"Does God Need the Church?" - Reflection #1...

I am currently reading Lohfink's "Does God Need the Church?" in an Ecclesiology course at UST. Here is my first impression based on the first two sections:

The first night of class was very interesting (Dr. Bill Cavanaugh is my professor). All conversation based, which is
good; Cavanaugh does help the discussion move along productively. He seems like a
good guy. Lohfink's book is very interesting and very challenging. I really enjoy the historical critical method from the standpoint of reconciling my faith with pure reason, but it only goes to a certain point. Lohfink goes on diatribes about how bad 'religion' is and how you only need faith. I understand that he's getting at 'not going through the motions' but he takes it a bit far. Also, he overplays the historical critical methodand imposes on the Biblical authors too much sociology; certainly the authors were telling their 'history' in light of the Babylonian Exile as well as trying to understand their identity, but if it's all sociology/archaeology that can explain everything then what is God actually doing that's unique to Israel? I have issues with this. It is as if miracles are all out of the question (regarding the birth of Isaac, Lohfink remarks "the author doesn't care about the miracle of the birth, but..."). Lohfink proposes that God created the world and the world had the 'freedom' to generate itself: plants, animals, man all are 'generated' from the earth because of freedom. Good to underline freedom, but it makes God like a clock-maker, who sits back and watches freedom unfold. Lohfinks bowing to the calf of 'evolution' also does not allow for humanity to be a unique species created in God's image and likeness; to Lohfink, man simply eventually happened out of freedom. I'm not a fan of that; maybe I'm a fundamentalist. As Lohfink speaks about the complexity of how Israel engaged with the Cannanites and Egyptians and how Israel is related to "El" the Canaanite God, one wonders how the 'sociology' approach portrays how anything is different for Israel. Why is Israel special? How do they obtain the Torah (which Lohfink insists gives freedom) without the miracle of obtaining faith? No Exodus, no burning bush, no miracle births, no sacrifice of Isaac story, no Ark? What gives?? I understand that 'scandal' that God has always entrusted his message to man to isseminate to other men, but didn't that have to begin with God revealing himself in a profound and miraculous way? Lohfink seems more interested in reconciling his deas to science and archaology and sociology than to Tradition, which is nderstandable.
To conclude, Lohfink suggests that the Law and the identity of the people help them
to 'gather' the people of God into the Church; I agree, but my question is how do I
reconcile the great importance of identity (liturgy etc.) with how Lohfink explains everything via the empirical? AKA: why is Eucharistic Adoration, Confession, Mass, devotion to Mary and saints important if it's all a product of sociology, and 'religion' is bad? This is where my undies get in a bunch. It is clear that the Church is worse-off when we dumb-down Tradition, and make everything generic, losing our identity and rich culture; also, true ecumenism is hurting due to so much ignorance about our own Catholic faith. Yet, we've only read 2 chapters; he hasn't discussed the New Testament at all... maybe the answer lies there.

Interested in real monasticism?

If you want to see what real, cloistered monastic life looks like, check out this movie; it is fantastic. It's called "Into Great Silence".
Seeing the film is a retreat in itself: amazing!

The following is from the film's website:

The Grande Chartreuse, the mother house of the legendary Carthusian Order, is based in the French Alps. Into Great Silence will be the first film ever about life inside the Grande Chartreuse.

Silence. Repitition. Rhythm. The film is an austere, next to silent meditation on monastic life in a very pure form. No music except the chants in the monastery, no interviews, no commentaries, no extra material.

Changing of time, seasons, and the ever repeated elements of the day, of the prayer. A film to become a monastery, rather than depict one. A film about awareness, absolute presence, and the life of men who devoted their lifetimes to god in the purest form. Contemplation.
An object in time.

The Carthusian Order is reputed as one of the most strict brotherhoods among the roman-catholic Church. Hidden from the public eye the daily life of the monks follows the century-old rules and rituals of the order. There are no actual motion pictures of the monks. The last shots were taken in 1960, when two journalists were allowed inside the monastery, provided no monks were depicted.

16 years after his first encounter with the present General Prior of the order the director Philip Groening was granted permission to shoot a film on the life of the monks. This unique shooting permit is the result of a longstanding and trusted relationship between Philip Groening and the General Prior.

For at least 7 years no other film will be granted permission to shoot in the monastery by contract. However, taking into consideration that so far the permission for shooting was never granted, this film may well remain the only one.

Philip Groening lived in the monastery and followed the monks with the camera. By becoming part of the ritual and daily life the director has experienced the life of a recluse himself and thus travelled into the world of the monks and novices who lead a life between old rites and modern achievements.

With nearly four months of shooting in spring and summer 2002, another 3 weeks in Winter 2003, and a last 3 days in December 2003, shooting has been finished. Out of the unique footage created a full feature length film for theatrical release, a book of photographs and a CD release of chanted masses and services will be created.

With a current budget of over 700 000 Euro, the film will come to the screen with 35mm prints directly mastered from HD Cam footage, mixed with 35mm original footage and some Super 8 footage.

The New Monasticism?

I just came across a site dedicated to the 'New Monasticism'. This group is made up of dissatisfied Evangelicals who want to experience the early church. Little do they know, but monastic life is growing again in the historical churches of Catholicism and Orthodoxy- the two traditions in which both monasticism and the early church were originated. God bless them in their ventures. Here is how they describe themselves:

Throughout the history of the church, monastic movements have arisen during times of rapid social change. When the minority movement that Jesus started was flooded by converts after Constantine, desert mothers and fathers went into their cells to discern a new way of life. When Europe collapsed into the Dark Ages, Benedictines carved out spaces for community and new life. When the advent of a cash economy revolutionized European culture, St. Francis started an order of beggars to proclaim the divine economy of providence. Over the past two thousand years, monasticism has helped the church remember who we are.

Ours is a time of rapid social change. We are post-modern, post-Cold War, post-9/11, even post-Christian. All signs point to change, and we know things aren’t what they used to be. But we hardly know who we are. Amidst wars and rumors of war, our global identity crisis threatens to consume us.

But we have hope. The Holy Spirit is stirring in the places overlooked by Empire to raise up a new monastic movement. We don’t know yet what this movement of the Spirit will become. “New Monasticism” is the language we’re using to talk about it in the meantime.

For the sake of discernment and mutual encouragement, we have connected with other followers of Jesus who are experimenting with a new way of life in community. The “12 Marks of a New Monasticism” name what God is doing in our communities. The Community of Communities is an online directory of where communities are and descriptions of what they’re about.

In the summer of 2006, we started School for Conversion to offer community-based training and theological education for the church. Seeing a need to learn what community looks like across the dividing lines of our time, we initiated School for Conversion Latin America [link] in 2007. SFC courses are offered throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in Argentina and Brazil.

To clarify our own thoughts and share the good news we’ve seen and heard, we have written a number of books which you can find here. In the fall of 2007, we announced a partnership with Cascade Books to publish the New Monastic Library Series [link].

We’re not sure just what will come of all this. But we’re so grateful for the good news that God has not abandoned the world. Something new is stirring, drawing deeply from the old. People who’ve stumbled in darkness are glimpsing light. We pray for grace to remember who we are in Christ.

Moved by God’s Spirit in this time called America to assemble at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham, NC, we wish to acknowledge a movement of radical rebirth, grounded in God’s love and drawing on the rich tradition of Christian practices that have long formed disciples in the simple Way of Christ. This contemporary school for conversion which we have called a “new monasticism,” is producing a grassroots ecumenism and a prophetic witness within the North American church which is diverse in form, but characterized by the following marks:

1) Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire.

2) Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us.

3) Hospitality to the stranger

4) Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities
combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.

5) Humble submission to Christ’s body, the church.

6) Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the
community along the lines of the old novitiate.

7) Nurturing common life among members of intentional community.

8) Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children.

9) Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life.

10) Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us along with support of our local economies.

11) Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18.

12) Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life.

May God give us grace by the power of the Holy Spirit to discern rules for living that will help us embody these marks in our local contexts as signs of Christ’s kingdom for the sake of God’s world.

Here's their website:
http://www.newmonasticism.org/12marks/12marks.php

A Return to Barbarity

Quest for Perfection Leads to Selective Killing of Unborn

By Father John Flynn, LC

ROME, JAN. 28, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The quest for a perfect child is leading to the increasing use of techniques to discover possible health problems in the unborn. Normally this is not done with a view to healing, and results in the deaths of embryos considered imperfect.

It Italy court decisions are in effect undoing a legal prohibition against the use of such screening programs, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). A 2004 national law vetoes screening embryos before they are implanted in the mothers' womb.

Nevertheless, a court in the Lazio region of Italy last week declared this restriction as being "illegitimate," reported the Italian daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera on Jan. 24. Already in past months local tribunals in Florence and in the Sardinian city of Cagliari had come to similar decisions.

In the Cagliari decision the judge upheld a mother's request to screen her in-vitro embryos for a hereditary blood disorder, reported the Italian news agency ANSA on Sept. 25. At the time both the Italian bishops' conference and Catholic politicians were strongly critical of the ruling.

In fact, in 2006 the nation's top tribunal, the Constitutional Court, heard a challenge to the 2004 law regarding its banning of PGD, and the court upheld the statute. "I thought judges were supposed to apply the law and that their interpretations were based on what the Constitutional Court decides," said Monsignor Giuseppe Betori, secretary of the bishops' conference, in comments reported by ANSA following the Cagliari decision.

The Vatican also weighed in after the subsequent Florence decision. Eliminating an embryo is equivalent to homicide, declared Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, in comments reported by the Repubblica newspaper Dec. 24.

England go-ahead

The trend to increasing use of PGD is very evident in England. A couple recently received approval to test their embryos for a genetic defect that leads to high cholesterol levels, reported the Times newspaper on Dec. 15.

The approval, by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, was given in relation to a genetic trait that is a relatively rare condition and which can lead to the death of children at an early age. The Times noted, however, that the couple have a milder form of this genetic problem and that it could well result that the embryos would have a good chance of becoming children with reasonably healthy lives.

Shortly after this authorization it was argued that deaf parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so as to be able to pick a deaf child, reported the Sunday Times on Dec. 23. According to Jackie Ballard, chief executive of the Royal Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People, a small minority of couples would prefer to have a deaf child so as "to fit in better with the family lifestyle."
Some practitioners of embryo screening were not in agreement. "This would be an abuse of medical technology," stated Gedis Grudzinskas, medical director of the Bridge Center, a clinic in London that screens embryos, according to the Sunday Times.

Earlier in the year approval was granted to screen embryos for a gene that brings with it an increased risk of breast cancer, reported the Times on July 21. The article commented that not all those with the gene will necessarily develop breast cancer, meaning that the screening will lead to destroying some embryos that would have been healthy.

Read the rest of the article at Zenit:
http://www.zenit.org/article-21630?l=english

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI FOR LENT 2008

Ash Wednesday is on February 6th (for Catholics); the mass in which ashes are put on the foreheads of the faithful by priests and bishops, symbolizes that "we are from dust, and to dust we shall return." A humbling reminder as we enter the season of Lent, contemplating as well as fasting, abstaining, and praying about the suffering and passion of our Lord.

"Christ made Himself poor for you" (2 Cor 8,9)

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

1. Each year, Lent offers us a providential opportunity to deepen the meaning and value of our Christian lives, and it stimulates us to rediscover the mercy of God so that we, in turn, become more merciful toward our brothers and sisters. In the Lenten period, the Church makes it her duty to propose some specific tasks that accompany the faithful concretely in this process of interior renewal: these are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. For this year's Lenten Message, I wish to spend some time reflecting on the practice of almsgiving, which represents a specific way to assist those in need and, at the same time, an exercise in self-denial to free us from attachment to worldly goods. The force of attraction to material riches and just how categorical our decision must be not to make of them an idol, Jesus confirms in a resolute way: "You cannot serve God and mammon" (Lk 16,13). Almsgiving helps us to overcome this constant temptation, teaching us to respond to our neighbor's needs and to share with others whatever we possess through divine goodness. This is the aim of the special collections in favor of the poor, which are promoted during Lent in many parts of the world. In this way, inward cleansing is accompanied by a gesture of ecclesial communion, mirroring what already took place in the early Church. In his Letters, Saint Paul speaks of this in regard to the collection for the Jerusalem community (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27).

2. According to the teaching of the Gospel, we are not owners but rather administrators of the goods we possess: these, then, are not to be considered as our exclusive possession, but means through which the Lord calls each one of us to act as a steward of His providence for our neighbor. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, material goods bear a social value, according to the principle of their universal destination (cf. n. 2404)

In the Gospel, Jesus explicitly admonishes the one who possesses and uses earthly riches only for self. In the face of the multitudes, who, lacking everything, suffer hunger, the words of Saint John acquire the tone of a ringing rebuke: "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?" (1 Jn 3,17). In those countries whose population is majority Christian, the call to share is even more urgent, since their responsibility toward the many who suffer poverty and abandonment is even greater. To come to their aid is a duty of justice even prior to being an act of charity.

3. The Gospel highlights a typical feature of Christian almsgiving: it must be hidden: "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing," Jesus asserts, "so that your alms may be done in secret" (Mt 6,3-4). Just a short while before, He said not to boast of one's own good works so as not to risk being deprived of the heavenly reward (cf. Mt 6,1-2). The disciple is to be concerned with God's greater glory. Jesus warns: "In this way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven" (Mt 5,16). Everything, then, must be done for God's glory and not our own. This understanding, dear brothers and sisters, must accompany every gesture of help to our neighbor, avoiding that it becomes a means to make ourselves the center of attention. If, in accomplishing a good deed, we do not have as our goal God's glory and the real well being of our brothers and sisters, looking rather for a return of personal interest or simply of applause, we place ourselves outside of the Gospel vision. In today's world of images, attentive vigilance is required, since this temptation is great. Almsgiving, according to the Gospel, is not mere philanthropy: rather it is a concrete expression of charity, a theological virtue that demands interior conversion to love of God and neighbor, in imitation of Jesus Christ, who, dying on the cross, gave His entire self for us. How could we not thank God for the many people who silently, far from the gaze of the media world, fulfill, with this spirit, generous actions in support of one's neighbor in difficulty? There is little use in giving one's personal goods to others if it leads to a heart puffed up in vainglory: for this reason, the one, who knows that God "sees in secret" and in secret will reward, does not seek human recognition for works of mercy.

4. In inviting us to consider almsgiving with a more profound gaze that transcends the purely material dimension, Scripture teaches us that there is more joy in giving than in receiving (cf. Acts 20,35). When we do things out of love, we express the truth of our being; indeed, we have been created not for ourselves but for God and our brothers and sisters (cf. 2 Cor 5,15). Every time when, for love of God, we share our goods with our neighbor in need, we discover that the fullness of life comes from love and all is returned to us as a blessing in the form of peace, inner satisfaction and joy. Our Father in heaven rewards our almsgiving with His joy. What is more: Saint Peter includes among the spiritual fruits of almsgiving the forgiveness of sins: "Charity," he writes, "covers a multitude of sins" (1 Pt 4,8). As the Lenten liturgy frequently repeats, God offers to us sinners the possibility of being forgiven. The fact of sharing with the poor what we possess disposes us to receive such a gift. In this moment, my thought turns to those who realize the weight of the evil they have committed and, precisely for this reason, feel far from God, fearful and almost incapable of turning to Him. By drawing close to others through almsgiving, we draw close to God; it can become an instrument for authentic conversion and reconciliation with Him and our brothers.

5. Almsgiving teaches us the generosity of love. Saint Joseph Benedict Cottolengo forthrightly recommends: "Never keep an account of the coins you give, since this is what I always say: if, in giving alms, the left hand is not to know what the right hand is doing, then the right hand, too, should not know what it does itself" (Detti e pensieri, Edilibri, n. 201). In this regard, all the more significant is the Gospel story of the widow who, out of her poverty, cast into the Temple treasury "all she had to live on" (Mk 12,44). Her tiny and insignificant coin becomes an eloquent symbol: this widow gives to God not out of her abundance, not so much what she has, but what she is. Her entire self.

We find this moving passage inserted in the description of the days that immediately precede Jesus' passion and death, who, as Saint Paul writes, made Himself poor to enrich us out of His poverty (cf. 2 Cor 8,9); He gave His entire self for us. Lent, also through the practice of almsgiving, inspires us to follow His example. In His school, we can learn to make of our lives a total gift; imitating Him, we are able to make ourselves available, not so much in giving a part of what we possess, but our very selves. Cannot the entire Gospel be summarized perhaps in the one commandment of love? The Lenten practice of almsgiving thus becomes a means to deepen our Christian vocation. In gratuitously offering himself, the Christian bears witness that it is love and not material richness that determines the laws of his existence. Love, then, gives almsgiving its value; it inspires various forms of giving, according to the possibilities and conditions of each person.

6. Dear brothers and sisters, Lent invites us to "train ourselves" spiritually, also through the practice of almsgiving, in order to grow in charity and recognize in the poor Christ Himself. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that the Apostle Peter said to the cripple who was begging alms at the Temple gate: "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk" (Acts 3,6). In giving alms, we offer something material, a sign of the greater gift that we can impart to others through the announcement and witness of Christ, in whose name is found true life. Let this time, then, be marked by a personal and community effort of attachment to Christ in order that we may be witnesses of His love. May Mary, Mother and faithful Servant of the Lord, help believers to enter the "spiritual battle" of Lent, armed with prayer, fasting and the practice of almsgiving, so as to arrive at the celebration of the Easter Feasts, renewed in spirit. With these wishes, I willingly impart to all my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 30 October 2007

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulus of Athens and All Greece has died...

The image below is of Archbishop Christodoulus & Pope Benedict XVI.


Papal Message to Orthodox Church of Greece
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 29, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the telegram Benedict XVI sent today to Orthodox Metropolitan Seraphim of Karystia and Skyros upon hearing the news of the death of Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulus of Athens and All Greece.

* * *

His Eminence Seraphim
Metropolitan of Karystia and Skyros
The Locum Tenens

Deeply saddened by the news of the untimely death of his Beatitude Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, I express to you, to the holy Synod and all the faithful my earnest condolences, assuring you of my spiritual closeness to all those who mourn the passing of this distinguished pastor of the Church of Greece. The fraternal welcome which His Beatitude gave my predecessor Pope John Paul II on the occasion of his visit to Athens in May 2001 and the return visit of Archbishop Christodoulos to Rome in December 2006 opened a new era of cordial cooperation between us, leading to increased contacts and improved friendship in the search for closer communion in the context of the growing unity of Europe. I and Catholics around the world pray that the Orthodox Church of Greece will be sustained by the grace of God in continuing to build on the pastoral achievements of the late Archbishop and that in commending the noble soul of his Beatitude to our heavenly Father's loving mercy you will be comforted by the Lord's promise to reward his faithful servants.

Please accept, your eminence, this expression of my closeness in prayer to you and your brother bishops as you guide the Church in this time of transition. With fraternal affection in the Lord.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

2007 Campus Outrage Awards

Lunacy on college campuses. The number one choice is absolutely ridiculous. You'll have to read it to believe it...

This year’s winners:

1. The College of William & Mary

In October 2006, William & Mary President Gene Nichol secretly ordered a college official to remove a two-foot gold cross from the college’s historic Wren Chapel, where it has been on display since the 1930s. When the episode came to light in the pages of the campus’ independent student newspaper, The Virginia Informer, Nichol was forced to explain his decision. He asserted that “the display of a Christian cross . . . in the heart of our most important building sends an unmistakable message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others. That there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders.” Though Nichol told tales of students, alumni, and visitors who had complained to him about being offended by the cross’ presence, he produced only one actual letter of complaint and repeatedly denied Freedom of Information Act requests for correspondence he received about the cross. He also went to great lengths to evade an invitation to debate renowned author Dinesh D’Souza on the issue in an event sponsored by the Informer and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

Nichol’s actions in regard to the cross followed on the heels of his surrender to NCAA officials, who threatened to bar the college’s athletic teams from lucrative NCAA-sponsored bowl games unless William & Mary gave up its traditional Indian-feather logo. Though Nichol wrote in protest of the NCAA’s decision, he refused to fight it in court, as other colleges did. The feathers of the William & Mary Tribe are no more.

On Valentine’s Day 2007, William & Mary hosted a "Sex Workers Art Show,” featuring topless women, former prostitutes, and current strippers. Hundreds of people packed the college's University Center to witness such edifying performances as a stripper with a sex toy in her mouth undress to the strains of the "Ave Maria.” Twelve hundred dollars in student funds were used to subsidize the event, and some 100 students enrolled in Women’s Studies and Performance Art courses were required to attend the performance. When asked about the propriety of the event, Nichol responded: "I don't like this kind of show and I don't like having it here. But it's not the practice and province of universities to censor or cancel performances because they are controversial.” But apparently it is Nichol's job to censor Christian symbols on William & Mary's campus.

In early March, Nichol accepted the recommendation of his hand-selected Religion Committee that the cross be returned to Wren Chapel but placed under glass in “a prominent, readily visible” place in the chapel. The committee also recommended that "the Wren sacristy . . . be available to house sacred objects of any religious tradition.” Though he cannot be pleased about being forced to have this “offensive” object returned to permanent display in the chapel, Nichol must be happy that the committee carefully crafted the new policy in an open-ended manner, so that the Christian identity of Wren Chapel can slowly be eroded if, for example, a president who slavishly follows the credo of political correctness is in charge.

Read the rest at the Acton institute:
(Sorry, I still have no idea how to post links!)
http://www.campusmagazine.org/articledetail.aspx?id=
1aadba57-4ff3-47bb-8f38-46564de95de4

Apparently this is a solid book overviewing Orthodoxy...

Check it out:
Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition
by James R. Payton

The dogs of Constantinople...

A blog post on the state of Orthodoxy in Turkey by Joshua Trevino.

At night, the Hagia Sophia is invested by wild dogs. You walk about the expanse between it and the Blue Mosque, and you pull your coat tight against the early winter chill. The dogs are everywhere. They are in the streets, lolling contentedly as the odd taksi veers about. They are on the concrete, rummaging through strewn trash. They are on the grass, rooting about in the flowers, and gnawing upon disgusting chunks of rancid flesh. They ignore you. One of them barks, and at once they are all on their feet and yelping. They lope toward a solitary taksi driver who performs a small charity of sharing some meat.

Overlooking it all is the Hagia Sophia, red stone capped with black metal, topped with the golden crescent of its conquerer. It is massive. Chronicles of the Dark Ages and the Medieval era tell of Western travelers seeing the Queen City for the first time, and being stupefied at its grand church. And so I am, as Sunday slides into Monday in the dead of a Constantinopolitan night. The hulking form overpowers the grace and grandeur of the Blue Mosque, a park’s length away. The great mosque apes the great church, except it is white instead of red, its minarets are native instead of alien, and its believers are thriving instead of dying.

The Christians of the Queen City are dying. The Ecumenical Patriarch housed in the Fener district used to be ecumenical — an Orthodox Christian, to be sure, but of no particular nation. No longer. Because the Patriarchs of old lived with the Emperors in their very city, they grew accustomed to the strictures of state power — unlike the Popes, who exercised temporal monarchy of their own. The Sultans of the Ottoman Empire saw fit to continue the relationship, reaping handsome profits from bribe-profferring claimants to the Patriarchate, and forcing the occupant of the seat of St Andrew to answer for their co-religionists. Usually this entailed a conferral of a limited intra-communal civil power upon the Patriarch; but in the Greek War of Independence, the Patriarch was lynched for his rebellious millet’s temerity. As with the Sultans, so with their successors: the Turkish state continues to dictate the terms of existence for a Patriarchate that predates the mere existence of Turks in Turkey by at least seven hundred years.

The trauma of the decline of the Ottoman state, and the need during the Turkish War of Independence to fight off non-Turkish claimants (though not always foreign claimants) to Anatolia and Thrace, left the Turkish polity with an undying fear of territorial dispossession. There is a strong concept of Turkishness as inherently involving Islam; and hence non-Muslim institutions like the Patriarchate are inherently suspect. They are not “Turkish” (except in a legal sense with no claim on the sentiment of the masses or the state) but they are on Turkish soil. There is no way to Islamicize the Patriarchate, of course, but one may restrict the office to men of Turkish citizenship. And so the Kemalist state has done precisely this.

There was a time not so long ago when this would not have been an insuperable challenge. If we consider Byzantium to be historically contiguous with the imperial city, Constantinople was Greek for almost two thousand years before the Turkish conquest — and Christian for nearly eleven hundred of those years. After the fall in 1453, it remained majority-Christian for a few centuries thereafter, and then it harbored a sizable Christian minority (mostly Greek and Armenian) through the early 20th century. That came to an end when Constantinople became Istanbul in the Kemalist era. The 1923 “population transfer” on the heels of the Greek loss in its tragic war of the megali idea wiped out the Greek communities — and hence the Christian communities — of Ionia, the Pontus, and inland Anatolia. Constantinople’s Greeks were spared from annihilation, but their ranks thinned out of fear and harassment in the new order. Subsequent pogroms, notably the Turkish government-sponsored 1955 pogroms, had the effect of progressively reducing the numbers of native-born Constantinopolitan Christians. Concurrent with this, the Turkish state pursued an active program of expropriation which itself abetted a vicious circle: if a church property fell into disuse, the state seized it; and with the state defining “disuse,” the seizures often enough had the effect of denying the remaining Christians the very pillars of their communal life, which in turn provoked more Christians into leaving, which deprived more properties of their parishioners, etc. (A prime example of this policy of seizure and closure is the theological school at Halki, which I visited today and will write about shortly.)

Today, there are approximately two thousand native-born Christians, almost entirely Greek, in the Queen City of Christendom. They are mostly old, mostly die-hards, and mostly clerics. As the Turkish state intended all along, the faith is nearly extinct in one of its most ancient lands — and the time will come when no native-born Christian “Turk” will be competent to sit upon the Patriarchal throne. And what then? Will the Ecumenical Patriarchate simply die a quiet death after long centuries? Will its demise be met like so many other tragedies of Christendom, with small regret and apathy? Will the Turkish state be a better, more Turkish state without its Christians?

At some point in the cold night, the dogs retreat to warm recesses in the alleys and corners of Sultanahmet. For a short while, the old center of Constantinople is as empty and lifeless as its Christian caste. In the early morning, the muzzein’s cries fill our hotel room. But we open the curtains, and there is the Great Church, silent, solid, enduring — and waiting.

The Unorthodox Patriarch?

A very critical review of Bartholomew I's new book on Orthodoxy.

By CHARLOTTE ALLEN
January 25, 2008; Page W11

Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, can be regarded as the "pope," or at least the symbol of unity, of Orthodox Christianity. The denomination's 300 million or so adherents make it the second-largest body of Christians in the world, after Roman Catholicism. The 67-year-old Bartholomew also represents one of Christianity's most ancient branches as the latest in a line of 270 archbishops of his city -- modern Istanbul -- that traces itself back to the apostle St. Andrew, brother of St. Peter, in a part of the world where the Christian faith has existed since New Testament times.

In December 2006, Bartholomew, patriarch since 1991, was thrust under the world-wide media spotlight when he celebrated the Orthodox Divine Liturgy with Pope Benedict XVI. The two met in the tiny Church of St. George in the equally tiny patriarchal compound in Istanbul, all that remains of an Eastern Christian civilization on the Bosporus so glistening and powerful that for more than 1,500 years Constantinople called itself the "new Rome."

Now Bartholomew has a forthcoming book, in English, "Encountering the Mystery: Perennial Values of the Orthodox Church" (Random House). It purports to be a primer to Orthodoxy, with short chapters on ritual, theology, icons and so forth. What it really is, perhaps inadvertently, is a telling glimpse into the mindset of a church that, venerable and spiritually appealing though it may be, is in a state of crisis. And the book reveals the jarringly secular-sounding ideological positions its leader seemingly feels compelled to take in order to cultivate the sympathy of a Western European political order that is at best indifferent to Christianity.

The Orthodox community, rooted mostly in Russia and Eastern Europe, is in "apparently irreversible demographic decline," as religious historian Philip Jenkins wrote in 2006, thanks to falling birthrates, cultural secularization, turf battles between the various ethnically focused Orthodox churches, and past communist ravages. The historic Christian communities in the Islamic-dominated world -- some Orthodox -- have fared even worse, their numbers reduced as members frantically immigrate to the West under pressure from terrorism, persecution and religious discrimination. The historic fate of Christianity in Islamic-majority lands has been cultural annihilation, whether gradual over the centuries or, as in recent decades, swift.

Nowhere does the plight of Christians look so pitiful as in Turkey, nominally secular but 99% Muslim. At the turn of the 20th century, some 500,000 Orthodox Christians, mostly ethnic Greeks, lived in Constantinople, where they constituted half the city's residents, and millions more resided elsewhere in what is now Turkey. Today, Bartholomew has only about 4,000 mostly elderly fellow believers (2,000 in Istanbul) left in Turkey's 71 million-plus population. The quasi-militaristic regime of Kemal Ataturk that supplanted the Ottoman Empire during the 1920s forcibly Westernized the country's institutions but also made Islam an essential component of the Turkish national identity that it relentlessly promoted.

"Kemalist ideology regarded Christianity as Greek and thus foreign," says Greek Orthodox writer Joshua Treviño. The result was a series of official and unofficial ethnic cleansings, population transfers, massacres and pogroms in Turkey, such as the wholesale destruction of Orthodox churches in 1955. The murders of a Catholic priest in 2006 and of an Armenian Christian journalist and three evangelicals, two of whom were Turkish converts, in 2007, together with threats and assaults against other Christian clergy by ultra-nationalists and Islamic militants, indicate that such anti-Christian animus is far from dead. Furthermore, the current government refuses to allow the reopening of Turkey's sole Greek Orthodox seminary, closed in 1971, which means that there have been no replacements for Turkey's aging Orthodox priests and -- since Turkish law requires the patriarch to be a Turkish citizen -- no likely replacement for Bartholomew himself, whose death may well mean the extinction of his 2,000-year-old see.

Nonetheless, Bartholomew devotes the bulk of his book to anything but the mortal threat to his own religion in his own country. High on his list of favorite topics, most with only a tangential relationship to Orthodoxy, is the environment. He has won the nickname "the Green Patriarch" for the decade or so he has preached the ecological gospel, largely to liberal secular audiences in the West. "Encountering the Mystery" is in large part a collection of eco-friendly platitudes about global warming ("At stake is not just our ability to live in a sustainable way but our very survival") and globalization, adorned with a bit of theological window-dressing, that today's secular progressives love to read.

Regarding globalization, Bartholomew cannot decide whether global capitalism is bad ("there are losers as well as winners") or good ("We must learn, therefore, both to think and to act in a global manner"). Plus, we must "transcend all racial competition and national rivalry," "promote a peaceful resolution of disagreements about how to live in this world," and yadda, yadda, yadda. Islam comes into play in the book only in terms of another bromide: a call for "interfaith dialogue."

On first reading, this exercise in fiddling while the new Rome burns seems pathetic, presenting a picture of a church leader so intimidated by his country's Islamic majority that he cannot speak up for his dwindling flock even as its members are murdered at his doorstep. Bartholomew's book presents an eerie mirror image of the concerns of aging, culturally exhausted, post-Christian Western Europe, happy to blather on at conferences about carbon emissions and diversity but unwilling to confront its own demographic crisis in the face of youthful, rapidly growing and culturally antagonistic Muslim populations. The suicide of the West meets the homicide of the East.

On the other hand, Bartholomew's "green" crusade across Western Europe may actually represent a shrewd last-ditch effort to secure a visible profile and powerful protectors for his beleaguered church. The patriarch has been an incessant lobbyist for Turkey's admission to the European Union, and his hope has been that the EU will condition Turkey's entry on greater religious freedoms for all faiths.

"The EU are secularists," says the Rev. Alexander Karloutsos, an administrator for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, based in New York. "They won't do anything out of religious reasons, but they will do it out of secular reasons if they can be persuaded that what's best for Europe is to have a Muslim state that's pro-Western in values, such as freedom of religion." The bureaucrats of Brussels may care little about Christianity, but they care deeply about global warming and multiculturalism, and on those issues Bartholomew has carved out common ground.

Orthodox Christianity is not dead yet. Its famous monastery on Mount Athos in Greece has enjoyed new growth recently, and in America some Orthodox churches are drawing converts attracted by the glorious liturgy and ancient traditions. It is unfortunate that Orthodoxy's spiritual leader feels compelled to position the Orthodox with a Western Europe that is, in fact, spiritually dead.

Ms. Allen is the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."

The 'Crunchy-Con' Orthodox convert from Catholicism seems to agree with Allen.

Whistling past the Orthodox graveyard

Gotta say I agree with Charlotte Allen's dismissal of the new book about Orthodoxy by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, which she reviews in today's Wall Street Journal. I read much of the book in galleys a couple of months ago, but didn't finish it. If you really want to learn about Orthodoxy, there are much better books for the lay reader (I'm currently reading an excellent one, "Light From the Christian East," by James Payton, a committed Reformed Christian college professor who writes a clear explanation, from a Western perspective, of how Orthodoxy differs subtly but profoundly from Western Christianity. I'm learning a great deal from this book, and can't recommend it highly enough.)

Anyway, I found the partriarch's book to be mostly dull pious bromides. That's no sin, I guess; lots of religious figures write boring, well-meaning books. But I kept wondering when he was going to talk about the challenge presented to Christians by Islam, which he can see as well as anybody, living as he does in a leading Islamic country. The patriarchate in Istanbul is on its last legs. The Turkish government has long persecuted, and continues to persecute, Orthodox Christians there. By Turkish law, the Patriarch has to be a Turkish citizen, which is to say, born in Turkey. But the Greek community there, owing to persecution, is vanishingly small, and Orthodox Christians in Turkey aren't allowed to train their own priests there. It's a horrible situation, one that I understood much more clearly from having been to Istanbul in the past year. I think it would be utterly disastrous to Europe to allow Turkey into the EU, because Turkish migration into Europe would be unstoppable -- and it would permanently Islamify the culture of Europe.

Yet the Patriarch has nothing to say about the Islamic challenge -- not the reality of the present moment, not with insight about how Orthodox Christianity, which has suffered for centuries under the yoke of Islam, managed to endure. Nothing. In my view, Charlotte gets this exactly right:

Nonetheless, Bartholomew devotes the bulk of his book to anything but the mortal threat to his own religion in his own country. High on his list of favorite topics, most with only a tangential relationship to Orthodoxy, is the environment. He has won the nickname "the Green Patriarch" for the decade or so he has preached the ecological gospel, largely to liberal secular audiences in the West. "Encountering the Mystery" is in large part a collection of eco-friendly platitudes about global warming ("At stake is not just our ability to live in a sustainable way but our very survival") and globalization, adorned with a bit of theological window-dressing, that today's secular progressives love to read.

Regarding globalization, Bartholomew cannot decide whether global capitalism is bad ("there are losers as well as winners") or good ("We must learn, therefore, both to think and to act in a global manner"). Plus, we must "transcend all racial competition and national rivalry," "promote a peaceful resolution of disagreements about how to live in this world," and yadda, yadda, yadda. Islam comes into play in the book only in terms of another bromide: a call for "interfaith dialogue."

On first reading, this exercise in fiddling while the new Rome burns seems pathetic, presenting a picture of a church leader so intimidated by his country's Islamic majority that he cannot speak up for his dwindling flock even as its members are murdered at his doorstep. Bartholomew's book presents an eerie mirror image of the concerns of aging, culturally exhausted, post-Christian Western Europe, happy to blather on at conferences about carbon emissions and diversity but unwilling to confront its own demographic crisis in the face of youthful, rapidly growing and culturally antagonistic Muslim populations. The suicide of the West meets the homicide of the East.

On the other hand, Bartholomew's "green" crusade across Western Europe may actually represent a shrewd last-ditch effort to secure a visible profile and powerful protectors for his beleaguered church. The patriarch has been an incessant lobbyist for Turkey's admission to the European Union, and his hope has been that the EU will condition Turkey's entry on greater religious freedoms for all faiths.

I told a Greek priest friend weeks ago that the Patriarch's book struck me as mostly a plea to make Europe wake up and come to his rescue by bringing Turkey into the EU -- which would be culturally suicidal for Europe. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so. If you want to encounter the mystery of Orthodoxy, by James Payton's book, or even better, try Kyriacos Markides' un-put-downable "The Mountain of Silence."

One last remark: I pity Patriarch Bartholomew, well and truly. He, and the community he pastors, are in desperate times. He could be the last in an unbroken line of patriarch of Constantinople, going back to the early days of Christianity. He is in a terrible position, and suffers things Christians, Orthodox and otherwise, living safely in the West can hardly imagine. Yet this is not the book one would have expected from a man in his tragic historical position. Or rather, this is not the spiritually heroic book one would have wanted from a man who could very well be the last patriarch left to turn off the lights in Christian Byzantium.

Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins

This is a pretty interesting article... I will comment more later.

by Charlotte Allen
Los Angeles Times, USA
July 9, 2006 Opinion

Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.

The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn’t simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity.

Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church.

Instead, as all but a few die-hards now admit, all the mainline churches and movements within churches that have blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating.

It is not entirely coincidental that at about the same time that Episcopalians, at their general convention in Columbus, Ohio, were thumbing their noses at a directive from the worldwide Anglican Communion that they “repent” of confirming the openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire three years ago, the Presbyterian Church USA, at its general assembly in Birmingham, Ala., was turning itself into the laughingstock of the blogosphere by tacitly approving alternative designations for the supposedly sexist Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Among the suggested names were “Mother, Child and Womb” and “Rock, Redeemer and Friend.” Moved by the spirit of the Presbyterian revisionists, Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher held a “Name That Trinity” contest. Entries included “Rock, Scissors and Paper” and “Larry, Curly and Moe.”

Following the Episcopalian lead, the Presbyterians also voted to give local congregations the freedom to ordain openly cohabiting gay and lesbian ministers and endorsed the legalization of medical marijuana. (The latter may be a good idea, but it is hard to see how it falls under the theological purview of a Christian denomination.)

The Presbyterian Church USA is famous for its 1993 conference, cosponsored with the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other mainline churches, in which participants “reimagined” God as “Our Maker Sophia” and held a feminist-inspired “milk and honey” ritual designed to replace traditional bread-and-wine Communion.

As if to one-up the Presbyterians in jettisoning age-old elements of Christian belief, the Episcopalians at Columbus overwhelmingly refused even to consider a resolution affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord. When a Christian church cannot bring itself to endorse a bedrock Christian theological statement repeatedly found in the New Testament, it is not a serious Christian church. It’s a Church of What’s Happening Now, conferring a feel-good imprimatur on whatever the liberal elements of secular society deem permissible or politically correct.

You want to have gay sex? Be a female bishop? Change God’s name to Sophia? Go ahead. The just-elected Episcopal presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is a one-woman combination of all these things, having voted for Robinson, blessed same-sex couples in her Nevada diocese, prayed to a female Jesus at the Columbus convention and invited former Newark, N.J., bishop John Shelby Spong, famous for denying Christ’s divinity, to address her priests.

When a church doesn’t take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like — accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it’s more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.

When your religion says “whatever” on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it’s a short step to deciding that one of the things you don’t want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.

It doesn’t help matters that the mainline churches were pioneers in ordaining women to the clergy, to the point that 25% of all Episcopal priests these days are female, as are 29% of all Presbyterian pastors, according to the two churches. A causal connection between a critical mass of female clergy and a mass exodus from the churches, especially among men, would be difficult to establish, but is it entirely a coincidence? Sociologist Rodney Stark (”The Rise of Christianity“) and historian Philip Jenkins (”The Next Christendom“) contend that the more demands, ethical and doctrinal, that a faith places upon its adherents, the deeper the adherents’ commitment to that faith. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, which preach biblical morality, have no trouble saying that Jesus is Lord, and they generally eschew women’s ordination. The churches are growing robustly, both in the United States and around the world.

Despite the fact that median Sunday attendance at Episcopal churches is 80 worshipers, the Episcopal Church, as a whole, is financially equipped to carry on for some time, thanks to its inventory of vintage real estate and huge endowments left over from the days (no more!) when it was the Republican Party at prayer. Furthermore, it has offset some of its demographic losses by attracting disaffected liberal Catholics and gays and lesbians. The less endowed Presbyterian Church USA is in deeper trouble. Just before its general assembly in Birmingham, it announced that it would eliminate 75 jobs to meet a $9.15-million budget cut at its headquarters, the third such round of job cuts in four years.

The Episcopalians have smells, bells, needlework cushions and colorfully garbed, Catholic-looking bishops as draws, but who, under the present circumstances, wants to become a Presbyterian?

Still, it must be galling to Episcopal liberals that many of the parishes and dioceses (including that of San Joaquin, Calif.) that want to pull out of the Episcopal Church USA are growing instead of shrinking, have live people in the pews who pay for the upkeep of their churches and don’t have to rely on dead rich people. The 21-year-old Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, Texas, for example, is one of the largest Episcopal churches in the country. Its 2,200 worshipers on any given Sunday are about equal to the number of active Episcopalians in Jefferts Schori’s entire Nevada diocese.

It’s no surprise that Christ Church, like the other dissident parishes, preaches a very conservative theology. Its break from the national church came after Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion, proposed a two-tier membership in which the Episcopal Church USA and other churches that decline to adhere to traditional biblical standards would have “associate” status in the communion. The dissidents hope to retain full communication with Canterbury by establishing oversight by non-U.S. Anglican bishops.

As for the rest of the Episcopalians, the phrase “deck chairs on the Titanic” comes to mind. A number of liberal Episcopal websites are devoted these days to dissing Peter Akinola, outspoken primate of the Anglican diocese of Nigeria, who, like the vast majority of the world’s 77 million Anglicans reported by the Anglican Communion, believes that “homosexual practice” is “incompatible with Scripture” (those words are from the communion’s 1998 resolution at the Lambeth conference of bishops). Akinola might have the numbers on his side, but he is now the Voldemort — no, make that the Karl Rove — of the U.S. Episcopal world. Other liberals fume over a feeble last-minute resolution in Columbus calling for “restraint” in consecrating bishops whose lifestyle might offend “the wider church” — a resolution immediately ignored when a second openly cohabitating gay man was nominated for bishop of Newark.

So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure.

Charlotte Allen is Catholicism editor for Beliefnet and the author of “The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.”

Pope: media should not manipulate consciences

Amen!

Here's what Benedict had to say for 'World Communications Day'...

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

1. The theme of this year's World Communications Day - "The Media: At the Crossroads between Self-Promotion and Service. Searching for the Truth in order to Share it with Others" - sheds light on the important role of the media in the life of individuals and society.
[clip]...

3. Humanity today is at a crossroads. One could properly apply to the media what I wrote in the Encyclical Spe Salvi concerning the ambiguity of progress, which offers new possibilities for good, but at the same time opens up appalling possibilities for evil that formerly did not exist (cf. No. 22). We must ask, therefore, whether it is wise to allow the instruments of social communication to be exploited for indiscriminate "self-promotion" or to end up in the hands of those who use them to manipulate consciences. Should it not be a priority to ensure that they remain at the service of the person and of the common good, and that they foster "man's ethical formation ... man's inner growth" (ibid.)? Their extraordinary impact on the lives of individuals and on society is widely acknowledged, yet today it is necessary to stress the radical shift, one might even say the complete change of role, that they are currently undergoing. Today, communication seems increasingly to claim not simply to represent reality, but to determine it, owing to the power and the force of suggestion that it possesses. It is clear, for example, that in certain situations the media are used not for the proper purpose of disseminating information, but to "create" events. This dangerous change in function has been noted with concern by many Church leaders. Precisely because we are dealing with realities that have a profound effect on all those dimensions of human life (moral, intellectual, religious, relational, affective, cultural) in which the good of the person is at stake, we must stress that not everything that is technically possible is also ethically permissible. Hence, the impact of the communications media on modern life raises unavoidable questions, which require choices and solutions that can no longer be deferred.


When communication loses its ethical underpinning and eludes society's control, it ends up no longer taking into account the centrality and inviolable dignity of the human person. As a result it risks exercising a negative influence on people's consciences and choices and definitively conditioning their freedom and their very lives. For this reason it is essential that social communications should assiduously defend the person and fully respect human dignity. Many people now think there is a need, in this sphere, for "info-ethics", just as we have bioethics in the field of medicine and in scientific research linked to life.

5. The media must avoid becoming spokesmen for economic materialism and ethical relativism, true scourges of our time. Instead, they can and must contribute to making known the truth about humanity, and defending it against those who tend to deny or destroy it. One might even say that seeking and presenting the truth about humanity constitutes the highest vocation of social communication.

[clip]...

6. Man thirsts for truth, he seeks truth; this fact is illustrated by the attention and the success achieved by so many publications, programmes or quality fiction in which the truth, beauty and greatness of the person, including the religious dimension of the person, are acknowledged and favourably presented. Jesus said: "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32).

[clip]...

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to raise up courageous communicators and authentic witnesses to the truth, faithful to Christ's mandate and enthusiastic for the message of the faith, communicators who will "interpret modern cultural needs, committing themselves to approaching the communications age not as a time of alienation and confusion, but as a valuable time for the quest for the truth and for developing communion between persons and peoples" (John Paul II, Address to the Conference for those working in Communications and Culture, 9 November 2002).

With these wishes, I cordially impart my Blessing to all.

From the Vatican, 24 January 2008, Feast of Saint Francis de Sales.

BENEDICTUS XVI

Read the whole address at Zenit.org:
http://www.zenit.org/article-21591?l=english

Pope: media should not manipulate consciences

Amen!

Here's what Benedict had to say for 'World Communications Day'...

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

1. The theme of this year's World Communications Day - "The Media: At the Crossroads between Self-Promotion and Service. Searching for the Truth in order to Share it with Others" - sheds light on the important role of the media in the life of individuals and society. Truly, there is no area of human experience, especially given the vast phenomenon of globalization, in which the media have not become an integral part of interpersonal relations and of social, economic, political and religious development. As I said in my Message for this year's World Day of Peace (1 January 2008): "The social communications media, in particular, because of their educational potential, have a special responsibility for promoting respect for the family, making clear its expectations and rights, and presenting all its beauty" (No. 5).

[clip]...

3. Humanity today is at a crossroads. One could properly apply to the media what I wrote in the Encyclical Spe Salvi concerning the ambiguity of progress, which offers new possibilities for good, but at the same time opens up appalling possibilities for evil that formerly did not exist (cf. No. 22). We must ask, therefore, whether it is wise to allow the instruments of social communication to be exploited for indiscriminate "self-promotion" or to end up in the hands of those who use them to manipulate consciences. Should it not be a priority to ensure that they remain at the service of the person and of the common good, and that they foster "man's ethical formation ... man's inner growth" (ibid.)? Their extraordinary impact on the lives of individuals and on society is widely acknowledged, yet today it is necessary to stress the radical shift, one might even say the complete change of role, that they are currently undergoing. Today, communication seems increasingly to claim not simply to represent reality, but to determine it, owing to the power and the force of suggestion that it possesses. It is clear, for example, that in certain situations the media are used not for the proper purpose of disseminating information, but to "create" events. This dangerous change in function has been noted with concern by many Church leaders. Precisely because we are dealing with realities that have a profound effect on all those dimensions of human life (moral, intellectual, religious, relational, affective, cultural) in which the good of the person is at stake, we must stress that not everything that is technically possible is also ethically permissible. Hence, the impact of the communications media on modern life raises unavoidable questions, which require choices and solutions that can no longer be deferred.

4. The role that the means of social communication have acquired in society must now be considered an integral part of the "anthropological" question that is emerging as the key challenge of the third millennium. Just as we see happening in areas such as human life, marriage and the family, and in the great contemporary issues of peace, justice and protection of creation, so too in the sector of social communications there are essential dimensions of the human person and the truth concerning the human person coming into play. When communication loses its ethical underpinning and eludes society's control, it ends up no longer taking into account the centrality and inviolable dignity of the human person. As a result it risks exercising a negative influence on people's consciences and choices and definitively conditioning their freedom and their very lives. For this reason it is essential that social communications should assiduously defend the person and fully respect human dignity. Many people now think there is a need, in this sphere, for "info-ethics", just as we have bioethics in the field of medicine and in scientific research linked to life.

5. The media must avoid becoming spokesmen for economic materialism and ethical relativism, true scourges of our time. Instead, they can and must contribute to making known the truth about humanity, and defending it against those who tend to deny or destroy it. One might even say that seeking and presenting the truth about humanity constitutes the highest vocation of social communication.

[clip]...

6. Man thirsts for truth, he seeks truth; this fact is illustrated by the attention and the success achieved by so many publications, programmes or quality fiction in which the truth, beauty and greatness of the person, including the religious dimension of the person, are acknowledged and favourably presented. Jesus said: "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32).

[clip]...

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to raise up courageous communicators and authentic witnesses to the truth, faithful to Christ's mandate and enthusiastic for the message of the faith, communicators who will "interpret modern cultural needs, committing themselves to approaching the communications age not as a time of alienation and confusion, but as a valuable time for the quest for the truth and for developing communion between persons and peoples" (John Paul II, Address to the Conference for those working in Communications and Culture, 9 November 2002).

With these wishes, I cordially impart my Blessing to all.

From the Vatican, 24 January 2008, Feast of Saint Francis de Sales.

BENEDICTUS XVI

Read the whole address at Zenit.org:

Alexy II on Pope Benedict & liturgical reform...

Pope Benedict has been working hard to reinvigor Catholic identity- a part of

uhhhhhh...I'm tired. I'll finish this later!

Liberalization of the Latin Mass:
A valuable aspect of the current papacy, says Moscow Patriarch

Excerpt of the actual interview granted by the Patriarch of Moscow, Alexis II, to Giovanni Cubeddu and Fabio Petito for the current edition of the Italian monthly 30 Giorni (30 Days):

What has the recent text of Pope Benedict on Latin in the liturgy meant to you? Does you Church also find itself today facing delicate liturgical questions? Besides, have you read the recent letter of the Pope to the Chinese Catholics? For the eightieth birthday of the Pope, you wrote, among other things, that "that which renders your position convincing is that you, as a theologian, is not merely a scholar of theoretical thought, but above all a sincere and deeply devout Christian who speaks from the bountifulness of your heart (cf. Mt 12, 34)". In what [aspect] do you find yourself today in greater agreement with pope Benedict?

Alexis II: "I believe that the question of the liturgical language and the relations among the various components of the Roman Catholic Church are internal matters. As for us, who are a Church for which the concept of Tradition has great meaning, the tension to find efficacious forms of harmonization between the centuries-old experience and the objective present-day reality and demands is nevertheless quite understandable and familiar. I see in this one of the most valuable aspects of the work of the current Pope of Rome, Benedict XVI."

Cool videos of Benedict & the Sistine Chapel!

From Catholic Online:

A portrait of the pope (this is an amazing painting by a Russian woman):
http://www.catholic.org/video/?v=508

Blessing of the pallium lambs (some cool tradition in action):
http://www.catholic.org/video/?v=609

Sistine Chapel: Iconography of a masterpiece:
http://www.catholic.org/video/?v=311

Single-sex classes: survey says students thriving

This is another article supporting same-sex classrooms. America needs this desperately; uniforms are next!

Survey: Students thriving
Engaged and confident — students in single-gender programs say that’s how they feel in their classes
By BILL ROBINSON - brobinson@thestate.com

Single-gender classes are popular with students in South Carolina public schools who are enrolled in them, a survey released Tuesday by the state Department of Education shows.

Boys and girls alike say the experience makes school more interesting and inspires confidence that they can earn good grades. Minority students were among the most enthusiastic, the agency said.

Here's the rest of the article:
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/286136.html

35 years later: Roe v. Wade

Here are some quotes from an AP article entitled: 35 years after Roe V. Wade: Numbers tell complex story

There are some choice quotes in the article, some that will make you happy and some that will definitely enrage or sadden.

I'll start with the bad... my emphasis & [my comments]

“It doesn’t just happen to young people, it (abortion) doesn’t necessarily have to do with irresponsibility [uhhhhhhh.],” said Miriam Inocencio, president of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island. [pray for her.] “Women face years and years of reproductive life after they’ve completed their families, and they’re at risk of an unintended pregnancy that can create an economic strain [yeah, babies are such a damn burden].”

About 13 percent of American women are black, yet new figures from the Centers for Disease Control show they account for 35 percent of abortions. [Unbelievable. The Democrats and the left are protecting blacks? Nice try.]

“It wasn’t a hard decision for me to make, because I knew where I wanted to go in my life—I’ve never regretted it,” said Kimberly Mathias, 28, an African-American single mother from Missouri. “It wasn’t hard to realize I didn’t want another child at that time,” Mathias said. “I was trying to take care of the one I had, and going to college and working at the same time.” [Becuase it's all about her. Work, play, school, her future; how dare a child get in her way. Besides, why can't she have sex without consequences whenever she wants? A great role model for junior. Pray for her.]

Now a good quote from Martin Luther King Jr's niece:

By contrast, Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., calls herself a “reformed murderer” for undergoing two abortions when she was young.
Now an anti-abortion campaigner, King says the best way to reduce abortions among black women is to dissuade more of them from premarital sex.
“We give free sex education, free condoms, free birth control,” she complained. “That’s almost like permission to have free sex, and the higher the rate of sexual activity, the higher the rate of unintended pregnancy.” [Amen, sister!]

Christian unity

I teach a course in Catholic Doctrine, and on a worksheet recently I asked my students to define ecumenism; here's what one of them said:
"it's when different Christians forget their differences and try to get along without actually unifying or resolving any disagreements."
Yes, that's really what he said. This is obviously not something I taught him or the class, but this youngster is in tune to what the prevailing perception of ecumenism is around him. From the mouths of babes...

Here's what Pope Benedict said on Jan. 20th about the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity:

Two days ago began the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity during which Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants, knowing that their divisions constitute an obstacle to the reception of the Gospel, together implore the Lord, in a yet more intense way, for the gift of full communion. This providential initiative was born 100 years ago, when Father Paul Wattson started the “Octave” of prayer for the unity of all the disciples of Christ. Today for this occasion the spiritual sons and daughters of Father Wattson, the friars and sisters of the Atonement, are present in St. Peter’s Square and I greet them cordially and encourage them to pursue the cause of unity with their special dedication.

We all have the duty to pray and work for the overcoming of every division between Christians, responding to Christ’s desire “ut unum sint.” Prayer, conversion of heart, the reinforcement of the bonds of communion, form the essence of this spiritual movement that we hope will soon lead the disciples of Christ to celebrate the Eucharist together, the manifestation of their full unity.

This year’s biblical theme is dense with meaning: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). St. Paul addresses himself to the community of Thessalonica, which was experiencing internal clashes and conflicts, to remind them with insistence about certain fundamental attitudes, among which there stands out, indeed, incessant prayer. With this invitation of his, he wants it to be understood that from the new life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit there flows forth the capacity to overcome all egoism, to live together in peace and fraternal union, to bear in large measure the burdens and sufferings of others. We must never tire of praying for the unity of Christians! When Jesus, during the Last Supper, prayed that his disciples “be one,” he had a precise goal in mind: “That the world believe” (John 17:21).

The Church’s evangelizing mission, therefore, moves along the path of ecumenism, the path of unity of faith, of evangelical witness and authentic fraternity. As is done every year, on Thursday, Jan. 25, I will go to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to conclude the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with solemn vespers. I invite Romans and pilgrims to join with me and with Christians of all the churches and ecclesial communities who will take part in the celebration, to ask of God the precious gift of reconciliation among all the baptized.

May the Mother of God, whose appearance to Alphonse Ratisbonne in the Church of Sant’Andrea delle Frate in Rome we remember today, obtain from the Lord the abundance of the Holy Spirit for all disciples in such a way that we can arrive at perfect unity and in this way offer the witness of faith and life that the world urgently needs.

Viva il Papa!!!!!! An est. 200,000 show support for Pope Benedict during the Sunday Angelus prayer!

Usually about 20,000 show up for the Angelus prayer on Sundays, but after this past week's dust up over the pope's visit to La Sapienza, an estimated 200,000 showed up to support the pope. Jumbo-tron televisions were also set up in major cities across Italia; pictured above is the big screen in Milan, where an estimated 10,000 listened to Benedict's Sunday address.

Here are some clips from the AsiaNews article on the event today:

Saint Peter's Square and the Via della Conciliazione burst at the seams with young students and the faithful, after the opposition to his presence at the university of Rome. Benedict XVI asks all to build "a fraternal and tolerant society". A call for prayers for unity, and the pope's appointment for vespers at Saint Paul's Outside the Walls.

[clip]

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Tens of thousands of young people and adults - more than 200,000, if the television linkups with other cities are counted - streamed into Saint Peter's Square from all over Italy to express their solidarity with Benedict XVI. It was a response to the invitation from Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar of Rome, after the violent controversy that had arisen at the La Sapienza university, leading the Holy See to decline the invitation for the pontiff to give the opening address for the university's academic year. Without any stridency, the pontiff exhorted all to work in a climate of "fraternity" and to "seek truth and freedom, in a shared commitment to a fraternal and tolerant society".
[clip]
He then commented briefly on the theme chosen for the Week this year, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). "With this appeal, [Saint Paul] . . . wants to make it known that the new life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit brings the ability to rise above every form of egoism, to live together in peace and fraternal union, to bear each other's burdens and sufferings willingly. We must never grow weary of praying for Christian unity!".
[clip]
Without argumentative tones, the pontiff recalled what had happened: "As you know," he said, "I had very willingly accepted the courteous invitation extended to me to speak last Thursday at the inauguration of the academic year at 'La Sapienza – Università di Roma'. I know this university very well; I respect it and I am fond of the students who attend it: every year, on various occasions, many of them come to meet me at the Vatican, together with their peers from the other universities. Unfortunately, as is well known, the atmosphere that was created made my presence at the ceremony inadvisable. I cancelled the visit unwillingly, but in any case I wanted to send the text that I had prepared for the occasion".
[clip]
After the greetings in the various languages, the crowd burst into applause and chants of "Viva il papa" and "Freedom". The pope smiled and, waving goodbye, added: "Let us continue to live in this climate of fraternity, in the search for truth and freedom, in a shared commitment to a fraternal and tolerant society". In short, a lesson on authentic secularism from the head of the Catholic Church.

Read the full article at:
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11300&size=A

The Pope's cancelled speech at La Sapienza in Rome...

Needless to say, this whole situation is a complete disaster and an embarrassment for La Sapienza. Here's the situation: the pope was invited to speak at the Roman university to open the academic year 2008. A group of crazy, ultra-liberal faculty and students banned together to 'defend free speech' by stating that if the pope came they would make a scene. Their main beef with the pope has to do with some of the remarks he made about the age-old Galileo scandal in the early 1990's. In truth, the Pope discussed the Galileo 'scandal' in a very even-minded way. Most people do not understand that this great myth about the Church's so-called suppression of Galileo is rather silly, but I digress. In the end, Benedict defended Galileo, and the faculty and students at La Sapienza are treating the pope worse than they believe the Church treated Galileo!
Because, as a Vatican official stated, "the conditions for a dignified and peaceful welcome were lacking, it has been judged prudent to delay the scheduled visit in order to remove any pretext for demonstrations that would have been unpleasant for all."
The pope sent his remarks along anyway, and they were read aloud at the ceremony by enraged members of the faculty. A standing ovation was given by faculty and students present for the pope's wise remarks. The entire speech was about the relationship of the pope to the university, and it promoted academic freedom and an honest pursuit of the Truth. The irony is almost too painful to bear.
This whole debacle could be considered 'The Regensburg Address Part II', as the pope and the Church are the only real defenders of honest Truth in the modern age. It is crazy to think that one can defend free-speech by silencing others, and it is equally crazy to think that west civilization and specifically the university owe nothing to their Christian foundation.
One last final tidbit of irony: Pope Bonifice opened this university in 1303, and it was under the guidance of the Church until the 1870's when the fascist state wrenched it from the Church and forced it to become a secular university. La Sapienza means "wisdom".
-Old Books Club

"I do not come to impose my faith, but to call for courage on behalf of the truth"
-Pope Benedict's words originally intended to be read at La Sapienza

HERE IS A LINK TO THE POPE'S ADDRESS:
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=56017

UPDATE:
The University of Padua, where Galileo once taught, is considering inviting Pope Benedict to speak at their university!
The Catholic News Service story:

Galileo’s university considers inviting Pope to give conference

ROME, Jan 18, 2008 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The governor of the region of Veneto in northern Italy, Giancarlo Galan, has proposed inviting Pope Benedict XVI to the historic University of Padua, one of the oldest in the world and where Galileo once taught.

“It would be a great tribute as part of the Galilean celebrations that are taking place this year,” Galan said. The governor’s proposal has received the support of the mayor of Padua, Flavio Zanonato, who said that the final decision should rest with the rector of the university, Professor Vincenzo Milanesi.
Meanwhile Professor Furio Honsell, rector of the University of Udine—also in northern Italy—has announced that in response to requests by students, he will invite Pope Benedict XVI to give a lecture. “I think it is a positive response by the young people to an unacceptable situation,” Honsell said in reference to the Pope’s cancelled speech at La Sapienza University in Rome.

For more on this situation, check the following links:
Fr. Z: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2008/01/what-is-going-on-in
-rome-with-the-pope-the-university-the-left-and-the-fallout/
Chiesa: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/186421?eng=y
Wall Street Journal: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2008/01/wsj-papal-inquisition/
The Galileo controversy: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2008/01/the-galileo-issue/