LSU Parousians Engage the Consuming Fire Fellowship and Planned Parenthood

"So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?"
"Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them."-Theoden and Aragorn, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

This week was about taking the faith that has been enriched and strengthened by that peculiar bond of fellowship we call the Parousians into the campus. Specifically, into places we knew would be hostile to that faith, places in which we would certainly be challenged. However in both instances I can say that the Parousians came out with a stronger faith and the belief that we made things better by being there and representing the truth.

The first instance came on Tuesday. Every two weeks on Tuesday a group from the Consuming Fire Fellowship comes into LSU’s “Free Speech Alley” and preaches their beliefs. Most of their discussions are about sexuality and sin and salvation (and generally how we have too much of the first two and none of the last). This of course perturbs a great number of the student body who are atheists and what have you. So generally when the Consuming Fire Fellowship comes to campus, we can expect a lot of yelling back and forth and probably a lot of hate as well. Perhaps this would be fine and irrelevant to the Parousians, except that one of the signs they wear has a list of the people going to hell. Next to abortionists, Jehovah Witnesses, and sodomites are, you guessed it, Catholics. I thought that this would be the perfect place to put the love and mercy of the Blessed Mother, so I invited people to come pray the rosary in “Free Speech Alley.” Because it’s the beginning of LSU midterms and during class time, we could only get one other person besides me to go to the rosary, Parousian and Guard member Liz Johnson. That’s alright; I announced it kinda late, and I’m positive it will build. Since we had small numbers, we decided to pray the rosary off to the side.

So we began the rosary. At first the only attention we got from the preachers was from their children. Every time I looked up I could see two little girls casting glances at us. According to Scott Hahn’s wife, Kimberly, the Virgin Mary is almost despised in Protestant circles and I imagine a similar situation if not worse occurs in the households of these young girls. Perhaps I am being fanciful when I say that I think something about the rosary clicked with them. Fulton Sheen argues that Mary is the woman that all girls want to be like, and I think that for those girls that flash of the perfect femininity was attractive or at least interesting and compelling.

It seemed that that would be all the response we would get going into the fifth decade. About halfway through the fifth, the guy with the sign saying that Catholics are going to hell came over and stood next to us. This is probably a child too but not too much younger than I am so that 16 or 17 would be about his age. And he began to tell us, “You know that’s not doing any good. She can’t hear you.” We prayed on. We said the St. Michael’s prayer as he was telling us, very respectfully I should note, that it was a waste of time. So we finished the rosary and immediately began to discuss with him the faith. Liz and I were later joined by another Parousian, Nicole Augustin. And we talked to him about our beliefs, particularly in regard to Mary, purgatory, and the Eucharist, each of us backing the other up when we needed it (Each of the girls did a fantastic job, by the way, which is required when paired with my attempts at apologetics). And he didn’t really know what to say. It was obvious that what we were saying, Michael (that was the young man’s name) had never heard. It clicked with him, and he didn’t know how to handle it. Eventually he got another preacher over and we debated with him awhile until the main preacher Britt Williams, who was also the young man’s father, arrived. Liz and Nicole had to leave for class, leaving me with Rev. Williams and what turned out to be a sort of circle of other people from the Consuming Fire Fellowship. They would come in and out and listen and then walk off, obviously interested in the debate. We talked about requirements for salvation and Church history and abuses. At the end he wasn’t convinced and I had to leave, though I intend to return in two weeks.

The second instance came tonight. A group calling itself “Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom,” with the help of the LSU Women’s Center and a group called Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood (I’m not quite sure why they use the singular “vox” for the plural “voices,” but that’s another issue) put on a series called “Spirituality and Choice.” This has been a three part series with a session on stem cells, one on sexual education, and the grand finale tonight on Abortion titled, "Can You Choose Choice? Religion and the Pro-Choice Movement". I missed the first one but attended the second one and knew that this was important. The perverse union between spirituality and their ideology is a dangerous one, one that can hurt many young people, especially women. So I wanted a big turnout at their event in order to challenge them. I set up a facebook event, told people about it for a week (and other people talked about it too; lemme be quite clear that any success is not solely my success). Being exam week and being a Planned Parenthood event, I was hoping we could get a few people to give a different perspective.

This was my mindset when I entered the room tonight a little early. I watched as people began to stream in and kept a tally of which ones I knew and which ones I didn’t (we had decided ahead of time to sit separately, so I didn’t have anyone to talk to). The count was a total of 40 people. 13 of them were Parousians. From the question session after that, I think there 5 more pro-lifers in the crowd at least, so that the pro-life group represented a little less than half the crowd. That is incredible. I was so glad to see that people could make it. This happened despite it being a hectic week, despite many people leaving to set up the Veritas retreat this weekend, and despite people’s natural hesitation to go to an event hosted by a pro-choice crowd. I feel we were very blessed.

The Planned Parenthood people probably didn’t feel the same way. They made sure the question and answer session was very short but starting late and letting the presenters read on and on from little stat sheets which were not even really abortion as much as they were about poverty. Yet when the question and answer session came, they were stumped. They couldn’t answer the very basic question a girl we didn’t know asked: when does the fetus become a human? The basic tenet of the pro-life movement and they couldn’t respond. Questions about whether or not a bad abortion was possible and whether or not abortion was simply sweeping under the rug the social issues they had so exhaustively discussed were similarly baffling to them. While no one agreed with us at the end, I think that we show at the very least that the pro-life position is one to be reckoned with and an idea that has significant intellectual merit, which was precisely the opposite goal of their forum.

However, the question can come up: what good did it do? On the surface, we had no conversions. No new Catholics, no new pro-lifers. Perhaps we touched some of them but how much will that matter when they go back to church on Sunday or go back to the Women’s Center and talk about the conference? Did we do any good or did we simply stroke our own egos by trying to beat our opponents in face to face debate? I have to admit, it’s possible that the seeds we tried to sow fell on bad soil. Even if they did however, we did something. I would say that at least for me I came away stronger in my faith, having seen it come up against its enemies and come out intact. But even more than that, I think that the seeds we planted will have an effect. God only needs a crack to flow completely through, and I think we showed these people the cracks in their armor. We made these people think twice about their positions. That’s allowing for God and the Holy Spirit to work. We’ll never know how much of a difference we made this week, but we made a difference.

I want to end this with a quote from the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In the movie, Senator Smith is forced to defend himself in the Senate and every other senator thinks him a fraud and a troublemaker and wants to expel him from the Senate, so in one of the great scenes of cinematic history Senator Smith filibusters. This is the conclusion to that filibuster (but not the movie, so don’t worry, I didn’t spoil anything for you).

“I guess this is just a lost cause, Mr. Paine. You people don't know about lost causes; Mr. Paine does...You know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any others. Yes, you even die for them…I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause even if this room gets filled with lies like these until the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place. Somebody'll listen to me.”

It’s that last sentence which embodies all our hope. Somebody will listen to us if we only keep speaking in witness to Christ.

Tridentine Mass

I've attended a few Tridentine Masses and each time I've come away disappointed. Part of the reason for this could be that the masses I attended were in South Florida, where most of the Latin Mass church-goers look and act like Uncle Lewis and Aunt Bethany from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. But the bigger problem is that I came away each time feeling as though I hadn't been to mass at all. Perhaps I expected too much, but instead of experiencing awe and reverence I just felt frustration and disillusionment. I kind of assumed that it was a personal defect, perhaps the consequence of not having adequately prepared myself. So I was heartened to read this post by Dan at Holy Whapping, which perfectly captures the uneasiness I've experienced before in the Tridentine Mass:

when you show up at the local indult parish, you discover something very different from what you expected.
- Participation is discouraged, except perhaps on a few chants
- It is very hard to keep track of anything for those who haven't already gotten it down
- The whole experience has a vaguely dusty feel
- Many pamphlets and literature around the Church, with the exception of maybe some natural family planning materials, feel frozen in time somewhere around the 1920's.

What I am arguing, then, is that the Tridentine Mass, as currently celebrated in indult parishes, at least those I have seen, is celebrated in such a way as to necessarily become an "acquired taste." Furthermore, an approach is often taken to make it seem as if the indult is carte blanche to act as if nothing in the Church has changed since the early 1940's, and to make such completely orthodox movements as the nouvelle theologie or even Vatican II itself as a council, seem suspect. This is not a good approach, and it works very much against integrating traditional liturgy into the present day life of the Church. This approach is not one that, in my experience, easily appeals to young people looking for beauty and transcendence, unless they're already convinced to keep coming for other reasons, or have someone to explain everything to them in detail and keep them coming back.
...
In other words, why can't we have "tradition" without "ism" in these quarters, and be willing to have the Tridentine Mass and Vatican II and new developments in theology?

There's an extended discussion in the comboxes at Holy Whapping.

You Probably Knew This Already, But Just In Case You Didn't...

College Students More Narcissistic Than Before.

Maybe the Parousians Can Go Home Now

A new documentary claims that the remains of Jesus, his wife Mary Magdalene, and their son have been found. Titanic director James Cameron is the executive producer. I still haven't seen that one either.

I watched a little bit of CNN's coverage of this last night. It seems that the mainstream media is finding little credibility in the story, but will the consumer culture reject it?

But now, since we have the DNA samples, perhaps we can finally clone Jesus.

Happy Birthday

This is courtesy of Paul Cat. I think this video addresses something not talked about too often and that is the father's feelings following an abortion. The idea of reflecting on what the child would be has been brought up in connection with the mother but we often forget that the father will have the same naggings of conscience.

Happy Birthday, I Love You Whoever You Would Have Been.

New Hope for Catholic Literature

The article Pop Excess cites Catholic Writers Groups Foster Literary Revival (both from the National Catholic Register) as part of a hopeful change in pop culture beginning with literature, "There’s another reason the arts have become a cesspool: Call it a sin of omission by Catholics.

For decades, the Church in America has been marked by dissent. Catholic filmmakers, novelists and artists have been here all along — but their products have become morally indistinguishable from the culture’s.

But that’s starting to change. There are two examples in this issue: Tim Drake’s story about the new literary revival (page 2) and our profile of Jordan Allott on our Arts & Entertainment page (B3)."

Tim Drake's article notes one group in particular, "The Minnklings," who are "a Minnesotan take-off on C.S. Lewis’ and J.R.R. Tolkien’s writer’s group The Inklings. Among others, it includes a newspaper publisher, an academic journal editor, published fiction writers and journalists. They gather to critique one another’s work and share stories about getting published. The group is one of several literary efforts underway aimed at supporting existing Catholic writers and fostering new ones."

Some very exciting stuff going on here.

Freedom of...Prejudice?

A quote by Greg Kandra from the National Catholic Register's article, The Bias Against Belief, “The episode has drawn attention to an issue that strikes close to my own life,” wrote Kandra. “It involves a particularly insidious form of bigotry, and the nagging suspicion that there is one remaining permissible prejudice in America. It is anti-Catholicism.”

Praying for Atheists

Mark Shea offers us insight into opening our hearts towards atheists in this article appearing in the National Catholic Register, Praying for Atheists.

Mark Shea writes in reference to atheism and atheists, "The truth, of course, is that there is always a difference between an idea and the person who holds it." This is perhaps something we should all keep in mind especially when working with our brothers and sisters who will not intellectually recognize God, but who so often recognize Him through their loving actions helping those less-fortunate than themselves.

#7 Screwtape Letter: Existence of Demons and Factionalism

This letter, more than any we’ve seen so far, really breaks itself down into two separate letters. The first half is devoted to the question of whether or not Wormwood should put special effort into keeping the patient ignorant of his existence. Screwtape answers that the question has been answered by the High Command to keep ignorant but he explains that both ignorance and belief have their drawbacks:

“When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and skeptics.”

That is, the existence of demons and Satan points us to a spiritual world in which materialism does not make sense. Without belief in this existence, it is easier for Wormwood to direct the patient towards world in which there is only matter, a world in which things like Truth and Morality start to lose meaning. On the other hand, belief in spiritual world is not enough for conversion but only heightens the stakes. Sure, belief in God can come but it can also be used for a more potent evil. Think of Star Wars for a minute (hey, you didn’t honestly think I was going to write about 31 letters and not refer to Star Wars once, did you?). Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine both believed in the Force very strongly, but that belief did not translate into goodness. Instead, they manipulated this secret force for their own ends and became much more powerful than a legion of storm troopers. A similar thing can happen for those who see spirituality but misinterpret it or pervert it. Planned Parenthood is doing this right now at LSU with their Spirituality and Sexuality Series in which they claim that it is acceptable and perhaps even mandatory to be both spiritual and pro-abortion, pro-contraception, and pro-sexual liberation. So while we have to recognize that getting people to recognize the spiritual world is a crucial step towards lifting people out of the indifferent and hollow world of the materialists, it’s not the end of the journey. (Speaking of those Planned Parenthood people, 7:00 PM in the Atchafalaya Room in the Union on Thursday is the finale of their series. Please attend if you can. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming)

Screwtape mentions one more thing that is helpful for us to recognize. He tells Wormwood:

“The fact that ‘devils’ are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence beings to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that…he therefore cannot believe in you.”

We need to be careful in how we describe the forces of evil both to others and to ourselves, lest we make them too anthropomorphic as to be ridiculous. Satan and his servants existence, but images of pitchforks and horns help Screwtape more than they help us.

Now we get to the second half of the letter in which Screwtape address the issue of whether or not Wormwood should try to make his patient an extreme patriot or extreme pacifist. Surprisingly to us who live in a world in which support or dissent of the Iraq War seems to be the prime litmus test, Screwtape says it doesn’t really matter. As he says,

“All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged…Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them. Any small coterie…tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the ‘Cause’ is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal. Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy’s own purposes, this remains true. We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and defensive self-righteous of a secret society of a clique”

That’s a pretty long quote so there’s a lot to unpack from it. The first is an obvious preference for moderation in beliefs. Note however that this does not mean indifference or a rejection of both patriotism and pacifism. Instead, it’s recognition that extreme beliefs can become consuming and as such take us away from Christ. Second, it shows a danger to anger that we as Catholics in the university and more importantly as Catholics in the world face. We are a small group and therefore have a real disposition to the “us/them” mentality. This is particularly challenging for us as Parousians and as the laity under the New Evangelization of John Paul II. We are called to engage a university which is hostile to us and we probably will need to rely strongly on others and on our Catholic community as well as Christ’s grace to make it through it, yet we cannot become so entrenched in our community as to become disdainful of anything outside of it. This primarily means loving those who would appear to be our enemies, including those at Planned Parenthood (and I’m writing this as much to me as I am to you. Told you Lewis had a knack to skewer everybody, even bloggers). Third, we have to watch out for factionalism in our communities. “Divide and conquer” is the old saying and it can wreak havoc. Not even the Church is immune; see those who hold hands at the Our Father and those who don’t as a good indicator that our Church is not as united as it should be. When we disagree then, one of our goals in disagreeing should be a greater unity then before instead of simply another faction.

You may have wondered how what seemed to be a discussion on war and pacifism versus patriotism turned into a discussion of factions. Lewis generally isn’t concerned with the correct stance on war as he is about our attitudes to it and how war as an especially trying emotional and spiritual experience can lead us closer to either Hell or Heaven. He is especially concerned with concern about the war becoming the central point of our existence and especially of our faith. Screwtape writes,

“Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ‘cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments in can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism…Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity-he is ours.”

That’s fairly harsh, and as a group devoted to many causes we need to pay close attention to what Lewis is trying to tell us here. He’s not telling us to back away from causes,-he wouldn’t have been so involved in popular apologetics if he didn’t think that the world needed to be told to wake itself up-he’s telling us that that shouldn’t be the focus. Instead, religion should be the focus and the causes derived from it. We seek pro-life changes because God has told us that we should respect the dignity of human life; we should not seek God b/c we’ve decided to be pro-life and need back-up. The same applies to all issues, not just issues of war. We follow causes because in them we follow God; we shouldn’t follow God because He takes us farther in our quest for the cause.

I want to close with a quote from Richard Nixon. Odd source for inspirtational quotes, I know, and I’m not a big fan of the man myself. However, this quote was a favorite of my father’s and so I’ve come to like it too.

“Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”

N.B. I realized about mid-way through this that there are some who might not like the dichotomy between Patriotism and Pacifism, as many today are easily angered by the association of opposition to the war with being unpatriotic. First, those are Lewis’s word’s, not mine. Second, I don’t think Lewis was trying to imply that; he’s certainly not one to join in the chorus of those today who claim opposition to the war in Iraq is necessarily unpatriotic. Remember, Lewis was friends with J.R.R. Tolkien, who was a pacifist in some respects (though he saw the war with Germany as a necessary evil as he wrote to his son, who fought in the war). Both Tolkien and Lewis served in WWI and had problems resulting from it so I highly doubt that Lewis demands support for war in order to be patriotic. It should also be noted that the patient never fights in the war and Lewis does not argue that it is a victory of Screwtape that he stayed home.

Prenatal genetic screenings

Unfit to live? Children with Down's syndrome in Canadian crosshairs

A Canadian medical group is advocating prenatal genetic screening for all pregnant women. Specifically, Down's syndrome testing seems to be the main focus. What does this mean for a woman pregnant with a child who has Down's syndrome? Will the testing make her better prepared to take care of this child? Or will the test give her a reason to abort her child? Is this a step towards better care of Down's syndrome children or just towards eugenics and the death of these children? Who gets to decide?

This is Getting Really Scary...

De Jesus's followers tattoo themselves with 666.

#6 Screwtape Letter: Preoccupation with the Future and Man as a Series of Circles

Now that the patient has begun to pray, Screwtape instructs Wormwood on more techniques to help misdirect his prayers and thoughts. The first method is looking to the future at the expense of the present. Screwtape writes:

It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practice fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible.

I think this approach is especially beneficial to Screwtape for a few reasons. The first is, as Screwtape saws, true resignation to a dozen fates is impossible. This means that by attempting to resign ourselves to everything, we actually prevent the resignation and full trust in God that we are seeking. Again, we shoot too high and miss. The second is that by concentrating on the future too much we forget to seek comfort on the present crosses that God is fully prepared to help us deal with. The Eucharist is our daily bread and as such the grace is best when applied to the daily i.e. present problems. Finally, I think that dealing too much with potential crosses likely inflates our ego. If we think that we’re dealing with twenty crosses when we likely only have two, we probably think that God is dealing us a harder card then we have. This can lead to an inflates sense of what God “owes” us as well as tendency to “holier than thou” as we believe that we alone are dealing with so much and persevering whereas others have much less to deal with.

The next paragraph deals with more of Screwtape’s directions on how to distract the patient from the real issue. You’ll have noticed by now that a major theme of the Screwtape Letters is distracting the patient from the truth of things into an imaginary comfort zone in which it is harder for God to work.

One can then formulate the general rule; in all activities of mind which favour our cause, encourage the patient to be unself-conscious and to concentrate on the object, but in all activities favourable to the Enemy bend his mind back on itself.

What this means is this: when we deal in sin, we need to look at ourselves. Give ourselves the hard look or the examination of conscience and see what we’ve done wrong so that we can ask for the grace to change it. On the other hand, when we are presented with good or do good or focus should be on God. When we view the sunset as the sun slowly sinks into the mountains bathing the area in an orange glow or when we see pictures of Mother Teresa, our focus should not be on how that makes us feel but on the cause of these scenes which is God. To take an argument from Aristotle, if the highest thing is contemplate the divine than we should be careful not to substitute that for contemplating us thinking about the divine. The difference might seem small but it opens a large hole for the Screwtapes.

The last thing to draw from this letter is the idea of man as concentric circles. I found this particularly interesting as I had read something similar in a book called Lift Up Your Heart written by Lewis’s Catholic equivalent (or superior, depending on your point of view), Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. I’ll put the two quotes side by side so you can compare:

Lewis:
“Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, his intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy. You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep shoving all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy.”

Sheen:
“Our happiness varies according to the center about which our lives revolve. If it is the ego, there are frustrations; if it is the I, there is a measure of natural happiness, still incomplete. If it is the divine, there is the joy of being one with the Infinite Life and Truth and Love.”

I think there the idea of man as a circle is very crucial; it shows that there has to be one thing around which we revolve, only one thing which we make the center of our life. However, what that center is (or should be) is very different for the Anglican Lewis and the Catholic Sheen. Lewis thinks it ought to be the will. In today’s world of psychology and other attempts to disenfranchise man of his free will and ability to choose, this can be a helpful construct. And as Lewis writes on later in the letter, it is in the will which our choices must be concentrated in order to reflect real virtue. However, the will is still an aspect of man. Believe or not, I’m going to say that Lewis was wrong (there won’t be many times I can say that). God instead should be the center of our lives, with the I (which is very close to the will for Sheen and can reflect and love as opposed to the totally selfish ego) revolving around God, not being the center. Indeed, for Sheen, having the will or the I at the center is better than just the ego but still insufficient. For the Catholic Sheen, anything less than total abandonment of the self to God is unsatisfactory.

Next Letter: Acknowledging the existence of demons and the question of Pacifism.

The Dignity of Choice

This is an excellent post by the "Aggie Catholic" discussing the ramifications of the pro-abortion side's decision to align themselves strongly with the concept of choice.

The Dignity of Choice.

Psychologists catch on to what we already know

This is a link from Dawn Eden's post on the importance of female and male virginity.

The WashingtonPost.com reviews a report by the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls in this article titled, Goodbye to Girlhood
As Pop Culture Targets Ever Younger Girls, Psychologists Worry About a Premature Focus on Sex and Appearance.

Does this make anyone else think of JonBenet Ramsey?

Anti-contraception Letter to the Editor Published

Some guy wrote a letter in to the editor of the Daily Reveille defending Emily's and the Church's position on contraception. It's not very good, but as pro-Church items in the Reveille are rare I decided to post it anyway.

Letter defending Emily's position on contraception.

Is Female Virginity More Valuable than Male Virginity

Dawn Eden and Elizabeth Kantor debate the issue.

Before anyone thinks I am playing up the sexual double standard, let me be clear that I'm siding with Dawn Eden on this one, but Kantor makes an interesting case.

Pope Benedict XVI's Lenten Message

"They shall look on him whom they have pierced."

Response to Emily's Abstinence Column

Last week Emily wrote a column denouncing programs that teach contraception. Because the Daily Reveille likes to publish lengthy rebuttals to anything Emily writes, today next to Emily's column we have the misfortune of reading a response piece put out by a women's studies major. If you have the time, please respond to this piece of....work.

Response Piece to Emily's Abstinence Column.

Emily Byers on Fasting

Emily Byers writes in this week's edition of the Daily Reveille about fasting and how it brings us into closer solidarity with the poor and hungry.

Lenten Sacrifice Strengthens Faith.

Loyola Columnist Defends Sex Within Marriage

If you've been reading Emily's columns on the Daily Reveille website, you might have noticed a little box in the corner containing links to articles from other college newspapers around the state. An article popped up in that box a few weeks ago with the title "Wedding Night So Overrated" from Loyola University New Orleans. Unfortunately from Loyola, this has become standard fare. What was not standard fare however was the response to this outrage at a Catholic University. A student, Benjamin Clapper, has written an excellent response to the article outlining the proper conception of sex within marriage according to Church teaching.

Sex Worth Waiting For in the Long Run.

There are comments sections, so if you have the time show your support for Ben. If you'd like to read the original column, you have to start an account with Maroon. It's free and quick (at least it was for me), so it's not too much trouble. I should warn you that while the column is not terribly graphic, it's still very troubling.

Wedding Night So Overrated.

Horrific Development in Abortion in Italy

I always knew the situation with abortion was worse in Europe, as most things, but even then I don't think I could conceive of this.

Screwtape #5: Initial Reaction to War

The Screwtape Letters were written during World War II and we see the first product of that in the 5th letter. This is a short letter for our purposes as most of it is focused on Screwtape admonishing Wormwood for taking too much pleasure in the pain caused by the war and not enough on the more fruitful business of capturing the patient’s soul and having the eternal pleasure of that soul’s anguish. Screwtape explains that war can have negative consequences for their efforts:

“Consider too what undesirable deaths occur in wartime. Men are killed in places where they knew they might be killed and to which they go, if they are at all in of the Enemy’s party, prepared. How much better it is for us if all humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence…And how disastrous for us is the continual remembrance of death which war enforces. One of our best weapons, contented worldliness, is rendered useless. In wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever.”

There are number of things to draw out from this short quote. The first is the danger of letting suffering become an excuse. How often have we excused our cutting someone off in traffic because we’ve had a bad day and are in a foul mood? Similarly, when in suffering we and the people around us can be tricked into thinking that somehow the expectations for behavior have changed. “We shouldn’t chastise him; he’s sick,” we might say; thereby allowing the person to slip further from God. Suffering then cannot be an excuse but rather as a means in which to grow. This idea is something that Lewis examines later in the letters but more fully in his book A Grief Observed.

The second thing is the nature of being preparing for death by simply acknowledging that we are not eternal. We might claim to know this but often we don’t. Ask yourself this: can you imagine a world that you’re not in? A world in which no one knows your name? A world in which no one cares for you? Save for a very select few that will be the world that exists for all of us two centuries from now. Especially in times of peace we can be carried away by the illusion that that’s not true, that somehow we will live on. But we won’t; the thief in the night may come at any time whether in war or driving to school or during a vacation in Destin. War simply makes that reality more imminent. We then must be aware of this reality.

As if that wasn’t hard enough, we face another problem: the ‘contented’ aspect of the worldliness that Screwtape refers to. As spiritual as we may become there is always the danger of still being too attached. Again another question that forces us to examine ourselves: if you had the choice between living and dying, which one do you choose? I’m not talking about suicide or anything like that which inserts our own will for God’s and intentionally hurts others, but our simple desire to be on this earth as long as it takes. If we truly want full union with God, the notion of death should be something we’re comfortable with and perhaps even anticipate so that while we live we can look forward to our deaths as they bring us into full communion with the infinite that can match up to our infinite desires.

I’ll leave you with something in this letter that I found amusing considering some of the discussions that went on in Planned Parenthood’s spirituality series. In these discussions, it has been said that suffering is not a part of God’s plan. I got much enjoyment out of the idea of reading this passage to them and seeing their reaction:

“The Enemy’s human partisans have all been plainly told by Him that suffering is an essential part of what He calls Redemption; so that a faith which is destroyed by war or pestilence cannot really have been worth the trouble of destroying.”

Happy Mardi Gras!

Screwtape #4: How to Pray

In this letter Screwtape goes deeper into the subject of prayer by instructing Wormwood how to twist the prayer of the patient so that it becomes ineffective. The first way of accomplishing this is borne out of a reaction to the “parrot-like nature of his prayers in childhood.” That is, knowing that as children we simply ran through them without thought there is the temptation to jettison them altogether in favor of “free” prayer; that is prayer without structure in order to pray more genuinely. But methods of prayer are important but both have their pitfalls. The formal prayers can feel like a chore that we simply run through. The “free” prayers can be reduced to no prayers at all. Screwtape elaborates:

“(H)e (the patient) may be persuaded to aim at something entirely spontaneous, inward, informal, and unregularized; and what this will actually mean to a beginner will be an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional mood in which real concentration of will and intelligence have no part.”

This might seem silly at first; how could we be tempted by such a type of prayer? The problem for us is that very holy people probably can pull off simply being silent and let God flow into them. As we see in the saints the ability to pray like that and knowing that it is an incredible spiritual experience, we seek to immolate that without really knowing what we’re doing and so fall into simple laziness. Prayer, at least for beginners, needs to be directed to some extent by our will and intelligence and not just a mood. For some this probably means the “training wheels” of the formal prayers we learned as children, then perhaps of a mix of formal and free until we are capable of the highest arts of prayer.

Another thing that Lewis mentions is the importance of our bodies while praying. As Screwtape says, “they are animals and whatever their bodies do affects their souls.” As we know, there is an intimate connection between the body and the soul and so what Lewis is telling us makes sense. We need to watch our bodies during prayer. Perhaps this can mean kneeling longer or looking straight at the Blessed Sacrament more during Adoration so that our bodies can lead our hearts.

Screwtape then goes into how to misdirect the intention of prayer. The first way is to focus the patient not on God but on our own feelings:

“Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills…When they say they are asking for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment.”

One thing that comes out of this is the importance of the priest at Reconciliation in order to counter this tendency to simply make ourselves feel forgiven instead of actual forgiveness. Lewis, although an Anglican, was known for going to the Anglican equivalent of Confession more often than usual and so would probably agree on the value of having some else there. The other thing is that if prayer is selfish then it will fail. We cannot pray to “go feel better” though prayer can certainly help us to do that and ought to be our first resort if we are having trouble. Instead, we should pray to become closer to God and the offset of that will be that we feel better. If we focus on ourselves than we, not ourselves are directing the venture and so the value of the prayer as a prayer and a means to connect better with God is close to nil.

So we are to focus on God, but there is danger in that too. As Screwtape points out, our preoccupation with the physical can mislead us. When we think of God, we might think of a dove or the image of Christ or the crucifix in our bedroom. That is, physical depictions for a reality which (except for Christ) not physical and greater then are images. So while focusing on these images is better than not praying it still denies the fullness of truth that comes from God. What is this fullness and how do we achieve it? Believe it or not, Screwtape knows and warns Wormwood of the danger of it if it ever happens:

“For if he ever comes to the distinction, if he ever consciously directs his prayers ‘Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be,’ our situation is, for the moment, desperate. Once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or, if retained, retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective knature, and the man trusts himself completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it-why then it is that the incalculable may occur.”

Screwtape then wants to avoid this lest God take it as far as He can so that the patient is lost to Screwtape and Wormwood forever. Therefore, we should strive to pray so that we do as Aristotle would say and contemplate not images of the divine or ourselves, but the divine Himself.

Next letter: a Mardi Gras treat as we go into the first letter dealing with war.

Ryan Duns, S.J. on vocations, accepting that we've been found

A vocation isn't weighing one good against another, as though it were deciding on whether to have the beef or salmon. Long before any person entertains a thought of religious life, of marriage, or of being single, that person has been called. Quietly and through the day-to-day events and goings on, God's invitation into deeper relationship has, for a long time, been extended to each of us.

So the second set of experiences occurs in prayer, when the young man stops "thinking" and starts exploring the inner recesses of his heart. It is in these caverns, spelunking new and as-yet unknown depths, that he stumbles upon a silent fullness, a glimpse of strange beauty, and he realizes that all his fumbling and searching have prevented him from seeing that what he so madly searched for had already found him.

A spiritual restlessness and dis-ease is endemic today. We are searching, turning to strange pursuits and faddish interests hoping to slacken our thirst for more. The prodigal son went so very far from his home in order to find fulfillment...only to find emptiness. Imagine, then, his joy upon returning to meet his father's eyes, eyes that have scanned the fields every day waiting for his return. The son didn't have to bargain for his identity, didn't have to negotiate a deal with his father: the abiding presence of the Father has waited patiently for his return, waited on the lonely and quiet porch of the heart, waited for his son to know himself to be found.

This experience is both grace and curse. The grace is knowing that one has been found, that God has been waiting for you for a very long time. The curse is that, once pierced by this love, the human heart will forever bear this wound upon it and be restless for completion. For some, this restlessness leads into marriage, for others into the single life, and for still others into religious life. The life of the Christian is a vocation, worked out in response to the God who finds us and welcomes us home.

More here.

And now, a musical interlude

Dylan with Mark Knopfler

License to Kill

Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
And if things don't change soon, he will.
Oh, man has invented his doom,
First step was touching the moon.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there as the night grows still.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life
And they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill,
Then they bury him with stars,
Sell his body like they do used cars.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there facin' the hill.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Now, he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused,
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill.
All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies.

But there's a woman on my block,
Sitting there in a cold chill.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Ya may be a noisemaker, spirit maker,
Heartbreaker, backbreaker,
Leave no stone unturned.
May be an actor in a plot,
That might be all that you got
'Til your error you clearly learn.

Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled.
Oh, man is opposed to fair play,
He wants it all and he wants it his way.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there as the night grows still.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Voting for Best Blogs

It's award season for the blogs and your very own Parousian Post has been nominated in two categories: Smartest blog and best blog by a group. We're quite aware that we are deservedly longshots to win but nevertheless we'd like you to vote for us. Also be sure to vote for Paul Cat's Alive and Young blog whenever possible. The link to the voting can be found here. It does require you to make an account, but they only need an email address so it's not too much trouble. Voting ends tomorrow at noon, so please hurry!

Vote for the Parousian Post!

How to Pass Your College English Class

Paul Cat in this humorous piece gives us helpful advice on how to pass our English classes. I'm sure Emily and Ryan, our two English scholars, would agree. I would only add that his analysis applies not just to English classes but pretty much every class.

Paul Cat on Passing English Courses

Archbishop Charles Chaput: "We Need to End the Death Penalty Now"

From Archbishop Chaput's column: "The death penalty is a bad idea because it diminishes the society that employs it. It doesn’t deter capital crime. It doesn’t bring back the dead. It doesn’t give anyone “peace.” It sometimes kills the innocent. It coarsens our own humanity and sense of justice. And while both Scripture and long Catholic tradition do support the legitimacy of capital punishment in extraordinary cases, the conditions that would justify its use in developed countries like the United States almost never exist."

Ressourcement Resources

The other night I stumbled across the blog la nouvelle théologie. It is an incredible portal to all kinds of great material—from video lectures by luminaries such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Francis Cardinal George to links to the most intriguing new titles by Catholic thinkers. I don't know how these guys manage to dig up all this stuff but I really appreciate their efforts.

Maybe M. Denton or M. Danna could add a permanent link on the righthand sidebar?

Catholic Church Growing in England

Amy Welborn on how immigration is energizing the Catholic Church in England.

Can Abstinence and Contraception Coexist?

That's the question Emily Byers asks in her latest column in the Daily Reveille. I hate to spoil the surprise, but the answer is no (of course, if you know Emily it's not much of a surprise at all, but that's besides the point). Emily defends this by discussing sexuality properly ordered within spirituality, something a recent panelist on the same topic failed to do.

This might be a heated topic, so be sure to check back on Emily's column throughout the day to check the discussion on the Reveille's boards. If you can spare the time, a comment showing support for Emily would be greatly appreciated.

Emily Byers on Abstinence and Contraception.

First Things on Pop Atheism

Good column on it here.

William Cavanaugh talks to Godspy

Go read this interview with theologian William Cavanaugh at Godspy. Cavanaugh has a thorough understanding of Catholic social teaching and a lucid vision for what the Church should be doing in the new millennium. Read the whole thing; it's full of good thoughts.

Portugal seems poised to legalize abortion

Portugal, Ireland, Malta, and Poland are the only remaining countries in the 27-member European Union to have tight restrictions on abortion. Catholic News Agency reports:

Portugal's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates conceded late Feb. 11 that despite his party’s tremendous efforts to grant broader access to abortion in the country, a pro-abortion referendum has failed to pass due to insufficient voter participation.

With nearly all the votes counted, the referendum, which would have legalized abortion for whatever reason, up until the 10th week of pregnancy, had gained 58 percent of the vote.

However, despite a multi-million dollar campaign on the part of the abortion industry and the socialist government, only 44 percent of the country’s 8.9 million registered voters participated. Under Portuguese law, a referendum must involve over half of the country’s registered voters in order to pass.

Socrates, for his part, says he will remain undeterred in his quest to change the law in Portugal. With the failure of his referendum, the prime minister has vowed to legalize abortion by way of parliament, a body over which his Socialist party holds strong control.

I hope my interpretation is wrong, but it seems inevitable.

Screwtape #3: Praying for People

In this letter Screwtape mostly discusses the relationship between the patient and his mother. Before he goes into that however, he mentions trying to convince the patient to take on too much at once. He tells Wormwood, "Keep his mind off the most elementary spiritual duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones." While Lewis keeps this brief because it's very hard to tell precisely what is too advanced for any person at any point in their spiritual journey, it's advice to keep well in mind. This is especially true is there's a habit we're trying to cultivate. So for instance, if we're trying to devote more time to Christ, jumping from no time to a daily Holy Hour might be a bit much. Instead we need to slowly work our way up as we learn how to pray better and can ask for the graces that we need to delve further into the spiritual world.

For the rest of the letter, Screwtape talks about focusing the patient's attentions on the fault of his mother, whom he lives with. Now everyone has faults and things they need prayer for, but Screwtape cleverly twists this need into a perversion that serves his end. He tells Wormwood to use the time of prayer as a time for the patient to focus on the faults of his mother so much that the mother becomes almost a different person:

"Make sure that that they (meaning his prayers) are always very 'spiritual,' that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheutmatism...his attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins...since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some respects, be praying for an imaginary person...you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought of feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's 'soul' to beating and insulting the real wife or son without qualm."

I don't know about you but I find this fairly frightening. It's simple and it takes advantage of prayers to pervert into something horrible. Perhaps the greatest lesson we can take from this is that just because something is meant to be holy, that doesn't mean it can't be made to serve Satan. However, prayer should not be that way. When we pray for God to help other people, we can't be like the Pharisee, in part praying for the other person and in part praising him for making us better than the other guy. We have to keep in mind the goodness that is part of everyone's humanity so that we don't get lost in the sins and lose the person.

So the moral of the letter is to not become so obsessed with the deficiencies of others so much that you can't see the gifts that God has given them.

Next letter: A letter dealing more in depth with prayer

Idiocracy

You may have heard of a film called Office Space directed by Mike Judge. Well, you've probably heard he's got a new movie out called Idiocracy. No? Well, if you haven't heard about this film it's probably because Idiocracy, like Children of Men, was barely promoted by the studio. According to Slate:

Both movies were scandalously underpromoted by the studios releasing them. Judge's film sat on a shelf for two years at Fox before being hacked down to its current 84-minute running time and dumped, unadvertised, into only a few cities on the slowest movie weekend of the year. Children of Men's fate has been slightly less ignominious; it was released nationwide, largely untrumpeted, on Christmas Day, and only this week, after countless critics put the movie on their 10-best lists, has Universal rushed to mount a too-little-too-late push for Oscar consideration.

The burial of Children of Men was lame, but comprehensible. Figuring that few viewers would flock to such an unremitting downer of a film, Universal must have decided to market the movie modestly, hoping at least to break even with attention from art-house audiences. But Fox's choice to withhold Idiocracy even from the markets where it was most likely to find cult viewers—New York? San Francisco?—and to eschew all advertising is simply bewildering. The shrouding of Idiocracy in what amounts to a marketing burqa is especially ironic given that the film's most pointed satire is aimed at the ubiquity of advertising in American life.

Since a common theme of both these movies is the West's inability to make babies, this has Daniel Larison wondering if breeding scares Hollywood. He blogs on the subject here and here.

Anyway, I finally got my hands on a copy of Idiocracy and watched it last night. The plot of the movie is that two Joe Schmoes are frozen as part of an Army experiment and are supposed to be brought out of their capsules in one year. (Well, one of the Joe Schmoes is a prostitute played by Maya Rudolf; the other is a very average soldier played by Luke Wilson.) When the experiment is canceled their capsules are misplaced and aren't opened for another 500 years. By this time, human beings have devolved into a race of morons because elites have stopped having children while only the underclass has continued to breed. Things have gotten so bad that crops will no longer grow because people "water" them with a sports drink--Brawn the "Thirst Mutilator"--reasoning that, after all, "Brawn's got 'lectrolytes."

It's not a great film, but if you want to have a good laugh at evolution-niks, at sophisticated yuppies who refuse to breed (DINKs--double income, no kids), and at our inane, Beavis-n-Butthead, consumerist culture, Idiocracy is your flick.

Screwtape #2: The Church and Conversion

The second letter starts off with the news that Wormwood’s patient has become a Christian. This may be surprising to some as it would seem that Lewis would devote a whole series of letters into deceiving the patient away from Christianity with a conversion as the final defeat of the Lowerarchy. Instead, Lewis devotes only a single letter to the patient’s pre-Christian days. This might have to do with Lewis’s declaration , despite his being a long-time atheist, that atheism was merely “a boy’s philosophy.” But I think that more importantly this decision is influenced by Lewis’s belief that conversion is a life-long process and we are constantly struggling against sin in order to accept Christ. So Lewis chooses to focus on the period right after conversion when the patient is still discovering his faith and when perhaps the truth can most be perverted by Screwtape.

And as Screwtape points out, the period after conversion is a particularly vulnerable stage:

“At bottom, he still believes he has run up a favorable credit-balance in the Enemy’s ledger by allowing himself to be converted…”

That is, the newly converted have a natural vulnerability to self-righteousness. This inflation of pride in the patient coupled with the patient’s inexperience with the Christian community, namely the Church, can be put to the advantage of Screwtape. This is not the “Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners,” but the physical church as seen by the new Christian which would be “the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate.” So Screwtape is attacking here the difference between the idealistic conception of the Church and Christians and the realities. This might be the trivial and silly, that is the difference between the mental images of Christians as wearing togas and sandals as they did in the time of Christ being martyred and the silly woman whose hat is funny-looking and can’t sing on key to the more serious, such as seeing well-known sinners in Church.

Scott Hahn had a similar problem when he was considering entering the Church. He fell in love with the theology of Ratzinger and John Paul II and particularly with Eucharistic theology. He loved the Scriptural basis of the liturgy. However, upon talking with various priests he wasn’t sure, as his wife put it, “that the Catholic Church he believed in still existed” (Rome Sweet Home). That seems to be a mighty trick of the devil. He separates us from the Church by getting us to focus too much on the flawed physical Church and not enough on the invisible Church which Screwtape admits “is a spectacle that makes our boldest tempters uneasy.” Whether it’s the child in the pew in front of us that’s cutting up during the homily or the silliness of some of the congregation, if we become too focused on the physical we miss what’s most important.

Having seen the physical fail to match up to the ideal, a natural period of disappointment follows. This, Screwtape believes, is a key moment in the battle of the soul for both God and Wormwood.

“The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when the boy who had been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His ‘free’ lovers and servants-‘sons’ is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals…If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.”

When in faith and in love and in life we confront the inevitable shortfalls of this imperfect world, the choice is set upon us very clearly. We either declare the shortfall to be indicative of our inability to sustain happiness or we declare the shortfall to be indicative of our inability to sustain happiness outside of the perfect God. If we make the latter choice we will be far stronger than we would if we had not been disappointed. Perhaps this is a partial explanation of why we suffer: it is to teach us this lesson and to demand the difficult choice of us so that we grow more aware of our reliance on God for happiness.

Discussion of Bioethics this sunday

This Sunday Philip deMahy will be presenting on issues of Bioethics, specifically some theological problems concerning ensoulment. The presentation will start at about 8 o'clock on Sunday night at 4463 Tupello St, which is the house of Parousian Ryan Hallford. Directions can be obtained by calling 504-952-0247.

We're okay; we're not okay

I like to bring up old stuff. Like this amusing bit of Cafeteria Catholicism in a post from last week by Gerald of the Cafeteria is Closed. Gerald takes a swing at social justice and whiffs, his main point being that he and other like-minded Catholics aren’t terribly interested in the topic because things are honky dory and there isn’t that much economic injustice in developed countries anyway:

Obviously, capitalism as we have it today is the best economic system around, providing more people than ever before with good lives. Real questions really only arise in details. I think that is why, in the West, this [the Church’s social teaching] is not a big draw to a lot of people.

I was reminded of Gerald’s post this morning when I heard a story on NPR about how mortgage defaults have hit a five-year high despite the economy being relatively robust. At one point in the story someone states that a few years ago brokers were selling as many mortgages as possible not really caring if prospects actually had the ability to pay the loans back. Great.

I didn’t really understand the mortgage market until recently, but learning about it helped me to understand the Church’s teaching and also begin to see how messed up our economic system is. As Wendell Berry says, “an economy firmly founded upon the seven deadly sins and the breaking of all ten of the Ten Commandments.” You take something as personal and significant as a home and then take the loan for that home and ratchet it up all these levels of abstraction until you have a Wall Street broker who is part of a huge investment bank who trades packages of bundled loans trying to spin pennies out of them which eventually add up to billions of dollars for the bank. Do you think this broker spends a lot of time thinking about Sam and Julie and the house on Dogwood Lane where they live with their four kids, their sheltie, and their pet goldfish, or about the struggles of their daily lives? Or are these mere data points which help him to judge risk appropriately and make more money?

I do commend Gerald, at least, for making the effort to read the Compendium of Social Doctrine. I pray that more Catholics will do the same.

Catholic Outreach to Homosexuals

The National Catholic Register continues to drive home the point that the Church must show charity to homosexuals. The editors offer this piece, "Loving Homosexuals", saying, "We Catholics have a tough job ahead of us. As we’ve mentioned before, the task of loving homosexuals in a total and authentic way falls squarely on our shoulders."

In the same issue, Melinda Selmys continues sharing her personal insights in "Evangelizing the Homosexual."

Why God is Father and Not Mother

Mark Brumley writing for Ignatius Insight provides apologetic critique of a faulty feminist trend in viewing God.

Jack Chick Meets John Edwards

The Curt Jester offers a Chick-styled tract endorsing John Edwards entitled "Are Roman Catholics Human?"

A Love for the Ages

Jimmy Akin points out an incredible example of the depth of love between a man and a woman. Be sure to measure your Valentine against this standard.

Pope Gregory XVI, Catholics, and Slavery

Bill Cork provides an incredible post on papal intervention in defense of human dignity and two bishops who tried to dismiss the Pope's wisdon as they offered apologies for the peculiar institution. This is a must read!

Anti-Catholic Bigotry is OK by Presidential Hopeful

Bill Cork offers these words in his critique of bigoted statements by John Edwards' staffers: "This isn’t reasoned criticism of public politics. This is intentionally slap you in the face offensive mocking of what she acknowledges is mainstream Catholicism." Edwards has condemned the statements without firing the staffers.

The Flesh was Willing but the Battery was Weak

A epic Parousian adventure took place tonight between Parousians Toby Danna, Emily Byers, and Michael Denton(that's me). These brave three decided to travel to Lafayette in my Honda Civic to a meeting of the UL chapter of the Parousians so that I could give my famous (or infamous) talk on Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's Life of Christ. The meeting went well as I didn't botch the speech irredeemably and the discussion turned out to be fantastic. So we left the meeting in good spirits. We decided to drive by the convent of the Carmelites, which is not too far off the way back to the interstate. We drove by, looked at the statues for a bit, and then decided to stop at a Gas station/casino for some drinks before hitting the road again.

Our drinks purchased, we got back in the car. I turned the key expecting it to do precisely what it's done since I bought the darn thing: start. It wouldn't. A few prayers and a few more turns of the key produced only the same result. Apparently God wanted to test us on how well we had listened to Sheen and his call to accept suffering as part of the Christian life. Hopefully we passed that test well enough.

However, accepting suffering still left us in Lafayette. So we needed a hero. A superhero if you will. And of course when one is in trouble around Lafayette, who else is there to call but our beloved cassock-wearing patriarch? So a quick call from Emily and a few minutes of being "sketched" out by the lady who kept walking outside to smoke and sorta stare at us and soon our beloved cassock-wearing patriarch, Fr. Bryce Sibley, drove in to the rescue. Except it wasn't our beloved cassock-wearing patriarch that came; it was our beloved car-jumping newly-shaven pajama-wearing patriarch. And of course as he always jump starts our thinking about God he jump started my worthless battery. And so we were off hoping to ride the I-10 on a prayer back to the Red Stick.

But the adventure was not to end there. For not too long after we had been on the interstate we saw a sign warning us that there was an accident 13 miles ahead on the bridge. We had a tough choice. Either we had to drive out of our way to avoid the wreck and hope the battery could last a long time in the middle of rural Louisiana or hope that the car wouldn't stall out while sitting in possibly stopped traffic. We decided to take the longer road. I can make it philosophical and say we took the road less traveled. After a stop at Waffle House for directions (and a very scary moment when the lights dimmed for a moment and seemed to dare us to return to the road), we were off on the winding roads of rural Louisiana. After driving by the farm that I stayed in in the weeks after Katrina struck we got back to 190 while praying the rosary. My car's battery held out thanks to the intercession of St. Raphael and Mary and we arrived safely (yes, even me. Sorry to disappoint). In case you're wondering, I tried after I parked my car, and yep, the battery is still dead.

So thanks to Fr. Sibley for rescuing us from the sketchy gas station and no thanks to Honda.

Mind your manners

I love this post on manners by blogger Dulcinea. Here's an excerpt:

traditions and manners have been scoffed & eschewed in modern society, most notably since the tiresome '60s and '70s. respect, true tolerance borne of acknowledging personal dignity, and the little customs that smooth our casual contact with those at the grocery store, post office gas station, have all been lost. try talking to a check-out clerk: "i'm doing fine, thank you. how are you?" nearly always, their faces relax, sometimes they smile: suddenly they become human, instead of paid slaves doing menial jobs to serve you. it is a striking testimony to how much our actions mean. what we do or do not do affects others. small actions and words can either be an affirmation of personal worth, or can be insulting affronts that can damage the dignity of others in our little worlds.

i noticed, too, how the liberals lack basic social manners. those who have thrown off these traditions as inhibiting your "real" personality are notoriously rude, even vitriolic, with no respect or toleration from anyone who's views differ from their own. they portray a selfish, self-centred philosophy: accept me as i am or deal with it. why should i? we all have rough edges and imperfections that should not be tolerated because they are immature, petty, rude, vicious, and uncivilized. manners are a proof of natural virtue, a sign that we can raise our communications to a level based on the intelligent recognition of basic human dignity--a dignity that has been lost both in mind and in manner.

I think Christians, in word and deed, should come across to others as rather bizarre. To me, this is part of evangelization, to act in a way, not affected but sincere, that makes people say, "What is it about this person that makes him not like everyone else?" In an age when being cynical and sarcastic are the norm, we can stand out by being gentle and sincere. When crudité reigns supreme, we can stand out by being measured in our speech and avoiding coarseness. We should strive not for a false politeness that tolerates what is deplorable in the name of pluralism, but a true politeness that recognizes every person as a unique creation drawn by the finger of God. I think when we go about trying to be suave and to show that we can be just as crude as pagans in an attempt to ward off accusations of prudery, we become little more than write-off Christians. I sometimes find myself falling into this trap. This isn't to say that there isn't room for some good natured bawdiness à la Chaucer or Rabelais.

Goodbye, Norma Jean

Speaking of popular culture...I am pressed on all sides to give an opinion on the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Maybe her downfall had its roots in the lust of an old man, but more likely the roots were much older and deeper, perhaps as old as the history of man. I am reminded of the words of Monsieur le Curé in Georges Bernanos' Journal d'un curé de campagne:

[N]obody can see in advance what one bad thought may have as its consequence. Evil thoughts are like good ones: thousands may be scattered by the wind, or overgrown or dried up by the sun. Only one takes root. The seeds of good and evil are everywhere. Our great misfortune is that human justice always intervenes too late. We only repress or brand the act, without ever being able to go back further than the culprit. But hidden sins poison the air which others breathe, and without such corruption at the source, many a wretched man, tainted unconsciously, would never have become a criminal.

Emily Byers on Ova Trafficking

Parousian Emily Byers draws attention to this important but often overlooked issue in the latest edition of the Daily Reveille and points out the many ways in which this practice harms women.

Emily Byers on Ova Trafficking

Miraculous Conception

Godspy's John Murphy reviews Children of Men.

Reflections on Philippians 4:4-9, With Attention to Apologetics Based on the Transcendentals

Philippians 4:4-9 (Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition)

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forebearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you."

1.) Visible joy and peace radiating from the interior working of grace provides testimony to the goodness and beauty and truth of what God has begun in us. We are the apologetic if we would only be it, but only through prayer and contemplation.

2.) Our inability to be these people of profound peace and radiating joy is frequently linked to the anxiety of being too busy to find that peace, even at times being too busy doing good things for God and neighbor. Our service cannot be disconnected from our Source.

3.) All the whatevers that St. Paul instructs us to think upon are not a call to merely present a reactionary defense. Too often, we can get caught up in presenting the apologetic response without really knowing the things that we are defending. These whatevers St. Paul names are worth contemplating in and of themselves. They should not only be given thought after they are attacked. They are at the core of how we worship God with all our minds.

4.) Thinking on these whatevers means reducing the clutter of our minds. To properly give our attention to these things, other attentions must be lessened, and perhaps in some cases dropped. Much of this clutter is the consumed garbage of pop culture. We should certainly have a discerning eye for the culture, trying to find the redemptive clues in it. But this cannot be a defense for staying in chains to our addictions to it, at worst to its filth and at best to its mediocrity. We should question our reading, viewing, listening, and buying habits : are we consuming this to be informed so we can redeem society, is this just a harmless expression of playfulness that I should keep, is this something keeping me from turning my eyes to the highest things, or is this something that is making me into someone unlike Christ. The answers may be difficult to find, and they will sometimes require sacrifice, but the very questioning itself is a good and higher thing that will draw us closer to Christ.

5.) St. Paul is not afraid to tell his readers to consider his example and imitate it. That act is very humbling as it strips St. Paul of the appearance of being humble, but in this case the love of neighbors in need of example trumps the love of self and the spiritual pride one can take in being thought humble. St. Paul's life, as well as the lives of all the saints, can be viewed as apologetics reflecting the transcendent goodness, beauty, and truth of God. Our attention to the lives of the saints will aid in shaping our lives to conform to the image of Christ. As we move towards that holiness, we must also invite the world to imitate us, if not in our holiness, then at least in our struggle for it. For bad Catholics and honest scoundrels like we are apt to be, we can have a reasonable hope that the world will see the beauty and goodness of an underdog, seemingly outmatched pursuing a most beautiful and noble cause, hopeful nonetheless. So let us cast down smugness and self-righteousness, fears of being found out, and admit that the Christian life is hard, that we are not the best followers but we are following the best of the ages in the saints of old, the best of our lifetime in John Paul the Great and Mother Teresa and now in our Holy Father Pope Benedict, that we are being shaped by holy priests and consecrated persons and holy lay people, that as bad as we can be we will not give up hope that we will be like these radiant souls and that our neighbor can also. And as we learn their examples, contemplate them, confess them, we will imitate the saints in their imitation of Christ more closely.

Archbishop Jose Gomez on Confirmation

The Sacrament of Christian Maturity.

Bishop Robert Finn on the Consecrated Life

Celebrate the gift and vocation of the consecrated life.

Dare to Love

Pope Benedict XVI's message to youth.

Archbishop Jose Gomez on Cultural Apologetics

Amy Welborn has posted Archbishop Gomez's recent address to the Conference of the New Evangelization of America. His words find home in the heart of the Parousians, especially in light of Father Bryce Sibley's challenge to us to seek an apologetic based on the transcendentals of goodness and beauty.

Father Julian Carron on the Fundamental Need in Catechesis Today

Matthew Fish publishes an excerpt from Traces.

Our excerpt of his excerpt:

"It needs the presence of another man. It needs the Mystery to have become flesh. In Christ, concepts that were abstract become flesh and blood. This unheard-of realism, this involvement with the Mystery, is the only possible way of being saved. No reduction of Christianity to something merely spiritual or to ethics is enough to arouse people... Christ is contemporary to man by means of the Church. His Body is the tangible and historical sign, which carries the Mystery in its womb."

Haggard, Globalization, Islam, Catholics, Mexicans

Mark Shea critiques a deep error in the new American evangelical subculture, most clearly expressed by the disgraced former president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Hunger Strike, MIT, Stem Cells, Racism, Chomsky

Mark Shea on a story of interest to pro-lifers with a whole bunch of strange bedfellows.

Beth Reed is Doing Better

Thanks to all of you praying for Joey and Beth Reed yesterday. Beth got out of surgery yesterday, woke up and talked to Joey with some improved speech, held his hand, and ate some food. She was breathing on her own. All of this is different from the last brain surgery Beth had, where the recovery from the surgery was much longer and harder. She's not out of the woods, so please keep her in your prayers.

2nd 1st Anniversary Party

The Parousians were granted a radio interview with 1590 KKAY on David Dawson's Around the Parish which will air sometime between 11AM and 3 PM. If you'd like to find some online information about it, check here:

Catholic Community Radio

Now, there's an interesting story with this. We did the interview last Sunday the same day of the Parousians anniversary party, so we told him that we would be celebrating our 1st anniversary at O'Charley's later on that night. You might be able to see the problem. The interview, now taped delayed until tomorrow, will have us claiming that we will celebrate at O'Charley's that night. So it seemed that the radio interview would make a liar out of us until we decided that we uphold the standard of truth and indeed celebrate our 1st anniversary at O'Charley's the night of the interview. So tomorrow night we will meet at Christ the King parish after Student Mass (so about 9-9:15) and then we will head to O'Charley's to celebrate our second 1st anniversary party.

It will not simply be a joyful romp however. In true Parousians style we have a discussion lined up. Those of you who attended the 1st 1st Anniversary Party heard Fr. Bryce Sibley talk about the difficulties of dealing with postmodernists who have disavowed reason. Fr. Sibley proposed using truth and beauty as alternate lens to show these people Christ if they refuse to look through reason. We will be honored to have Fr. John Carville joining us for this discussion so it should be a great evening.

Martyrs and Fools Attend!

Text and podcast from Father Philip Powell, O.P. on the wisdom of losing one's life.

Flannery O'Connor's Christ Haunted South

Following a link from Godspy,, this New York Times travel essay by Lawrence Downes on his pilgrimage to O'Connor's home provides an interesting take on the author's mythos.

From the article:

"O’Connor’s short stories and novels are set in a rural South where people know their places, mind their manners and do horrible things to one another. It’s a place that somehow hovers outside of time, where both the New Deal and the New Testament feel like recent history. It’s soaked in violence and humor, in sin and in God. He may have fled the modern world, but in O’Connor’s he sticks around, in the sun hanging over the tree line, in the trees and farm beasts, and in the characters who roost in the memory like gargoyles. It’s a land haunted by Christ — not your friendly hug-me Jesus, but a ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of the mind, pursuing the unwilling."

Rethinking St. Augustine and St. Monica

Mike Aquilina on their farewell at Ostia and its implications on ecclesiology.

Virgin of the Blessed Thunder Candle

The Shrine of the Holy Whapping discovers one of Our Lady's most amazing titles.

Poet's Obligation

Mark Shea's analysis of an excellent poem by Pablo Neruda on the role of the poet in society.

Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles Opposes Government Funding of Catholic Schools

Our friend Bill Cork analyzes the reasoning. This debate, which can be extended in principle to most government aided faith based initiatives, is not an easy one. Is the mission of the Church helped or hindered by the funding?

Witnessing Marriage as Sign, and Prayers for Beth Reed

Beth Reed is in surgery as I am writing this, having the brain tumor that rendered her deaf removed. I spoke to Joey Reed a few minutes ago, and he tells me so far so good, and that he's not certain how long the surgery will take. Please pray for her as the day unfolds.

Michael Denton and I went out to Ville Platte to visit Joey and Beth at his parents' home on Saturday night. Michael was taken by the joy Joey and Beth displayed even with today's struggle impending, even after everything they have been through. Joey is 24, Beth is 22, and they have only been married a year and a half. Beth's illness became obvious after their first anniversary. Many people might be tempted to say I did not sign up for this, forgetting some of the tougher words of their vows. Beth and Joey are steadfast.

What Beth gives to Joey defies description. She is not passively being cared for. Her rehabilitation has been long and difficult, but her persistence has been doubly strong, flowing from both her own tenacity and her desire to love her husband with all her strength. Beth is courageous, answering every doubt with the steady confidence of faith. She knows God's hand is at work in her and through her.

And Joey is doing everything that the good man hopes he will do if ever faced with such circumstances, everything that the humble man fears he might not do. His tenderness in taking care of Beth as she cannot care for herself reveals a sacrificial love deeper than any I have ever seen.

Forget your books by Scott Hahn or Peter Kreeft - they have their value surely, but they are only books. Marriage is a sacrament, a sign of both the love of Christ for his Church and the love exchanged freely and completely between the Persons of the Trinity. It is both a means of salvation for the married couple and a signpost to an unbelieving world of the beauty and goodness of God. I promise that the best work of apologetics that I know is Joey and Beth.

I saw Joey spoon feeding Beth at Touro right after a priest had delivered the Eucharist to her. After a few spoonfuls, Joey realized the Host was stuck to the roof of her mouth and covered in yogurt. He carefully scraped it out and consumed it, going right back to feeding her. The other night, Joey helped Beth move from a chair to a couch across the room. I am used to him carrying her, but on Saturday night, they glided across the floor, moving sideways slowly, Joey holding her up as if they were dancing. What incredible joy on both of their faces to show this progress, that they had accomplished it together.

Joey told me a story of profound peace he experienced. Beth had not been inside of a Church in months when she left rehab at Touro. Joey carried her into St. Anthony in Eunice one afternoon, laid her down in front of the altar, and prayed offering the both of them completely to Christ, praying for the healing she needs however God would will it, praying for grace to carry on in the meanwhile.

Beth Reed was a dancer at Eunice High School. She was a stunning bride on her wedding day, and always easy on the eyes. She was pretty feisty and independent. While she is still very mentally sharp, sharper than most of us, her hearing is gone, her speech is slow, her mobility is impaired, her dancer's build is gone as her body shows the wear and tear of illness, and she is in many ways dependent on Joey.

And I insist she is more beautiful now than she was on her wedding day.

She is more physically beautiful than on her wedding day because she is not a ghost of herself; rather she is body and soul, and in her body she is revealing the splendor of the Church's beauty, offering everything she has to God and Joey and accepting the love they give her. Likewise Joey is becoming more beautiful in spite of some signs of growing up too soon. His fatigue is evident, but it cannot overshadow the joy in his face - joy that emanates from the opportunity to love more. He is becoming Christ to her, because of her wounds he is taking wounds upon himself.

This is the beauty of sacramental marriage, and because it is sacramental it is necessarily spiritual and physical beauty in union - we are not gnostics attempting to divide the two - meant to be seen and witnessed as a signpost by a world with cheap notions of love and beauty, a culture scowling at notions of sacrifice and grace.

Michael and I have read the signs. Michael says he will pray considering Joey and Beth's example, preparing his will if similar circumstances affect him one day. I realize that all the trappings of an ideal marriage have been stripped away from my friends, and what really matters is all that remains, remaining in abundance. For those of us who hope to marry one day, these are the things that really matter: will we choose to love a person in this way, can we find someone who will best love us , can we look past the trappings and ornamentation of what we have been taught marriage means to find a sacramental vision for marriage, will we be frustrated with God for not giving us what we want instead of being content with the graces he has given us, and can we possess a Marian acceptance of whatever God allows.

Pray for your future spouse that you may choose each other for the best reasons, pray that you may become a person whose heart has been made ready for the sacrament, pray and ask if God might have a higher calling for you to accept instead, but don't be preoccupied with it. For now, you are single and it is God's gift to you in this moment. No one is pushing for you to make defining choice in life today. On the other hand, Beth Reed has a pressing need for your prayers today. So does Joey. Please be vigilant for their sake.

Screwtape Letter I: Reason and Ordinariness in Evangelization

About a week ago, Parousian Amanda Pendleton and I had an hour long talk with Eric Freeman about abortion. If you don’t remember Eric, Eric wrote one of the two letters to the Daily Reveille criticizing Emily Byers for her column against abortion. Amanda and I talked to Eric for a while, tag-teaming on the pro-life position. Most of the argument centered on either of us trying to force Eric to give a definition of when humans had rights, something he was very reluctant to do. At the end of the discussion he left without conceding the foolishness of his position. In fact, I would say he left in nearly the same state of mind as he did when he walked up to the Students for Life table.

Similarly, I’ve been thinking about the final scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In that scene, Jefferson Smith collapses after giving a long and impassioned filibuster speech about the need for idealism and honesty in government. When he falls to the ground, no one seems to have been swayed and Mr. Smith seems destined to simply be dragged out of the Senate having wasted a lot of time.

Disregarding the end of the movie right after he falls, the question came to my mind, and it came again after the talk with Eric: was it worth it? Was it just another lost cause? If we don’t succeed in convincing people about the truth, then was it worth it? Have we really done any good or have we simply frittered away an hour of time with little more than a good story to tell our friends afterwards?

C.S. Lewis thinks we’ve done something worthwhile when we argue. Lewis has convinced a lot of people through his works of the truth so if anyone should place a high value on convincing, it would be him. But he doesn’t. Instead he has Screwtape in the first letter warn Wormwood against utilizing too much reason in his patient:

“Even a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences.”

That is, when we argue we force the people we’re arguing with to resort to reason. We force them to think about it. God, as “Logos” which means not only the “Word” but also “reason” and “logic,” then has the advantage. All logic points back to the truth. It might take a while and likely won’t happen immediately but we plant a seed that gives the turf back to Christ.

Screwtape then wants to avoid reason at all costs. So he advises Wormwood to push forth ideas not based on their internal merits but on their popularity:

“Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous- that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.”

You have probably run across this mindset. People want to be on the winning side and may not care so much for truth. As a sports fan, I see this a lot with the “bandwagon” mentality commonly shared by all sportswriters. But I heard it even in abortion arguments: “it’s not going to be overturned, so why bother about it?” People see a side as winning and so accept it as truth. In a larger scale, this might be behind the whole “progress idea.” People assume that because an idea is dominate or will be dominate that it must be truth.

So how do we contradict this? All of a sudden we seem to lose the power of reason to persuade. Fr. Sibley recommended using beauty and goodness when we lost reason as an evangelization tool, but the Screwtapes can easily say “look at the modern definition of beauty in that art museum” and “Mother Teresa can’t stem the tide of the poor. Most people are deciding to live for themselves anyway.”

I don’t have an easy answer. The simplest one would seem to try to make the argument that our side is the one that’s winning. I heard this at the March for Life last month as the speakers mentioned more than a few times that the younger generations are more pro-life and so will be the wave for the future. That might win us a few converts, but would they be real converts? Or have we simply played them more deeply into Screwtape’s trap so that when the tide turns we will have lost them again?

The best I can come up with (and that is a far cry from the best answer) is to try to challenge the mindset of “who will win.” Showing the mistakes that seem to have won out in the past only to have been reversed might show them at least that who’s winning now might not win it all. Think of the Bears tonight after the kickoff. They were winning but they didn’t take home Lombardi (Sorry, Angela). I don’t know if that method can win a conversion by itself but it may mess up Screwtape’s trap enough so that other methods of evangelization can succeed.

The other method Screwtape tells Wormwood to use to avoid reason is ordinariness and procrastination. He recounts a patient he had who once began to lean towards God yet didn’t go all the way. Screwtape managed to convince his patient that the thoughts he was having were too important before lunch and needed to be thought about later. Once out in the street, the ordinariness of the scene contrasted with the great beauty the patient had been contemplating before Screwtape’s interference convinced the patient that he had been foolish. Screwtape says,

“…they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things.”

The first lesson for us is to seize the moment when we have the chance. We may have a small window of time to succeed and we need to take. The second is the importance of the Parousian mission. It is against this mindset of Screwtape that finding grace in all things and the sacramental vision become so critical. If we can show people to find the unfamiliar in the familiar then we will have come a long way in rescuing people from Screwtape’s grasp. In fact, that might be part of the reason Christ himself came among us. Screwtape complains to Wormwood:

“Remember, he is not, like you a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh, that abominable advantage of the Enemy’s!) you don’t realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.”

God was already reason and already has that advantage. In order to claim the ordinariness of the world, he came to a rather ordinary peasant girl and made her extraordinary and took an ordinary body and made it the body of God. Now what we have to do is to utilize reason and ordinariness knowing that they both can be used to point towards God.

Next Letter: Screwtape discusses the Church