Safe Haven

I just wanted to watch Star Trek all day. [You do that every day.--ed.] I watched a 'TNG' episode right before I went to bed. I thought about "Unification" (where an aged Spock engages in overtures to peace with the Romulans, against the wishes of the Federation) but it's too soon. I didn't feel this sad when James Doohan died. I didn't feel this sad when DeForest Kelley died. It was denial, maybe. I think we know that Shatner doesn't have too terribly long, and that, when the last of those three goes to his rest, something will be very different. I also think Nimoy as Spock spoke to the marginalized, and that's why it hurts. Data was Spock with a twist. Tuvok is Spock with another. I think Nimoy made it OK to talk about religion and the culture it creates in Star Trek. Let's face it: Roddenberry's vision undistilled is absurd; it's an optimistic secularism that has never actually existed, and it never will. That's why they to...

What can you say? He was defined by a role, but he defined it. He played the character that ended up being the driving dramatic force behind a cultural touchstone. All an actor wants to do, if he's really passionate about his craft, is make enough money to begin to tell the stories that matter. Leonard Nimoy did that. I think I can understand his ambivalence about being Spock, but then again, Star Trek is much bigger and greater than it appears, and he knew that. The greatness of Spock was what you might call the interior life of the character. You have to wonder how much of that mystique was driven forward by his own reflection on the experience of being Jewish. I still say that Spock's death scene in The Wrath of Khan is one of the greatest visual portrayals of the gospel, encapsulated in John 15:13, that I have ever seen. "Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends." One of the things I appreciate about his acting, in really ...

I was praying the Rosary just a bit ago, and I had an insight I'd like to share. I've been drawn to the Sorrowful Mysteries ever since I began to pray the Rosary. You may recall that they culminate in Our Lord's death on the cross. I wondered at it many times, but as wise people have told me repeatedly, if you feel led to do a thing, just do it. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. My heart kept coming back to this. Each suffering Jesus endured was absurd in its flagrant injustice, its obvious unfittingness. Yet He prayed this to the Father through each one. We know that all of it was the will of God. It doesn't change the evil of what was and is suffered, but it contextualizes it into a much greater whole. I have no idea what these present sufferings are about in themselves. None at all. And if I'm being frank about it, I want them to end. Still, if this is like that,  I don't hope for a greater good; I am absolutely certain of it. From the one man's tre...

I decided recently that the only news I'm going to watch is the PBS NewsHour. Honestly, it was probably fueled by nostalgia for my childhood, watching the show in the late '80s and early '90s. But I was talking with my mom the other day, and I realized I didn't want to be told what to think, or who to be mad at, or about things either that I cannot control in any way, or that don't matter. In other news tonight, Jim Lehrer--who admittedly doesn't host the show anymore--is probably better than you or me, at the news, or in general. It's just a guess, but he seems like a very honest dude. I do recall that the best presidential debate nearly every time is the one he moderates. We gotta keep these old guys with us as long as we can; we've lost our way; maybe they can help us. Confirmation Sponsor Guy would love the whole ethos of PBS: It's an entire network--in theory, if not in fact--that exists for the common good.

This is a thing.

Man alive, this Douthat guy crushes it again. He's the only guy saving the NYT from complete irrelevance.

This.

Eager young Johnny Baptist is eager to get out there and convert those Catholics! It's not new. The Church is not trembling, waiting for you to appear. I'm sorry to ruin your fun. We really aren't just dazzled by the incense. In obedience to Christ and the Church, we hold that Luther and the others were wrong, gravely wrong. We affirm in full the Council of Trent.  Sessions 5-7 are the most relevant. Read it all in those parts. Good times. You are perfectly free (in a certain sense) to believe they were wrong, but that brings up continuity problems that no one indebted to the Reformation is fully prepared to accept, given that you "don't wan't to throw the baby out with the bathwater," or some such. There's more bathwater than you realized. [Er, baby.--ed.] If Trent is wrong, someone could easily say Nicea was wrong, or Chalcedon. This is what "councils may err" fully implies. I also realize that there is a rhetorical and emotional need to ...

It was a post about how dating/courting in a Christian context is dangerous, and it should be, because the man should prove his worth, and [long line of military analogies]. It was awful. Not that the intent was bad. But 1) women are not "conquered"; 2. seriously, what is it with Reformed guys and violence/war? 3. we need to have a serious talk about this alleged "complementarianism"; and 4. this is why we can't have nice things. OK, this is really only 2 points. Most of you seriously need to CHILL OUT. Which doesn't mean that a father is uninvolved. But here's the key point: if you have to short-circuit a romance for your daughter's sake, you have already failed as a father. It's far too late. Or, you have allowed the first stirrings of romance to happen WAY too early. In either case, I highly doubt she'll thank you later. She will say that you're a domineering control-freak, and she might be right. My main point here is, "cas...

I just saw a video of a guy who shot an armed robber in a drugstore. The robber is dead. I think it's reasonable to expect that there may be times when an average citizen has to defend innocent people with deadly force, or at least the threat of it. Still, one disturbing aspect of the "culture of vigilance," let's call it, frankly, is all the dead bodies. Call me a hippie, but I want armed robbers doing 10 years, and dedicating themselves to the same Christ whom the man says carried him through the incident, not dead. I believe we possess the right to keep and bear arms. I also believe, however, that we should work tirelessly toward a society where there is no need to exercise that right in self-defense.

In a thread about the importance of church attendance hosted by everyone's favorite frank Baptist, Tim Dukeman, Gregory Shane Morris had this shocking attack of good sense: Gregory Shane Morris   If you are depriving yourself and your family of duly constituted sacraments and ecclesial authority, you can claim no promises from God, since you are starving yourself of His appointed nourishment and covenant signs. Hanging on to the Ark by a rope is not a legitimate option. Salvation is inside. He's obviously right, of course. Only one problem: he's spiritually descended from the guys who rejected  "duly constituted sacraments" and "ecclesial authority." This is what every (good) Catholic from here to there knows, and will point out. No, we're not going to let it go, because it is  salvation for us, and for the world. You aren't Catholic because...?

To follow up on some comments in yesterday's post, I don't suppose one has to account for the ancient Church, if one simply equivocates on the term. If one assumes a fundamentally invisible Church, one could be referencing any one set of people at any time. Sure, it's begging the question with respect to the Catholic Church, since the Catholic Church holds to a fundamentally visible Church (and that she is that Church).* By the way, the argument is not, "Submit to the pope, because he says so!" It is, "The Catholic Church's claim to universal jurisdiction over all Christians flows from its being continuous and synonymous with the ancient Church." If I had only the word of Pope Francis and my beloved Archbishop, without any reason, no one would be Catholic, least of all me. But as I wrote before, Petrine primacy, apostolic succession, and transubstantiation of the Eucharist are fairly easily established. At that point, there are two things I canno...

I don't like it. There is no point in lying. I hate giving up things. I don't like the Cross--even a tiny sliver of it--any more than anybody else does. The truth of the matter is that I am pretty decadent, when we get right down to it. I was trying to think of an analogy. How do I experience God's mercy and justice? I'm a bit like the Israelites, who betrayed the Lord while waiting for Moses. When I say that I like wicked sinners, it's not piety; it's equal parts holy love, and flat-out recognition. I experience the call to conversion and repentance like a voice from another world, as if there are two of me, and only one will respond. I know that my better self will find holy joy as these days pass; this other me is only grudgingly on board with this thing. That's just the way it is. I do know that I will cry on Maundy Thursday, as the Lord is removed from the tabernacle, and no Mass is celebrated until the Easter Vigil. It's a great suffering, an...

There are consequences to definitions . In the case of the Reformation, changing the meaning of "apostolic." In fact, every one of the 4 marks was changed by someone, and we reap the unhappy fruits.

And I wondered if anybody saw what I saw. I saw people doing what they do, maybe hoping and needing something they can't articulate. People laugh, people cry, or they stuff whatever it is down inside, maybe even without intending it. There was a hunger today; I saw it everywhere; I saw it in myself. Until my phone rang, I thought I'd be at home, dodging who knows how many flaming arrows. People often lament for others on this day, those who are not "in love," whatever that means. They take it upon themselves to remind others that these lonely ones are out here, and are people too. That's nice, I suppose. It's a little patronizing and self-defeating, however, since the plain fact is that your own erotic success isn't solving that existential hunger. I realized somehow that I didn't really need  the mildly amusing film, or the tub of popcorn, or in any final sense, the friend who called. I needed God, who made the friend, the popcorn, the idea of a s...

I'm listening.  For the record, if JP II has a "New Feminism," I'm open to changing my definition. And just so we are clear, I don't define it so starkly because I'm threatened by strong, smart women! Ha! Where is one? I'll marry her. I define it that way because feminism is a zero-sum game, where no one is happy. It proceeds from a false assumption or two actually: 1. That happiness is achievable in this world, with only things that exist here; and 2. Men keep us from achieving it, and we don't need them. There is systematic de-valuation of female personhood, extending to every aspect of human life. It's not an imbalance of power; it's a perversion of ends. Jesus Christ has all power and authority, and what did He do? He willingly died at the hands of his enemies to bring us to the Father. Stew on that for a while.

There comes a moment in the life of every semi-mature Catholic when he realizes that his accounting of sin reveals a horrifying truth: He does not lack knowledge, but love. He sees the choice before him, and quite frankly, holiness doesn't look that good. We pray, "Lord, increase our love, our charity," because there is nothing else we really need. We are not ignorant; we are those for whom apparent goods pull stronger than real ones. Lord, have mercy!

Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds won another Grammy for Best R&B Album for his collaborative concept album with Toni Braxton, "Love, Marriage, And Divorce." It's sad. But it's smooth, man. Toni hasn't lost anything. And with Babyface, you know what you're going to get: clean, chorus-driven pop that has at least as a 41.7 percent chance of being a game-changing song in any one case. I know it was a hipster Grammy, but you can't go wrong with Babyface. I think we're in a sentimental, romantic mood these days, as evidenced by the rise of John Legend, and that's fine by me. In 2008, Usher did a song called, "Here I Stand," a deeply romantic ballad about permanence. They didn't even release it as a single, and it hit the top 20 because of radio airplay. Record labels, take note.

I hate that song by Hozier. It's straight-up pagan. Here are the lyrics . [You like "Locked Out Of Heaven"!--ed.] Probably better said that its appeal is understandable. Anyway, I'm not going to support that. No wonder this song is so popular! [This culture wants sex like Big Macs.--ed.] All the while, not having real sex. Isn't that weird? That's weird, and stupid.

Because the social doctrine is so cool. When we understand its fundamental principles, when we have a baseline anthropology that explains why we are here, and our destiny, it's easier to sense where he is coming from. Most people's basic theological methodology is, "Is this infallible?" and if it isn't, they ignore it, rather than saying, "How might the social doctrine be applied prudently in this situation?" One of the other unique things about our pope is his native country. When we factor that in, and when I listen with my political ears (not my ideology), he becomes perfectly intelligible (and reasonable). The Catholic Church never cedes that there is any field of human life that is untouched by the gospel she is tasked with proclaiming. If you are waiting for her to butt out, you'll be waiting a long time. Direct jurisdiction and expertise is another matter, but if we are Catholic, we accept the anthropological vantage-point of the Church, a...