The media vs. the Church

A good description of media bias...

Shrove Tuesday
by David Warren
2/24/09

The marvelous thing about penitence is you don't have to be particularly guilty to enjoy it. I write "particularly," of course, out of anxiety to cover my theological position: We are all "generally" or "originally" guilty, all born into the heritage of Adam, and unquestionably needful of Christ's redeeming grace. But penitence is not punishment, and the Lent that begins tomorrow is not for anything in particular we have done. (The expression, "That was for nothing; wait till you do something," teases me from my atheist days.)

The Church herself enjoys penitence, some divinely self-imposed, and some imposed externally; and of that externally imposed, some deserved, and some not. An example of this last I watched as it arrived via the BBC one month ago. The headline on their Web site read, "Pope move ignites Holocaust row." It hadn't quite ignited this yet, at the time it appeared, but it soon would, as the BBC (which, like the rest of the Mainstream Media, is viscerally anti-Catholic) was obviously hoping.

I immediately recalled the viciously irresponsible way in which the "Beeb" belatedly reported Pope Benedict XVI's address at the University of Regensburg in 2006. While other media outlets slept, the BBC became the first international news disseminator to realize that there was a single passage in the speech -- a 600-year-old quotation -- which, if misrepresented in a sufficiently sleazy way in their headlines and leads, and followed by hints that Muslims should riot, would soon have the desired effect. Given the "inverted pyramid" form of journalistic presentation, they could cover themselves later in the story, by factually qualifying the impression left by the lead -- that the pope had intentionally made an incendiary, anti-Islamic remark. The damage would already be done, and they needn't fear their qualification would limit it.

Ditto with their more recent, profoundly sleazy reporting, which likewise spread at electronic speed through the rest of the MSM. A very careful perusal of the whole story, in its original and most sophisticated version, would leave the reader in little doubt of the pope's innocence. But people do not read the media; they "watch" or scan it. And anyone merely watching or scanning could be forgiven for thinking the pope had intentionally lifted an excommunication from a "British" "bishop," in the full knowledge that he was a Holocaust denier. In other words, the Panzer Pope was being openly anti-Semitic.

The various liberal (and, in particular, liberal Jewish) "human rights" organizations were quick to run with this slander, and within 24 hours I had poorly informed Jewish friends forwarding to me a petition from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre that made the BBC's original report look honest by comparison. The beauty of the slander, from the point of view of its perpetrators, was that explaining what had actually happened would take quite a few sentences more than the sound bite for which the contemporary media audience has patience.

Needless to say -- or rather, it should be needless to say -- that the lifting of the excommunications on four bishops the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre appointed after he had broken with Rome had nothing whatever to do with the political and historical views of any of them. While it could perhaps be fairly argued that Vatican bureaucrats should have vetted the men for "other misdemeanors" before exposing the pope to this "media row," it was clear enough from the beginning that Benedict himself had no idea about Richard Williamson's abhorrent "take" on the Nazi death camps -- in which were murdered, among millions of others, René Lefebvre, the very father of the founder of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X.

Read the rest here.

Latin deemed 'elitist' & 'discriminatory' in England!

"TE ODIO = I HATE YOU"

This is the latest from England...

Councils ban 'elitist' and 'discriminatory' Latin phrases
They are phrases that are repeated ad nauseam and are taken as bona fide English, but councils have now overturned the status quo by banning staff from using Latin terms, which they claim are elitist and discriminatory.

By Chris Hastings, Public Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 12:35AM GMT 02 Nov 2008

Local authorities have ordered employees to stop using the words and phrases on documents and when communicating with members of the public and to rely on wordier alternatives instead.

The ban has infuriated classical scholars who say it is diluting the world's richest language and is the "linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing".

Bournemouth Council, which has the Latin motto Pulchritudo et Salubritas, meaning beauty and health, has listed 19 terms it no longer considers acceptable for use.

This includes bona fide, eg (exempli gratia), prima facie, ad lib or ad libitum, etc or et cetera, ie or id est, inter alia, NB or nota bene, per, per se, pro rata, quid pro quo, vis-a-vis, vice versa and even via.

Its list of more verbose alternatives, includes "for this special purpose", in place of ad hoc and "existing condition" or "state of things", instead of status quo.

In instructions to staff, the council said: "Not everyone knows Latin. Many readers do not have English as their first language so using Latin can be particularly difficult."

The details of banned words have emerged in documents obtained from councils by the Sunday Telegraph under The Freedom of Information Act.

Of other local authorities to prohibit the use of Latin, Salisbury Council has asked staff to avoid the phrases ad hoc, ergo and QED (quod erat demonstrandum), while Fife Council has also banned ad hoc as well as ex officio.

Professor Mary Beard, a professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge said: "This is absolute bonkers and the linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing. English is and always has been a language full of foreign words. It has never been an ethnically pure language."

Dr Peter Jones, co-founder of the charity Friends of Classics said "This sort of thing sends out the message that language is about nothing more than the communication of very basic information in the manner of a railway timetable.

"But it is about much more than that. The great strength of English is that it has a massive infusion of Latin. We have a very rich lexicon with almost two sets of words for everything.

"To try and wipe out the richness does a great disservice to the language. It demeans it. I am all for immigrants raising their sights not lowering them. Plain English and Latin phrasing are not diametrically opposed concepts."

Henry Mount the author of the bestselling book Amo, Amos, Amat and All That, a lighthearted guide to the language, said: "Latin words and phrases can often sum up thoughts and ideas more often that the alternatives which are put forward. They are tremendously useful, quicker and nicer sounding.

"They are also English words. You will find etc or et cetera in an English dictionary complete with its explanation."

However, the Plain English Campaign has congratulated the councils for introducing the bans.

Marie Clair, its spokesman, said: "If you look at the diversity of all our communities you have got people for whom English is a second language. They might mistake eg for egg and little things like that can confuse people.

"At the same time it is important to remember that the national literacy level is about 12 years old and the vast majority of people hardly ever use these terms.

"It is far better to use words people understand. Often people in power are using the words because they want to feel self important. It is not right that voters should suffer because of some official's ego."

Several councils, including Aberdeenshire, and Blackburn and Darwen, have also prohibited the use of the French phrase in lieu, while many local authorities have drawn up lists of English words, which cannot be used as they are considered politically incorrect.

Amber Valley Council, in Derbyshire, has told staff it is no longer acceptable to use language "that portrays once sex as subordinate to the other".

Staff have been instructed to say "synthetic" rather than "man made", "lay person" instead of "lay man", "people in general" in place of "man in the street", "one person show" rather than "one man show" and "ancestors" instead of "forefathers".

Broadland Council, in Norfolk, has banned "housewife" and replaced it with "homemaker" and asked staff to refer to "staffing" rather than "manning" levels.

Several councils including Blyth Valley and Weymouth have banned the phrase disabled toilet and disabled parking because they imply that the facilities themselves are disabled. They have renamed them accessible.

There are some hilarious ironies in what the spokesman for "the Plain English Campaign"
said: "It is not right that voters should suffer because of some official's ego."
I would also interject that if one confuses eg for "egg," he doesn't deserve breakfast!

Regensburg (PART II) the battle for the secular west continues...

Pope Benedict dropped some gems on his historic visit to France this past week. In particular, his speech "meeting with representatives from the world of culture" has been dubbed "Regensburg Part II". Here it is in its entirety.

MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE WORLD OF CULTURE

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Collège des Bernardins, Paris
Friday, 12 September 2008

Your Eminence,
Madam Minister of Culture,
Mr Mayor,
Mr Chancellor of the French Institute,
Dear Friends!

I thank you, Your Eminence, for your kind words. We are gathered in a historic place, built by the spiritual sons of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and which Your venerable predecessor, the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, desired to be a centre of dialogue between Christian Wisdom and the cultural, intellectual, and artistic currents of contemporary society. In particular, I greet the Minister of Culture, who is here representing the Government, together with Mr Giscard d’Estaing and Mr Jacques Chirac. I likewise greet all the Ministers present, the Representatives of UNESCO, the Mayor of Paris, and all other Authorities in attendance. I do not want to forget my colleagues from the French Institute, who are well aware of my regard for them. I thank the Prince of Broglie for his cordial words. We shall see each other again tomorrow morning. I thank the delegates of the French Islamic community for having accepted the invitation to participate in this meeting: I convey to them by best wishes for the holy season of Ramadan already underway. Of course, I extend warm greetings to the entire, multifaceted world of culture, which you, dear guests, so worthily represent.

I would like to speak with you this evening of the origins of western theology and the roots of European culture. I began by recalling that the place in which we are gathered is in a certain way emblematic. It is in fact a placed tied to monastic culture, insofar as young monks came to live here in order to learn to understand their vocation more deeply and to be more faithful to their mission. We are in a place that is associated with the culture of monasticism. Does this still have something to say to us today, or are we merely encountering the world of the past? In order to answer this question, we must consider for a moment the nature of Western monasticism itself. What was it about? From the perspective of monasticism’s historical influence, we could say that, amid the great cultural upheaval resulting from migrations of peoples and the emerging new political configurations, the monasteries were the places where the treasures of ancient culture survived, and where at the same time a new culture slowly took shape out of the old. But how did it happen? What motivated men to come together to these places? What did they want? How did they live?

First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: quaerere Deum. Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential – to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself. They were searching for God. They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is. It is sometimes said that they were “eschatologically” oriented. But this is not to be understood in a temporal sense, as if they were looking ahead to the end of the world or to their own death, but in an existential sense: they were seeking the definitive behind the provisional. Quaerere Deum: because they were Christians, this was not an expedition into a trackless wilderness, a search leading them into total darkness. God himself had provided signposts, indeed he had marked out a path which was theirs to find and to follow. This path was his word, which had been disclosed to men in the books of the sacred Scriptures. Thus, by inner necessity, the search for God demands a culture of the word or – as Jean Leclercq put it: eschatology and grammar are intimately connected with one another in Western monasticism (cf. L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu). The longing for God, the désir de Dieu, includes amour des lettres, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions. Because in the biblical word God comes towards us and we towards him, we must learn to penetrate the secret of language, to understand it in its construction and in the manner of its expression. Thus it is through the search for God that the secular sciences take on their importance, sciences which show us the path towards language. Because the search for God required the culture of the word, it was appropriate that the monastery should have a library, pointing out pathways to the word. It was also appropriate to have a school, in which these pathways could be opened up. Benedict calls the monastery a dominici servitii schola. The monastery serves eruditio, the formation and education of man – a formation whose ultimate aim is that man should learn how to serve God. But it also includes the formation of reason – education – through which man learns to perceive, in the midst of words, the Word itself.

Yet in order to have a full vision of the culture of the word, which essentially pertains to the search for God, we must take a further step. The Word which opens the path of that search, and is to be identified with this path, is a shared word. True, it pierces every individual to the heart (cf. Acts 2:37). Gregory the Great describes this a sharp stabbing pain, which tears open our sleeping soul and awakens us, making us attentive to the essential reality, to God (cf. Leclercq, p. 35). But in the process, it also makes us attentive to one another. The word does not lead to a purely individual path of mystical immersion, but to the pilgrim fellowship of faith. And so this word must not only be pondered, but also correctly read. As in the rabbinic schools, so too with the monks, reading by the individual is at the same time a corporate activity. “But if legere and lectio are used without an explanatory note, then they designate for the most part an activity which, like singing and writing, engages the whole body and the whole spirit”, says Jean Leclercq on the subject (ibid., 21).

And once again, a further step is needed. We ourselves are brought into conversation with God by the word of God. The God who speaks in the Bible teaches us how to speak with him ourselves. Particularly in the book of Psalms, he gives us the words with which we can address him, with which we can bring our life, with all its highpoints and lowpoints, into conversation with him, so that life itself thereby becomes a movement towards him. The psalms also contain frequent instructions about how they should be sung and accompanied by instruments. For prayer that issues from the word of God, speech is not enough: music is required. Two chants from the Christian liturgy come from biblical texts in which they are placed on the lips of angels: the Gloria, which is sung by the angels at the birth of Jesus, and the Sanctus, which according to Isaiah 6 is the cry of the seraphim who stand directly before God. Christian worship is therefore an invitation to sing with the angels, and thus to lead the word to its highest destination. Once again, Jean Leclercq says on this subject: “The monks had to find melodies which translate into music the acceptance by redeemed man of the mysteries that he celebrates. The few surviving capitula from Cluny thus show the Christological symbols of the individual modes” (cf. ibid. p. 229).

For Benedict, the words of the Psalm: coram angelis psallam Tibi, Domine – in the presence of the angels, I will sing your praise (cf. 138:1) – are the decisive rule governing the prayer and chant of the monks. What this expresses is the awareness that in communal prayer one is singing in the presence of the entire heavenly court, and is thereby measured according to the very highest standards: that one is praying and singing in such a way as to harmonize with the music of the noble spirits who were considered the originators of the harmony of the cosmos, the music of the spheres. From this perspective one can understand the seriousness of a remark by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who used an expression from the Platonic tradition handed down by Augustine, to pass judgement on the poor singing of monks, which for him was evidently very far from being a mishap of only minor importance. He describes the confusion resulting from a poorly executed chant as a falling into the “zone of dissimilarity” – the regio dissimilitudinis. Augustine had borrowed this phrase from Platonic philosophy, in order to designate his condition prior to conversion (cf. Confessions, VII, 10.16): man, who is created in God’s likeness, falls in his godforsakenness into the “zone of dissimilarity” – into a remoteness from God, in which he no longer reflects him, and so has become dissimilar not only to God, but to himself, to what being human truly is. Bernard is certainly putting it strongly when he uses this phrase, which indicates man’s falling away from himself, to describe bad singing by monks. But it shows how seriously he viewed the matter. It shows that the culture of singing is also the culture of being, and that the monks have to pray and sing in a manner commensurate with the grandeur of the word handed down to them, with its claim on true beauty. This intrinsic requirement of speaking with God and singing of him with words he himself has given, is what gave rise to the great tradition of Western music. It was not a form of private “creativity”, in which the individual leaves a memorial to himself and makes self-representation his essential criterion. Rather it is about vigilantly recognizing with the “ears of the heart” the inner laws of the music of creation, the archetypes of music that the Creator built into his world and into men, and thus discovering music that is worthy of God, and at the same time truly worthy of man, music whose worthiness resounds in purity.

In order to understand to some degree the culture of the word, which developed deep within Western monasticism from the search for God, we need to touch at least briefly on the particular character of the book, or rather books, in which the monks encountered this word. The Bible, considered from a purely historical and literary perspective, is not simply a book, but a collection of literary texts which were redacted over the course of more than a thousand years, and in which the inner unity of the individual books is not immediately apparent. On the contrary, there are visible tensions between them. This is already the case within the Bible of Israel, which we Christians call the Old Testament. It is only rectified when we as Christians link the New Testament writings as, so to speak, a hermeneutical key with the Bible of Israel, and so understand the latter as the journey towards Christ. With good reason, the New Testament generally designates the Bible not as “the Scripture” but as “the Scriptures”, which, when taken together, are naturally then regarded as the one word of God to us. But the use of this plural makes it quite clear that the word of God only comes to us through the human word and through human words, that God only speaks to us through the humanity of human agents, through their words and their history. This means again that the divine element in the word and in the words is not self-evident. To say this in a modern way: the unity of the biblical books and the divine character of their words cannot be grasped by purely historical methods. The historical element is seen in the multiplicity and the humanity. From this perspective one can understand the formulation of a medieval couplet that at first sight appears rather disconcerting: littera gesta docet – quid credas allegoria … (cf. Augustine of Dacia, Rotulus pugillaris, I). The letter indicates the facts; what you have to believe is indicated by allegory, that is to say, by Christological and pneumatological exegesis.

We may put it even more simply: Scripture requires exegesis, and it requires the context of the community in which it came to birth and in which it is lived. This is where its unity is to be found, and here too its unifying meaning is opened up. To put it yet another way: there are dimensions of meaning in the word and in words which only come to light within the living community of this history-generating word. Through the growing realization of the different layers of meaning, the word is not devalued, but in fact appears in its full grandeur and dignity. Therefore the Catechism of the Catholic Church can rightly say that Christianity does not simply represent a religion of the book in the classical sense (cf. par. 108). It perceives in the words the Word, the Logos itself, which spreads its mystery through this multiplicity and the reality of a human history. This particular structure of the Bible issues a constantly new challenge to every generation. It excludes by its nature everything that today is known as fundamentalism. In effect, the word of God can never simply be equated with the letter of the text. To attain to it involves a transcending and a process of understanding, led by the inner movement of the whole and hence it also has to become a process of living. Only within the dynamic unity of the whole are the many books one book. The Word of God and his action in the world are revealed only in the word and history of human beings.

The whole drama of this topic is illuminated in the writings of Saint Paul. What is meant by the transcending of the letter and understanding it solely from the perspective of the whole, he forcefully expressed as follows: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). And he continues: “Where the Spirit is … there is freedom (cf. 2 Cor 3:17). But one can only understand the greatness and breadth of this vision of the biblical word if one listens closely to Paul and then discovers that this liberating Spirit has a name, and hence that freedom has an inner criterion: “The Lord is the Spirit. Where the Spirit is … there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17). The liberating Spirit is not simply the exegete’s own idea, the exegete’s own vision. The Spirit is Christ, and Christ is the Lord who shows us the way. With the word of Spirit and of freedom, a further horizon opens up, but at the same time a clear limit is placed upon arbitrariness and subjectivity, which unequivocally binds both the individual and the community and brings about a new, higher obligation than that of the letter: namely, the obligation of insight and love. This tension between obligation and freedom, which extends far beyond the literary problem of scriptural exegesis, has also determined the thinking and acting of monasticism and has deeply marked Western culture. This tension presents itself anew as a challenge for our own generation as we face two poles: on the one hand, subjective arbitrariness, and on the other, fundamentalist fanaticism. It would be a disaster if today’s European culture could only conceive freedom as absence of obligation, which would inevitably play into the hands of fanaticism and arbitrariness. Absence of obligation and arbitrariness do not signify freedom, but its destruction.

Thus far in our consideration of the “school of God’s service”, as Benedict describes monasticism, we have examined only its orientation towards the word – towards the “ora”. Indeed, this is the starting point that sets the direction for the entire monastic life. But our consideration would remain incomplete if we did not also at least briefly glance at the second component of monasticism, indicated by the “labora”. In the Greek world, manual labour was considered something for slaves. Only the wise man, the one who is truly free, devotes himself to the things of the spirit; he views manual labour as somehow beneath him, and leaves it to people who are not suited to this higher existence in the world of the spirit. The Jewish tradition was quite different: all the great rabbis practised at the same time some form of handcraft. Paul, who as a Rabbi and then as a preacher of the Gospel to the Gentile world was also a tent-maker and earned his living with the work of his own hands, is no exception here, but stands within the common tradition of the rabbinate. Monasticism took up this tradition; manual work is a constitutive element of Christian monasticism. In his Regula, Saint Benedict does not speak specifically about schools, although in practice, he presupposes teaching and learning, as we have seen. However, in one chapter of his Rule, he does speak explicitly about work (cf. Chap. 48). And so does Augustine, who dedicated a book of his own to monastic work. Christians, who thus continued in the tradition previously established by Judaism, must have felt further vindicated by Jesus’s saying in Saint John’s Gospel, in defence of his activity on the Sabbath: “My Father is working still, and I am working” (5:17). The Graeco-Roman world did not have a creator God; according to its vision, the highest divinity could not, as it were, dirty his hands in the business of creating matter. The “making” of the world was the work of the Demiurge, a lower deity. The Christian God is different: he, the one, real and only God, is also the Creator. God is working; he continues working in and on human history. In Christ, he enters personally into the laborious work of history. “My Father is working still, and I am working.” God himself is the Creator of the world, and creation is not yet finished. God works, ergázetai! Thus human work was now seen as a special form of human resemblance to God, as a way in which man can and may share in God’s activity as creator of the world. Monasticism involves not only a culture of the word, but also a culture of work, without which the emergence of Europe, its ethos and its influence on the world would be unthinkable. Naturally, this ethos had to include the idea that human work and shaping of history is understood as sharing in the work of the Creator, and must be evaluated in those terms. Where such evaluation is lacking, where man arrogates to himself the status of god-like creator, his shaping of the world can quickly turn into destruction of the world.

We set out from the premise that the basic attitude of monks in the face of the collapse of the old order and its certainties was quaerere Deum – setting out in search of God. We could describe this as the truly philosophical attitude: looking beyond the penultimate, and setting out in search of the ultimate and the true. By becoming a monk, a man set out on a broad and noble path, but he had already found the direction he needed: the word of the Bible, in which he heard God himself speaking. Now he had to try to understand him, so as to be able to approach him. So the monastic journey is indeed a journey into the inner world of the received word, even if an infinite distance is involved. Within the monks’ seeking there is already contained, in some respects, a finding. Therefore, if such seeking is to be possible at all, there has to be an initial spur, which not only arouses the will to seek, but also makes it possible to believe that the way is concealed within this word, or rather: that in this word, God himself has set out towards men, and hence men can come to God through it. To put it another way: there must be proclamation, which speaks to man and so creates conviction, which in turn can become life. If a way is to be opened up into the heart of the biblical word as God’s word, this word must first of all be proclaimed outwardly. The classic formulation of the Christian faith’s intrinsic need to make itself communicable to others, is a phrase from the First Letter of Peter, which in medieval theology was regarded as the biblical basis for the work of theologians: “Always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason (the logos) for the hope that you all have” (3:15). (The Logos, the reason for hope must become apo-logía; it must become a response). In fact, Christians of the nascent Church did not regard their missionary proclamation as propaganda, designed to enlarge their particular group, but as an inner necessity, consequent upon the nature of their faith: the God in whom they believed was the God of all people, the one, true God, who had revealed himself in the history of Israel and ultimately in his Son, thereby supplying the answer which was of concern to everyone and for which all people, in their innermost hearts, are waiting. The universality of God, and of reason open towards him, is what gave them the motivation—indeed, the obligation—to proclaim the message. They saw their faith as belonging, not to cultural custom that differs from one people to another, but to the domain of truth, which concerns all people equally.

The fundamental structure of Christian proclamation “outwards” – towards searching and questioning mankind – is seen in Saint Paul’s address at the Areopagus. We should remember that the Areopagus was not a form of academy at which the most illustrious minds would meet for discussion of lofty matters, but a court of justice, which was competent in matters of religion and ought to have opposed the import of foreign religions. This is exactly what Paul is reproached for: “he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities” (Acts 17:18). To this, Paul responds: I have found an altar of yours with this inscription: ‘to an unknown god’. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you (17:23). Paul is not proclaiming unknown gods. He is proclaiming him whom men do not know and yet do know – the unknown-known; the one they are seeking, whom ultimately they know already, and who yet remains the unknown and unrecognizable. The deepest layer of human thinking and feeling somehow knows that he must exist, that at the beginning of all things, there must be not irrationality, but creative Reason – not blind chance, but freedom. Yet even though all men somehow know this, as Paul expressly says in the Letter to the Romans (1:21), this knowledge remains unreal: a God who is merely imagined and invented is not God at all. If he does not reveal himself, we cannot gain access to him. The novelty of Christian proclamation is that it can now say to all peoples: he has revealed himself. He personally. And now the way to him is open. The novelty of Christian proclamation does not consist in a thought, but in a deed: God has revealed himself. Yet this is no blind deed, but one which is itself Logos – the presence of eternal reason in our flesh. Verbum caro factum est (Jn 1:14): just so, amid what is made (factum) there is now Logos, Logos is among us. Creation (factum) is rational. Naturally, the humility of reason is always needed, in order to accept it: man’s humility, which responds to God’s humility.

Our present situation differs in many respects from the one that Paul encountered in Athens, yet despite the difference, the two situations also have much in common. Our cities are no longer filled with altars and with images of multiple deities. God has truly become for many the great unknown. But just as in the past, when behind the many images of God the question concerning the unknown God was hidden and present, so too the present absence of God is silently besieged by the question concerning him. Quaerere Deum – to seek God and to let oneself be found by him, that is today no less necessary than in former times. A purely positivistic culture which tried to drive the question concerning God into the subjective realm, as being unscientific, would be the capitulation of reason, the renunciation of its highest possibilities, and hence a disaster for humanity, with very grave consequences. What gave Europe’s culture its foundation – the search for God and the readiness to listen to him – remains today the basis of any genuine culture. Thank you.

Huck needed Natural Law (Great First Things article)

Excellent article from First Things.

Huckabee and Social Conservatives

By Ryan T. Anderson
Thursday, August 7, 2008, 7:42 AM

Reports last month told of a meeting of some ninety prominent evangelical leaders deciding to support John McCain for president. While noting disagreements between themselves and McCain, the group concluded that McCain shared their most important views, on life and marriage. Matthew Staver, the dean of Liberty University Law School and the organizer of the meeting, said that McCain “would advance those values in a much more significant way than Sen. Barack Obama who, in our view, would decimate those values.”

The group also reached a consensus that they would send a letter to McCain asking him to pick Mike Huckabee as his running mate. Staver explained that “It’s not a demand; it’s a request.”

McCain would do well to reject this request, and the evangelicals would do well to rethink their political strategies.

Consider the primary season. The losing campaigns of Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee offer important political lessons for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Just months ago, pundits were writing the obituary for social conservatism. Frank Rich claimed that the “political clout ritualistically ascribed” to social conservatives “is a sham.” “These self-promoting values hacks,” he continued, “don’t speak for the American mainstream. They don’t speak for the Republican Party. They no longer speak for many evangelical ministers and their flocks. The emperors of morality have in fact had no clothes for some time. Should Rudy Giuliani end up doing a victory dance at the Republican convention, it will be on their graves.”



Of course, Rudy Giuliani won’t be dancing at the national convention. He didn’t win a single primary. To judge from his vote totals and delegate count alone, he was not even a top-tier candidate. Giuliani gambled that he could win without the social conservatives and lost big time. Score one for the “values hacks.”

The unexpected relative success of the Huckabee campaign—sustained by a shoestring budget, a makeshift staff, and a policy platform that seemed to be thrown together overnight—showed just how big an impact the so-called values voters can have. Actually, it understated that impact, since many values voters went with other candidates (like Romney). So one lesson learned from the Giuliani and Huckabee campaigns was the continued political relevance of social conservatives.

Yet that shouldn’t be the only lesson we take away, for Rich was right about one thing: The leaders of the social conservative movement do not speak for mainstream America. And they never will, so long as they follow the Huckabee model.

But they could. The American mainstream is, especially when compared to other industrialized nations, remarkably conservative on social issues. Lifestyle liberalism has always been a liability for the left in America, as witnessed by the fact that the more socially conservative candidate has won five of the past seven presidential elections. Social conservatives can speak for the mainstream but only if they move beyond the Huckabee approach.

To start with, he ran his campaign solely on religious identity politics. If Giuliani never effectively reached out to socially conservative Christians, Huckabee never effectively reached beyond them. He continually told evangelical Christian audiences to support him because he was one of them. Everyone else got the message, too. Huckabee ran his campaign in a way that would appeal only to conservative evangelicals and would offend—even scare—people outside his religious community.

One incident, in particular, illustrates how Huckabee narrowed the appeal of social conservatism. While stumping to a largely Evangelical audience in Michigan, Huckabee said: “I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do—to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.”

Reaction to this was quick and fierce, even from generally sympathetic sources like National Review Online’s “The Corner.” Lisa Schiffren quickly pointed out: “Mike Huckabee is going to force those of us who have wanted more religion in the town square to reexamine the merits of strict separation of church and state. He is the best advertisement ever for the ACLU, even if you share his ultimate views on the definition of marriage, or the desirability of abortion on demand.” Andy McCarthy added that he usually contrasts America to Islamist nations: “Part of my usual response . . . focuses on the Taliban, their imposition of sharia (i.e., God’s law), and the marked contrast to our system’s bedrock guarantee of freedom of conscience. . . . Where has Huck been for the last seven years? Does he not get that our enemies—the people who want to end our way of life—believe they are simply imposing God’s standards?”

On Hannity and Colmes, Huckabee tried to explain what he meant. He wasn’t talking about mandating that anyone worship on Sunday or tithe. He was talking about two things only: the human-life amendment and the marriage amendment. But these causes cannot effectively be defended in this way.

Arguing that “God said so” won’t persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. Even though Americans remain a remarkably religious people, the Bible doesn’t carry the authority it once did. And many of those who generally hold the Bible in high regard consider it “dated” and “out of touch” on certain controversial moral questions.

Luckily, social conservatism has resources for public argument besides the Bible. After all, on many of the day’s most important issues—human cloning, embryo destruction, creating designer babies—the Bible offers little specific guidance. And our obligations to treat fellow citizens as equals—as well as the practical requirements for broad political consensus—demand that we rise above sectarian appeals to religious authority. If social conservatism is to win the day, social conservatives—especially those seeking and holding public office—must make public arguments using public reasons to defend human life and marriage.

Defending these moral truths with reason and campaigning on those same reasons shouldn’t prove difficult. Huckabee argued that we should amend the Constitution to fit “God’s standards,” so we might consider what the Christian tradition has had to say about God’s standards. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that “we do not offend God except by doing something contrary to our own good.” If Thomas is right, then rather than claim that a debased practice offends God, politicians can—and, I would add, should—explain to the public what aspect of some immoral behavior is contrary to our own good, especially the common good—and why a just and decent society shouldn’t accept it.

Rather than argue that abortion is contrary to God’s law and that we need to bring the Constitution into conformity with God’s law, social conservatives should argue that as a matter of scientific fact the child in a mother’s womb is a whole, living human being, and that as a matter of moral truth the direct killing of any peaceable human being is gravely unjust.

John Paul II argued as much. If the universal pastor of the Catholic Church could speak publicly about abortion in a way that was intelligible to non-Catholic Americans, why shouldn’t American Christian politicians do the same? This approach was natural for John Paul because of his understanding of divine commands: “The Ten Commandments,” he said, “are not an arbitrary imposition of a tyrannical Lord. They were written in stone; but before that, they were written on the human heart as the universal moral law, valid in every time and place. . . . To keep the Commandments is to be faithful to God, but it is also to be faithful to ourselves, to our true nature and our deepest aspirations.”

Read the rest here: First Things

Benedict on his USA visit

On the Trip to the UN and the US
"I Have Had the Joy of Announcing 'Christ Our Hope'"

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 30, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today at the general audience in St. Peter's Square.

* * *

Even if a few days have already passed since my return, I would like to dedicate the catechesis of today, as I normally do, to the apostolic trip that I made to the United Nations and the United States of America this past April 15 to 21. Before all, I renew my most cordial appreciation to the U.S. episcopal conference, as well as President Bush, for having invited me and for the warm welcome they have given me. And I would like to extend my thanks to all those in Washington and New York who came to greet me and manifest their love for the Pope, or who have accompanied and supported me with prayer and with the offering of their sacrifices.

As we know, the occasion of my trip was the bicentennial of the elevation of the country's first diocese, Baltimore, to a metropolitan see, and the foundation of the sees of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Louisville. On this characteristically ecclesial anniversary, I have had the joy of personally visiting, for the first time as the Successor of Peter, the dear people of the United States of America, to confirm the Catholics in their faith, to renew and increase fraternity with all Christians, and to announce to everyone the message of "Christ Our Hope," as the theme of the trip said.

In the meeting with the president, in his residence, I was able to pay homage to this great country, which from the beginning has been constructed based on a pleasing joining together of religious, ethical and political principles, and continues to be a valid example of healthy secularism, where the religious dimension, in the diversity of its expressions, is not only tolerated but valued as the "soul" of the nation and the fundamental guarantee of the rights and duties of the human being.

In this context, the Church can carry out its mission of evangelization and human promotion with freedom and commitment and, at the same time, can be a stimulus for a country such as the United States, to which everyone looks as one of the principal agents on the international scene, so that it is oriented toward global solidarity, ever more necessary and urgent, and toward the patient exercise of dialogue in international relations.

Naturally, the mission and the role of the ecclesial community were at the center of the meeting with the bishops that took place in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington. In the liturgical context of vespers, we praised the Lord for the path traveled by the people of God in the United States, for the zeal of its pastors, and for the fervor and the generosity of its faithful, which is manifested with a high esteem and openness to the faith, and in innumerable charitable and humanitarian initiatives within the country and outside it.

At the same time, I was able to support my brothers in the episcopate in their difficult task of sowing the Gospel in a society marked by many contradictions, which threaten the coherence of the faithful and of the clergy themselves. I encouraged them to raise their voices on current moral and social questions and to form the lay faithful so that they be good "leaven" in the civil community, starting from the fundamental cell that is the family. In this sense, I exhorted them to re-propose the sacrament of matrimony as a gift and indissoluble commitment between a man and a woman, the natural environment for the welcoming and education of children. The Church and the family, together with schools, especially those of Christian inspiration, should cooperate to offer youth a solid moral education, but in this task the agents of communication and entertainment also have a great responsibility.

Thinking of the sorrowful situation of the sexual abuse of minors committed by ordained ministers, I wanted to express to the bishops my closeness, encouraging them in the commitment to heal the wounds and to reinforce their relationships with their priests. Responding to some questions asked by the bishops, I highlighted a few important aspects: the intrinsic relationship between the Gospel and "natural law"; the healthy concept of freedom, which is understood and fulfilled in love; the ecclesial dimension of the Christian experience; the demand to announce in new ways, especially to youth, "salvation" as the plenitude of life, and to educate them in prayer, from which sprouts the generous response to the call of the Lord.

In the great and festive Eucharistic celebration in Nationals Park stadium in Washington, we invoked the Holy Spirit upon the Church in the United States of America, so that firmly rooted in the faith transmitted by its fathers, profoundly united and renewed, it will face present and future challenges with courage and hope -- that hope that "does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Romans 5:5).

One of these challenges is certainly that of education, and for this reason, in the Catholic University of America, I met with rectors of universities and Catholic educational centers, with the diocesan leaders responsible for teaching, and with representatives of professors and students. The educational task is an integral part of the mission of the Church, and the U.S. Church community has always been very committed in this field, offering at the same time a great social and cultural service to the entire country. It is important that this can continue. And it is in the same way important to take care of the quality of the Catholic centers of education so that in them, [students] are formed truly according to "the extent of the full stature" of Christ (cf. Ephesians 4:13), joining together faith and reason, truth and liberty. With joy, therefore, I have confirmed the formators in their precious commitment to intellectual charity.

In a country like the United States of America, with a multicultural vocation, the meetings with representatives of other religions have taken on special importance: in Washington, in the John Paul II Cultural Center, with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Jains; in New York, the visit to the synagogue. Moments, especially this latter one, which were very cordial, which have confirmed the common commitment to dialogue and the promotion of peace and spiritual and moral values. In [a country] that can consider itself the homeland of religious liberty, I wanted to recall that this should always be defended with a joint effort, so as to avoid any kind of discrimination or prejudice. And I stressed the great responsibility of the religious representatives, both in teaching respect and nonviolence, and in nourishing the deepest questions of human consciousness. The ecumenical celebration, in the parish church of St. Joseph, was also characterized by great cordiality. Together, we asked the Lord that he increase in Christians the capacity of giving reasons, also with an ever greater unity, for their unique hope (cf. 1 Peter 3:15) based in a common faith in Jesus Christ.

The other principal objective of my tripe was the visit to the central offices of the United Nations Organization: the fourth visit of a Pope, after that of Paul VI in 1965 and the two visits of John Paul II, in 1979 and 1995. In the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Providence permitted me to confirm, in the most great and authoritative supranational assembly, the value of this declaration, recalling its universal basis, that is, the dignity of the human person created by God in his image and likeness to cooperate in the world with his great design of life and peace.

Respect for human rights is rooted, as well as in peace, in "justice," that is, in an ethical order valid in all times and for all peoples, which can be summarized in the famous maxim: "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you," or, expressed positively in the words of Jesus, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you" (Matthew 7:12). Upon this base, which constitutes the characteristic contribution of the Holy See to the United Nations Organization, I renewed and I renew again today, the commitment of the Catholic Church in contributing to strengthen international relations, characterized by the principles of responsibility and solidarity.

Other moments of my stay in New York have remained firmly etched in my spirit. In St. Patrick's Cathedral, in the heart of Manhattan, truly a "house of prayer for all peoples," I celebrated holy Mass for the priests and consecrated persons who had come from all parts of the country. I will never forget the warmth with which they congratulated me for the third anniversary of my election to the See of Peter. It was a moving moment, in which I experienced in a tangible way all of the support of the Church for my ministry. I could say the same about my meeting with youth and seminarians, which was held precisely in the diocesan seminary, preceded by a very significant meeting with handicapped boys and girls and their families.

I proposed to youth -- who by their nature are thirsting for truth and love -- some figures of men and women who have given an exemplary testimony of the Gospel in the lands of the United States, the Gospel of the truth that frees in love, in service, in life given for others. In seeing the darkness that today threatens their lives, youth can find in the saints the light that dissipates it: the light of Christ, hope for all men.

This hope, stronger than sin and death, motivated the emotion-swelled moment that I spent in silence at the crater of ground zero where I lit a candle, praying for all the victims of that terrible tragedy. Finally, my visit culminated with the celebration of the Eucharist in Yankee Stadium in New York: I still carry in my heart that festival of faith and brotherhood, with which we celebrated the 200 years of the oldest dioceses of North America. The original little flock has progressed enormously, enriching itself with the faith and the traditions of successive waves of immigration. To this Church, which now faces the challenges of the present, I have had the joy of announcing anew "Christ Our Hope" of yesterday, today and forever.

Dear brothers and sisters, I invite you to unite yourselves with me in thanksgiving for the encouraging results of this apostolic trip and in the supplication to God, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, that it produces abundant fruits for the Church in the United States and in all parts of the world.

[Translation by ZENIT]

[At the end of the audience, the Pope greeted the people in several languages. In English, he said:]

My recent Apostolic Journey to the United Nations and the United States of America was inspired by the theme, "Christ our Hope". I am most grateful to all who helped in any way to make the Journey a success. My visit was meant to encourage the Catholic community in America, especially our young people, to bear consistent witness to the faith, and to carry on the Church's mission, especially with regard to education and concern for the poor. American society traditionally values religious freedom and the need for faith to play its part in building a sound civic life. In my meetings with President Bush, and with Christian leaders and representatives of other religions, I reaffirmed the Church's commitment to cooperation in the service of understanding, peace and spiritual values. My address to the United Nations stressed the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which grounds respect for human dignity in a universally valid ethical order. In a particular way, my visit to Ground Zero, charged with sober silence and prayer, was a moving testimony to the hope which is stronger than evil and death. I ask all of you to join me in praying that this Visit will bear abundant spiritual fruit for the growth of the faith in America and for the unity and peace of the whole human family.

I offer a warm welcome to the participants in the third Christian-Buddhist Symposium, meeting in Castel Gandolfo during these days. Upon all of you and upon the English-speaking pilgrims from England, Ireland, Scandinavia, Malta, South Africa, Korea, Thailand, Canada and the United States, I cordially invoke the joy and peace of the Risen Christ.

© Copyright 2008 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Post Papal Visit Analysis...

Here are some analyses from solid writers.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus: The Papal Week That Was

Michael Novak: Zenit interview (part I) (part II)

Father Thomas Rosica, CSB: The Shadow of Peter Fell on America Last Week

Rich Lowry: The Dictatorship of Relativism

Peggy Noonan: Flock Feeling His Charisma of Sincerity

Full Re-Cap of the pope's visit

An amazing visit! The following are the major events and addresses, homilies, and actions of Benedict XVI on his first apostolic visit to the United States. This was a truly successful week of events for the pope; he even put to rest the idea of him as 'panzer-cardinal'.

-Message of the pope, prior to his visit.
View YouTube video

-Guide (Missale) for all the liturgy during the pope's visit
Download (a nice pdf file)

-Interview of Holy Father during the flight over.
Download (text)

-The pope gave a speech at the White House with President Bush.
Download BXVI (text) (audio) Download Bush (text) (audio)

-Benedict had a private meeting with the president.
Download joint press release (text)

-Vespers & Benedict addresses U.S. bishops/cardinals.
Download (text)

-Benedict responds to questions from U.S. clergy.
Download (text)

-Pope Benedict met with some sex-abuse victims in a private meeting. This is the first time a pope has met with abuse victims.
An amazing gesture. Obviously, no transcript available. Here's a story.

-Benedict addresses Catholic educators in America.
Download (text)

-Joint meeting with leaders of other faiths; Benedict speaks.
Download (text)

-Address of Benedict XVI to the Jewish leaders of America, & a Passover message.
Download (text)

-Homily of pope at DC Nationals Stadium Mass.
Download (text)

-Benedict delivers an address at the United Nations
Download (text) the speech was delivered in French.

-Ecumenical Prayer service address at St. Joseph's German parish in New York.
Download (text) *****This is the most direct message from BXVI thus far.

-Homily during the celebration of a Votive Mass for the Universal Church with priests, men and women religious in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.
Download (text) (audio) some ad-libbed, humble words of the pope at the end of mass.

-Meeting with young people having disabilities at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers.
Download (text)

-Meeting with young people and seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers.
Download (text) (audio)

-Prayer during the visit to Ground Zero in New York (April 20, 2008).
Download (text)

-Homily during the celebration of Holy Mass at New York's Yankee Stadium.
Download (text w/Fr. Z. commentary)

-Farewell address at John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport.
Download (text)

Read Richard John Neuhaus' commentary from EWTN & First Things on the pope's U.S. visit. Always good stuff from Fr. Neuhaus.

Schall on the pope's USA visit

Read what Fr. James Schall, who always has some interesting things to read, anticipates will be the focus of the pope's message to Americans and Catholics.

The pope's general reaction to America is that this nation has a fine founding in its classical writers. We are a generous people. However, somehow Americans have more recently drifted away from these founding principles. "As a first step, go back!" he will urge. He will mention the obvious relativism and secularism, which has too often replaced the central values of western civilization, including that of America and even in the Church.

"Secularization, which presents itself in cultures by imposing a world and humanity without reference to Transcendence," Benedict told the members of the Pontifical Council for Culture, "is invading every aspect of daily life and developing a mentality in which God is effectively absent, wholly or partially, from human life and awareness. This secularization is not only an external threat to believers, but has been manifest for some time in the heart of the Church herself. It profoundly distorts the Christian faith from within..." [3] The inner relation of believers-Church-nations-world to the final destiny of each human person and that of our kind to God is constantly before the pope's mind. This is, after all, why his office exists, that men may know the truth about themselves and their final destiny. Everything else has its importance relative to the final end of our being.
Ever since his address on modern religious movements in Mexico several years ago, the pope has paid attentions to cults and spiritualities that seem to prevail in a society evidently returning to pagan origins on its rejecting Christianity. Thus, he continues in the same address to the Council for Culture: "The 'death of God' proclaimed by many intellectuals in recent decades is giving way to a barren cult of the individual. In this cultural context there is a risk of drifting into spiritual atrophy and emptiness of heart, sometimes characterized by surrogate forms of religious affiliation and vague spiritualism." It has frequently been said that, unexpectedly, the aftermath of Marxism has not been a return to Christianity or to science even, but to eastern religions and "spiritualism" movements.
No doubt the pope will say something about life, about abortion, skewered views of marriage, including homosexual "marriages." These are issues about which many American politicians would like to think are "settled constitutional issues." That is, beyond criticism or intellectual discussion. In his Salt of the Earth, Joseph Ratzinger made a comment that I think is pertinent here: "Evil has power via man's freedom, whereby it creates structures for itself." [4] This is pretty much where we are. We have a protective "structure" of evil that claims immunity because we are so "settled" about it that we need not examine what it means. Even though here and in Europe, the decline of population is of major political import, we pretend not to see the connection between our future and new human beings coming into the world. We are blind to the needed reforms of our lives, families, and state that would make this renewed attention to the need of new members of our society possible.

Read the whole article here.

Peggy Noonan: "Something Beautiful Has Begun" - on Benedict's USA visit...

At the open-air mass in St. Peter's on April 2, the third anniversary of the death of John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI spoke movingly – he brought mist to the eyes of our little group of visiting Americans – of John Paul's life, and the meaning of his suffering. "Among his many human and supernatural qualities he had an exceptional spiritual and mystical sensitivity," said the pontiff, who knew John Paul long and intimately. (Those who hope for swift canonization please note: "supernatural." Benedict the philosopher does not use words lightly.)

He spoke of the distilled message of John Paul's reign: "Be not afraid," the words "of the angel of the Resurrection, addressed to the women before the empty tomb." Which words were themselves a condensed message: Nothing has ended, something beautiful has begun, but you won't understand for a while.

Benedict was doing something great leaders usually don't do, which is invite you to dwell on the virtues of his predecessor.

We did. You couldn't hear Benedict without your eyes going to the small white window in the plain-walled Vatican where John Paul's private chambers were, and from which he spoke to the world. Quick memory-images: the windows open, the crowd goes wild, and John Paul is waving, or laughingly shooing away a white bird that repeatedly tried to fly in and join him, or, most movingly, at the end, trying to speak and not able to, and trying again and not able to, and how the crowd roared its encouragement.

Oh, you miss that old man when you are here! You feel the presence of his absence. The souvenir shops know. They sell framed pictures and ceramic plates of the pope: John Paul. Is there no Benedict? There is. A photo of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger being embraced by . . . John Paul. It's now on my desk in New York. They have their hands on each other's shoulders and look in each other's eyes. A joyful image. They loved each other and were comrades.

When I was writing a book about John Paul, I'd ask those who'd met him or saw him go by: What did you think, or say? And they'd be startled and say, "I don't know, I was crying."

John Paul made you burst into tears. Benedict makes you think. It is more pleasurable to weep, but at the moment, perhaps it is more important to think.

A Vatican reporter last week said John Paul was the perfect pope for the television age, "a man of images." Think of the pictures of him storm-tossed, tempest-tossed, standing somewhere and leaning into a heavy wind, his robes whipping behind him, holding on to his crosier, the staff bearing the image of a crucified Christ, with both hands, for dear life, as if consciously giving Christians a picture of what it is to be alive.

Benedict, the reporter noted, is the perfect pope for the Internet age. He is a man of the word. You download the text of what he said, print it, ponder it.

* * *

Now he is the man at the window. What do we see? This is what I saw as his popemobile came close by in the square: tall man, white hair, shy eyes, deep-set. He is waving, trying to act out pleasure at being the focus of all eyes, center stage. He is not a showman but a scholar, an engaged philosopher nostalgic for the days – he has spoken of them – when he was a professor in a university classroom, surrounded by professors operating in a spirit of academic camaraderie and debate. But, his friends tell you, he enjoys being pope. He has become acclimated.

There is a sweetness about him – all in the Vatican who knew him in the old days speak of it – and a certain vagueness, as if he is preoccupied.

He lacks an immediately accessible flair. Popes didn't use to have to have flair, but now perhaps it is expected of them. John Paul was many things – theologian, canny anticommunist – but he was a showman, too. Woo woo, he teased the cheering children of America on his first trip. John Paul II, he loves you! Such a small thing, and yet somehow it broke your heart. The world then needed the liveliness of faith, its joy, its gaiety even. I was told this week his Vatican hadn't quite approved of what they saw as his antics. Well, that's why God didn't make them pope.

* * *

Now Benedict comes to America, his first trip as pope. The highlight in the Vatican's eyes is his address to the United Nations. No one knows what he will say. He will no doubt call for peace, for that is what popes do, and should do. Beyond that? Perhaps some variation on themes from his famous Regensburg address, in September 2006.

There he traced and limned some of the development of Christianity, but he turned first to Islam. Faith in God does not justify violence, he said. "The right use of reason" prompts us to understand that violence is incompatible with the nature of God, and the nature, therefore, of the soul. God, he quotes an ancient Byzantine ruler, "is not pleased by blood," and "not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature." More: "To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm." This is a message for our time, and a courageous one, too. (The speech was followed by riots and by Osama bin Laden's charge that the pope was starting a new "crusade.")

The trip begins in Washington, and the White House has announced that the pope and the president will "continue their dialogue on the interplay of faith and reason." (This prompted a long-suffering Bush supporter to say, "I'm seeing the collision of matter and antimatter.")

Catholics who hope for a successful visit have some anxiety that a distracted Vatican apparatus, working, sort of, with a confused American team waiting on decisions, will fail to allow Benedict to be what he is to best effect, to break through and reveal some of his nature. An American journalist took it upon himself to remind papal representatives that the pope turns 81 while in Washington. Perhaps people could be urged to sing . . . "Happy Birthday"? Benedict some time back wowed a group of schoolchildren when he spoke to them of Antonietta Meo, who may in time become the church's youngest nonmartyred saint. Is he meeting with schoolchildren here?

Another small fear, born of hearing him last week at the mass. Benedict spoke in many languages including English, which he speaks fluidly and with a strong German accent. This is an accent that 60 years of World War II movies have taught Americans to hear as vaguely sinister, or comic. The nicer commentators may say he sounds like Col. Klink in "Hogan's Heroes." I hope he speaks even more than usual about love, for that may remove the sting, as love does.

* * *

I forgot to say that as he went through the crowds last week, after the mass, thousands from all over the world ran toward him, reached for him, applauded. It was festive, sprawling, and as they cheered, for a moment St. Peter's felt like what Benedict said it was in the days after John Paul's death, the beating "heart of the world." It was rousing, but also comforting. Afterward I thought: Nothing is ended, something beautiful has begun, we just won't understand it for a while.

The Holy Father's moving prayer at Ground Zero

This is a beautiful prayer of reconciliation, and a strong message against unreasonable violence in the name of religion. I hope many Moslems see this prayer.

O God of love, compassion, and healing,
look on us, people of many different faiths
and traditions,
who gather today at this site,
the scene of incredible violence and pain.
We ask you in your goodness
to give eternal light and peace
to all who died here—
the heroic first-responders:
our fire fighters, police officers,
emergency service workers, and
Port Authority personnel,
along with all the innocent men and women
who were victims of this tragedy
simply because their work or service
brought them here on September 11, 2001.
We ask you, in your compassion
to bring healing to those
who, because of their presence here that day,
suffer from injuries and illness.
Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families
and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy.
Give them strength to continue their lives
with courage and hope.
We are mindful as well
of those who suffered death, injury, and loss
on the same day at the Pentagon and in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Our hearts are one with theirs
as our prayer embraces their pain and suffering.
God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world:
peace in the hearts of all men and women
and peace among the nations of the earth.
Turn to your way of love
those whose hearts and minds
are consumed with hatred.
God of understanding,
overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
we seek your light and guidance
as we confront such terrible events.
Grant that those whose lives were spared
may live so that the lives lost here
may not have been lost in vain.
Comfort and console us,
strengthen us in hope,
and give us the wisdom and courage
to work tirelessly for a world
where true peace and love reign
among nations and in the hearts of all.

At the conclusion of the prayer, the Holy Father is handed an aspergillum.

Also download the booklet that will accompany the pope's visit; all of his liturgical celebrations as well as his addresses are indicated in this handy 200 page booklet.

FOX NEWS ALERT! "The pope is coming, the pope is coming!"

Fox News is even anticipating Benedict's visit and banking on it being historical, literally. Fox already has DVD documentaries for sale. This is crazy!
I agree though, Benedict's visit is going to be momentous.

Here's Fox's billing for the pope's visit...

In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI makes an historic trip to the United States, his first since being named pope. This one hour documentary taps the world-wide resources of FOX News to examine the man and his mission, and the role he will push for the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century.

Born Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict grew up in the small villages of Bavaria, Germany as Hitler came to power. He became a priest, a brilliant college professor, and a top advisor to Pope John Paul II.

After John Paul's death, Pope Benedict XVI took over a church faced with significant challenges, including: dwindling numbers of Catholics in Europe, scandals and priest shortages in the United States, a growing secularism throughout the West, and the spread of radical Islam throughout the world.

"Mission to America: Pope Benedict XVI" reveals the inside stories behind Benedict's plan to revitalize the faith of Catholics in America; his outreach to American Protestants, including Evangelicals; his visit to Ground Zero -- the site of Al Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attack on New York City; his White House meeting with President Bush, and his historic address to the United Nations.

Plus, our we'll talk with Vatican Secretary of State Tarciscio Bertone, Vatican Ambassador to the U.N. Archbishop Celestino Migliori, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush's National Security Advisor Steven Hadley, Reverend Pat Robertson, and others about the pope's historic visit to the United States.

The DVD plug (already on Amazon, and written as if it already happened!)

Hosted by Chris Wallace. In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI made an historic trip to the United States, his first since being named Pope. This one-hour documentary taps the world-wide resources of Fox News to examine the man, his mission, and the role he desires for the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century. Born Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict grew up in the small villages of Bavaria Germany as Hitler came to power. He became a priest, a brilliant college professor, and a top advisor to Pope John Paul II. After John Paul's death, Pope Benedict XVI took over a church faced with significant challenges, including: dwindling numbers of Catholics in Europe, ascandals and priest shortages in the United States, a growing secularism throughout the West, and the spread of radical Islam throughout the world.

This hour reveals the inside stories behind Benedict's plan to revitalize the faith of Catholics in America; his outreach to American Protestants, including Evangelicals; his visit to Ground Zero -- the site of Al Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attack on New York City; his White House meeting with President Bush, and his historic address to the United Nations. Interviews include top Catholic theologians, Former Great Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush's National Security Advisor Steven Hadley, the Vatican's Ambassador to the United Nations, the Reverend Pat Robertson, and others.

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I can't wait for the "historical address to the United Nations" that Fox describes on the DVD. "No pressure, Holy Father, it better be a darn good speech!"

A solid piece by Michael Novak on the pope's U.S. visit

This is a great article. A nice overview of Benedict as Cardinal Ratzinger, and his doings as pope. Cheers to National Review and Michael Novak.

Naturally, only a few parts of the lengthy article have been posted- subscribe to National Review to read the whole piece!

When Pope Benedict XVI arrives in America this month, he will find an American Church much in need of his tough love and pastoral care. Nonetheless, his native instinct for modesty and gentleness is likely to be the most visible fact of his presence.

Some may ask why Benedict XVI chose to come to the White House this year, at the risk of seeming to engage in politics during an election. My guess is that the Vatican has never had a better friend in the White House than George W. Bush — not only in defending the sanctity of human life, but in exposing the reflexive leftism (and “gnosticism” — to which I will return later) of many international organizations, and in stressing the importance of religious liberty in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Second, the Pope especially appreciates the American founders’ intellectual solution to the crisis of religious liberty. That solution has bearing today on the immense difficulties of church and state — which much concern Benedict — that are now being experienced in so many other nations around the world.

Third, Benedict XVI appreciates the substratum of natural law — the universal law implanted in the hearts and minds of all persons — that is expressed in the natural-rights tradition of the United States. This way of thinking has, in his mind, immense international potency. It is rooted in natural reason, not particular faiths, and it pertains to human beings as such, not as they are divided into nations or tribes.

[snip]

PAPAL PERSONALITY
As for the Pope himself, one of the most beautiful things about him is how faithfully he is just himself — not trying to be like his great friend John Paul II (they used to meet once a week for long conversations, often of some theological and philosophical depth). His training was to become a professor and, more than that, an unusually clear thinker, of extraordinary erudition and fearless intellectual judgment.

The Pope has always struck those who know him as an unusually shy and modest man, despite his great learning. He prefers to let his clarity of thought speak for itself and presents himself even in casual conversation as a seeker and a constant learner.

Back in the early 1980s... the cardinal is said to have insisted that Communism was dead — no one even in the USSR took it seriously any longer (unlike some in Western universities). The great intellectual threat of the future, he said quietly, the one he was most concerned about, was “gnosticism.”

[snip]
...the cardinal was thought to have meant by this a kind of dreamy utopianism, an attempt to escape from human limitations. Gnosticism seeks such unrealistic forms of perfection that it necessarily becomes the enemy of the merely human and the merely good. It leads to dissatisfaction, outrage, bitterness, alienation, depressed capitulation to evil, and, often enough, self-destruction. Perhaps the cardinal was even then working toward his more recent thinking about relativism and nihilism, genetic engineering, and political romanticism as the chief enemies of freedom today.

[snip]

Yet the most important point of the Pope’s American visit is a pastoral stirring of the Catholic faithful in the United States. One should watch carefully the tenor of his talks to a large body of Catholic educators, to bishops and clergy, and, via television, to millions of laypeople and their fellow Americans. The text for the Pope’s address to the United Nations should also be given special attention. Some who should know say that it will be a profound recapitulation of the body of ideas about natural law and universal human rights in which the United Nations (under significant Catholic leadership, by the way) was conceived.

Novak concludes by remarking that this is the perfect time for Benedict to make his first (hopefully not last!) visit to the U.S.

It has also been said that Benedict will address the sexual abuse scandals, which I think would be particularly wise; let's come down on the lavender mafia Eliot Ness style!

Satire on Richard (The God Delusion) Dawkins

This video is pretty funny. It rips on the sheer arrogance of the man behind the book, The God Delusion: Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is known for his staunch atheism and his harsh rhetoric against Christianity and any belief in something higher than his intellect.
He coined the name "the Brights" referring to himself and other 'enlightened' atheist -scientists who scoffed at religion.

Here he is avoiding an innocent question, and displaying his ever-acrimonious wit against believers...



Now for the well-deserved roast... (beware, the video has some questionable content). What's funnier, after watching a few moments of the satire, is reading Mark Shea's post on the Crisis blog.



Mark Shea writes about the Dawkins video:

As we know, Chesterton famously observed that the mark of madness is not the loss of reason, but the loss of everything except reason. Periodically, something in our culture will show me the brilliance of that insight with great force.

Chad, one of the readers over on the Vox Popoli blog summarizes Dawkins & Co.'s lightning-swift-on-the-uptake response to the satire:

1. Video posted around 11:00 PM

2. 1 hour and 44 minutes later, Dawkins implores his more intelligent readers to help inform him as to whose side the video is on (his side, or not his side). He then pokes fun at people that think things are funny that he doesn't understand just in case it turns out to be 'not on his side.' Comment #151544

3. Dawkins now presumably goes to sleep.

4. Nearly nine hours later, he wakes up and checks the post again. He sees that his fellow scientific elites like the video, but also don't understand it. Dawkins tries to get in a little dig on postmodernism, but just ends up making fun of his posters. Comment #151685

5. Nine and a half hours after posting, Dawkins wonders how his fellow comrades could laugh at something they don't understand. He then lauds The Life of Brian as the pinnacle of comedic evolution. Comment #151704

6. A couple minutes after the last post, he gets in another jab at Postmodernism. Comment #151713

7. Under chastisement for his humbuggery, Dawkins admits that Daniel Dennett popping his head up from out of nowhere is, in fact, funny. Comment #151715

8. Nearly ten hours after posting the video, someone postulates that the humor is derived from the silly dancing bodies (not the satire). Dawkins seems to accept this theory and thanks the poster for his intellect. Comment #151723

9. Sixteen hours after first watching the video, Dawkins finally realizes that it is, in fact, making fun of 'his side.' Dawkins defends himself again by saying that he didn't understand it. Comment #151849.

10. Seventeen hours after posting, Dawkins attempts to comprehend the humor by equating similar scenes of incongruousness that Monty Python has also done. Dawkins has apparently not yet pondered why, if this were the only thing funny about the video, he did not catch on before this. Dawkins chalks this up to the video not being funny, and dismisses the obvious conclusion that his head is too big to see the satire behind it. Comment #151889

11. The next day, Dawkins chimes in again to defend his Ph.D. status to a poster who dared question it. Comment #152142

12. Nearly 36 hours after posting, Dawkins discovers what a 'grill' is and waxes philosophic as to why Sam Harris would have one in the video. The conclusion he comes up with is that it adds no humor to the video and should not have been put in. Comment #152168

13. After a full three and a half days after first watching the video, Dawkins (obviously perturbed at the fact he didn't get that he was the butt of the joke, when every other non-elite who saw it could tell in an instant) attempts to equate the video with 'The worst poem ever written.' He then satisfies himself by settling on the conclusion that this is the only reason why people might like it. The final analysis is that it's not only 'not good,' and not even 'pretty bad,' but so incredibly bad, that it is in fact, good. He gets in a snobbish comment about the Bible for good measure. Comment #153061

It is hilarious to read about how divorced these people are from reality- and humanity... a bit sad too.

Let's commence the "Pray For Richard Dawkins Apostolate".

Minnesota taxpayers fund Muslim 'charter' school?

Another article laying down the smack by Katherine Kersten.
This one is no surprise; the state for some reason has been giving Islam the double-standard treatment for a while now. You can bet that if this was a Christian institution, it would be in serious trouble.

Recently, I wrote about Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.

Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is "establishing Islam in Minnesota." [depends on what "establishing" means...] The building also houses a mosque. TIZA's executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food - permissible under Islamic law -- and "Islamic Studies" is offered at the end of the school day.

Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, "due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing." [yeah, public schools are really working hard to educate our kids... right.] But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond -- even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.

Now, however, an eyewitness has stepped forward. Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher. She worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14. Her experience suggests that school-sponsored religious activity plays an integral role at TIZA.

[snip....]

TIZA's operation as a public, taxpayer-funded school is troubling on several fronts. TIZA is skirting the law by operating what is essentially an Islamic school at taxpayer expense. The Department of Education has failed to provide the oversight necessary to catch these illegalities, and appears to lack the tools to do so. In addition, there's a double standard at work here -- if TIZA were a Christian school, it would likely be gone in a heartbeat. [exactly]

TIZA is now being held up as a national model for a new kind of charter school. If it passes legal muster, Minnesota taxpayers may soon find themselves footing the bill for a separate system of education for Muslims.