Safe Haven

It didn't take long, but many observers began to think that the revised paragraph CCC, 2267 was ambiguous. There is some talk of asking for clarification in some official capacity. If something could be read in continuity with the tradition, or it could be read in discontinuity, the most charitable and sensible thing is to read it in continuity. Sensible, because a radical discontinuity is in many respects impossible, and charitable, because it's reasonable to think that the pope, whoever he is, wants both continuity and clarity. I think it would be reasonable to say, "This or that wording might be better, because..." but I cannot help but be concerned when the first reaction to something like this is suspicion and fear. One thing at a time: "What do I understand the teaching to have been? Do I need to look more extensively at things previously offered? Do I understand what is being said now? What are major key terms used? Are they similar in meaning/intent to ...

I have not been able so far to give this book the attention it deserves, but now I'm ready. At present, I am re-reading both the Introduction and the first chapter, and I've been looking things up. When I am ready, you'll get my summaries with questions, comments, and wider reflections. Once more, I take the posture of a student to a teacher. I saw him at a recent conference with Professor Cross, but Deneen was practicing what he's been preaching, and joined one of his children at an event, so I didn't get to introduce myself. I can say that what he's arguing is deeply resonant with my own experience, my own biography, and my sense as a person with a profound disability that the anthropology of our whole world order is wrong. Someone offered a blurb on the back that this book would have something to challenge both sides of our political culture, so to speak. I suppose that's true. But I come to this book having largely removed myself from politics, at leas...

Firstly, I want to thank Dr. Prior for the privilege of reading an advance copy of this her new book. If it is even secondarily offered as an invitation to read many of these great books, then it succeeds wildly. I kept reflecting on what sort of phrase I could use to describe this book. Finally, it came to me and it never left: this book is a meditation on the virtues. Calling it a meditation on the virtues sounds kind of heavy, and it obscures a certain friendly and unobtrusive tone that this work possesses. Although we've never met personally, I felt like I was talking to Karen about these books, or that I was a student in one of her classes. The premise of this work seems to be that in reading the great books and in contemplating their characters, we learn a little more about ourselves, and what it means to be human. If this is the principal goal of the work, it succeeds beyond what I suppose the author imagines, based upon the few notes of self-assessment she provides. Given...

You haven't practiced much religion, have you? Why would I use a crutch that weighs a ton? A mobility device is supposed to help. I have some experience here, as you may or may not know. [But it provides meaning, doesn't it?--ed.] Sure, but it's not intelligible from outside itself. Religion--let's just say "Christianity" to save time--doesn't help to live this life at all. What the truth revealed in Jesus Christ will do is transform how you see ordinary things. Two guys walking and talking. Picture this, now. "I can't believe it, but he said that horrible accident was the best thing that's ever happened to him!" "Well, he got religion, so." "Yeah. He's nuts. Still, I've never seen him so happy." Now, I ask you, what changed? The experiences and things in the world didn't. The people didn't change, at least by normal appearances. The man's relationship to the things in his life changed. ...

I was asked by a reader to compare notions of justification--the state of being in right relationship to God--across the Catholic-Protestant divide. I'm going to try to keep it as simple as I can, and I don't want to spend hours wading through sources and footnotes, but, by all means, if I make a mistake, let me know. It's somewhat erroneous to simplify the debate to "Faith Alone" versus "Faith plus works." Indeed, that formulation is a very Protestant way of framing the question. There is an absolute supremacy of grace in Catholic theology, so much so that we agree that man is not able to save himself by his own effort. The absolute point of departure between Catholics and Protestants is the fall of mankind, and its aftermath. For the original Protestants, man's nature has become completely corrupt. Man has lost innocence and right standing before God, such that he can't even properly desire what he lost. Indeed, the classical Protestant acc...

Something touched me here . It just did, and now we have to talk about it. First off, as you read, shut off that part of yourself that needs to punch holes, to correct, and to minimize. It's always something. I'm an orthodox Catholic; you can imagine I have a few things to leave at the door, if I want to enter in with any kind of empathy. In some ways, I'm the literal worst person to do this. "Fervent," "zealous," maybe even "unyielding" might be words people use to describe me. I cannot understand myself without God. There is no me, in fact. This reality uneasily coexists with the fact of my weakness, failure, and hypocrisy, but I suppose this isn't news. I'm a personality that is certain, and in most things. There was once a man I was friends with, and I told him I really loved the David Horowitz memoir, "Radical Son." He said he didn't like its "conversionist" aspect. I get it; people like me and Horowitz ch...

You probably don't have any idea how horrible divorce really is, for a child. One slogan we hear is kind of true: "Kids are resilient." It's kind of true, because children are often amazingly courageous and loving, many times. The real question is, "How courageous do you want to force your children to be?" I read a thing the other day on that site Scary Mommy. This woman said she had a B+ marriage, but told her husband to try something exciting. He said no. It came out that he was resenting being controlled, and he'd finally had enough. They divorced. This woman inflicted carnage and suffering on the world over a "B+". And apparently, she's so controlling that a little conversation about trying a dance class erupted into this ending. They're still friends. How precious! Get back together, you scumbags. If you love your kids at all. If you were dumb enough to get "re-married," break that off, if at all possible. I'm not k...

I'm really pro-life. And by "really," I mean that when someone says, "If you were really pro-life, you would..." my response is, "OK, let's talk about that." If you're out on the sidewalks praying the Rosary, counseling, working in a crisis pregnancy center, none of this criticism applies to you. I see whataboutism all over the place, to the effect that because "The Left" supports abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc, then every moral criticism of Right-leaning political engagement is invalid. Worse still, some of us have effectively or explicitly decided that our alleged blind spots on other issues aren't really blind spots at all. Some of us have decided that inconsistency on one point renders all other moral judgments suspect. In fact, people on our side love to do this, because it deflects attention from immoralities we have tolerated, or explicitly endorsed. Well, to be blunt about it, just because we're putatively in ...

A friend was saying he found some Catholic church at the "Pride" parade who in effect described themselves as Catholicism without all the meddlesome rules. As a note off the top, I won't belabor the point on homosexuality , because my views aren't hard to find or understand. What about rules? On the one hand, a religion that subsists entirely in its rules is not from God. Revealed truth as we know it comes from a God whose very being is Love. On the other hand, rules in fact are a means to an end. The end is everlasting communion with God. We know from our own experience that a parent that gives his or her children no rules is deficient in love. Still, we don't want to push the analogy too far. Providence--God's ordering of everything--is too big for us, and we end up speculating dangerously (and doing a fair amount of complaining) instead of humbly seeking. In any case, rules can be a problem if we ignore them, or if we make them an end, instead of a mea...

Again, to the extent that family separation is happening at all, it should not be happening. If a progressive says this, they're right. Let me repeat: if a progressive says this, they're right. What you, O "Conservative," must decide is whether you want to feel superior, or whether you want to build a society worth living in. I'm 38 now. My rage against the Democrats and their galling hypocrisies is far spent. I had my twenties and half my thirties to be angry to little effect. What "whataboutism" does is blind us to the holes in our anthropology. We can't learn whilst scoring points. If I turn to "liberal" issues, it's because they're in front of me. I don't need to repeat things I've already said. No effort to stop prison rape, or to save spotted owls, or curb carbon emissions, either explicitly or implicitly, signifies that I have changed my position on anything else. Take a moment to actually digest that. I supported...

I don't know why this is hard. Apparently, we have to say this. It's also ridiculous and indefensible to treat asylum-seekers as criminals. That position doesn't even make sense. If someone falsely claims asylum, that could be a crime. It is not required that the United States accept every claim, but a claim as such is not a criminal act. We could grant that inhumane conditions and treatment of immigrants predates this administration. Indeed, advocates for immigrants had been suing the Obama administration throughout, and in many cases, rightly so. This policy of actively separating asylum-seekers from their children is weeks old. Some advocates for the present administration blame a Flores directive from 1997, but the only relevant fact there is a limit to the detention of a child. Are you really suggesting that holding a child even longer would be acceptable? Child psychology experts are telling us that the separation inflicts a trauma that may not be able to be und...

You know, back when I was a contrarian, and that seemed like conservatism, I would often get annoyed when "liberals" found some "Be kind to the foreigner" verse, and tried to shame us with it. It's quite true that nothing is ever as easy as it seems, especially in politics. I still absolutely agree that most things are complex, more complex than we realize. A certain "anti-politics" driven by emotivism loses patience with the compromise of negotiation, lawmaking, even the very idea of statecraft. On the other hand, have you noticed the sheer number of references to aliens and sojourners in the Scriptures? And we're just speaking of the Old Testament, the place where people who haven't actually read the Bible go when imagining God as mean and scary. If we throw in the covenant of Our Lord Jesus Christ as well? Forget it; if we built luxury hotels on the border for every sojourner, we might get close to fulfilling that command. So while it...

It's absolutely true that I am not privy to the millions of deportation case files adjudicated and recorded in the administration of Barack Obama. I'll be willing to concede as a matter of course that real injustice took place. One cannot expect consistency from an ethical paradigm where situation ethics plays such a prominent role. However, it seems to me that the most pressing questions are these: "Do you believe it is morally acceptable to separate children from their families? Is it morally acceptable to detain people in cages? Do you believe that all methods of punishment are acceptable--against either the accused or the guilty--at any time? Finally, is crossing the US border in an irregular fashion the highest crime against the people of the United States?" You are free to bring any charge against Barack Obama that you wish, provided there is evidence. But I would like an answer to my questions. You may protest that the questions are extreme, suggesting extr...

I walked to noon Mass with my mom. It's nice when we essentially live in the neighborhood. Fr. Todd Shepherd, of Wichita, KS, had a Mass of Thanksgiving here, having served as our Deacon this past year. Truthfully, I had forgotten this was taking place. It was just noon Mass to me. I came in the door, and I happened upon the procession, about to begin. "Good morning, Jason," said the Monsignor. "Good morning, Monsignor," said I. [I don't think it was morning.--ed.] I had the same thought. But what Monsignor wants, Monsignor gets. He paused, and got a little twinkle in his eye. "I guess now we can begin!" On the contrary; if Linus isn't there, we have a problem. In any case, Fr. Rubie--apparently loitering until his new assignment begins--had a chuckle. So did I, I must say. There's a big fuss about evangelization. Rightly so, I suppose. But I have a bone to pick. It's not a thing that we do; it's something that we are. We are ...

I won't ever be a credible "gay-hater," because it's not who I am. I've probably made jokes and the like, as young men have been known to do when they lack experience. Yet my culture is one of acceptance, even celebration. I am affected by this, even as I am constrained to hold otherwise. And what gay activists would find from me and many others is a certain kind of acceptance, born of common humanity. Nevertheless, we are constrained by an anthropology--that is, that which concerns humanity's destiny and purpose--to profess what we profess. It is not a "phobia," or animus, but a fundamental disagreement about what human life actually is. Associate Justice Kennedy once famously opined that rights in this society confer the opportunity to define one's own destiny and purpose. It is at precisely this point, we part ways. I am constrained to acknowledge reality, not to create it for myself. Suppose for the moment that the reason people are expendi...

I saw another meme earlier. It said, "All I'm saying is, I think Jesus would bake the d--- cake." It's the perfect socially acceptable sentiment. It's also, to use a metaphor, bull excrement. I would like to make two basic points: The Sacred Scriptures nowhere approve of homosexual acts, in either testament. That some try to marshal some texts to say otherwise is exactly why we have a Magisterium in holy Church. Second, the teaching in the Catechism harks back not only to revealed truth, but natural law. This means--no matter how fiercely one professes atheism or antipathy to organized religion--at some level, one cannot help but know that these things are wrong. So, in point of fact, this is a "religious debate" in only the most general sense. We could say that supernaturally revealed truth--presuming it exists--supplements something we're already supposed to know. It's not my place to tell Christians bearing this unique cross what words to ...

I went to Mass yesterday, as I customarily do. Father is leaving, so he preached a bit longer, and with more emotion. He said that the key to the life of holiness is gratitude. That is true. Often when you hear this, though, the tendency is to say something like, "I will be thankful for ALL THE THINGS! I'm going to pray 12 hours of every 24, the Rosary, Chaplet, etc." And that's fine, if you can. Most of us will fail, though, and were we to dwell on it, we would question the very gift of our faith. God does not want this. I went through the Mass, and I know it is becoming normal again when I know what the celebrant will say. I am hearing the words, praying them in my soul. If they vary too much, we become disoriented. Perhaps the essence of being Catholic is doing the same good things over and over again. We're conditioned to believe that doing things by rote is bad, that it is exactly the sameness that destroys Catholicism. On the contrary; the things we wa...

You know, I can't be a "rights" absolutist as a Christian. Christian freedom, properly speaking, is only to do that which is good. To confess virtue as praiseworthy, and vice as blameworthy is in effect to say that freedom is limited in precisely this way. Such is the nature of the error of voluntarism: that a thing is good because it is willed, not willed because it is good. These considerations lead without too much effort to the argument that if the good is not arbitrary, and patriotism is the love of country, then true patriotism is the love of that which is good about one's country. The error of nationalism is precisely opposite: What my country does or wills, so to speak, is good because she wills it. "My country, right or wrong," but even worse. If I were to agree entirely with that possible misattribution to Voltaire, "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," I would make the mistake of sa...

I saw one of those listicles the other day. Maybe it had 8 things. And the things listed were definitely sins. But you know what wasn't there? Fornication. That's sex between a man and woman who aren't married. I know it's common. I know that most people don't even see it as wrong. They think we're weird even holding the traditional view. Fornication is still wrong. When there is a baby, I think we're just relieved when they decide not to kill the baby. I can understand that. That special murder is so normal and so grave, our relief makes a certain sense. Fornication is still wrong. There is often that couple who promises to have a "church wedding" later. Look, if you're a baptized Catholic, your civil marriage doesn't count. You can't licitly have sex until you get married in the Church. I'm not saying you can't be forgiven; I am saying you need to be, if you fornicate. Confess it, and don't do it again.

"every day"--tells you that some occurrence happens each day, e.g. "I walk by this school every day." "everyday"--an adjective modifying some noun that tends to connote "commonplace" or "ordinary," e.g. "As an engineer, he had trouble grasping the nuances of everyday conversation." These two uses, though bearing some close relationship to each other, are in fact not the same. Thank you, and good day.