Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

THE SILENCE OF POPE FRANCIS ON COMMUNIST CHINA & HONG KONG

Please follow this link to a 5 minute video of Jimmy Lai,  a sincere  Roman Catholic, a godly man, who laments the failure of Pope Francis to speak up on behalf of Christians in China.   

William McGurn  writes:

Jimmy Lai has embraced his destiny. Last Wednesday the founder of one of Hong Kong’s most popular newspapers, Apple Daily, was arrested on ginned-up fraud charges. On Thursday he was clapped into jail as a national security risk. Thus did a man who started the week a Hong Kong billionaire end it a Chinese dissident.

Mr. Lai’s jailing has provoked condemnation from figures as diverse as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky and New York Rep. Eliot Engel. They have been joined by journalists, activists and politicians such as the Labour Party’s Sarah Champion and other members of Parliament who on Monday raised Mr. Lai’s plight in Britain’s House of Commons.

But there is one place where China’s bullying elicits only silence: the Vatican. Which is strange, because Jimmy Lai is not only Hong Kong’s most well-known champion of democracy; he is also its most prominent Catholic layman. At a moment when he and his family most need their shepherd, Pope Francis is MIA. . . .

IS THE POPE IGNORANT OF ISLAMIC JIHAD?

Andrew Strattaford reports:

The day after an elderly Catholic priest is butchered in his church by Islamic extremists, Pope Francis offers up his explanation (my emphasis added):

ABC:

Pope Francis says the world is at war, but is stressing that it’s not a war of religions.  Francis spoke to reporters on the papal plane en route from Rome to Poland, where he began a five-day visit Wednesday. Asked about the slaying of an 85-year-old priest in a Normandy church on Tuesday, Francis replied: “the real word is war…yes, it’s war.  This holy priest died at the very moment he was offering a prayer for all the church.”

He went on: “I only want to clarify, when I speak of war, I am really speaking of war … a war of interests, for money, resources. … I am not speaking of a war of religions, religions don’t want war. The others want war.”

Let’s look at the Independent’s account of the murder of Father Hamel:

One of the terrorists had a handgun and began to shout “Allah Akbar” and the other had a fake bomb with a timer… They then gave a “sermon in Arabic” at the altar.

That looks like an act of religious war to me.

And as for the Pope’s claim that “religions don’t want war”, I can only suggest that he spend more time with the history books and, for that matter, some of the less benign passages in various sacred texts. 

Me: To that sugGestion I can only agree.  What do we have here?  A Roman Catholic leader who has not studied Islamic texts related to jihad?

QUICK TAKES

 - - Ben Carson - "Hitler" Could Happen Here    

 - - Spyridon Mitsotakis - Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement has descended into hard-core political Leftism

 - - Wesley J. Smith - Psychologist blinds woman who didn't want to see.

There is a very anguishing mental illness known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder in which the ill person believes their “true self” to be disabled–usually paraplegic or an amputee. Recently, I have noticed BIID moving toward normalization in the media, now being called “transabled.” This uncritical story of Jewell Shuping, a woman with BIID who self-identified as blind–and a psychologist helped take away her sight–reveals how far we have fallen as a society.  

MAUREEN MULLARKEY OFFERS A "NO-HOLDS BARRED" ATTACK ON POPE FRANCIS' ENVIRONMENTAL ENCYCLICAL

In addition to Rich Lowry's negative commentary on Pope Francis' encyclical posted previously, I now offer Maureen Malarkey's which is even more strident, but very much worth reading.  She titles her contribution (published June 24, 2015), "Where Did Pope Francis's Extravagant Rant Come From?"  Mularkey writes: [my bolding]

Subversion of Christianity by the spirit of the age has been a hazard down the centuries. The significance of “Laudato Si” lies beyond its stated concern for the climate. Discount obfuscating religious language. The encyclical lays ground to legitimize global government and makes the church an instrument of propaganda—a herald for the upcoming United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Paris.

Accommodation by church hierarchy to green dogma has been metastasizing since the UN proclaimed Earth Day in 1970. Two decades later, Kevin Costner went dancing with wolves while the Fraser Institute prefaced “Religion, Wealth, and Poverty” (1990) by Jesuit scholar James V. Schall with this:

. . . the relatively sudden appearance of religion not primarily as worship or doctrine, but as social activism, has been not a little perplexing. Numerous sympathetic critics, many of the faithful, and interested observers sense that something is occurring with vast and unsettling implications for the well-being of the public order and for religion itself. They are not at all sure, however, that what is happening is itself in the best interests of religion or of the poor and outcast for whom it is said to be occurring.

Propelled by the cult of feeling and Golden Age nostalgia—enshrined in the myth of indigenous peoples as peaceable ecologists—that elusive something picked up a tincture of Teilhardian gnosticism as it grew. It bursts on us now as “Laudato Si,” a malignant jumble of dubious science, policy prescriptions, doomsday rhetoric, and what students of Wordsworthian poetics call, in Keats’ derisive phrase, “the egotistical sublime.”

Eco-Activists Thrive on Distortions

The document’s catalogue of distortions and factual errors are those of the climate-change establishment swallowed whole. There is no scientific consensus on man-made global warming, no consensus on the role of human activity in any of the environmental phenomena cited.

Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore abandoned the organization in 1986, highlighting its abandonment of scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas:

By around the mid-1980s, when I left Greenpeace, the public had accepted most of the reasonable things we had been fighting for: stop the bomb, save the whales, stop toxic waste dumping into the earth, water, and air. Some, like myself, realized the job of creating mass awareness of the importance of the environment had been accomplished and it was time to move on from confrontation to sustainable development, seeking solutions. But others seemed bent on lifelong confrontation, ‘up against the man’ ‘smash capitalism’. . . .

In order to remain confrontational as society adopted all the reasonable demands, it was necessary for these anti-establishment lifers to adopt ever more extreme positions, eventually abandoning science and logic altogether in zero-tolerance policies.

That was 30 years ago. Since then, “the ‘green’ movement has not only become more hard line, they have also become irrational and fanatical.”

Climate has fluctuated since the planet formed. Sea levels have been rising for thousands of years with no current increase in the rate. Catastrophic extinctions occurred millions of years before industrialization. Not so long ago in geological time, Arctic islands were covered in sub-tropical forests and no ice covered either pole. Climate temperature has been flat for nearly two decades despite rise in CO2. On it goes.

Enter Jorge Bergolio. Informed objection to the pope’s roster of pending disasters is widely available—but also, at this point, moot. Reducing greenhouse gases has just been deemed a religious obligation. What should concern us now is the ecclesial climate that yielded this extravagant rant.

A Short List of What’s Wrong with ‘Laudato Si’

There is nothing to admire in its assault on market economies, technological progress, and—worse—on rationality itself. Bergolio, whom we know now as Pope Francis, is a limited man. His grasp of economics is straitjacketed by the Peronist culture in which he was raised. “Laudato Si” descends to garish, left-wing boilerplate. The pope is neither a public intellectual, theologian, nor a man of science. Yet he impersonates all three.

POPE FRANCIS GOES OFF THE RAILS

Update 6/23/15 - Pope's key science advisor believes in Gaia not God...

(Original post):  Rich Lowry offers appropriate commentary:

A quasi-religious movement now has a genuinely religious leader.

The pope’s encyclical on the environment is being hailed for its embrace of science, although it is about as scientific as the Catholic hymnal.

Pope Francis writes that Sister Earth “now cries out because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.” Really? Is that what the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says?

I’m not Catholic, but I respect the pope’s humility and am moved by his love for the handicapped and his concern for the vulnerable. The Catholic Church is one of the pillars of Western civilization, and it has brought comfort and meaning to the lives of countless millions of people down through the millennia.

That doesn’t mean that climate science, economic policy, cost-benefit analysis are its core competencies. No one has ever said: Yes, but what did Gregory VII do to fight the onset of the Medieval Warm Period?

The pope’s at times lyrical encyclical draws on a beautiful tradition of respect for nature and its creatures represented by the pope’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, and is suffused with an intense regard for the poor. But anyone who takes the encyclical as a serious guide to public policy deserves a stern talking to from the nearest tough-minded, ruler-wielding nun. 

QUICK TAKES

**  What Happens When an Entire Country Becomes Infested with Demons?

Vatican City, Jun 16, 2015 / 03:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Can a country with deep Christian roots like Mexico find itself at the mercy of demons? Some in the Church fear so.

And as a result, they called for a nation-wide exorcism of Mexico, carried out quietly last month in the cathedral of San Luis Potosí.  [more . . .]

 

**  Thomas Sowell - The left’s obsession with “microaggressions” shows its micro-totalitarian tendencies

The political Left has come up with a new buzzword: “microaggression.” Professors at the University of California at Berkeley have been officially warned against saying such things as “America is the land of opportunity.” Why? Because this is considered to be an act of “microaggression” against minorities and women. Supposedly it shows that you don’t take their grievances seriously and are therefore guilty of being aggressive toward them, even if only on a micro scale.  [more. . .]

 

**  Tom Nichols - America, the unserious superpower

. . . But the status of a great nation is built on more than raw power. It includes intangible qualities like respect, admiration, and, yes, fear. We don’t need all three of them; no major power does. But we need at least one of them at any given moment, and right now, we’re bottoming out in each of these measures.  . .   [more . . .]

 

**  Dan Greenfield - Review of Ann Coulter's Adios, America

Coulter’s latest book, “Adios, America” is an uncompromising attack on the policies, justifications and rhetoric of amnesty. It’s full of the punchy quotes she’s known for, such as “Americans ought to be suspicious about being told incessantly fences don’t work. It’s like being told wheels don’t work”, accompanied by a broad survey of the entire immigration and illegal immigration debate.  [more . . .]X

ROMAN CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS COMPARED SOCIOLOGICALLY

Maggie Gallagher, a serious Catholic thinker and activist, wrote a column yesterday titled, The Catholic Weakness which carries the subtitle, "A large proportion of traditional, Mass-going Catholics don't believe basic Church doctrine. Why not?"

In the course of Gallagher's article she cites statistics from the Austin Institute’s new study, Relationships in America, from which she draws a series of comparisons, including the following:

Fewer than six in ten traditional Catholics who attend Mass regularly believe in the resurrection of the body (58 percent), compared with 75 percent of Evangelicals who attend services at least three times a month.

Catholic teaching says that weekly Sunday Mass attendance is a serious obligation and missing Mass is a mortal sin. Yet just 58 percent of traditional Catholics are at church in a given week, compared with 74 percent of Evangelicals.

When it comes to sexual-behavior measures in this study, traditional Catholics who are regular churchgoers are slightly less likely to use porn than are Evangelicals (29 percent to 21 percent) but also slightly more likely to report having premarital sex with their spouse (64 percent to 57 percent).

As far as attitudes and values, the situation is bleak. Take cohabitation: When asked whether it is a good idea for couples considering marriage to cohabit first, just 48 percent of churchgoing Catholics firmly disagree, compared with 79 percent of Evangelicals. When asked whether it is “okay” for two people to get together for casual sex, 86 percent of churchgoing Evangelicals disagree, compared with just 65 percent of traditional Catholics.

The Catholic Church is unique in teaching that a sacramental Christian marriage is literally impossible to dissolve. Yet when asked whether married couples with children should stay married, just 45 percent of traditional Catholics who attend Mass regularly definitely agree, compared with 58 percent of churchgoing Evangelicals.

These statistics bother Maggie Gallagher greatly.  She writes

If the Catholic Church could learn how to do half as good a job as Evangelicals at passing on basic Christian moral and spiritual teaching to the next generation, not only would much suffering be avoided, but American culture would be transformed.

Speaking as an evangelical, I find these statistics sobering.   The state of evangelical Christianity in America is nothing to boast about, but it seems Roman Catholicism is in even more  desperate shape.  Gallagher wrote a previous article based on the same study in which she compared Catholicism with Mormonism.  

ASSESSING TIME MAGAZINE'S TREATMENT OF POPE FRANCIS AS "PERSON OF THE YEAR"

Austen Ivereigh of Catholic Voices writes about Time magazine's choice of Pope Francis as "Person of the year for 2013."  (HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez)  I found Ivereigh's corrections and clarifications helpful. 

. . . Time notes that Francis has struck a different chord on doctrinal questions but struggles to understand what it is. “He has not changed the words, but he’s changed the music”, says Gibbs, while the reporters say: ”Francis signals great change, while giving the same answers to uncomfortable questions”.

Time does not consider that the answers are the same because they are church teaching, which popes hand on. Hence its later observation that “Francis has been skilfully citing the writings of former Pontiffs, stressing continuity”, as if this were some savvy PR move; but popes always cite their predecessors, because they are developing what has been handed to them. It would be news if he didn’t; it isn’t news that he does.

When it is claiming that Francis really has changed things, Time cites the letter of an Indian cardinal:

In August, another member, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of India, issued one of the most expansive comments about gays that the church has ever made, stating that while the church does not allow gay marriage, homosexuality is not a sin. “To say that those with other sexual orientations are sinners is wrong,” he wrote to an LGBT group in Mumbai. “We must be sensitive in our homilies and how we speak in public and I will so advise our priests.”

Yet Catholic leaders have been endlessly pointing out that the homosexual condition is not sinful, only the acts; and Cardinal Gracias would be surprised to learn that his simple repetition of this teaching is “expansive”. True, Cardinal Gracias was inspired to emphasise this because of Francis’s interview on the papal plane back from Rio, but this only makes the point that Francis has not changed church teaching, but rescued its forgotten priorities.

WHAT THE POPE REALLY SAID TO THE JESUIT INTERVIEWER

Kathryn Jean Lopez sets the record straight.  Lots of confusion here. 

SCIENCE AND THE SHROUD

I have not followed the debate about the Shroud of Turin very closely, supposing like many others that it had been dated to around the 14th century.  The latest tests, however, indicate that it dates from between 280 BC to 220 AD.  For those wanting an update on current dating, the New York Post has printed a useful article.

. . . The shroud is a 14-foot rectangular woven cloth that bears the faint image of a crucified man, both front and back. The man has all the wounds suffered by the biblical Christ at the crucifixion, including the crown of thorns, the scourging, the nailed wrists and feet and the wound in the side.

Barely visible to the naked eye, the genuine image was revealed only accidentally, in 1898, when Italian photographer Secondo Pia was allowed to photograph the shroud for the first time. In developing the negative plates, Pia discovered to his shock and amazement that the reversed image on the cloth was now fully visible.

Since then, the shroud has been an object of veneration for some and an object of derision for others.

The case for its authenticity was dealt a serious blow in 1988 when, after much wrangling with the Vatican, a team of scientists was permitted to snip off and destroy for radio-carbon testing a small piece from a corner of the shroud. The results, announced with great fanfare, seemed to prove that it dated only from 1260-1390, and thus couldn’t be real.

But questions quickly arose about the piece of fabric that had been tested. Critics said the results were inaccurate, because the piece of cloth was not an original part of the shroud, but a repair and reweave done after it sustained some medieval fire damage.

The latest results seem to bear them out. A team from the University of Padua, based on infrared radiation analysis, has determined that the shroud dates from the period 280 BC to 220 AD — i.e., right at the time when Jesus is said to have lived. . . .  [more. . .]

SHOULD PROTESTANTS CARE ABOUT EVENTS IN CATHOLICISM? MOST DEFINITELY.

I heartily agree with Justin Taylor's recent post on "Why Protestants Should Be Interested in Rome."   He writes:

Carl Trueman offers some reflections on George Weigel’s new book, Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church.

He writes, “Some may wonder what the point of reflecting on Rome is for a Protestant.” He offers three points by way of response:

First, Protestants benefit from a conservative papacy: on public square issues such as abortion, marriage and religious freedom, the RCC has a higher profile and more power—financial, legal, institutional—than any Protestant group. We all benefit from the cultural and legal power of the RCC in these areas.

Second, your neighbours probably do not distinguish between Christian groups. A sleazy, morally corrupt RCC is like a sleazy, morally corrupt televangelist ministry: we are all marked with the same brush in the public eye and our task of evangelism becomes that much harder.

Third, RC authors often offer more penetrating insights into secular culture than their evangelical equivalents. Comparing George Weigel to Rob Bell in such circumstances is akin to comparing Michelangelo to Thomas Kinkade.

Therefore, while I have very serious theological disagreements with Catholic authors, I would suggest that they by and large offer well-argued, well-written and insightful commentaries on the state of the world in a way that is rare in evangelical circles. . .

Me:  I have read a fair amount of Weigel's writings and agree with Trueman.  It is always nourishing and insightful to read a man whose cultural and historical sensibilities are well-informed and penetrating.

Update:

I liked Peggy Noonan's commentary on Pope Francis, but I learned even more from Walter Russell Mead who pointed out:

The choice of a Latin American, and the first non-European pope in more than a thousand years, made headlines around the world and galvanized many Catholics in developing countries where the Church is strong. But behind the drama is the cautious intelligence of an institution whose traditions stretch back to the times of the Caesars; with the exception of Australia and New Zealand, Latin America is the most European region in the whole global South. Argentina is the most European of Latin American countries, and Pope Francis, whose parents emigrated from Italy in the last century, is one of the Argentinians whose European roots are as strong and deep as they get.  [my emphases]

GAY MAFIA IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY

If Michael Voris is correct, the Roman Catholic church is in deep crisis.  (HT: VirtueOnline)

 

 

CATHOLICS TAKE OUT AN AD TO MOBILIZE THE FAITHFUL AGAINST GOVERNMENT COERCION

A Catholic lay group, The Catholic Association, has a new television ad:

Ed Morrissey writes:

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops launched their two-week Fortnight for Freedom program today, their latest salvo in the battle between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration over the HHS contraception mandate. . .

The bishops are hoping that a massive protest now will force the Obama administration to reverse the mandate (or expand the religious exemption to all religious organizations) before civil disobedience becomes necessary.

To that end, the USCCB has begun sending letters out to parishioners in the Mass bulletins to get them involved in protests:

The most imminent threat to religious liberty—but not the only one—that the Catholic bishops have been protesting and seeking to draw public attention to is a regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued under President Barack Obama’s health care law. The regulation will require virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover, without any fees or co-pay, sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

This month, the Catholic bishops are distributing an insert in church bulletins around the country pointing to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the Civil Rights Movement, and his defense of civil disobedience, noting that King, a Baptist minister, used the arguments of the Catholic Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to justify peaceful resistance to unjust laws. In the bulletin insert, the bishops made clear that civil disobedience may be necessary when freedom of conscience is attacked.

“Some unjust laws impose such injustices on individuals and organizations that disobeying the laws may be justified,” says the bulletin insert.

“Every effort must be made to repeal them. When fundamental human goods, such as the right of conscience, are at stake, we may need to witness to the truth by resisting the law and incurring its penalties.”

Me: I say good for them!

ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS ARE HEADING TO FEDERAL COURT TO DEFEND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The Obama Administration's hostility to religion, and its determination to have the government be the be-all and end-all to individual citizens, must be resisted.  The Bishops are suing the U.S. government, and  therefore Mike Huckabee (a Baptist) rightly says, "We're all Catholics now."  

In her article, "Why the Bishops are Suing the U.S. Government," Mary Ann  Glendon writes:

[...]More is at stake here than the mission of all churches, including the Catholic Church, to provide social services like health care and education to everyone regardless of creed, and to do so without compromising their beliefs. At the deepest level, we are witnessing an attack on the institutions of civil society that are essential to limited government and are important buffers between the citizen and the all-powerful state.

If religious providers of education, health care and social services are closed down or forced to become tools of administration policy, the government consolidates a monopoly over those essential services. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it, we are witnessing an effort to reduce religion to a private activity. "Never before," he said, "have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith."

With this week's lawsuits, the bishops join a growing army of other plaintiffs around the country, Catholic and non-Catholic, who are asking the courts to repel an unprecedented governmental assault on the ability of religious persons and groups to practice their religion without being forced to violate their deepest moral convictions.

Religious freedom is subject to necessary limitations in the interests of public health and safety. The HHS regulations do not fall into that category. The world has gotten along fine without this mandate—the services in question are widely and cheaply available, and most employers will provide coverage for them.

But if the regulations are not reversed, they threaten to demote religious liberty from its prominent place among this country's most cherished freedoms. That is why Cardinal Dolan told CBS's "Face the Nation" on April 8: "We didn't ask for this fight, but we won't back away from it."

Mary Ann Glendon is professor at Harvard Law School.

ROMAN CATHOLICS AREN'T BACKING DOWN FROM THE HHS MANDATE FIGHT

This is a good, tough video.  Hat tip to Ed Morrissey, whom see for commentary.  Catholics Called to Witness created the video.  Good for them!  The Obama administration's war on religious freedom requires resistance from all quarters.

 

CATHOLIC BISHOPS APPEAL TO OBAMA TO QUIT ATTACKING DOMA

The Family Research Council reports:

This week, Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent a letter to President Obama asking his administration to "end its campaign against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), the institution of marriage it protects and religious freedom." The New York-based Archbishop, speaking on behalf of his brother Catholic Bishops, praised Obama for his Presidential declarations on both Mother's Day and Father's Day, yet pointed out the inherent hypocrisy of the Obama administration's other actions, which seek to diminish the truth that "every child has the right to be loved by both a mother and a father." The letter to the President included detailed documentation of the administration's assault on marriage and related religious liberty issues. It is well worth the read.

Me:  Those of us who aren't Roman Catholics readily join Archbishoop Dolan in seeking to persuade the Obama administration to cease its attacks on marriage.  The appended detailed analysis of administration policies included these concerns:

MARY EBERSTADT REVIEWS GEORGE WEIGLE'S "THE END AND THE BEGINNING: POPE JOHN PAUL II — The VICTORY OF FREEDOM, THE LAST YEARS, THE LEGACY"

Mary Eberstadt lauds George Weigle's new biography covering the last years of Pope John Paul II.  She titles her comprehensive and excellent review, "The Cold War Pope."   She writes:  (my emphases)

It is now just over ten years since his bestselling first volume, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, chronicled in just under 1,000 pages the story of Karol Wojtyla’s pre-papal life and the first 22 years of what would turn out to be a papacy of almost 27. Now a second volume, The End and the Beginning: The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy, both completes the story and delivers something important and new — an irresistible Cold War story of drama and intrigue at the highest (and lowest) levels.

Eberstadt continues:

Based in part on just some of what the author calls the “vast archive” of information recently available from the infamous kgb, Stasi, and Polish secret police files, this volume sheds light on one of the most dramatic historical and political tales to issue from a century bursting with them: namely, “Karol Wojtyla’s forty-year struggle against communism — and communism’s forty-year effort to impede Wojtyla’s work and destroy his reputation.” It is a story for believers and nonbelievers alike, and one reminiscent of the absorbing fictions of John LeCarre, Charles McCarry, and other masters of the Cold War genre. The difference, of course — as The End and the Beginning goes to show — is that the 40-year battle between Wojtyla and the communists was not some idle literary imagining, but rather the realest show on earth.

If you have any interest at all in learning about Pope John Paul II and how he "waged war" against the Communists, read the rest of Eberstadt's review.  If you want to read more selected quotes from my blog,  click the "continue reading" button below.

POPE LAMBASTS LIBERATION THEOOGY

Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute reports:

It went almost unnoticed, but on December 5, Benedict XVI articulated one of the most stinging rebukes of a particular theological school ever made by a pope. Addressing a visiting group of Brazilian bishops, Benedict followed some mild comments about Catholic education with some very sharp and deeply critical remarks about liberation theology and its effects upon the Catholic Church.

After stressing how certain liberation theologians drew heavily upon Marxist concepts, the pope described these ideas as “deceitful.” This is very strong language for a pope. But Benedict then underscored the damage that liberation theology did to the Catholic Church.

TWO NEW BOOKS WORTH NOTING

--  Chris Castaldo is the author of a new book, Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic, to be published by Zondervan next month.  Looks very good.  Justin Taylor posts lots of blurbs.  Here's a sample:

"Because the accounts of a number of high-profile Evangelicals converting to Roman Catholicism have hit the press, we sometimes overlook the fact that statisticians tell us that in America, Catholics are becoming Evangelicals faster than the reverse by a ratio of about three to one. What do these converts find? How do they cope? How do they—how should they—relate to their Catholic families and friends? This is the best book I have read that chronicles such pilgrimages. And it is full of godly commonsense."

                   -D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

-- Hunter Baker. The End of Secularism, is now available. "A number of folks are hailing this as the sequel to Richard John Neuhaus's The Naked Public Square."  (HT: Between Two Worlds)

Available online:

• The table of contents
• Introduction, Chapter 12
• You can listen to a recent interview on Moody's Prime Time America.

SOME NOTRE DAME SENIORS SAY NO TO GRADUATION

David Brody has the story, plus a first-class video produced by students.  (HT: Drudge)

George Weigle, distinguished senior fellow at Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, delivered a commencement address last weekend at Mt. St. Mary's University called by Kathryn Jean Lopez, an "Un-Obama Commencement address."

NOTRE DAME'S INVITATION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

- Update 3/29/09 - Peter Kirsanow on what Notre Dame has to explain before conferring an honorary degree on President Obama.  Excellent short post.

(Original post) - William McGurn has written a brilliant article on the dishonorable descent of Catholics and Catholic politicians becoming boosters of abortion. 

Rush Limbaugh spoke today about "The Most Anti-Life President in US History to Speak at Notre Dame." He called attention to the giant mosaic of Jesus overlooking the football field.  Limbaugh includes the following links:

• AP: Criticism Over Obama Invite Mounts at Notre Dame • National Review: Why Obama Really Voted For Infanticide

AIDS, AFRICA, CONDOMS, AND POPE BENEDICT XVI

Travis Kavulla defends the Pope's position on condoms and AIDS in his article, "Benedict Has It Right."    Me: I find Kavulla's points weighty.  Kathryn Jean Lopez offers useful commentary as well.

Denver Archbishop Chaput Warns Against "Spirit of Adulation" Surrounding Obama

Roman Catholic Archbishop Chaput strikes me as a major voice of clarity and sanity in both the religious and public squares.  I'm not a Catholic, but the Archbishop has my profound respect.  Read this account of his speech in Toronto from which the warning about the "spirit of adulation" surrounding Obama is taken.   (HT: Drudge)

Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009)

- Update 1/23/09 - Kathryn Jean Lopez published an outstanding interview with Robert P. George of Princeton, on the life and legacy of Neuhaus.  When asked what he would recommend to Neuhaus newcomers, George said:

I would suggest beginning with some of his great essays, such as “A New Order of Religious Freedom,” “The Idea of Moral Progress,” “ ‘Salvation is from the Jews,’ ” “How I Became the Catholic I Was,” and “We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest.”

- Update 1/22/09 - Chuck Colson remembers Neuhaus and offers comments on "Evangelicals and Catholics Together."  A valuable bibliography appears at the end of his remembrance.  1/23/09 - Christianity Today engaged Colson in an insightful interview on Neuhaus and the future of "Evangelicals and Catholics Together."

- Update 1/13/09 - Three minute video of Neuhaus on manliness and marriage

- (Original Post) Richard John Neuhaus has passed away.  I feel bereft.  The world has become an emptier place, and a certain sadness fills my soul.  The world has lost a towering figure, a penetrating thinker, a noble man -- not to mention an elegant writer.  Yes, he was a Roman Catholic, but we Protestants benefited enormously from his perspectives on the world, and he understood  us as well, since he had been a Lutheran.  He was a pioneer in "Evangelicals and Catholics Together."  See the National Review editorial for a fine summation (albeit with a few minor inaccuracies) of Neuhaus' contribution to the world.

John Podhoretz in his tribute called Neuhaus

"perhaps the most important and influential religious intellectual in the United States since the passing of Reinhold Niebuhr. . ."  In 1984, he wrote the book for which he will be remembered, "The Naked Public Square" — a concise masterpiece about the role of religion

BIOETHICAL QUESTIONS ADDRESSED BY THE VATICAN'S "DIGNITAS PERSONAE"

Twenty-three pages in length, the document comes bundled with a Vatican-issued summary and accompanying Q&A.

National Review's Yuval Levin writes:

One of the great ironies of the stem cell debates of the last few years has been that some of the most serious attention to scientific detail and reality has come from Catholic circles, while some of the most wide-eyed messianic faith-healing talk has come from liberal political (and sometimes even scientific) circles. There is another example of the former today, with a new Vatican document about reproductive technologies and bioethics. I’m not a Catholic and am in no position to speak to the theological components of the document, and I don’t agree with all of its conclusions (on IVF, for instance) but its treatment of the latest scientific developments and of the related ethical questions is exceptionally good, and its attitude—very pro-science and very clear about ethical boundaries and the reasons for them, with arguments that reach well beyond Catholic theology—is very impressive.

The view of many of us who have argued against the destruction of embryos for research is that we ought not understand ourselves to be faced with a choice between science and ethics, but with the challenge of championing both, which is a challenge both to scientific ingenuity and to ethical reflection and argument (a case I take up, among other issues, in my recent book on science and democracy). The Bush administration’s approach to the stem cell debate has been one example of how to think in these terms. This document, wherever you stand on its Catholic-specific elements, is another very worthy one.  [Emphases mine]

"PRO-CHOICE" CATHOLICS REBUKED

- Update 10/21/08 - LifeNews: George Soros Funds Catholic Groups Making Obama Seem Pro-Life on Abortion

Regrettably I have little time to blog right now, but I'd like to at least draw attention to an outstanding pro-life leader in the Roman Catholic Church, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, about whom the Family Research Council commented (my emphases):

In a passionate speech on what it means to be "pro-life," Archbishop Charles Chaput spoke Friday about the disservice done by Christian voters who are abandoning the abortion issue. More churchgoers seem to be twisting faith to fit their politics instead of evaluating candidates through the lens of faith. Speaking as a private citizen, Chaput talked about the crisis of conscience in this election. "I believe that Senator Obama, whatever his other talents, is the most committed 'abortion-rights' presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973. Despite what [others] suggest, the party platform Senator Obama runs on this year is not only aggressively 'pro-choice,' it has also removed any suggestion that killing an unborn child might be a regrettable thing. To suggest-as some Catholics do-that Senator Obama is this year's 'real' pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse." For more, please read Professor Robby George's article at www.thepublicdiscourse.com.

Additional Resources
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: Little Murders
Prof. Robert George: Obama's Abortion Extremism

BIBLE BEING READ CONTINUOUSLY AT THE VATICAN

If you know Italian you can listen (and see) the Bible being read continuously at the Vatican.  Mike Potema tells us "it's part of a kickoff for a Synod of Bishops focusing on the role of the Bible in the Church."

A FRIEND CONSIDERS THIS ONE OF THE BEST POLITICAL ADS HE HAS EVER SEEN

It's put out by CatholicVote.com and stresses life, faith, and family.   Maybe he is right.  I'm not sure.

"BASIC INSTINCT" AUTHOR (JOE ESZTERHAS) WRITES ABOUT FAITH

Drudge points to a fascinating article about Joe Eszterhas, the screenwriter for various Hollywood thrillers, who will be publishing Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith, on Sept. 2.  His "Damascus-style" turnaround is riveting reading.   The following (on the importance of the Eucharist to him) may interest some readers:

. . . Mr. Eszterhas told The Blade that despite his mixed feelings over the [Roman Catholic] church and the abuse scandal, the power of the Mass trumps his doubts and misgivings.

"The Eucharist and the presence of the body and blood of Christ is, in my mind, an overwhelming experience for me. I find that Communion for me is empowering. It's almost a feeling of a kind of high."

. . .And he complains about priests' homilies being boring and pointless.

When Mr. Eszterhas visited a nondenominational megachurch, he heard a sensational sermon. But he felt empty afterward, missing Holy Communion and the Catholic liturgy.

WHAT ABOUT CATHOLICS AND ABORTION? MICHAEL NOVAK DISSECTS THE ISSUE

- Novak offers a comprehensive analysis of Papal pronouncements (that abortion is “intrinsically evil” and “always and everywhere” to be opposed) versus popular political evasions by Roman Catholics.  His is a useful, and thorough, bit of analysis.  Recommended reading.

There are many pretty words that politicians, some Republicans and some Democrats, use to mask their actual practice in regard to abortion. They call it “a profound moral issue,” and they say they seek to make abortions “safe, legal, and rare” — a particularly adroit example of rhetorically pleasing everybody. In actual practice, though, they manage to keep abortions going just as before.   (more)

 - Ramesh Ponnuru suggests a person "might want to check out the exchange between Ed Kilgore and Ross Douthat on the question, Why are evangelicals so much more anti-abortion than Catholics? Douthat's theory is that it's a matter of religious intensity, which should be testable."

TIM RUSSERT AS DEVOUT ROMAN CATHOLIC LAYMAN

Jon Meacham over at Newsweek produced an excellent, worthwhile read.

Rev. John Hagee - Hater of Catholics?

Rev. John Hagee,  for whom I have no particular fondness, nevertheless -- to set the record straight -- proved very kind to a group of Roman Catholic nuns.  It makes for an interesting story.

POPE BENEDICT XVI'S VISIT TO AMERICA

An excellent website covering Pope Benedict XVI's visit, including links to speeches and videos, can be found here.  Rocco Palmo covers the Pope's farewell comments, his homily at Yankee Stadium, his visit to Ground Zero, his valuable personal reflections. 

The Anchoress offers a splendid round-up of press coverage and commentary. 

I have blogged previously about Benedict's visit here.

Michael Gerson on Roman Catholicism's Importance to the Modern World

Michael Gerson writes wisely about what he calls "The Indispensable Church."  After acknowledging embarrassing historical improprieties associated with the Vatican, he says the Catholic Church remains an indispensable institution for several reasons (my underlining):

First, despite charges of dogmatism, the church is the main defender of reason in the modern world. It teaches the possibility that moral truth can be known through reflection and argument. It criticizes what Pope Benedict XVI has called the "dictatorship of relativism" -- a belief "that does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." "Being an adult," says Benedict, "means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties."

Secularism has traditionally taught that human beings will eventually outgrow religious

POPE BENEDICT XVI'S REMARKS AT THE ARRIVAL CEREMONY ON THE SOUTH LAWN OF THE WHITE HOUSE

** Update: The Pope's visit to the United States is being covered over at Beliefnet.com.  A still better and more comprehensive website is here.   

** Benedict's homily at Yankee stadium

** Pope's homily at St. Patrick's Cathedral - addressed to Clergy and religious

** Text of Benedict's address to the United Nations

** Papal Address to Interreligious Leaders

** Benedict XVI'sAddress to Catholic Educators  Kathryn Jean Lopez comments, Pope Benedict pushes back agsinst unCatholic tide

** Text of Benedict's address to U.S. Bishops

- The Pope's speech on the White House lawn may be found  here (among other places).

POPE BENEDICT XVI: Mr. President, thank you for your gracious words of welcome on behalf of the people of the United States of America. I deeply appreciate your invitation to visit this great country. My visit coincides with an important moment in the life of the Catholic community in America: the celebration of the 200th anniversary of elevation of the country's first Diocese — Baltimore — to ametropolitan Archdiocese and the establishment of the Sees of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Louisville.

Yet I am happy to be here as a guest of all Americans. I come as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel, and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society. America's Catholics have made, and continue to make, an excellent contribution to  

POPE BENEDICT XVI TO VISIT THE UNITED STATES THIS WEEK

I am not a Catholic, but I have enormous respect for the current Pope as well as his predecessor Pope John Paul II.   Pope  Benedict XVI addresses the United Nations on Friday.  I suggest prayer for his speech at the U.N. and for his visit to the United States.  See the following articles:  President Bush Plans Big Welcome    Pope Benedict XVI Ready to Meet America    George W. Bush Could Well be the Nation's First Catholic President

** Update 4/14/08  - Richard John Neuhaus writes instructively on "The Heart and Mind of Benedict."  Do read Neuhaus' thumb-nail sketch of Benedict below:

Pope Benedict is not a showman, as many – intending praise or blame – said his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was. Benedict is a priest and professor who finds himself in the unexpected position of being pastor of a universal church of 1.2 billion people. This visit to America is a pastoral visit, and he will do what good pastors do: teach, encourage, and gently correct where necessary. The best way to understand Benedict is to listen carefully to what he says.   (Keep reading on next page)

G.K. CHESTERTON'S BRILLIANT COMPARISON OF St. FRANCIS OF ASSISI AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

I wrote a friend today and mentioned G.K. Chesterton's brilliant comparison of St. Francis and St. Thomas Aquinas. It's a passage I love and have pointed out to friends before.  Here it is (from GKC’s Saint Thomas Aquinas ‘The Dumb Ox’):

“St. Francis was a lean and lively little man; thin as a thread and vibrant as a bowstring; and in his motions like an arrow from the bow. All his life was a series of plunges and scampers; darting after the beggar, dashing naked into the woods, tossing himself into the strange ship, hurling himself into

Vatican Says Food, Water Must Be Provided to Vegetative Patients

Click here.  Amazingly (and disappointingly) Fred Thompson didn't have an opinion on the Terri Schiavo case when asked. 

Pope Benedict's New Document on the Eucharist

Click here.

Catholic Bishops Conference Blasts Amnesty International's Embrace of the Culture of Death

From Kathryn Jean Lopez:

The Catholic bishops conference blasts Amnesty International's embrace of the culture of death :

A Statement of the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Bishop William S. Skylstad, Bishop of Spokane

August 23, 2007

After nearly a year of dialogue with leaders of Amnesty International (AI), the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops strongly protests the recent action of AI’s International Council to promote worldwide access to abortion. This basic policy change undermines Amnesty’s longstanding moral credibility and unnecessarily diverts its mission. In promoting abortion, Amnesty divides its own members (many of whom are Catholics and others who

What's The Problem With The Catholic Priesthood?: Is it Pedophilia or Predatory Homosexuality?

Gary DeMar see a massive cover-up in the Catholic church. 

Cardinal Roger Mahony has announced that the Church will pay out $660 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse by priests. It’s the Catholic Church’s failure to act swiftly and decisively on the matter that has disillusioned and enraged church members and victims. . .  But there remains a more sinister cover-up.

. . .  There has been a redirection of focus from a discussion of homosexuality to pedophilia, a nearly universally despised predatory behavior. The charge of pedophilia is being used as a smoke screen by homosexuals to fly under the sexual radar. While the general public excoriates the pedophiles among us, the homosexuals go merrily along debauching young men in the name of sexual tolerance.

. . . The homosexual lobby is so powerful and intimidating that almost no one wants to suffer from its unbridled wrath. So for cover, the priests are charged with pedophilia in order to hide the fact that homosexuality is the real culprit.  [more]

Can Pope Benedict XVI Successfully Alter Europe's Secular, Post-Christian Mindset?

Though not Roman Catholic myself, I maintain great respect for Pope Benedict XVI.  His grasp of the modern world and the European situation impresses almost all observers.  I suspect he is the right Pope at the right time.  I learned from today's New York Times that the Pope will turn 80 on April 16th.  From the article:

Benedict is one of the most intellectual men ever to serve as pope — and surely one of the most intellectual of current world leaders — and he has pinpointed the problem of the age, as well as its solution, at the level of philosophy. His argument, elaborated in the years leading up to