the clarity of Western reason, into the great open altars of Catholic Europe, where Mass is said in a flood of light, high in the sight of all, while tourists can clatter round with their Baedekers, incurious of the mystery. (pp. 118-119)

I find this a fascinating set of observations:

• First, Waugh reacts to the strangeness of the Abyssinian liturgy much as a Protestant Fundamentalist might react to a Catholic Mass: he says "it was difficult to think of this as a Christian service," he says, because it had the "secret and confused character associated with the non-Christian sects of the East." This could nearly be the reaction of a Catholic habituated in the Novus Ordo to a Tridentine, Byzantine, or Chaldean Catholic Mass.
  
  
• Second, in examining his own reaction, Waugh observes that "Western Christianity, alone of all the religions of the world, exposes its mysteries to every observer ...." At first blush, this looks like an apologia for the Vatican II reforms, if not for the abusive innovations that followed in their wake. One can imagine a partisan of the "Spirit of Vatican II" using this line of thought in derisively dismissing the pre-Vatican II liturgy as egregiously obscurantist, dark, mysterious and encrusted with repetitious ritual bordering on superstition. Waugh is far from such a view, however.
  
  
• Third, because of this historically ingrained openness of Western liturgy, he says, many people anachronistically "visualize the Church of the first century as a little cluster of pious people reading the Gospels together, praying and admonishing each other with a simplicity to which the high ceremonies and subtle theology of later years would have been bewildering and unrecognizable." In other words, they regard the process of the Church's growth as one of "obfuscation." This is the sort of thing one hears constantly from Protestant Fundamentalists who speak endlessly of the "simple Gospel" of the New Testament Church and how it was "corrupted" by post-Constantinian Catholicism.
  
  
• Fourth, Waugh says that at Debra Lebanos, he "suddenly saw the classic basilica and open altar as a great positive achievement, a triumph of light over darkness consciously accomplished ...." Yet when he goes on to explain what he means, it is clear that he means that the early Church was a dark, hidden, underground and often illegal thing in the Roman Empire, and that it took time for the "pure nucleus of truth" in this hidden religion to emerge with the aid of Western reason from the "gross survivals of the paganism" that formed its early social context.

The really interesting question to emerge from Waugh's account concerns what the Catholic tradition calls the Sacred Mysteries at the heart of the Sacrifice of the Mass. The question is: To what extent can or should these Sacred Mysteries be rendered transparent? A further question is: What kind of "transparency" does one mean? It's one thing to seek clarity about what exactly occurs in the Mass in order to participate spiritually in the liturgy as fully as possible. It's another thing for the mysteries to be physically brought out, as Waugh says, upon "the great open altars of Catholic Europe, where Mass is said in a flood of light, high in the sight of all, while tourists ... clatter round ... incurious of the mystery." It's yet another thing to endeavor to eliminate all mystery from the liturgy by rendering it commonplace, if not pedestrian.

I once addressed this subject, in "'Making it Real' - Part II: The Sacrament of the Altar" (March 9, 2007), as follows:

And so, in tandem with the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the taboos and hedges and walls and altar rails have come down in our churches. Tabernacles have been moved out of Sanctuaries, Altars have been pushed out into the nave (if churches still have 'naves'), people receive Communion standing at the head of a moving line, and receive the Host in their hands (although both Paul VI and John Paul II openly opposed the practice before giving in to widespread pressure) -- and there are often so many women helping the priest at the Altar-Table after the Consecration that one sometimes can't help thinking he looks a little lost and out-of-place up there. Clearly, the old taboos are gone, or nearly so.

One particularly instructive example of this trend comes from the Life Teen Masses before the authorities reigned in their excesses, at least in some places. Life Teen Masses were once notorious for gathering gaggles of teenagers right up around the Altar. There they would not kneel, but stand right through the Consecration, sometimes chewing gum, watching the priest as he said Mass. The idea seemed to be similar: If the Mass is a good thing, why not liberate it, like a bird from a cage? Why not bring the kids right up to the "Altar-Table," where they can see everything going on up close? Perhaps it was assumed that this would heighten the intensity of their Eucharistic experience and "active participation."

The effect, however, was almost always the very opposite. Instead of intensifying personal experience, it drained it of any sense of transcendence. Instead of elevating "active participation," it led to boredom and indifference.

What happened?

Please do not be offended, but I want to draw an analogy with another movement of cultural liberation that was concurrently underway alongside the liturgical reforms of the 1960s: the sexual revolution. The thinking was very similar in certain respects, as some of you may recall. If human sexuality is so good, then why hedge it about with so many repressive Victorian taboos? Why not liberate it, like a bird from a cage? In contrast to our ancestors and religious teachers, like St. Paul, who saw something profoundly metaphysical in the coupling act that ought to be confined to the bonds of matrimony, the sentiment of the sixties was that sex needed to be demystified, demythologized, and enjoyed for what it is: "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

Furthermore, in the process of increasing exposure to more and more sexual information and imagery, a process of desensitization occurred. If any of you have seen the film Kinsey, you may recall what a sensation he caused both in his classrooms and in the public when he began lecturing on the intimate sexual habits of Americans. People used to blush. Sex education classes have done much the same in our schools. Further, if you track the use of nudity and sex appeal in advertising, you can easily see the progressive desensitization that has occurred over the last decades. I don't imagine Hugh Hefner in the 1960s would have been permitted to have as a Playboy centerfold some of the Dillard department store lingerie ads hanging in shopping malls these days. What you find at the end of this trajectory is, of course, hardcore pornography. But when everything is exposed and all one is left with is the impersonal plumbing of human genitalia, a problem occurs. Something is lost: the Real Presence of the Person. This is why even those trapped by the vice of pornography find it ultimately so unsatisfying and boring. (Try reading the Marquis de Sade's 1200 page Juliette. If you don't fall asleep from boredom in ten or twenty pages, you're a sick puppy indeed.)

It was precisely to protect the Real Presence of the Person that sex was hedged about with all those traditional taboos of courtship, ritual, decorum, and bonds of matrimony to begin with. Persons were never to be treated as mere things, to be 'used' as 'means' to satisfy our own pleasure, but always to be respected as ends-in-themselves. The taboos were a sign that we cared about the Real Presence of the other Person on the altar of sexual union. The dropping of the taboos was a sign that we no longer cared about the depth dimension of sex because we no longer cared about the Presence of the interior and irreducible selfhood of the other Person in the sexual encounter. I remember a film-maker in Switzerland telling me he realized he needed help when he reached the point where he had a different girl nearly every night and was telling her, "Please, don't talk to me. I don't even want to know your name."

Now, how does this translate into our consideration of liturgy? Martin Mosebach, describing his experience assisting at the Altar as a boy (in his book, The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy, writes:

I always found it embarrassing to see the Host at such close quarters, so vulnerable, as if it were lying naked on the white cloth. It was not something for my eyes, a layman's eyes, to behold. There was something secret going on between the priest and the Host. It was a real relationship: there was a kind of conversation between the Host and priest that was hidden from the eyes of the congregation by the priest's body. I, however, as an altar server, was aware and had to be aware of it, like a nurse who unexpectedly finds herself in the position of having to undress a respected personage. The gentle cracking sound of the Host made when it broke seemed not for my ears, either: it was an intimacy to which I was not entitled.

If the Host is nothing more than a wafer, of course, then such words are no more than the pathological scrupulosities of a superstitious and ignorant little boy. There is no mystery here, but only a wafer. Nothing to inspire fear in a man. Certainly not of the kind Mosebach expresses when he says that even in those days when religion had vanished from his mind, he would never have dared to touch a consecrated Host or chalice, or listened to observations on art history in front of the Tabernacle.

On the other hand, if the Host is Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, then nothing is more appropriate than the attitude displayed here by Mosebach. How was this attitude instilled? How was Mosebach sensitized to feel and respond as he did in the passage above? Was it by being led straightaway into the presence of the naked Host? No. It was by being habituated in the gestures, postures, and attitudes of reverence by means of all the external formalities of the old Mass -- all of those fastidious outward forms that conform the inward disposition of the soul to discern the Real Presence of the Person upon the Altar of Sacrifice.

If, by "transparent," we mean "clear to the understanding," then part of rendering the Divine Mysteries "transparent" must involve cultivating a certain deference toward this traditional concealment of the Holy, a reticence about throwing its doors open to the public thoroughfare; for this is what it means to clearly understand the sacral nature of the "Divine Mystery" at the heart of the Mass: He Is Here.¹

Notes

1. It is instructive that our Lord Himself never went about directly proclaiming His divinity or even His identity as Messiah, but rather commanded them repeatedly not to reveal to others His identity (See "Messianic Secret"). This isn't to suggest that He wanted His hearers to remain ignorant about the Gospel or His identity as God's Son. Rather, it is to suggest that, as in nearly all forms of intimate knowledge, a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ is not something that can be forced. Instead, as in a personal relationships, it requires approaching the Other on His own terms. [back]

Bullets Over Broadway, Detroit

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Abort THIS, Planned Parenthood!

Kellie Coffey, "I Would Die for That" (from the album Walk On). Beautiful.

Your thoughts? '62 Mass with post-'70 innovations?

"The 1962 Mass with Post-1970 Innovations: Is It Likely?" by Charles M. Wilson With additional comments by Philip C.L. Gray, JCL and Duane L.C.M. Galles, JD, JCD.

Excerpts from the beginning and closing of the article:

Pope Benedict XVI has expressed the hope that the ordinary and the extraordinary forms of the Mass will enrich one another in various ways. In his letter that accompanied Summorum Pontificum(SP), the Holy Father suggested, for example,that Propers for new saints and new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the 1962 Missal. He also proposed that the celebrations of the new Mass might incorporate some elements of the old. “The celebration of Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage.”

As of this writing, it has been less than four months since SP was released to the public and five weeks since it came into force. So far, there have arisen two concerns that are of interest to the Saint Joseph Foundation. The first is the issue of using various techniques to delay or, if possible, to entirely prevent celebrations of the Traditional Mass. The second is the possibility of vastly diminishing both its benefit to souls and its value as a standard of liturgical expression by introducing practices that have been introduced since Vatican II. Some of these practices began as abuses but became accepted, such as altar girls, and some are still abusive but threaten to become accepted, such as standing for the Eucharistic prayer. This article will deal only with the second concern.

... The title of this article asks if it is likely that problematic liturgical practices will occur in celebrations of the Traditional Mass. My answer is not only is it likely; it is certain. We know that it has already happened. The key question now is, how extensive will it be in the future? We need to be prepared just in case. We will also need the assistance of our readers and other faithful Catholics in reporting specific abuses to us. Much hangs in the balance and the months ahead will be critical. May Saint Joseph be our guide may Saint Michael the Archangel defend us in battle.

[Hat tip to N.M.B.]

Corruption of youth ("For age 10 and up")

[Parental advisory: The following contains graphic and explicit sexual language.]

"Corruption of youth" was a charge trumped up mendaciously against Socrates. By contrast, it could be leveled without any distortion and with perfect justice against Planned Parenthood.


Most teen abortions don't start when a girl walks into a Planned Parenthood clinic. They start when Planned Parenthood walks into a classroom under the ruse of tax-funded "sex education."

Here are a few chapter titles from a new "sex-ed" book, entitled It's Perfectly Normal, making its rounds under the promotions of Planned Parenthood:

• "Straight and Gay: Heterosexuality, Homosexuality and Bisexuality"
• "Perfectly Normal Masturbation"
• "A Kind of Sharing: Cuddling, Kissing, Touching, and Sexual Intercourse"

Chapter 24 is devoted to Planned Parenthood's specialty: "Abortion."

All 28 chapters of the book are filled with explicit quasi-pornographic illustrations (rejected as inappropriate and pornographic by a Washington State prison) and coarse sexual language:

• "As the male and female move back and forth in rhythm, the movement of the penis inside the vagina soon feels very good... When these feelings come to a climax, semen is ejaculated from the penis and spurts into the vagina." (From page 56 of It's Perfectly Normal, the children's sex manual promoted by Planned Parenthood.)
• "Sexual intercourse happens when a female and a male feel very sexy. They want to be very close to each other in a sexual way, so close that the male's penis goes inside the female's vagina." (p. 14)
• "In all, from front to back, there are three openings between a female's legs; the opening to her uretha, her vagina, and her anus. If a girl or woman is curious about what these openings look like, she can hold a mirror between her legs and take a look." (p. 23)
• Sexual intercourse -- 'having sex' -- can involve the penis and the vagina, or the mouth and the genitals, or the penis and the anus." (p. 15).
• "Some people call an erection a 'hard-on' or 'boner' even though there are no bones in the penis." (p. 37)
• Some people disapprove of gay men and lesbian women. Usually those people know little or nothing about homosexuals, and their views are often based on fears or misinformation, not on facts." (pp. 17-18).

From here it goes only downhill, including a "how to" section on masturbation with pictures of male and female. For further details, if you want them, check out "Sex Book For Children" (YouTube, A.L.L. Report). The report ends by declaring that Planned Parenthood should be charged with the distribution of pornography to minors.

The best of times, the worst of times

As we approach the first anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, this July, it is worth considering what has been happening in various parishes and dioceses around the country. Predictably, the results are mixed, as I have heard even from some of you. In my previous Diocese of Charlotte, NC, there has been a marked turnabout, with the Tridentine Mass now offered in a number of different venues. This would have been unthinkable just a year ago. Detroit, where I now live, had an Indult Mass at St. Josaphat since October of 2004 with Auxillary Bishop Boyea celebrating his first Tridentine Mass there in December of that year. Since Summorum Pontificum, a number of different parishes in the greater Detroit area have begun offering the Latin Rite in its Extraordinary form.

One of the most interesting ways of assessing the responses to Summorum Pontificum is to read letters to the editor of various periodicals. Here are some excerpts from a few recent letters to the May 2008 issue of the New Oxford Review:

1. "When Pope Benedict's motu proprio liberating the Tridentine Latin Mass was released, [my] pastor wrote in his parish bulletin that he was 'very saddened by this development.' It is true, he says that the Tridentine Mass was 'celebrated and venerated for many, many years.' But that Mass 'belongs to a different era," and 'by the mid-20th Century it was getting old and crusty.' The Tridentine Mass, he says, 'reflects a time when the Mass "belonged" to the priest. The people were the audience,' and their attitude then was to 'sit back and relax and let daddy do it all.'" (Holyoke, Massachusetts)

2. "'Don't go to the Latin Mass!' Those were the words I heard from my local Catholic priest. Instead, he said, 'God to the Spanish Mass.' He made be feel like I should avoid the Tridentine Latin Mass like the plague." (Lexington, Kentucky)

3. "Here in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, we have had a glorious transformation. The Traditional Latin Mass has not been very well viewed, over the past 35 years, by a presbyterate very suspicious and critical of things traditional.

"... Then, on the Second Sunday of Lent (Feb. 17), Fr. Francis McHugh, pastor of St. Pius X Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, invited us to have an inaugural Mass at his parish near Fort Sam Houston. What a miracle, considering no pastor had before even hinted at being sympathetic to the Traditional Latin Mass!

"Here's where it gets phenomenal and almost unbelievable in a religious climate that can only be described as hostile to the Traditional Latin Mass. He agreed to move an existing 12:15 PM Novus Ordo Mass to the 5:30 PM time slot. He allowed the Traditional Latin Mass to be moved to 12 noon to better suit the priest saying the Mass. He allowed a communion rail to be constructed. He allowed the high altar to be reconstructed and enlarged. Finally, he asked that the Traditional Latin Mass be said on First Fridays as well, so that the schoolchildren could be exposed to it!

"The inaugural 12 noon High Mass attracted nearly 600 people to a church that seats 650. The collection was nearly double what the 12:15 PM Novus Ordo Mass had previously averaged. The Traditional Latin Mass, over ensuing weeks, has averaged around 400 people every Sunday, and the collection continues to exceed the previous 12:15 PM Novus Ordo Mass average.

"St. Pius X now has a Wednesday 7 AM Traditional Mass attended by about 40 people, and a Saturday 8 AM Mass attended by about 80 people. The inaugural 8 AM First Friday Mass of March 7 (Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, patron of Catholic schools, according to the traditional calendar) had about 300 students and about 300 family members and parishioners present.

"The Most Rev. Jose Gomez, our Archbishop, and Fr. Francis McHugh deserve a huge deal of credit for ... allowing the Traditional Latin Mass into the mainstream of Catholic life here in San Antonio." (San Antonio, Texas)

4. "I am not awestruck by the Tridentine Latin Mass, based on my experience with it early on in life. I find I can be just as intimately joined to our Blessed Lord in the vernacular New Mass, and I enjoy the greater participation of the congregation." (New Rochelle, New York)

5. "[Mr. __________](letter, Dec. 2007) claims that there is "much to be said for" the Novus Ordo Mass because of its "increased emphasis on sacred Scripture." ... However, the prevalence of lectors who are ineffective ..., the unavailability of printed missals in many parishes, and lame New American Bible translations at the Novus Ordo do little to enhance the meditative experience offered by these extra passages.

"More important is what was left out. For example, there is virtually no mention of the 'Divine Majesty,' with which the Tridentine Mass is liberally sprinkled. Also ignored is the fact that most of the "unnecessary" short prayers of the Tridentine Mass that were eliminated in the Novus Ordo appear for the most part to be taken from sacred Scripture, typically from the Psalms. Virtual elimination of the Lavabo, which probably was recited by priests of the Old Testament before performing a sacrificial act, is a case in point. Throwing out the beautiful and very Catholic Last Gospel of St. John is another poignant example.

"The Novus Ordo Mass is valid, but its usefulness as a teaching instrument is questionable: combine the above-mentioned problems with elimination of the communion rail in most churches and one cannot help but wonder if the Novus Ordo is not merely beyond banality, but was designed by its perpetrators to undermine fundamental Catholic belief." (Crescent City, California)

Without comment ...

[Acknowledgement: "To the Editor," New Oxford Review (May 2008), pp. 10-13; with a tip of the hat to the Editor.]

The hazards of nuance

1. Pope Pius XII, "Mystici Corporis" (1943):

The "true Church of Jesus Christ ... is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church." [Litt. Enc. Mystici Corporis Christi, A.A.S., vol. XXXV, p. 193 sq.; citing Vat. Council, Const. de Eccl., Const. de fide cath., c. 1.; emphasis added.]

2. Pope Pius XII, "Instruction on the Ecumenical Movement" (1949):

"[The Bishops] must restrain that dangerous manner of speaking which generates false opinions and fallacious hopes incapable of realization; for example, to the effect that the teachings of the Encyclicals of the Roman Pontiffs on the return of dissidents to the Church, on the constitution of the Church, on the Mystical Body of Christ, should not be given too much importance seeing that they are not all matters of faith, or, what is worse, that in matters of dogma even the Catholic Church has not yet attained the fullness of Christ, but can still be perfected from outside. . . .

Therefore the whole and entire Catholic doctrine is to be presented and explained: by no means is it permitted to pass over in silence or to veil in ambiguous terms the Catholic truth regarding ... the constitution of the Church, the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, and the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ." [emphasis added]

3. Pope Pius XII, "Humani Generis" (1950):

". . . the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing." [para. 27; emphasis added.]

4. Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on the "Lumen Gentium," promulgated by Pope Paul VI (1964):

"[The] Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him . . ." [para. 8, citing: Pius XII, Const. Apost. Munificentissimus, 1 no. 1950: AAS 42 (1950) ú Denz. 2333 (3903). Cfr. S. Io. Damascenus, Enc. in dorm. Dei gcnitricis, Hom. 2 et 3: PG 96, 721-761, speciatim col. 728 B. - S. Germanus Constantinop., in S. Dei gen. dorm. Serm. 1: PG 98 (6), 340-348; Serm. 3: col. 361. - S. Modestus Hier., In dorm. SS. Deiparae: PG 86 (2), 3277-3312; emphasis added.]

5. Avery Cardinal Dulles, Vatican III: The Work That Needs to Be Done, ed. by David Tracy with Hans Kueng and Johann Metz (New York: Concilium, Seabury Press, 1978):

"The Church of Jesus Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed subsist in Roman Catholicism, but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian dommunities to the extent that they too are what God initiated in Jesus and are obedient to the inspirations of Christ's Spirit. As a result of their common sharing in the reality of the one Church, the several Christian communities already have with one another a real but imperfect communion." [p. 91; emphasis added.]

6. Congretation for the Doctrine of the Fatih, "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church" (June 29, 2007):

Second Question: What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?

Response: "Christ 'established here on earth' only one Church and instituted it as a 'visible and spiritual community' . . ."

". . . ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church . . ."

"It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them. . . ."

Third Question: Why was the expression “subsists in” adopted instead of the simple word “is”?

Response: "The use of this expression, which indicates the full identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, does not change the doctrine on the Church. Rather, it comes from and brings out more clearly the fact that there are 'numerous elements of sanctification and of truth' which are found outside her structure, but which 'as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity.'" [Lumen Gentium, 8.2]

"'It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church'" [Second Vatican Council, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 3.4.].

It's one thing to be accurate in every minute detail. It's another thing to be clear and avoid confusing the faithful. The two are not always comfortable bedfellows.

Before modern abortion: the brutal history of Kokeshi dolls

A friend recently sent me the link to Christopher Price's essay, "Pagans, Christianity, and Infanticide" (2004). The article got me thinking about the meaning of the Kokeshi dolls I saw in Japan where I grew up. But more on that connection later.

Price's essay begins like this:

The history of infanticide is gruesome. As hard as it may be to imagine today, throughout history infanticide was a common and endorsed practice. While it undoubtedly still occurs today, all governments outlaw it. And in the West at least, society and culture condemn it. So how did we get from there to here? From having Western societies that condoned and encouraged infanticide to having a Western society that condemns and discourages infanticide?

The short answer: Christianity.

How many people know that infanticide was defended by Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero; that Tacitus condemned as "sinister and revolting" the Jewish condemnation of the practice; or that Seneca, otherwise known for his high morals, stated "we drown children at birth who are weakly and abnormal"? The practice of snuffing out the lives of unwanted infants was apparently ubiquitous in all well-studied ancient cultures, including those of Greece, Rome, India, China and Japan. Which brings me to Japan.

One thing I very clearly remember from growing up in Japan is the presence of Kokeshi dolls, which I remember seeing in many homes as well as for sale in stores. Kokeshi dolls are native to the northern part of Japan (Tohoku), and seemed to be ubiquitous in the northermost island of Hokkaido where I spent my first sixteen years. I remember handling these dolls myself, and the smooth feel of the wood (often bamboo) from which they were crafted. I never gave them much thought while growing up. They simply seemed to be part of the environment in a culture that produced many other things of that sort.

But when I was older, I remember the name "Kokeshi" once caught me up short. In the Japanese language, different phonemes (phonetic parts of words) can have a variety of different meanings and accordingly be represented by a variety of different Chinese characters. I had never thought about it before, but "Kokeshi" could could carry several different meanings, because the word is usually written, not in Kanji (Chinese characters, which carry their own independent meaning, regardless of how they are pronounced), but in Hiragana (one of the two phonetic syllabaries, which indicate the pronunciation of the word, but not its meaning). Thus, if the term were to be represented in Kanji, it could be written 小芥子 (meaning "small poppy" or "small mustard seed"). But it could also be represented by 子消し, in which case the first phoneme ("Ko") signifies "child," and the second ("keshi"), signifies "erasure" (as in the Japanese compound 消去, meaning "elimination").

The significance later became clear when I learned that Kokeshi dolls were often used traditionally as representations of infants who had been disposed of by infanticide -- usually by abandoning them in the mountains. In Alan Booth's book, Looking for the Lost: Journeys Through a Vanishing Japan (Kodansha America, 1995), one reads the following (p. 129ff.):

Few Japanese people have any notion of where kokeshi came from or what they might originally have been used for, nor have they given the matter much thought. Partly this is because, like nebuta, the word kokeshi is usually written not with ideograms [i.e., Chinese characters, or Kanji] but in the purely phonetic syllabary called Hiragana, so it is difficult to deduce an ethymology. Ko, for instance, might mean "small" and keshi might mean "poppy," in which case the curators of Japan's doll museums would all be bouncing with joy. But it strikes me as more likely that the word is an amalgam of a different ko, meaning "child," and kesu, meaning "get rid of," and that these cute, tender-faced little dolls, made from simple pieces of wood, a sphere for the head and a cylinder for the body, may in origin have been fetish substitutes for children murdered at birth.

Infanticide was not an uncommon practice in rural Japan during the feudal period and it survived here and there into quite recent times. The American historian Thomas C. Smith suggest that, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries at least, it was practised in Japan "less as a desperate act in the face of poverty than as a form of family planning." In the towns, abortion was the commonest form of family planning (and, as the Japanese government persists to this day in refusing to permit the sale of oral contraceptives, it remains widely and lucratively practised). But in rural areas, though officially prohibited by most clan governments, infanticide was the preferred choice. Moral questions aside, the killing of newborn babies rather than fetuses has the practical advantage of allowing a family -- or a village -- to exert a precise control over the ratio of the sexes, and it appears that, unlike in China and some parts of Asia, the horror was not directed wholly, or even mainly, against female babies, but was used coolly and even-handedly to construct a gender balance that would ensure the continuance and stability of the group.

According to Mrs. Suzuki Fumi, born in 1898 in Ibaragi prefecture, not far north of Tokyo, and recorded on tape by the local doctor for a book of reminiscences called Memories of Silk and Straw, "'thinning out' babies was pretty common" even at the time of her own birth. "It was considered bad luck to have twins," she explains, "so you got rid of one before your neighbours found out. Deformed babies were also bumped off. And if you wanted a boy but the baby was a girl, you'd make it 'a day visitor.'" The murder was often entrusted to the midwife. "Killing off a newborn baby was a simple enough business," Mrs. Suzuki remembers. "You just moistened a piece of paper with spittle and put it over the baby's nose and mouth; in no time at all it would stop breathing." But there were alternative methods, and another of Dr. Saga's informants, Mrs. Terakako Tai, born in 1899, describes two of them. One was "to press on their chest with your knee." Another was called usugoro (mortar killing), in which the murderer was usually the mother herself: "The woman went alone into one of the buildings outside and had the baby lying on a straw mat. She wrapped the thing in two straw sacks lids, tied it up with rope and laid it on the mat. She then rolled a heavy wooden mortar over it. When the baby was dead, she took it outside and buried it herself. And the next day she was expected to be up at the crack of dawn as usual, doing the housework and helping in the fields...."

Bearing in mind the fact that Kokeshi dolls have no arms or legs, Booth observes:

"The absence of limbs might be disquieting, I suppose, if you had made the possible connection between kokeshi and child murder and had read Mrs. Suzuki's account of a midwife's attempt to quicken death by wrapping an infant tightly in rags so that its arms were bound invisibly to its sides, or if you knew that one of the traditional attributes of Japanese ghosts is that they have no feet."

Unnatural natural death

My father has aspiration pneumonia, a pathology caused by a calcium growth in the back of his throat that prevents food from properly descending his esophagus. The infection in his lungs causes fluid buildup. For the past several months, the doctors have been successful in combating the pneumonia with antibiotics and draining the fluid from his lungs. Recently the doctors proposed the option of a feeding tube, to avoid the problem of aspirating his food into his lungs. However, my father is no longer responding to antibiotics intended to fight his pneumonia. Hence, the feeding tube has been abandoned and he is being kept on an IV with the expectation of increasingly rapid, inevitable decline and death.

What has particularly impressed me about my father is how determinedly he has fought and resisted dying, even when his body has failed him, and even though I can think of few people less prepared in their own minds to meed their Maker. I suppose many would say that this is natural, that it's human nature to wish to struggle and survive. True. Yet I can remember many others who have welcomed their deaths; some, in fact, who seemed to long for it.

The Catholic Church teaches that life is sacred from the moment of conception to "natural death." In one sense of the word, death is perfectly "natural." One has a "natural" lifespan, and when that is over, one "naturally" dies. Not only is death the "natural" terminus of one's biological life span; it is also the portal through which those redeemed by Christ -- those who are baptized into His death -- are raised to enter eternal life. In this sense, there is nothing wrong with looking forward to death. St. Francis of Assisi spoke endearingly of "Sister death." One of the most beautiful choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach is entitled "Come, Sweet Death."

Yet there is a sense in which death is profoundly "unnatural." Death was never intended to be a part of God's perfect creation. In that sense, death is not normative. It is not normal. By the same token, it is not "natural." One thinks of Christ before the tomb of his deceased friend, Lazarus. Everyone who knows that the shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept," knows the context: Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend because he was dead. Those who know the Greek will understand that there is a trace of anger in the response of Jesus, which led to him miraculously calling forth Lazarus from his tomb to new life. Both the tears and anger of Jesus attest to the ultimate abnormality and unnaturalness of death.

One sense of the word "natural" assumes man's fallen condition as normative; the other assumes man's pre-lapsarian condition as normative. One view welcomes death as as natural conclusion and transition. Another, without denying these facts, resists death as an unnatural evil. One thinks of Dylan Thomas: "Do not go gentle into that good night ... Rage, rage, against the dying of the light." Both responses are, perhaps, "natural."

I solicit your continue prayers for my father.

Pro-choice for me, no-choice for you

Liberals pride themselves on being ... well, liberal. The word has positive connotations: liberty, liberality, liberation. They pride themselves also on being open-minded, flexible, and pro-choice. Let people decide according to their personal preferences -- what a grand notion!

So, should students with moral objections to abortion be obliged to contribute to abortion insurance as part of their school plan? This is an issue that's been heating up at Harvard (see "Opt Out Fee for Abortion Urged," The Harvard Crimson, May 14, 2008):

In the past two weeks, Harvard students opened their mailboxes to find a blue "opt-out" card as part of the Abortion Opt-Out Campaign of Harvard Right to Life (HRL). The initiative allows students to request a refund of the part of their Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plan that funds elective abortions -- one dollar per term.

So what do you call yourselves if you believe your peers should be forced, against their moral convictions, to contribute to the subvention of homicide?

For lots of students, the ability to obtain refunds from insurance due to moral convictions is troubling. Sean P. Mascali '08, president of Students for Choice, said he thinks that students should not have this right.

Indeed: Students for Choice.

[Acknowledgement: Diogenes, "Liberties" (Off the Record, CWN, May 18, 2008), via E.E.]

Of related interest

J.L. Talmon, Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (W.W. Norton, 1970).

Papal reinforcement

The day after the May 15 ruling by the California Supreme Court that struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, the Pope weighed in to condemn the ruling. He firmly restated the Roman Catholic Church's position that only unions between a man and a woman are moral ("Pope restates gay marriage ban after California vote," Reuters, May 16, 2008).

To his credit, San Francisco Arshbishop Niederauer, too, condemned the ruling. Yet his carefully measured words carried all the impact of a wet noodle: "This action challenges those in society who believe in the importance of the traditional understanding of marriage to deepen their witness to the unique and essential role that marriage between a man and a woman has in the life of society," Archbishop Niederauer said (CNS, May 16, 2008). "... challenges ... those who believe ..."? Come on. Would you have caught the Prophet Elijah on Mt. Carmel hedging his denunciations of the Prophets of Baal with such veiled appeals to pluralism?

We need to pray for Archbishop Niederauer and many others clerics like him. Niederauer, you may recall, declared that he found the gay propaganda film Brokeback Mountain "very powerful." He was infamously caught on video giving Communion to gay men dressed as nuns. You may remember how he implausibly declared that he didn't know Nancy Pelosi's stand on abortion. You may also recall how his appointment as the archbishop of San Francisco was cheered by homosexual activists. See also Dale Vree's resume of the Archbishop's administration in San Francisco.

The inordinate desire to be liked, the desire to avoid being tarred as "politically incorrect," the desire to avoid alienating dissidents lies close to the root of the weakness in the Catholic hierarchy. It is this very disposition, unfortunately, which wittingly or unwittingly aids and abets the flaming homosexualist dissent of clerics like Fr. Joseph O'Leary.

The difference a good Archbishop can make

Tim Townsend, "Burke's efforts lead to biggest Catholic ordination class in decades" (St. Louis Dispatch, May 18, 2008): The student body at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, which includes the undergraduate Cardinal Glennon College and graduate-level Kenrick Theological Seminary, is now 112 students, the largest enrollment in two decades and a 50 percent increase over last year. This past Saturday, nine seminarians were ordained as priests in the St. Louis Archdiocese -- the largest St. Louis ordination class in 25 years and one of the largest in the U.S. This is as many ordinations as St. Louis has had in the past three years combined.

The man behind this upsurge is Archbishop Raymond Burke, who decided vocations would be a high priority since he arrived in St. Louis in 2004. Last year, the archdiocese announced plans to expand the seminary. The archdiocese officially attributes its recent success with vocations to the Holy Spirit. But anyone who looks beneath these significant changes will not be able to ignore the singular Archbishop Burke. For instance, how many archbishops take this much personal interest in their seminarians and their vocations?

Once or twice a year, each student at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary will drop by Archbishop Raymond Burke's residence in the Central West End at 4:30 p.m. From there, they set off down Lindell Avenue and into Forest Park.

"The walks," as the seminarians call them, are opportunities for young men to have heart-to-hearts with a man who regularly meets with the pope, a heady prospect for a young priest-in-training. The conversations are usually casual, and the seminarians get to see a more personal, human side of Burke — like when he gets a little skittish around off-leash dogs.

Kenrick officials organize the walks using time sheets. When the sheets are posted, there's a rush to sign on.

"It's like when you throw pellets at the Japanese fish at the Botanical Gardens," said seminarian Edward Nemeth, 26. "Guys falling over each other to get their names on the list."

Foreclosure of homes and philosophy departments

Homes are being foreclosed at a fearsome rate these days, and it begins to look as though academic departments and programs are a similarly endangered species. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the termination of the German Department at the University of Southern California, and on May 5, I noticed in The Chronicle that the University of Florida was terminating its doctoral program in Philosophy.

The university, confronting a substantial cutback in state appropriations, has announced that it will lay off 20 faculty members, among other steps, to reduce costs for FY2008-9. As part of this retrenchment, President Bernie Machen has also proposed reducing undergraduate enrollment and cutting back on research expenditures, as well as eliminating some degree programs.

I gather that other Florida universities are reacting similarly to dire state budgetary situations. Many states are experiencing exactly the same financial difficulties, and passing through their problems to public institutions of higher education.

Source: Stan Katz, "The Unity of Philosophy" (The Chronicle Review, May 14, 2008).

[Hat tip to E.F.]