Safe Haven

I had a friend who posted something about Eucharistic Adoration. This is by far the weirdest (Western) Catholic thing. Because the consecrated Host is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Father's dearly beloved Son, we worship Him. The whole matter is a yes/no question: it's either the most salutary thing you can do, other than perhaps Mass, or it is idolatry. There is no middle ground. The unique challenge of being confronted with the Catholic Church's claim to be the Church Christ founded, the one to which we are bound as children to their mother, is that you actually have to consider whether it's true. The dice are  loaded, in the sense that to challenge the claim with some prior hermeneutic, which by the Church's own admission it would and could never satisfy, is begging the question. If a man is convinced by Scripture and by reason that the claim cannot be true, he has not actually considered it, if it be a prior decision. In a certain sense, intellect...

She's not pro-life, and by that, I mean she believes in exceptions. In a certain sense, there is no point in being anti-abortion at all, if you fundamentally don't understand why it's morally unacceptable. The center of the question is whether the fetus is a person. If she is, you can't kill her at any stage. If she isn't, there's nothing regrettable and tragic about it at all. All this Serious Talk about limiting abortion is just noise, if we do not contend with the central question. You have the power to do what you will with your own body and life, but you do not have the right to destroy someone else's. That's pretty simple. People are fond of cluttering it up with emotional appeals to other ideals, etc. but it's not hard, ethically. I'll work with anyone to limit abortion, but understand that I do so with the ultimate goal of removing this stain from the conscience of America, by never again permitting the death of these innocents at our...

That's the theme for today. We all fail, and often worse than we'd imagine on better days, in better times. But we know that the love of Christ is stretching out toward us, His pierced hand meeting ours at just the time when we have nearly given up. Right now, you may think you are the worst person who has ever lived. Suppose you are. And now realize that Christ died for you, and He would do it again. May I never speak to anyone without knowing this, that deep heart-knowing that makes us children.

It can be argued that what belongs to what Catholics call "Sacred Tradition" are traditions of men. In fact, people argue this all the time. The polemics are not new. However, an important step in the process of accepting divine revelation is the ability to distinguish in a principled way between divine revelation, and human opinion. When a Catholic apologist says, "Sola Scriptura collapses into Solo Scriptura," what he's saying is, "There is no principled way to distinguish between divine revelation, and human opinion." Revelation is received. It is intrinsic to the purpose of the human person to receive revelation as the beginning of communion with God, his or her ultimate end. If he cannot distinguish between revelation and human opinion in his own hermeneutical process, by what means will he judge that the Catholic Church has adopted traditions of men, against God's word? It's no doubt appealing to say, "We're all sinners,...

I may be a little bit excited for the Federer-Djokovic match this afternoon. Roger Federer has no real pressure, beyond what he puts on himself. If he loses, there is no shame. He's still the greatest of all time. Were he to win, his legend would grow even beyond its bounds now. I have never seen anything like this in sports. This would be like if a 44-year-old Muhammad Ali knocked out Mike Tyson in 1986. Actually, no, that doesn't quite get it; no one would think a Federer victory is a shocking upset. But if an old Ali kept legitimately fighting for the world title, if he inspired fear and respect from his younger opponents, and not simply respect, you'd get an idea of what we're seeing with Federer. This will be the 27th time Federer plays in the championship match of a 128-person, single-elimination major tournament. He's won 17; he's lost 9. If Djokovic wins, he'll have the same number of wins as Federer has losses. You have to beat 6 other men just to...