Good news! Gun homicides have plummeted 39% since Clinton admininistration

I'm sorry to throw cold water on your reverie, in case this isn't good news for you, and you aren't interested in the facts (WASHINGTON AP).

Apparently most Americans aren't aware of the facts, either because they would rather nurse their delicious paranoia by feeding on the current administration-backed media hype suggesting (against the facts) that gun crime is spiraling out of control, or because they're simply uninformed (LA Times, May 7, 2013, citing Pew Research Center study).

Watergate: the world stops. Benghazi: business as usual?

• 1976: Hollywood releases All the President's Men, an Academy Award-winning political thriller, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal (1972) for the Washington Post.
• 2013: Woodward's two books on the Obama administration, Obama's Wars (2011) and The Price of Politics (2012), though scathing, have elicited no Hollywood film contracts, and the media complicity since Benghazi-gate, on every honest assessment, has been mind-numbing.

[Hat tip to A.S.]

A new skepticism about natural law?

David Bentley Hart, "Is, Ought, and Nature’s Laws" (First Things, March 2013), offered a skeptical review of natural law theories.

The piece got a lot of attention, some positive, some negative:

• R. J. Snell responded critically to Hart's position in "Understanding Natural Law: A Response to Hart and Potemra," although the piece carries an earlier publication date (Public Discourse, February 27, 2013).
• Edward Feser was another of Hart’s critics, responding in "A Christian Hart, a Humean Head" (First Things, March 6, 2013)

In the May issue of First Things, Hart responded to Feser's criticisms in "Nature Loves to Hide" (First Things, May, 2013); and now Feser has responded, in turn, to Hart, in "Sheer Hart Attack: Morality, Rationality, and Theology" (Public Discourse, April 24th, 2013 -- again, it carries an earlier publication date).

These articles are both illuminating about the contemporary state of affairs in the Catholic corner of the public square, and edifying in what they reveal about the often-misunderstood character of natural law. For those who understand the difference between natural law and natural law theories, there is no reason whatsoever to be skeptical about natural law.

One of the best books I can recommend to give the novice a sense of the foregoing, and a powerful sense of how compelling natural law argument can be is J. Budziszewski's What We Can't Not Know: A Guide.Philosophically brilliant, spiritually insightful, and psychologically shrewd, there is no other book on the subject quite like it. Highly recommended.

[Hat tip to C.B.]

Bp Gumbleton celebrates anniversary Mass for gay Detroit Dignity

Tim Drake, "Marygrove College Chapel Hosts Liturgy Celebrating Homosexual Dignity Group" (Cardinal Newman Society, April 10, 2013):

Catholic Marygrove College’s Sacred Heart Chapel is hosting an anniversary liturgy, celebrated by retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, in honor of the homosexual group Dignity-Detroit’s 39th anniversary celebration on Sunday, May 5. The day prior, DignityUSA President Lourdes Rodriguez-Nogues is addressing the gathering.

Unlike the group Courage, which accepts Catholic teaching and is approved by the Catholic Church, DignityUSA rejects the idea that homosexuality is “disordered” and actively affirms and promotes the homosexual lifestyle.

Former Boston Bishop William Murphy forbade diocesan personnel from participating in DignityUSA’s conferences because “they espoused a position contrary to Catholic moral teaching supporting …sexual relations between persons of the same sex….”

Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron recently told the Detroit Free Press that Catholics who publicly advocate for homosexual marriage should not receive the Eucharist.

"For a Catholic to receive holy Communion and still deny the revelation Christ entrusted to the church is to try to say two contradictory things at once: 'I believe the church offers the saving truth of Jesus, and I reject what the church teaches.' In effect, they would contradict themselves. This sort of behavior would result in publicly renouncing one's integrity and logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury."

Related:



"You don't come to church to celebrate your sin ..."
[Hat tip to D.K.]

The Twidiocracy

The decline of Western civilization, 140 characters at a time


From a post by Matt Labash a little bird told me about.

[Hat tip to J.M.]

Why resist the triumphal 'gay' narrative?

William Edgar, "Some Thoughts on Gay Rights" (Reformation 21, April 2013):

The rise of gay rights, including, now, the all but inevitable legal support for same-sex marriage at home and abroad, has the effect of a tidal wave: better get out of the way, or be drowned in obscurity. Sure, there will be ups and downs, advances and setbacks. But things are moving fast. Two Presidents have changed their minds about the subject. President Obama, in a very public announcement last spring, declared that his views had "evolved," followed by his second inaugural address, where he actually called for gay marriages. And former President Bill Clinton has recently disavowed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which he had signed into law seventeen years previously. Linda Hirshman, a retired lawyer, has written a compelling story of how gay rights have basically been established. The title, Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution (Harper), is surely overstated. Yet we read of the month-by-month advancement of the cause of homosexual, as well as bisexual and transgendered people. We risk being rather swept up into the narrative unless we have strong powers of resistance.

The narrative! How can we not be swept along by the stories of gay people, once terribly maligned, and now stepping out of the closet to a more tolerant world? In my own family, I can cite a poignant example of just such a story. My wife's uncle John, her mother's brother, is gay. For years he and his partner had to live a clandestine life. Everyone sort of knew, but did not accept his circumstance. His own mother never met Louis, his partner, as she could not have abided such an aberrant reality, in her view. Now, some 65 years into their partnership, they were able to marry, under the new Manhattan statute. Right away a moving article was written about the couple in New York Magazine, one of the leading publications of the city.

What can Christians who hold to the "traditional" view of marriage say in these circumstances? Do we have a counter-narrative that is as forceful, or more so, than that of the "triumphal gay revolution?" I believe we do. Where is it? ... Read more >>

[Hat tip to J.M.]

Pope Francis: "The spirit of this world hates"

From Pope Francis' homily at this morning’s Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae chapel on May 4, "There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world" (CWR, May4, 2013):

“There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world: let this be clear! Today, dialogue is necessary among us humans, it is necessary for peace. … But with that prince, it is impossible to dialogue; one can only respond with the Word of God who defends us, for the world hates us—and just as he did with Jesus, so will he do with us. ‘Only look,’ he will say, ‘just do this one small little scam…it is a small matter, nothing really.” And so he begins to lead us on a road that is slightly off. This is a pious lie: ‘Do it, do it, do it: there is no problem,’ and it begins little by little, always, no? Then [he says]: ‘But…you’re good, you’re a good person—You [get away with] it.’ It is flattering—and he softens us by flattery: and then, we fall into the trap.”

... “You may ask the question,” continued Pope Francis, ‘Father, what is the weapon to defend against these seductions, from these blandishments, these enticements that the prince of this world offers?’ The weapon is the same weapon of Jesus, the Word of God—not dialogue, but always the Word of God, and then humility and meekness. … These are the weapons that the prince and spirit of this world does not tolerate, for his proposals are proposals for worldly power, proposals of vanity, proposals for ill-gotten riches.”

[Hat tip to J.M.]

St. Paul's Boy Choir', Harvard Square

St. Paul's Choir School Sings First Traditional Mass

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News (April 28, 2013):

This past Thursday, April 25, another long-anticipated event came to pass: One of America’s most famed Catholic musical institutions, the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School at St. Paul’s Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sang its first Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form. St. Paul’s is the United States’ only boys’ choir school, founded in 1963 by the late Ted Marier. The parish music program is a mixture of Gregorian Chant – in English as well as Latin for the Ordinary Form Masses – sacred polyphony, and traditional hymns.

Liturgical blogger Fr. John Zuhlsdorf was the celebrant of the Harvard church’s first Solemn High Mass since Vatican II. It also marked the first occasion that the choir has sung an entire Mass from the long-disused choir loft. Four individuals from Detroit and Windsor made the trek and were in attendance.




As one might expect, the music was nigh-perfect. St. Paul’s is a perfect storm of a church, with reverberant acoustics, dual pipe organs played antiphonally, and a Men’s Choir which sings with the Boys’ Choir. Many of the young choirsters move on to become organists, music directors, and priests. Things which might seem odd elsewhere don’t seem all that surprising in this environment: for example, one 13 year old boy is an accomplished organist with several compositions to his credit, including a piano sonata and a Mass setting for three parts and organ.

Readers frequently ask whether it is possible to hear the Boston Boys Choir on-line. After many years of media silence, they have at last debuted a YouTube channel, stpaulsharvardsquare, which features excerpts of the choir singing Latin and English Propers and polyphony at an Ordinary Form Mass. PBS also aired a special about the Choir School’s unique mission which is linked on the school web site, www.bostonboychoir.org.

BBC Sacred Music Broadcasts

The BBC offers many unpublicized gems on both their television and radio services. Periodic radio broadcasts of Solemn Vespers in the Extraordinary Form from the London Oratory are offered, the most recent having been on Easter Sunday. These broadcasts are made available on the BBC web site for approximately one week after their airing.

On the video side, the BBC offers a series called Sacred Music. Past episodes include “Palestrina and the Popes” (viewable on YouTube) and “The Story of Allegri’s Miserére”, which may be of interest to those who look forward to hearing the Assumption-Windsor choir sing it each year on Good Friday.

Tridentine Mass Added to Friday’s Bus Tour

A Tridentine Mass at the historic St. Joseph’s Shrine in Brooklyn, Michigan has been added to the schedule of the bus tour this Friday of churches in the Diocese of Lansing. For further information or to sign up for the tour, see www.prayerpilgrimages.com or call (248) 250-6005. Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 04/29 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (St. Peter of Verona, Martyr)
• Tue. 04/30 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Assumption-Windsor (St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin)
• Fri. 05/03 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart) [First Friday]

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat (Detroit) and Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for April 28, 2013. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]

Religion and Art – Part 5 of 5

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News (April 21, 2013):

We conclude our reprint of excerpts from an essay entitled Religion and Art by Fr. James Bellord, originally published in the 1910 book, A Pulpit Commentary on Catholic Teaching. The lessons contained are as relevant today as when they were first published. This correspondence of Art with Religion is not complete and definite. A holy man will not of necessity be a man of taste; and a correct artistic taste does not prove the truth of a man’s belief or the excellence of his morals. It can only be said that on a large scale the general tendency of an age will be broadly in the same direction; towards Truth, Goodness and Beauty jointly, or away from them. This can be recognized by comparing nations or periods, and not by a comparison of individuals.

For instance, the numerous indications of the approach and future absorption of an important section of Protestants into the Catholic Church are much reinforced by the sight of the work done of late years in the restoring and refurnishing of old churches, and the building of new ones. When one sees the scrupulousness and consciousness of the new work and its perfect harmony with the old, the conclusion is forced on one that a similar spirit has presided over both and that those who have so perfect a sense of beauty cannot be very far off from a perfect sense of truth.

On the other hand, we find that a weakening of the Religious Sense, as during the Reformation, is accompanied by a decline in art and loss of esthetic sensibility. And one is tempted to fear that where art, and especially ecclesiastical art, is flimsy, finical, untrue, mean and cheap, there will be a corresponding weakness in the sense of Religion. Today there are two different tendencies that are daily becoming wider and more defined. On the one hand, there is a revival of severe taste and real beauty in Art: on the other, there is an Art which prostitutes the advantages of cultivation to the representation of all that is hideous in vice and that panders to the filthiest passions. Great is the beauty of the material works of God; greater still is the beauty of the works of human intelligence directed by God; greatest of all, the spiritual beauty of a soul in the state of grace. This kind of beauty does not vary according to our tastes. This is essential beauty coming direct from God, and a participation in His. “Thou are perfect through my beauty which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God” (Ezech. xvi, 14).

Our Lord Jesus Christ possesses this by His nature in infinite perfection. His blessed and most pure Mother possesses the highest degree of communicated beauty. The contemplation of these has raised a high ideal before the eyes of men, which has been attained by apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins. Their zeal, their labors, their purity, their self-renunciation, their lives and their deaths are the most beautiful things among the many beauties of this world.

Below these there are thousands of beautiful lives grouped or dotted about amidst the unutterable abomination of sinful lives. This is not the beauty of material form, or of cleverness, or of wit, or of fashion; they are not the lives of statesmen, of the successful, the wealthy, the ambitious; but they are hidden lives unknown beyond a small circle, lives spent in toil, in suffering, in ignorance, perhaps, in poverty, lowly in the eyes of the world and unenviable, but lovely in God’s sight for their faith and love, humility and obedience, patience and resignation. Of such it is written “O, how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory: for the memory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with God and men” (Wisd. iv, 1).

Solemn High Masses Then and Now




Ever fresh: Pictured above are photos of Solemn High Masses “then” (from an archival photo of Assumption Church) and “now” (from last Sunday’s Mass).

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 04/22 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Ss. Soter & Caius, Popes & Martyrs)
• Tue. 04/23 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Assumption-Windsor (St. George, Martyr)
• Fri. 04/26 7:00 PM: High Mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Wyandotte (Ss. Cletus & Marcellinus, Martyrs) - Young adults age 18-35 are invited to a dinner following Mass sponsored by Juventutem Michigan

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat (Detroit) and Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for April 21, 2013. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]

Not welcome here

"Could the lines not be clearer? In the course of 8 years, this is the inversion: homosexuality is protected in the military, religion asked to wait on the porch," wrote a reader.

He was referring, of course, to THIS, which administration reps have done their best to tone down and back-pedal over the past couple of days.

The writing is on the wall. These are but the tiniest of tremors. Look up and rejoice: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur!

[Hat tip to J.M.]

Unveiling the official Obama statue

[Hat tip to J.M.]

Soft censorship and intellectual freedom

1. "Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevent independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life."
   

   Alexander Solzhenitsyn addressing Harvard students, Thursday, June 8, 1978

   
   
2. "The Catholic Church is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age."
   

   G.K. Chesterton, The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume 3: The Catholic Church and Conversion, Ch. 5: "The Exception Proves the Rule," p. 110.

[Hat tip to G. Heenan for the Solzhenitsyn quote]

"Why get married when you could be happy?"

I linked to this piece in a previous post, but thought I should call it to your attention as a cultural harbinger of things to come.

Natasha Mitchell links to a panel discussion addressing the issue in a download audio HERE, but the summary and reader comments are telling reminders of where the culture (perhaps no longer a 'subculture') is headed.

Here a couple of the comments:

• I think it's good to have this debate but why limit it to gay and lesbian concerns? I have never heard any critique since the revolutionary minded sixties and seventies of the actual raison d'être for marriage as the conservative institution that I think it is; i.e. why should anyone at all want to get married? Perhaps I missed something?
  
  
• Our grandson has 7 grandparents 4 of whom are gay with only two of the hets being married (to each other) so with regard the notion of marriage the issue is not so much to extend it to gay folk but rather to seriously question the marriage/wedding circus. Ritual is important for community but why does this charade still exist in our community - the man/woman thing, the white dress, the father giving away, the often obscene expense. Equality is essential for community: lets debunk the marriage myth and ceelebrate all relationships.

Fr. Longenecker's diagnosis: What's killing American Catholicism - 1

• Diagnosis: "cultural Catholicism"
  
• Prescription: "intentional disciples"
  

The language and conceptual categories are Evangelical, or perhaps "Evangelical Catholic," and should elicit some good give and take. (We addressed this issue previously in our post, "The Advent of Confessional Catholicism and the Decline of Cultural Catholicism," Musings, June 13, 2012.) So read Fr. Longenecker's piece below and see what you think.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "What’s Killing American Catholicism – 1" (Standing on my Head, April 30, 2013), writes:

Reading Sherry Weddell’s excellent Forming Intentional Disciples is making me think about the American church and what ails her. Can anybody deny that there is a sickness in the body ecclesia? When 50% of Catholics vote for a man who stoutly defends same sex marriage and partial birth abortion can we say that Catholics in America are okay?
I don’t think so.

Thus a series of posts on what’s killing Catholicism. All the words begin with the letter ‘C’. I can’t help it. I was brought up as a Biblical Evangelical and our pastors always used alliteration to make their points memorable.

The first problem is cultural catholicism. The Poles, Italians, Irish, French, Czech, German and more Catholics came here from the old country and the bishops reckoned the best thing to do with them all was to allow cultural parishes. So in the same town the Irish Catholics went to St Patrick’s and the Poles to St Stanislaus and the Italians to St Anthony of Padua. Geesh, a man in my parish who grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania said that when he was a boy a girl from his Czech parish fell in love with an Irish boy and the Irish priest wouldn’t marry them because it was a mixed marriage.

I’m all for cultural customs and so forth, but the problem is that the immigrant Catholics–in a foreign land–clung to their culture for security and happiness and part of that culture was their Catholicism. The didn’t distinguish their culture from their Catholicism. Then, after a few generations, when they were all really American and stopped being Italian or Irish or German they also stopped being Catholic. The Catholic faith wasn’t much deeper than Mama’s special spaghetti sauce or stories of the Blarney stone.