Safe Haven

Sometimes, people will say, "Unless you do/have/experience X, you don't get to have an opinion." It's a radical subjectivism, from one angle, and a pragmatism, from another. Quite honestly, it's a move people usually make to shut down debate--especially with regard to abortion, for example--most likely because the moral justification for such an act is dubious, and they know it. Funnily enough though, when they are wronged, many people conveniently rediscover their notion of objective truth! The pragmatism is almost centered on the body, as if the actions we take with our bodies are by definition morally neutral. Then again, when someone isn't trying to justify themselves, they are able to see how foolish this would be, applied to all situations. I have never committed adultery in the strict sense, but I can give you all sorts of reasons and examples of its harm. Again, when you're not implicating someone you're talking to, you're a trenchant soc...

One of the arguments in favor of the mainstreaming of homosexual relations goes like this: "It's more than a bit rich for the hypocritical heterosexuals to worry now about the downfall of our society." I agree. Which is why adultery, divorce, abortion, contraception, etc. are all wrong. I find it hard to believe that no gay "allies" could see this argument coming. They may take advantage of the destruction of all the laws and mores with respect to human sexuality, but anyone trying to rebuild the culture would say, "Hypocrisy is still the tribute that vice pays to virtue." That's also why a slippery slope argument isn't always a fallacy. The long form of, "It's a slippery slope" is, "The basis for a principled distinction between a behavior you deem acceptable, and one you deem abhorrent, has been removed." The very purpose of a reductio ad absurdum is to create the conditions where a person of good will will cr...

It's somewhat disorienting, to not know for sure in some instances what is true. It seems like many people are using half-truths, or outright lies, to advance an agenda. It happens all over. Behind this is an internalized skepticism that sounds something like, "Well, everyone's got a perspective." On the contrary; they are not all equally valid. The truth is the truth, and lies (or honest errors) are not. To be blunt, I may not be willing to engage in lying to discredit Planned Parenthood--I may even be angry about various willful deceptions for that purpose--but it doesn't actually change the fact that the intentional killing of children in the womb is a species of murder. No amount of right-wing exaggeration, or cowardly moral capitulation in another area, makes such actions acceptable. Suppose we even take the dubious claim that only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's funding goes toward abortion. There is no doubt that the purpose of such a claim is in ...

Dreher begins with a story of two middle-aged or older women, lamenting the loss of previously-held sexual mores; namely, that they know so many young women having children out of wedlock. Indeed, although that crisis has hit minority communities even harder, it is interesting that he cites Charles Murray's recent sociological survey of White America, Coming Apart. It's at this point that the chapter becomes interesting, because what follows is a brief survey of Western civilization. Dreher is not after a jeremiad here, but an exploration of ideas. Ideas--or better said, philosophies--have consequences, and our author wants us to look at them. Dreher says that five movements built upon each other, and in a sense conspired together, to bring our societies to this moment: 1. The loss of metaphysical realism, or the classical theory of epistemology . It's very possible to get into the weeds here, but following the lead of the Greek philosophers, we believed that reality as w...

I'll start by saying I read Anthony Esolen on bad poetry. He's right, of course. And despite my healthy dislike for some of his other pieces, I got through it all right. I did snarkily wonder when they were going to start putting "Trump 2020" banners on all of his essays. [You flat-out consider voting for Trump a moral failing, don't you?--ed.] Yes. Anyway, I got to thinking about it--there was a funny moment in my grandmother's funeral Mass, of all places--when we sang "On Eagles' Wings". I get it, it's a terrible song, that no faithful Catholic should ever love. Yet I do. I really do, and I'll tell you why: I've experienced some really tough things in this life. I'm not trolling for sympathy, I'm just letting you know. I got pretty emotional just typing that out, honestly. Anyway, every time I hear that song, I understand God is here, and He loves you. That's what it means to me. I understand people hate it, and I un...

I heard a lecture on beauty by my good friend, Dr. Larry Feingold. I am fully convinced that Aristotle and St. Thomas are right about this, of course. I'm Catholic, after all. [You don't realize how easily, or how often, that is taken for granted.--ed.] Nevertheless, as far as I am able, I will intentionally plant myself in that tradition, and I will take the Catholic philosophical, theological, aesthetic, etc. as a starting position. So it's not rap I will defend, but pop-folk-rock legend James Taylor. This is my " teenage rebellion " of the day. My musical formation is partially owed to this guy. Don't worry; I will listen to Mozart or Palestrina after this or something. How I wish Dr. Cross knew this man's music as well as I do! Which isn't to say that I know it well, in some respects. But you could do much, much, worse. As a side-note, you'll see in fact that he's the whitest guy ever, in case there had been some doubt. I appreciate tha...

There are a lot of things I might say about my Grandma . That's how I knew her, too. Sometimes, even before she died, I wished to know her in younger days. What was she really like? What was my Grandpa Bill like, who died before I was born, in 1979? He had to be quieter than her! It's odd, you know, a family in Missouri, that's to a person Dodgers fans (except my brother and me). That's weird, you know. You'd have to let my Uncle John tell you the story. The boys, her sons, they all love baseball. That's why I love baseball. They wore out the tape of Game 1 of the Series in '88. Kirk Gibson's home run, when he could hardly walk. It's as much a part of our family as anyone's. My Aunt Karen made the mistake once of saying, "Haven't you guys seen this enough? You know what happens!" John, without missing a beat, said, "Be quiet! I'm afraid he'll strike out this time!" Grandma would laugh and laugh, as if we'd neve...

What a great day! I resolved to go to Holy Mass, because a relic of St. John Vianney would be there. I don't always get to go during the week these days, but today is special. I had in mind Confirmation Sponsor Lady, and one of my sisters, who has been sick. Truthfully, whenever I am at our parish, I think of them. It strikes me as odd that the separated brethren of the Reformation are so convinced of the error of the cult of the saints. As one hymn puts it, "Yet she on Earth hath union/With God the Three in One/And mystic sweet communion/With those whose rest is won." As I was thinking about this, I realized that in the hearts of the saints, there are no strangers. Therefore, in the one Eucharist, we know each other, and are fully known. There is so much loss in death and suffering, but even this can be rendered sweet in redemption. John Vianney got my requests to heal some people--not usually his normal thing--and my thanks for my family, especially since we are partl...

The trial of life eventually reduces down to this reality: every joy, prayer, work, and suffering is brought to the altar. Everything becomes a question of faith, or the lack of it. Everything pertaining to worship that isn't the Mass imitates it. It is both intriguing and tragic to know that so many people believe other things, and quite doggedly at that. God in Christ either answers sorrow and sin with grace, or he does not. I find myself with little patience to debate the theological particulars of the holy Mass with those not yet reconciled to holy mother Church, if only because there is little time to reconcile that which remains unredeemed in my life, and in my sphere of influence. If ecumenism does not include the possibility of return to the Catholic Church, it is a waste of time. It still remains true that I am gentler on those outside the Catholic Church than I am on those within. It may be in part a function of my own pride and forgetfulness, in the sense that I did ...

I used this phrase with a friend the other day, and I think its aptness is its directness. If God does not exist, then all manner of things become possible as choices that decent people don't consider, at least most of the time. This is not to say that one must be devoted to religion in order to be good; not at all. It's that the intelligibility of goodness makes sense in a world created by the God who spoke to Abraham. It's a subtle difference, but it's real. A lot of people may not sign on the dotted line, as it were, for what the Church teaches. They like their adulteries, their abundance of strong drinks, or the glamour of believing in Reason. Press them a bit, though, and they are not ready to actually live in a senseless world. This inconsistency is an implicit acknowledgement of God. I thank God for this inconsistency. I thank God, in a way, for this hypocrisy. If we are open, we can be led in virtue to the threshold of faith itself. Faith is ever and always ...

Suffering is an evil. Even the saints don't desire suffering for its own sake. But I keep saying: physical pain, sorrow, whatever else, those are distinct modes of existence. I can feel the pain of that, even rightly hate it, while accepting whatever has brought me to this place. One of its great gifts is the opportunity to explore the meaning of me. This experience of pain or loss is not intrinsic to me, nor to the world, but it's a part of my existence, and therefore, it's part of the world and part of others I have touched. There's a fundamental difference between asking Why? in hope, and asking Why? in despair. Hope starts with the acknowledgement of the fundamental problem: It's not supposed to be this way. Yet it is this way. Why? Experiencing suffering isn't so much a matter of logical argument, but here it is: Suffering is an evil; God is good, indeed all Good; The all-Good God has permitted me to suffer; (Why?) There must be a more profound goodn...

Basically the argument goes like this: 1. This political and economic system prizes individual consumer choice above all else; 2. That is, this econo-political system is utilitarian; 3. Utilitarianism values people only in relation to their value to someone or something else, especially considered in economic terms; 4. Therefore, "the right to choose" endures as the maximum expression of individual choice, and economic empowerment. A thought for your consideration, if you haven't: There are a great many things simply taken for granted by us as Americans which also communicate that human value ought to be understood in utilitarian economic terms. 

I took one of those implicit bias tests, actually for partisan affiliation. It said I was a raging Republican. Honestly, I have doubts about its scientific accuracy or applicability. On the other hand, it's true that I fell in with Republicans shortly after starting college. A huge thing was becoming convinced about the murderous nature of abortion. I had, and still retain, a deep sense of compassion and thirst for justice, so I never was unchangeable on other things, but I said, "These are my people, because they see this issue clearly." And I don't know how your family is, but my family on my mother's side reads Ayn Rand. Now, please spare me your vituperative judgments here. That's just how it goes. Never made it through Atlas Shrugged, or The Fountainhead, but I've read Anthem at least 15 times. Smart people find her dull and plodding, and her philosophy wanting (fair enough), but I am still mesmerized by that story. I'm an American, after all. I...

It may not have been from a place of charity when the evocative phrase, "Republican Rite Catholic" was first deployed, but it's often apt. Just today, I was invited to choose between the transcendentals (goodness, truth, and beauty) and diversity, inclusion, and tolerance. Why not both? Let's say what this is really about, shall we? Those people over there want to lecture me about racism, and they can't even recognize a baby. Believe me, I've been here; I know what this feels like. You might even be able to say that a particular hierarchy of values is misaligned. It is an act of love, and deep respect, to submit yourself, even theoretically, to another person for correction. We're not seeing a whole lot of deep respect across politics these days. One cannot do much honest reflection when the only goal of politics is winning. Maybe Ian Barrs is right: There's no winning this culture war, in the arena of politics. It's going to be a longer game, ...

"If I'm gonna go, let me go. I don't want to suffer." Honestly, the people who say this have no idea what they are talking about. This is spoken by a fearful person, who hasn't actually lived. I gotta be honest. I wasn't close to death, really, but I know about this suffering people are afraid of. The death of the body is a fearful thing, though the death of the soul (that is, the second death) is worse. When you realize that you could die, there is a profound joy in the fact of not having died yet. I'm a Christian of course, but aside from thoughts about the eternal human soul, I have no religious thoughts, as such, to share. Some people have life "flash before their eyes," but others get plenty of time to imagine the world without them in it. Unless your picture is distorted by some other illness, the very idea that suffering is less preferable than death is patently absurd. I don't know how this idea has gotten a foothold! I have to beli...

I think one of the frustrating, damaging things about classical liberalism--and this has been noted before--is that it makes people lie about what they truly believe, in order to achieve majorities and pluralities that wield political power. The system--economic, social, and political--sells people on the idea that electoral legitimacy in itself stands in for deep satisfaction, for all that is good and right. When they've been strategically dishonest for too long, and hope is dashed, and we haven't revisited what our purpose is--much less how to get back there--people get enraged. In short, we're being trained to exchange questions of telos for questions of process. Notice how different people in the political system talk about ideas they disagree with: "extreme," "outside the mainstream," "out of step with ordinary Americans," etc. We're so used to it, we haven't thought about what it's training us to do: assign moral praiseworth...

Here's the news today . I won't say necessarily that there are no conservative Protestants who treat a homosexual inclination itself as a leprosy, or that no one faces an unjust ostracism based on their experience of sexual attraction. In point of fact, despite some raucous debate among orthodox Catholics about the licitness of supporting clergy and potential clergy who experience SSA, I am comfortable with the Catholic reflection on homosexuality (that is, what the Church teaches). I don't necessarily agree with Fr. Z that a priest should "man up" and that he shouldn't ever say he experiences these temptations. If crosses were easy, Our Lord would have had no need for St. Simon and his consolation. Still, I think it's manipulative and dishonest to say that a vote against accepting gay marriage is a Christian refusal to "see" my LGBTQIA brothers and sisters. It begs the question, when the central question is, What do I believe about the moral l...

Of course, they blocked this attempt to protect infants who survive abortions. Let's set aside the anger over this, and think about it from their perspective (Shocking, I know). First, a few facts: 1. Most Republicans know that Human Life Amendments proposed in Congress are DOA right now, no matter how great the GOP does in any election, or how many members they have; 2. A pro-life politician's only effectual option is to chip away, not only at the right itself, but at the ideas that make it seem reasonable. That is, s/he knows he is working incrementally; 3. The pro-choice advocates and their elected representatives believe that the GOP is in fact working incrementally against the right to choose abortion; 4. Both sides fundamentally agree with respect to what the GOP is doing; [(2) and (3)] 5. Therefore, it is fundamentally dishonest for a pro-life lawmaker to claim, "This is not about abortion," as Sen. Ernst did. The only honest answer to, "He...

We have been talking about dogmatic certainty in Christianity, and across both paradigms, whether Protestant, or Catholic. Understand that the use of those particular terms may include those who use the Catholic interpretive paradigm but are not in union with the Catholic Church, or conversely, someone may use the Protestant interpretive paradigm without considering themselves to be Protestant. The respective terms are therefore broadly descriptive of methodologies for discerning truth revealed by God in Christ. The first assertion of the Protestant interpretive paradigm is that the purported authority of the Catholic Church, rooted in the Magisterium, the ecumenical councils, and fundamentally in the sacramental (perhaps better, but redundantly said, "sacerdotal") priesthood secured by apostolic succession, is unnecessary. We can call the bluff of anyone who makes the argument that certainty is unnecessary, because we know that the spiritual fathers of those who carry on ...

I know that many theologians and converts have written on these subjects better than I could, but I still want to look at the problem of dogma and the question of certainty as I essentially understood it on the eve of seeking full communion with the Catholic Church. One of the more mystifying developments in Catholic and Reformed dialogue in recent years is the abandonment of certainty in matters of dogma among the Reformed. Indeed, there seemed almost a tendency to spiritualize the lack of knowing as a sort of virtue, that it was somehow inappropriate to desire certainty in faith. On the contrary; our most cited definition of faith in the Scriptures in the letter to the Hebrews presupposes it (11:1). It could be said of all the "heroes of faith" that they acted upon what they knew, even if it wasn't plain to their reason. And what did they know? They knew that God was speaking and had spoken, and that He would not deceive them. To get right to the point, it's wi...