You gotta love those Nigerian Anglican Bishops

The Archibishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recently proposed a two-tier system of church membership in the Anglican Communion -- the idea being that full and partial membership could save the Communion from schism. Anglican bishops in Nigeria responded this week. The Church of Nigeria is Africa's largest Anglican church, with an estimated 17.5 million members, according to the BBC:

In their statement, posted on two websites, the Nigerian bishops commend Dr Williams' idea as “brilliant as the heartbeat of a leader who wants to preserve the unity of the Church by accommodating every shred of opinion no matter how unbiblical.”

In that single sentence they've summed up the Gospel of Inclusivism pervading Anglicanism, the ECUSA, the Presbyterians, the ELCA, and proto-schismatic sectors of the Catholic Church championed by voices like those of Call to Action, Voice of the Faithful, Dignity, and all those despisers of Trent enamored of the "Spirit" of Vatican II.

[Hat tip to Christopher]

Can human nature change? A caveat on Fr. Reardon's Ponderings

Fr. Patrick Reardon, the former Catholic priest who is now a priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church and editor of Touchstone Magazine, offers an email subscription to his exegetical reflections, which are subsequently (I think) posted to his website at OrthodoxyToday.org under the heading of "Father Pat's Pastoral Ponderings." His email ponderings are forwarded to me occasionally by a friend, and the most rescent of these was for the week of July 16, 2006, and began thus:

In biblical history the Lord gives us, not only the definitive revelation of Himself but also the conclusive revelation of man. That is to say, divine revelation addresses not only the question, "Who is God?" but also the question, "What is man?" I suggest it is useful for Christians to reflect on the unique character of the Bible's answer to this question, because we take our biblical anthropology so much for granted that we fail to count it among those things that many prophets and kings have desired to see but have not seen them.

Without divine revelation there are all sorts of theories about man, and in fact the Christian Gospel was obliged to contend with certain of those theories.

One such theory, for instance, claimed (and still does) that "human nature does not change." This theory is understandably attractive, because it provides a sense of universality among human beings and a sense of continuity throughout history. Indeed, as applied to a specified, narrow range of human experiences, we can even call it true.

Yet, if we adhere to the full anthropology of divine revelation, it is strictly speaking not true that "human nature does not change." Indeed, it is the very business of divine revelation to cause human nature to change.

Fr. Reardon goes on to make a case for the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of 'theosis' (deification), which is not quite what it may sound like it is. It is the thoroughly Christian and Catholic doctrine, really, of human nature becoming transformed in Christ by being incorportated into Christ and conformed to His divinity. The notion is attested in 2 Peter 1:4, where St. Peter speaks of our becoming "partakers of the divine nature." This is what Fr. Reardon intends by his argument above, and with this we have no quarrel.

However, I propose a caveat to Fr. Reardon's notion here of an 'unfixed' human nature above, because it think it is open to serious, if unintended, misunderstandings and distortions. With all due respect to the vitally imperative point that Fr. Reardon is making here about the Athanasian thesis that God became man in order to make men 'divine,' one can easily see even in stating the matter thus how easily it can fall prey to misunderstanding. God did become man in Jesus. But when men are elevated in theosis to become "partakers of the divine nature" (as St. Peter says in his epistle), they do not cease being creatures or cease belonging to the species, homo sapiens. Reardon's point that human nature has a supernatural telos or end is important, but it must be supplemented by the addendum that this telos is always proper to the human nature or esse (he doesn't like that word, but there's neither anything objectionable about it, nor is the concept it entails avoidable). As human nature has natural ends (physical and social wellbeing, marriage, children, etc.), so it has supernatural ends (sanctity, glorification, and eternal fellowship with the Holy Trinity). But while these supernatural ends are proper to a nature that is altered by the remediating sanctifcation of God's grace, they are also ends that are proper to a human nature. They are not ends proper to, say, the nature of a stone, a tree, a cloud, or a tadpole. Thus, while I would second Fr. Reardon's notion of theosis as involving human nature in an openness to change, I would not want anyone to mistakenly suppose this notion of 'change' to mean that human beings have no stable nature -- a currently quite popular view among those who presume, among other things, that same-sex 'marriage' may substitute for the heterosexual archetype among men and women with 'changed' natures.

Fr. Reardon is a friend of mine. We have sat on the same panels at conferences. I know him and like him, and we find ourselves on the same side of many arguments, even if we disagree on the 'little' matter of the Papacy and Church authority. I consider him a great ally in the culture wars that beset us, just as I number among some of my fellow Catholics those who would regard me as their enemy.

Sheldon Vanauken & the 'Severe Mercy' of unwanted pregnancy

Some of you will know the name of Sheldon Vanauken, the Virginia historian and former Oxford grad who was converted through the influence of his wife and, among others, C.S. Lewis at Oxford. Those of you who have read his autobiographical love story, A Severe Mercy, will know what I mean when I call it one of the most poignant and hear-rending Christian love stories of the twentieth-century. Containing as it does, many previously unpublished letters of C.S. Lewis in the correspondence between Vanauken and Lewis, it makes for a story that is not only deeply personal but deeply theological.

Not everyone who has read the more popular love story, however, has read the less-known sequel, Under the Mercy, written after Vanauken's subsequent conversion to the Catholic Faith. His account of his Catholic conversion is briefly but powerfully sketched in Ch. IX, entitled "The English Channel," a chapter that is reprinted in an anthology of conversion stories edited by Dan O'Neill, called The New Catholics: Contemporary Converts Tell Their Stories, of which I have written a brief review article ("Contemporary Converts Tell Their Stories").

Still fewer are acquainted with the poitnant story of the daughter his wife Jean Davis ('Davy') had out of wedlock before they were married, and gave up for adoption, and who later found Sheldon Vanauken after the tragically premature death of Davy. The story was initially published by Vanauken in a 1990 article entitled "Discovery: Finding that Long-Lost Someone," published by the New Oxford Review where he served as a contributing editor. It was subsequently republished in The Little Lost Marion and Other Mercies (1996).

On January 21st of this year, The Charlotte Observer ran a column by the Charlotte Catholic Lawyer, Thomas J. Ashcraft entitled "'Wholeness of Vision' on Abortion." The story picks up the thread of this latter story from Vanauken's article about meeting his long-lost step-daughter. Here's what Ashcraft wrote:

It will take more than windbag senators and coy judicial nominees to determine what the settled law on abortion should be. A just answer will only be found by listening to people who have passed through this life and learned how to deal wisely with pregnancy when it arrives as unwelcome news.

Sheldon Vanauken (1914-1996) taught history and literature for years at Lynchburg College in Virginia. He is best known for his book "A Severe Mercy," first published in 1977 and still in print.

It tells the story of Vanauken's love for his wife Jean Davis, known as Davy, their experience together at Oxford University where they became friends of C.S. Lewis, their conversion to Christianity, and Davy's early death from a mysterious liver ailment in 1955. A lyrical and deeply touching book, it is impossible to read with dry eyes.

Although full of details about the couple and their life together, "A Severe Mercy" omitted a major event from Davy's youth. Vanauken related it in a 1990 article entitled "Discovery: Finding that Long-Lost Someone," published by the New Oxford Review where he served as a contributing editor (www.newoxfordreview.org).

Two years after the death of her minister father when she was 14 years old, Davy, as Vanauken tells it, "running a bit wild . . . found herself pregnant. There was nothing to do but tell her mother, who, along with her older sister, stood by her. All this, of course, is an old, old tale among womankind."

Davy had the baby, whom she called "Marion" and always remembered as blue-eyed and beautiful, and gave her up for adoption. Davy was then "sent to a good prep school for girls." During her marriage to Vanauken, "Davy continued to remember her daughter with love, her daughter growing up -- somewhere."

After Davy's death and the publication of "A Severe Mercy," Vanauken wondered about "little lost Marion" and how much she would learn about her mother by reading the book. He began to search for her but encountered the usual hurdles in the adoption world.

In 1988, however, the adoption agency finally consented to tell "Marion" (her adoptive parents had given her a different name) of Vanauken and his book about Davy. While Vanauken was trying to decide how to contact Marion, Marion dialed him up on the phone "wild with excitement."

"Found at last," Marion later wrote. "Incredible, choking joy! Thanksgiving. Yet sadness also -- sadness that I could not touch her, hold her, and be held."

On "A Severe Mercy," Marion wrote to Vanauken: "At once thrilling and scary! My heart pounding. Almost breathless with discovery, unable to sleep till I'd read every word. Excited beyond belief, sobbing, my pillow wet with tears. Seeing my mother as a young woman loving the things I loved -- beauty, dogs, sails in the wind, music. I had been starving for this -- and now the book. I loved her love for you and your sharing and the incredibly wise things you did to protect your love. And the piercing beauty of Christ coming into your lives."

After high school Marion had become a nurse. She later met and married a physician. They had three children and lived in the San Francisco area. One daughter had Davy's smile.

Having experienced the loss of his wife and discovering much later his wife's grown daughter and her own family, Vanauken acquired a unique understanding of what is meant by those asserting the "right to choose."

"To see abortion right-side-up I must see," he wrote, "not only the frightened 14-year-old Davy with a likely candidate for abortion in her belly but also the warmly alive Marion and her family. This has been shown to me. Having seen, how could I now say: 'What a pity she couldn't have an abortion in those benighted days!'

"To kill Marion now would be unthinkable, but it was Marion -- no one else -- when Davy was 14 and scared. I can sympathetically feel for Davy then, but I know Marion and her children, too. Surely both must be known or imagined for wholeness of vision."

Vanauken concluded: "John Donne, hearing the tolling of the passing bell, recognized that the bell tolled for him, for the death of any man diminished him. Davy had only the poignant memory of the little lost Marion, yet she would have been diminished if abortion had deprived her of that memory. . . . It seems to me that just this one abortion would have left a hole in Creation."

And what of 33 years of Roe v. Wade?

[Acknowledgements: A tip of the hat to Tom Ashcraft, who did me the courtesy of emailing me his article. Write him at TAshcraft@bellsouth.net.]

Related reading:

"Sheldon Vanauken, R.I.P.", by Jack Taylor (Catholic Answers)

"Vatican Council II: A Non-Neutral History"

Rome, July 3, 2006 (www.chiesa) - "Upon release of the latest volume, an international pool of scholars directed by Giuseppe Alberigo brings the History of Vatican Council II to a close," writes Sandro Magister. Alberigo's main inspiration, he says, is found in Giuseppe Dossetti, with whom he has been a close collaborator for decades in Bologna. This History of Vatican II, he writes, "is, in no way, neutral":

"This History's principle thesis is that the Council's prime elements are not the very texts it produced and promulgated. Priority, in fact, is given to the event itself. The true Council is found in her 'spirit'. It is not reducible to, but rather, vastly superior to the 'letter' of the Council's texts."

Why, we know commentators on this blog who would just LOVE Dossetti's perspective. Magister continues:

"What's more, the Council's 'spirit' is identified with John XXIII's vision of a 'new Pentecost' for the Church and the world. Meanwhile, the 'letter' probably meant the harnessing of the assizes carried out by Paul VI, the pope who in effect promulgated each and every Council document. The differences between popes John and Paul are given as immeasurable. Almost as if the Montinian 'letter' had suffocated and betrayed the Roncallian 'spirit' of the Council."

There's more to the review. Read the rest here.

"Synod on the Eucharist: The Pope Has the Last Word"

Rome, July 3, 2006 (www.chiesa) - "Benedict XVI is writing the concluding document, which will be published this summer. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith gives this preview: 'A correction is necessary. The liturgy must be won back, in the spirit of the Council.'" Thus reports Sandro Magister.

The concluding document for a synod, Magister says, usually takes the form of an apostolic exhortation, and is written by the pope. But it is the synod itself -- through the elaborative work of a council of 15 bishops and cardinals -- that writes the outline and presents this to the supreme pontiff. And the council of 15 met in Rome recently (in June) for the last time, urged by the Holy Father to move more quickly.

According to Magister, no surprises are expected from the outline presented by the council. Rather, if there are any surprises, they are more likely to come from Benedict XVI himself, whose definite ideas on the liturgy are a matter of public record. Magister suggests that some indications of the directions of the pope's thought may be found in an interview given by the secretary for the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, on June 25 to the French Catholic newspaper La Croix. In this interview, he criticizes the "many tendencies that have banished from view the authentic meaning of the liturgy"; and contrast to these tendencies "a necessary correction, a reform of the reform. We must return to the liturgy in the spirit of the Council."

The interview, conducted by Isabelle de Gaulmyn, touches on the use of Latin, direction of liturgical prayer, and the missal of Pius V. Here is but one excerpt, in English translation, touching on the question of post-conciliar liturgical reforms. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith replies:

"I have noticed how much the young priests here love to celebrate the Tridentine rite. It must be clarified that this ritual, following the missal of Pius V, has not been 'outlawed.' Should its use be encouraged even more? That's for the pope to decide. But it is certain that a new generation is seeking a greater orientation toward mystery. This is not a question of form, but of substance. In order to speak of the liturgy, what is necessary is not a scientific or historical-theological spirit alone, but above all an attitude of meditation, prayer, and silence.

Once again, it is not a question of being progressive or conservative, but simply of permitting man to pray, to listen to the voice of the Lord. What happens in the celebration of the Lord's glory is not a merely human reality. If one forgets this mystical aspect, everything gets mixed up and confused. If the liturgy loses its mystical and heavenly dimension, then who is left to help man free himself from his egoism and self-enslavement? The liturgy must be above all a road to freedom, in opening man to the infinite."

The original title of the interview, roughly "The reform of Vatican II never got off the ground," is "La reforme Vatican Il n'a jamais decolle" (I'm sorry, but I don't know how to enter diacritical marks on my 'Blogger' program without getting gibberish for output, unless someone can instruct me how.)

Karl Keating: "I've Changed My Mind: I'm Now Pro-Choice"

The following, from Karl Keating's E-Letter of June 13, 2006, is too good to pass up:

Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:

It hasn't been easy. I don't change opinions willy-nilly, especially if I've held them for a long time and if they're about key issues. But I've been doing a lot of soul-searching lately and feel that the only responsible thing to do is to go public and admit that I'm now pro-choice.

Here is my new thinking:

1. The government shouldn't be able to tell me whether to paint my house yellow or green. It's my house, and the choice should be mine. I'm pro-choice.

2. No one should pressure me to buy a foreign rather than a domestic car--or the other way around. It's no one else's business whether I drive a Toyota or a Chevy. The choice should be mine. I'm pro-choice.

3. On election day, I should be able to vote against any scoundrel I wish. I don't want to be nagged into voting against this guy or that. I can choose my own scoundrels. It's my ballot and my decision. I'm pro-choice.

4. In these E-Letters, I should be able to express any opinion I want. If a reader doesn't like what I say (or doesn't understand irony or parody), tough. It's my E-Letter and my writing. I'm pro-choice.

Precisely because I am so consistently pro-choice when it comes to my own choices, I acknowledge the right of others to make choices of their own.

Just one example:

I think every child should have a choice about whether he will come into this world. If he chooses not to, we should respect that choice. Of course, his choice will have to be manifested in a sufficiently clear way.

When the rest of us make choices--to hire a house painter, to buy a car, even to vote--we sign a contract or somehow make our choices known on paper. The same should apply here, for consistency's sake.

Thus, if an unborn child signs a waiver or agreement or contract (or whatever the document would be) indicating that he doesn't want to come into this world, his choice should be respected. Absent such a signed document, we have to presume that his choice is to come into this world. After all, everyone I know who ended up being born preferred it to the alternative.

Whatever the unborn child decides, we should respect his choice--and we should not allow it to be overruled by someone else's choice. That's my opinion, and that's why I'm pro-choice.

Reading and Gratitude

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Karen Heller writes:

Reading is a solitary pleasure. It forces people to do two increasingly rare activities simultaneously: shutting their mouths while opening their minds.

Best selling author and journalist Melody Beattie contributes the following reflection:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Not many lectures or sermons pack that much punch in such lucid brevity.

'Sodomy' book author exposes Santa Rosa bishop, priest

Randy Engel's soon-to-be released, 1318-page book The Rite of Sodomy: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church promises to be one of the most controversial books in some time. The author provides Matt C. Abbott with some advance material from the book, which offers incriminating material on Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel F. Walsh and Father Xavier Ochoa:

Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel F. Walsh's complicity in the escape to Mexico of Father Xavier Ochoa, accused of the sexual molestation of a 12-year-old altar boy in Sonoma County, should come as no surprise to Catholics who have followed Walsh's early clerical career as vicar general and auxiliary bishop under Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco.

Read the rest of the story here.

Rush nails it

From Fumare.blogspot.com, which features rotating images of smokers such as McArthur, Tolkien, etc., this quote from Rush Limbaugh:

"But despite all this, folks, there is one place in this country which, if you're there, you are at far greater risk than any American soldier anywhere in the world today, including Iraq, and that is the womb of an American woman. Uniformed soldiers in Iraq are much safer than a baby in an American woman's womb, particularly if that American woman happens to be in a Planned Parenthood office. If you wear the uniform of the United States military in Iraq, you have a fairly good chance of walking out alive. That's not so if you are in a Planned Parenthood clinic in the womb of an American woman who happens to be inside the clinic. Facts are facts, and you don't hear the Democrats concerned about that at all. You don't hear the American left concerned about that at all."

[Hat tip to Christopher]

Culture Quiz

Recently the results of a student cultural survey have come in after being tabulated and analyzed here at Lenoir-Rhyne College among a cross section of students. The questionnaire included 20 questions ranging across topics from classical and popular music to film and literature, politics, geography, and current events. Here are a sampling of the questions with some of the tabulated results:

1. J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven are two great classical composers whose names begin with a "B." Can you name another great classical composer whose name also begins with a "B"? (Answ. Brahms, Berlioz, Bizet, etc. are all correct)

87.2% could not answer this question. Of the 12.8% who succeeded in answering this question, the vast majority (83.3%) could not identify the newest American Idol (Question #20).

2. Who wrote The Great Gatsby? (Answ. F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Only 19.1% answered this question correctly.

5. When asked to match the band or artist with the song, 90.5% of respondents could not make the matches, which included Elvis, Green Day, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and The Velvet Underground.

8. When asked to correctly match the work of art with the artist, 19.1% of respondents matched Rodin's sculpture, 'The Thinker,' with Michelangelo, 8.5% with Van Gogh, 6.4% with Breugel, 6.4% with Renoir, 4.3% with Joan Miro, 4.3% with Monet, and 2% with Leonardo da Vinci.

9. "I am a country called Chad. I am located on which continent?" (Answ. Africa)

53.2% answered this question correctly. On the other hand, of the 48.9% who got this question wrong, 26.1% identified Chad as being in South America, 8.7% said it was in Asia, and 4.3% each said it was in Europe and in Asia Minor.

11. "I am Paris Hilton's former best friend, and I have an on-again, off-again relationship with Adam Goldstein (AKA D.J. AM). Who am I?" (Answ. Nicole Ritchie)

68.1% (the highest percentage of correct answers) answered this question correctly.

12. "I am the current Secretary of Defense. Who am I?" (Answ. Donald Rumsfeld)

89.4% did not answer this question correctly. Of those who attempted but did not answer correctly, 11.9% identified the Secretary of Defense as Condoleezza Rice, 7.14% thought it was Colin Powell, and other answers included Tom Daschle, Dick Cheney at 2.4% each.

13. Who wrote The Nutcracker Suite? (Answ. Tchaikovsky)

Only 10.6% answered this question correctly.

14. Name one Right granted by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Answ. Right to remain silent, not to incriminate oneself)

48.9% were able to answer this question correctly.

15. When asked to match the film with its director, 4.3% of respondents matched Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather with Robert Altman. Other matches included Woody Allen, Ed Wood, and Terry Gilliam (2% each).

19. Name the capital of the state that is directly East of North Carolina. (Answ. No such state exists.)

46.8% were unable to answer this question correctly. Of those who attempted to answer the question but did not do so correctly, 22.7% identified the capital as Nashville, 9.1% identified it as Knoxville, and other answers included Raleigh, Richmond, and Roanoke, VA (4.5% each).

20. Our newest American Idol is ... (Answ. Taylor Hicks)

63.8% answered this question correctly. Of these, only 3.3% were able to identify a classical composer whose name begins with "B" (Question # 1).

______________________

Generalizations & Inferences:

a) Students know their rights (#14)
b) Students know current pop culture celebrities very well (##11, 20)
c) Students do not know American geography (#19) (State East of North Carolina)
d) About half of all students do not know world geography well (#9)
e) Students do not know classical music, art, and literature (##1, 2, 8, 13)
f) Students do not know historical popular culture (##5, 15)
g) Most students have little acquaintance with the details of world politics (#12)

Northerners may be inclined to make snide remarks about such results in a southern liberal arts college. However, over half of our students are from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and other states located outside the traditional 'south.' My hunch is that such patterns of cultural oblivion as represented here are pandemic throughout the United States.

Hustlin' Nun

"Arrest Warrant Details Nun's Alleged Embezzlement" -- A Catholic nun spends $81,000 in cash or cash advances, $67,000 to casinos, $33,000 on gifts, $31,000 on clothing and furniture and another $24,000 on travel.

Now, given that (a) a Catholic nun by definition swears herself to absolute poverty, chastity and obedience, and (b) this nun was spending a third of a million dollars on cruises, casinos and svelte threads, what does it tell you about the state of religious life in America that no one noticed that something was amiss? I.e., what does it tell you that this sort of lifestyle is seen as normal for a female religious in this country?

[Hat tip to Benjamin Blosser]

What homosexuals do

Fr. Joseph O'Leary (whose comment box signature is "Spirit of Vatican II"), is Associate Professor of English Literature at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, and a Catholic priest who dissents from Catholic Church teaching on very many points, especially pertaining to Church moral (read: sexual) teaching. Another Catholic priest, Fr. J. Scott Newman (on Fr. Al Kimel's Pontifications weblog) once called him "a closet Anglican on the Catholic payroll," which may be an apt description for him, as he seems quite the Anglophile, enamored of the aesthetic refinement of Anglican liturgy, what he regards as the non-doctrinaire and exegetically-based Anglican homiletics, and the openness to trendy liberal agendas one finds in the Anglican communion -- including openness to gays.

O'Leary waxes eloquent over the prospect of a day when sexually active gays and lesibans will be welcomed into the bosom also of the Catholic Church and their traditionally forbidden life-style embraced, "in Christian charity," as a 'natural' and 'ordinary' form of erotic love. He writes:

"Jesus declared many things not to be sin or unclean that the Pharisees regarded as sin or unclean. I fail to see why this paradigm does not apply to [ECUSA] Bishop Schori's view that homosexuality is not a disorder, an anomaly or something God does not like, but in fact a gift, made for love, like heterosexuality."

So what was once thought to be unclean is to be declared clean, and what was once classed among "sins that cry out to heaven for God's judgment," is now declassified as sin and elevated to the level of a divine gift. Again, he writes:

"Future generations (like very many in the present) will wonder 'what was the big deal?' when they look back on how we wrestled with the ethics of homosexuality etc."

His language can take ebullient flights of ecstasy, as when in a recent comment box, he enthused:

"A wave to the 400,000 who marched in the Gay Pride event in Paris and to the 200,000 spectators!"

So it's no secret where Fr. O'Leary's sympathies lie. Perhaps his superiors should take notice, because it gets even better. (Atiyah, here's your chance to check out whether Fr. O'Leary's views would in fact be approved by his superiors. You questioned my judgment on the matter. Why don't you find out for yourself. Pick up your phone. Of course, O'Leary has nothing at all to fear, since, he assures us, his Catholicism is above reproach and he cannot be pinned down on a single point of heterodoxy. But pick up your phone anyway, Atiyah. Go ahead. Make my day.)

Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello,
Apostolic Nuncio to Japan
Tokyo 102-0075, 9-2 Sanban-cho, Chiyoda-ku
Telephone: (81-3)3263-6851
Fax: 3263.60.60

Most Rev. Peter Takeo Okada
Archbishop of Tokyo
3-16-15, Sekiguchi, Bunkyo-ku,
TOKYO, 112-0014
Tel.03-3943-2301

As soon as traditional Catholics and/or other Christians begin to mount a defense of traditional sexual ethics against his views, however, Fr. O'Leary objects to the 'biologism' of their views, which are "focused heavily on the biology of anal intercourse" (a common refrain). He recently complained:

"Must we always be in biology 101 ... or rather out in the schoolyard scoffing at [the more sophisticated levels of such science] -- when the dreaded gay topic raises its head on this weblog?"

There are a couple of ironies here. First, as anybody who reads the comboxes (comment boxes) of this weblog knows, it is O'Leary himself who repeatedly steers the topic of conversation, no matter what the thread of the post, back to the subject of homosexuality. I don't know of a soul among the commentators on this weblog who would dispute this -- including his supporters, like Atiyah and Grega (I don't even know if O'Leary would dispute it). When I post an essay on this topic, it is almost invariably in response to some irrepressible issue that Fr. O'Leary has raised (unless it is something in the news worthy of note).

Second, when O'Leary complains about 'biology,' or 'biologism,' or being stuck in 'Biology 101,' it's because he's wanting to escape the inevitable biological rootedness of gender and move the discussion into flights of spiritual abstraction where he can talk more freely about "love" unencumbered by the obvious facts one can't not know about the biological rootedness of gender that pertain to natural law. Of course, partisans of homosexuality despise this. Hence, the derision of "Biology 101" and condescending dismissiveness of the reference to schoolyard scoffing of schoolboys toward anything of more sophistication.

The other thing that's ironic is that it's very often O'Leary himself who drags the discussion into the gutter (one recalls references made in his exchanges in former debates with 'Dreadnought' and his photographs, for example). But even in terms of sheer scatological focus, O'Leary isn't one to shy away, as when he writes:

"NOTE that [Budziszewski's] critique of anal sex changed grounds in mid-flight here. He began with the unitive nature of vaginal sex, then, knowing that many gay men claim to find a unitive significance in anal sex too, he shifted to the idea of Life.

He made much of the anus as a place of decay. But the vagina also is a place of decay (urine) as is the male member. 'Love has pitched his tent in the place of excrement'. Life and death go together."

So Fr. Joseph O'Leary wishes to promote the view that anal sex is on a par with vaginal sex of the matrimonial covenant here -- an interesting obsession for a Catholic priest. Yet he wants to assure everyone that he's reasonable. He understands how anal sex could be understood as reprehensible, depending on the circumstances and how one lookes at it, just as it might also be understood as "glorious and godgiven" (his words). Accordingly, he writes:

"Anal intercourse can be 'operose and diabolical' (Shelley) as practices in British public schools or as a contraceptive method; but many gays claim to find in its more positive meanings. You can 'read' sexual acts through the prism of Sade or of Lawrence; in the former they are instruments of degradation, in the latter they can be that but they can also be celebrations of the glorious, godgiven life of the human body etc."

So it's all relaive. It just depends. Under the right circumstances, given the right 'reading,' anal sex can also be "the glorious, godgiven life of the human body." Did you get that, Your Excellency, Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello? Your Excellency, Archbishop Peter Takeo Okada? This is your man in Tokyo, at Sophia University, proclaiming the Gospel of sodomy, the Evangel of rectal-anal sex, for the unwashed masses of the world to hear. Should we rejoice?

O'Leary says that anal sex can be "the glorious, godgiven life of the human body." Oh, really? Let's examine this. It's nasty business, and few may wish to follow us into this nasty little hell of a pit that Fr. O'Leary here wishes to elevate to the level of sanctity. But for those who want honest answers to honest questions, it may be worth the initial revulsion to push through and see what the facts are. Few people like to think about what homosexuals do. What do they do behind closed doors?

Surveys indicate that about 90% of gays have engaged in rectal intercourse, and about two-thirds do so regularly. In a six-month long daily sexual diary study (L. Corey and K.K. Holmes, "Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men," New England Journal of Medicine, 1980:302:435-38.6), gays averaged 110 sex partners and 68 rectal encounters per year (more recent studies would likely show higher statistics). The anus must be lubricated enough to allow penetration. Often fingers and/or tongue are used to stretch and moiten the opening. Either the partner's sliva or an artificial lubricant may be used. Saliva, however, contains many germs foreign to the rectum. During rectal intercourse, the rectum therefore becomes a receptacle for a cocktail of 1) saliva and its germs and/or an artificial lubricant, 2) the recipient's own feces, 3) whatever germs, infections, or substances the penis has on it, and 4) the seminal fluid of the penitrant. Since sperm readily penetrate the extremely thin rectal wall (only one cell's width) causing immunological damage, and tearing or brusing the anal wall is very common during rectal sex, these substances have a high possibility of gaining direct access to the blood stream. In contrast to vaginal intercourse (in which sperm cannot penetrate the multilayered vagina and no fecal matter is present), rectal intercourse is probably the most sexually common way to speading hepatitis B & C, HIV, syphilis and other blood-borne diseases (G.W. Manligit, et al., "Chronic Immune Stimulation by Sperm Alloantigens," Journal of the American Medial Association, 1984:251:237-38.8). The risk of tearing the anal wall during rectal sex mounts exponentially with practices like "fisting," where the hand and arm are inserted into the rectum, or sex 'toys' (bottles, dildos, vegetables, even rodents) are inserted into the anus. The prospect of ending up with a colostomy bag for the duration of one's life is quite real.

That's just the rectal sex. Then there's fecal sex. About 80% of gays admit to licking and/or inserting their tongues into the anus of their partners (rimming) and thus ingesting medically significant amounts of fecal matter. In the aforementioned diary study, 70% engaged in this activity (50% regularly) over six months. The result was that the annual incidence of hepatitis A in homosexual men was 22%, in contrast to no incidence of hepatitus A among heterosexual men. I don't suppose we need really dwell on gay oral sex, urine sex, the "golden showers" reported in Kinsey's studies (drinking urine or being urinated upon); sadomasochism; pederasty -- sex with minors, admitted to by some 25% of white gays (A Bell and M. Weinberg, Homosexualities, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1978.18), sex in public restrooms, sex in gay baths, etc. Glory upon glory ...

But I would like to rejoin an argument tendered by O'Leary, when he takes issue with Budziszewski, saying:

He made much of the anus as a place of decay. But the vagina also is a place of decay (urine) as is the male member. 'Love has pitched his tent in the place of excrement'. Life and death go together."

Is this really so? Take the AIDS virus. It's actually very fragile. It can't survive when it comes in contact with the air, and can be transmitted only through the blood stream (contaminated blood transfusion, genital ulcers, etc.) -- or (you guessed it) through the mucosa of the anus. Nature (and nature's God) provides two very different systems of operation for the vagina and the anus. The vagina is normally open to the outside world so the sperm of the male can be deposited inside the female body through sexual intercourse. The vagina is virtually impermeable to viruses, because nature has provided that the vaginal mucosa has no lymphatic network, and the lymphatic network in our body is made to absorb substances. The rectum, by contrast, is designed precisely to absorb up to the last possible bit of useful nutrients from the food we have eaten and digested. There is an enormous lymphatic network in the mucosa of the rectum. The rectum is made to absorb as much as possible from whatever passes through it. If the vagina could accept viruses, women would be dying like flies from every sort of viral disease imaginable. Women survive because nature has designed the vagina for the reception of sperm but not viruses. The rectum was designed for the absorption of nutrients from digested food before its excretion, and clearly not for introducing anything from the outside. Hence, the use of the anus for intercourse is quite simply unnatural, contrary to nature, counter to the purposes for which human anatomy was naturally designed.

Natural law. It's just not that complicated. St. Paul had it right in the First Chapter of his Letter to the Romans. Church tradition had it right. Church teaching has it right. Homosexuals may enmesh themselves in emotional entanglements that ape all the emotions one finds in marriage. Who can doubt that these emotions are utterly real? But same-sex relationships simply are not marriage, any more than rectal sex is the vaginal intercourse of a husband and wife ordained by nature and nature's God from the beginning. We all know this. We know it, whatever lengths we may go to in order to repress this knowledge in the desparate attempt to evade it.

Budziszewski speaks of the "Five Furies" (remorse, confession, atonement, reconciliation, and justification). What does he mean? Ordinarily the normal outlet of remorse is to flee from sin; of the need for confession, to admit what one has done; of atonement, to pay the debt; of reconciliation, to restore the bonds one has broken; and of justification, to get back in the right. But if the Furies are denied payment in wonted coin, they exact it in whatever coin comes nearest, he says, driving the sinner's life yet further out of kilter. Accordingly, he writes:

We flee not from wrong but from thinking about it [pseudo-remorse]. We compulsively confess every detail of our story, except the moral [pseudo-confession]. We punish ourselves again and again, offering every sacrifice except the one demanded [pseudo-atonement]. We simulate the restoration of broken intimacy, by seeking companions as guilty as ourselves [pseudo-reconciliation]. And we seek not to become just, but to justify ourselves [pseudo-justification].

[Acknowledgements: Thanks to the folks at Family Research Institute, P.O. Box 2091, Washington, DC 20013, for the information they provided on homosexual practices through their pamphlet, Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do (1992), and for the gentleman (whose name I cannot remember) whose letter to the Editor of New Oxford Review several years ago furnished much of the medical information on the lymphatic system surrounding the male digestive tract and other relevant information.]

Interest in same sex 'marriage' waning among homosexuals

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, June 24, 2006 (Zenit.org) - "After the clamor to legalize same-sex marriage, it turns out that not many homosexuals really want it. Following a bitter battle last year, the Spanish government gave homosexuals the right to marry. Since the law took effect last July 3, until May 31, only 1,275 same-sex marriages took place, reported the Madrid daily newspaper ABC last Saturday."

Comparatively, that would add up to a mere 0.6% of the 209,125 marriages contracted in Spain during 2005. Of the total number of same-sex marriages, 923 were between males and 352 among females.

A recent study by the Virginia-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy did a roundup of same-sex marriage trends. The study, "Demand for Same-Sex Marriage: Evidence from the United States, Canada and Europe," was published April 26.

Maggie Gallagher and Joshua Baker, the authors of the study, warn that precise data is difficult to obtain, but offer statistics on the Dutch experience, Belgium, Canada, and the United States. The Zenit article states that information from newspaper reports and data collected by Gallagher and Baker suggest that the number of same-sex marriages, "after an initial burst, appears to be decreasing with each passing year." Further, it reports that the data contained in Gallagher and Baker's study was supported by Hudson Institute fellow Stanley Kurtz, who argued in National Review Online (June 5, 2006) that statistics from Northern Europe confirm the trend to low levels of same-sex unions. Meanwhile, in welcoming Spain's new ambassador to the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI continued to defend the value of marriage between a man and woman as a vital social institution, adding that, during his July visit to the World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Spain, he is looking forward to being able to "celebrate the beauty and fruitfulness of the family founded on marriage, its exalted vocation and indispensable social value."

The love that won't shut up, again

The love that dare not speak its name? No, the love that just won't shut up. Back at you by popular demand of the "Spirit of Vatican II, Gene Robinson and Co." Again. So hear this:

"Conjugal sex means self-giving, making one flesh out of two. By contrast, when a man puts the part of himself which represents new life into the cavity of another man which represents decay and expulsion, at the most basic of all possible levels he is saying 'Life, be swallowed in death.' We cannot overwrite such meanings with different ones just because we want to."

J. Budzieszewski, What We Can't Not Know (2003), pp. 86-87. (J. Budziszewski is professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas.)

The fact is, we all know this. Even those of us desparate to evade the hold of its obviousness on us. We know this and a great many other things like it. This fact was once widely recognized. It was unexceptional for St. Thomas Aquinas to declare that the foundational moral principles are "the same for all, both as to rectitude and as to knowledge" (ST, I-II, Q 94, a. 4). That is, the foundational moral principles are not only right for everyone, but at some level known to everyone. But what was once considered unexceptional is now widely considered outrageous. People become angry when one asserts the moral law; and this outrage itself is an amazing fact that calls for explanation. Budziszewski suggests that we are passing through an eerie phase of history in which the things that everyone really knows are treated as unheard-of doctrines, a time in which the elements of common decency are themselves attacked as outrageous indecencies. Sexual purity and piety are considered deviant. To suggest that the sick should not be encouraged to seek death is decried as unfeeling. The moral law has become the very emblem of the immorality of intolerance. Yet this basic moral knowledge haunts us. It is inescapable. We appeal to it even to justify our evasions of it. It's something, Budziszewski would say, which we simply can't not know. This is nothing new, of course. Just read what St. Paul says in Romans about what the Gentiles know 'by nature' but 'suppress' in their wickedness (1:18-32). (Not too politically correct, that. Tut-tut.)

A canon lawyer responds

In our May 31st post on "Kneeling at Mass a mortal sin in Diocese of Orange, CA," you may recall we dealt with the case of the notorious Fr. Tran who declared kneeling at Mass (specifically for the Agnus Dei) a mortal sin in a parish that had hitherto been a Tridentine Rite parish. In the combox to that post, Fr. I-am-the-"Spirit"-of-Vatican-II O'Leary responded with his usual enthusiasm for steering the dialogue in his own direction (not always a bad thing, though usually annoying and sometimes in violation of 'Da Rulz') by writing the following:

Pb, this is merely one priest. But what of Popes who tell people that what they are doing is mortally sinful when it is not? In that case, does the papal decree, even if mistaken, make the matter mortally sinful?

I am thinking, of course, of the decrees against usury in the 16th century, which made normal banking practices we now find totally innocent a mortal sin meriting excommuniction.

I am also thinking of Humanae Vitae. On the Pelikan thread, you told me a competent canon lawyer can explain why the bulls against lending at interest have not the same authority as Humanae Vitae. Can you give a link to such a lawyer? Can you explain why the three solemn bulls of Pius V and Sixtus IV were not as solemn and authoritative as the encyclical of Paul VI?

Perhaps you will say that the theologians got around those bulls by declaring them part of positive papal law rather than permanent natural law -- but this is a ploy that runs against the letter of the bulls, much as the Canadian bishops' reception of Humanae Vitae as a papal opinion that Catholics were free to follow or not as they chose runs counter to the letter of the encyclical. It is hard to see how the 16th century popes could have made it any clearer that they were determining a disputed point of natural law.

The point is that even the most solemn utterances of the papacy on moral matters have been corrected by laity's and theologians' non-reception. Development moves in the direction of deepening moral insight, as JP2 stresses, but there are a lot of bumps on the way! (Comment source)

So I wrote to a priest friend of mine with an advanced degree in canon law, Fr. John T. Putnam. Unfortunately, most canon lawyers are kept extremely busy in their diocesan tribunals where they hear cases two or three days a week, but Fr. Putnam referred the question to another source in our Diocese of Charlotte, who furnished a link to the Encyclopedia of Catholicism article on 'Usury' and commented as follows:

As for the priest in the Diocese of Orange (Fr. Tran) declaring kneeling at Mass (specifically for the Agnus Dei) a mortal sin, he has since then "retracted" his statement. The Diocese of Orange, in typical fashion -- and much like the confusion so regnant here in Charlotte -- both supported his declaration on mortal sin as well as his retraction. (I suppose then that Fr. Tran could announce just about anything, followed by its contradiction, and receive diocesan support each time; such is the honor among thieves... er uh, liberals.)

It would seem to me, however, that the faithful of the Diocese of Orange are indeed obliged to stand for the Agnus Dei -- if I understand the Rome-approved norms for this point in the Mass. I've read, too, though, that the people have also been instructed to stand for the Eucharistic Prayer, an "instruction" that should be "disobeyed," since it is contrary to the mind of the Church.

As to usury and its comparison to Humanae vitae: the dissident priest makes a false analogy. Because the papal bulls against usury were obviously conditioned by the times and circumstances in which they were promulgated does not at all take away their supreme authority at the time of their application. That is, economic circumstances change, and at the time of the Popes mentioned [by him], usury was the means of ruining any number of people, especially the poor. And such avarice on the part of lenders is seriously sinful. Times have changed; yet I would not say, quoting from [his comment], "normal banking practices we now find totally innocent," for we Catholics do not find them so. Justice still needs be applied. But when it comes to contraception, here we are dealing not with time-related variables, but with the constancy of human nature and the essence of the sexual act -- constants, not variables (as with economics and banking practices).

To quote from the above linked article [on usury]: "The precise question then is this: if we consider justice only, without reference to extrinsic circumstances, can the loan of money, or any chattel which is not destroyed by use, entitle the lender to a gain or profit which is called interest? To this question some persons, namely the economists of the classic school, and some Catholic writers, answer 'yes, and always'; others, namely Socialists and some Catholic writers, answer, 'no, never'; and lastly some Catholics give a less unconditional answer, 'sometimes, but not always'; and they explain the different attitudes of he Church in condemning at one time, and at another authorizing, the practice of taking interest on loans, by the difference of circumstances and the state of society."

And, yes, the Popes of the 16th century were indeed "determining a disputed point of natural law"; for they were judging it against nature to ruin one's neighbor -- easily done during that time (just read the history of the Jews in Europe) -- by making a living off interest. The Popes' authority in condemning this is not diminished nor to be seen as lacking infallibility, simply because with the changing of the times and with economic circumstances, loaning at interest became something far less likely to ruin one's neighbor, but became far more regulated, as well as the rights of protection being recognized for the one making the risk of loans. This change of circumstances (with deepening understanding of economics and justice in the market place) with the attendant change of the Church in these matters does not at all relativise the Church's position on contraception. That's simply a non sequitur.

The 'Usury' article answers the question why the Medieval ecclesiastical decrees on usury cannot be considered infallible. The reason it offers is that the decree (Pope Benedict XIV's Encyclical "Vix pervenit" of 1745) was initially addressed only to Italian bishops to address a local problem (essentially of loan sharks), and therefore not an infallible decree. Hence, even when it was later applied to the whole Church by the Holy Office in 1836, this did not and could not change the original matter of the decree so as to have rendered it infallible. There are other grounds, too, on which medieval usury teaching can't be considered infallibe, as I have addressed elsewhere in the relevant comboxes, but this should suffice for here.

Will any of these arguments -- from canon lawyers and Catholic Encyclopedia -- satisfy Fr. I-AM-the-"Spirit"-of-Vatican-II O'Leary? You can be your sweet patooties they won't, because very little of this has anything to do with rationality and has everything to do with sweet patooties.