A Couple Paving Stones On The Road to Hell

      There’s an old saying: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”  It’s a little odd, when you think about it: shouldn’t our intentions be good?  The road to Heaven certainly isn’t paved with bad intentions, is it?  The answer, I think, is that the second half of the proposition is left out.  It's about good intentions that are not grounded in reality, or in wisdom, or in God’s law: they create more problems than they solve (if, indeed, they solve anything at all).  

     A classic example of the Road to Hell Principle is the thoroughly modern practice known as “Sex Education” (Sex Ed informally).  A concern, and I believe a sincere one in most cases, for the well-being of young people in an increasingly sexualized world has led to instructional programs in schools (and not just public schools) that, because they are disconnected from God’s law, and Natural Law, and plain common sense, promote the very harm they are intended to ameliorate.

     One such program has been in the news recently: a class run by a Planned Parenthood chapter in California that was invited to teach a class on sexuality to 9th graders in the local public high school.  According to the Fox News story [full story here]: 

. . . some parents are irate that their children’s sex ed class at Acalanes High School in Lafayette is being taught by employees of Planned Parenthood without their prior knowledge. They are also fuming over the methods and materials being used, including a checklist that asks students if they are “ready for sex” and another worksheet that describes how to give and obtain consent, as well as a diagram that uses a "genderbread" person for lessons in gender identity. 

The Gingerbread Person is a cute little fellow who clearly was designed to appeal to children, much like the old Camel Cigarettes mascot “Joe Camel”; and like the much maligned cartoon camel, who was criticized for promoting an unhealthy product to children, Gingerbread Person offers reassurance to the very young that whatever they want to express or do sexually is not just all right, but good and desirable.  Things, perhaps, that had not even occurred to them before.  As for the class itself, many of the children “felt the sessions were pressuring them to have sex” or, as one parent put it, “Some of the kids were distracted because it was divergent from what they were taught at home.”  Indeed. For example: 

Included in the materials provided to students were documents and worksheets that included a checklist entitled, “Sex Check! Are You Ready For Sex?” in which the 13 and 14-year-old students are asked questions such as if they have water–based lubricants and condoms and if they could handle a possible infection or pregnancy. Another worksheet reads like a how-to on obtaining consent from a possible sexual partner and offers possible statements like “Do you want to go back to my place?” and “Is it OK if I take my pants off?” 

There are more problems with school-based sex ed classes that I can get into here.  I will point out that the foregoing tends to support what many of us have been saying for a long time: that such classes not only debase sexuality and separate it from it’s appropriate place in a loving marital relationship, but actually encourage (or even “pressure”, as the students say above) early and promiscuous sexual activity.

     Here’s another case, this time from the UK [full story here].  After a sex ed class, a thirteen year-old boy and girl  

. . . went to a secluded area where they discussed what they had just been taught about sexual intercourse.

The boy said that he asked the girl if she wanted to "try sex." Although the young girl repeatedly said "No," the schoolboy proceeded to pin the girl down and rape her. Afterward he allegedly told the girl, "You can go now." 

This is only one case to be sure, but we can see a clear connection between the instruction and the act.  And, as it turns out, many British students have misgivings similar to those expressed by their American counterparts above.  From the Life Site story: 

Earlier this year a poll of UK teenagers by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) [here]found that a large majority of both boys and girls complained that sex education often presents promiscuity as normal, putting additional pressure on them to become sexually active before they might otherwise do so.

Many of the teens criticized the sex education lessons they had received at school for not doing enough to discourage them from becoming sexually active.

One 18-year-old girl responded to the poll question about her sex-ed experience: "I always felt pressured by teachers, like, 'sex is normal, just be safe OK' when actually I wasn't interested in having sex at the time and was happy to wait for the right person.”

"I don't think sex should be taught as 'the norm'. I think people should be made to feel comfortable and teachers should say, 'you should wait, the law states 16, don't be pressured'."

 

According to Dr. Philip Ney, a retired professor of psychiatry, there is plenty of research to show that the negative effects of sex ed programs are very real.  In an essay he wrote for Life Site News [full article here] he says:

It is quite conclusive now, that the more sex education, the more sexual activity and all the problems that go with that.  The introduction of sex education is well correlated with the increase in abortion, STDs and boy-girl interpersonal problems. Good education gives people the desire to try it out or learn more experientially.  Paradoxically, in that respect, current forms of sex education are good education but have the wrong results . . . The earlier the sex education, the younger children explore sex and try various sexual techniques. Present evidence makes it possible to also conclude that the earlier the sex education, the earlier the sexual behavior. Thus sexual education is sexual titillation. 

Despite all the evidence that these programs do the opposite of what they intend, the “experts” have nothing to offer but more of the same.  In response to the British case above, one such expert said that “in her opinion the solution to this type of misbehavior is more sex education, ‘and much earlier than 13, I would say.’”  

     This whole situation brings to mind an old saying: “Insanity is to keep doing the same thing, while expecting a different result”.  But what else can they do in the public schools, or in the secular world in general?  They have rejected a worldview in which healthy sexuality is nourished and supported.  They have torn down the social attitudes and institutions that protected people from the consequences of lust run amok. In a world where the most important thing is feelings (and isn’t that what the Genderbread Person is all about?), right and wrong are random abstractions.  That’s why even abstinence classes, while better than the Planned Parenthood inspired alternative, are still not enough.  Young people need to be taught not simply the (negative) practice of abstinence but the (positive) virtue of Chastity, and not just in a classroom: they need to see it as part of a coherent worldview, as something that not only works but can be lived out joyfully, especially by the example of the adults in their lives. 

     There are many reasons why Christianity spread as quickly as it did throughout the Roman Empire in the first few centuries after Christ.  I have heard that one of them was that pagan Romans saw the joy in the lives of their Christian neighbors, not the least part of which was the love and respect Christian men had for their wives.  In a culture that more and more encourages people to use each other for pleasure rather than embrace each other in love, we are again called to show a more excellent way.  We need to understand, and help our fellow Catholics see, that Church teachings on sexuality and marriage are not so much a series of prohibitions as they are a road map to happier, more productive, and holier lives. We need to rebuild, one person, one family, at a time a culture where Christ is King. 

Marriage, Family & Liberty

     There are few societal issues or problems today that are not related, very often closely related, to the well-being of families; the family itself is dependent on the health of the institution of marriage; stable marriage, in turn, only flourishes in an environment shaped by sound morality.  This is a principle I’ve addressed numerous times, from various angles (here, here, here, and here, among others), but the most direct way of putting it is this: our moral choices do not affect ourselves only, but have an impact on society as a whole.  For this reason, issues that seem to be economic or political are often, at their root, the product of moral trends; the political and economic aspects are really only symptoms of the underlying cultural problem.  To the degree that our religious freedom is tied to liberty more generally (and I argue that it is), we ought to be concerned about some of the things that are brewing in the culture.

     Let’s start with something that is normally discussed as a partisan political issue here in the United States, but is actually something that goes much deeper: the so-called “gender gap”. In federal elections in the U.S. for the last forty years women have cast proportionally more votes for Democrats (who are generally more amenable to welfare state policies than Republicans) than have men, and since 1992 the overall female vote has gone to the Democratic candidate every time.  But there’s more here than meets the eye: as Kay Hymowitz points out in an article in City Journal [here],  women who are married have voted for the Republican every time, except 1996 when they chose Bill Clinton over Bob Dole by a slim margin; single women always have broken decisively for the Democratic candidate every time. In reality, the gap is between married and single women, and as the proportion of adult women who are not married grows, the apparent gap between women and men follows.

Rome in decay: The Roses of Heliogabalus by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

     Why the difference?  Meg McDonnell, writing at MercatorNet [here] offers the explanation that women who lack the support of a partner in the more traditional person of a husband are more likely to look for help from the government, and so support the candidate who’s offering more government services.  Hymowitz argues instead that the difference results from the fact that marriage is less prevalent in minority groups, who tend to favor the Democrats.  I don’t see the two causes as being contradictory; there are any number of factors in play, including the possibility that fewer intact families are among those things that draw minorities to the Big Government party.  Also, pollsters don’t seem interested in breaking down married women by race, but the information I’ve been able to find suggests that single white women do lean more to the left than their married sisters.

     Naturally, it is perfectly understandable that single women, who might be raising children alone or facing the prospect, would look for support.  I know from experience that even in a household with two healthy, well-educated parents who are committed to the family it can be overwhelming at times.  But this is also a reason why encouraging and supporting intact families is essential for maintaining freedom (which means not just political but religious liberty).  Not only are single mothers more likely to be dependent on government than women in intact families; their children, on average, are more likely to suffer from a whole host of issues, as detailed in my post “Where Have All The Fathers Gone?” [here], problems involving  “poverty, emotional/behavioral problems, maternal & child health, crime & incarceration, sexual activity & teen pregnancy, child abuse, drug & alcohol abuse, childhood obesity, education”.  In other words, they will be more likely to need government assistance, or other (less friendly) attention from the government.  Either way, the result is a bigger and more intrusive government, and citizens less equipped to take care of themselves.  And this problem is growing. McDonnell tells us that “for the first time in Census history, marriage rates are below 50 percent with only 48 percent of households married.”

     I have previously [here] quoted John Adams to the effect that “Our constitution was made only for the government of a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”  In other words, not everyone is equipped govern themselves.  Or, as Ben Franklin said after the Constitutional Convention, when asked whether the United States was going to be a monarchy or a republic: “A republic – if you can keep it.”  We could easily lose it, and with it any protections we have from a rapacious and ever more secularist government. The ancient Romans “kept” their republic for five centuries, twice the time that has elapsed since Franklin’s remark.  In the end, their republic collapsed, undermined by moral disintegration and the refusal of leading families, who were too busy with various amusements and self-satisfactions (and killing each other), to perpetuate themselves.  The direction of public affairs that had been in the hands of free Romans was subsumed by a sprawling tyrannical bureaucracy while ambitious generals killed each other for the brief honor of sitting at its head.  The same nation that produced Cincinnatus eventually gave itself up to Heliogabalus. Don’t think it can’t happen here.

      Today’s post is a revamping of an earlier piece published on May 5^th called “Marriage and Liberty, part II", a follow-up to "Traditional Marriage: The Liberty Argument" [here].   

Abortion Myth # 12

MYTH: "It’s not wrong to abort 'fetuses' because they are not yet persons"

TRUTH: “personhood” is a subjective criterion, dependent on the opinion (and often the convenience) of whomever has the power to decide who is a person and who is not; it has no objective or scientific basis.  Therefore:

Prof. Peter Singer: even newborns are not "persons"with a right to life

1)      A common pro-abortion argument is that the unborn are not technically persons under the law, and that it is therefore permissible to kill them.  This is a false argument because the law cannot make us human beings; that is an objective reality regardless of what the law says.  If it were true, then there was nothing wrong with the mistreatment and killing of African slaves in the United States before the Civil War, because they were not full persons under the law; likewise Jewish people killed in Nazi Germany.

2)      Criteria offered for philosophical definitions of personhood that exclude the unborn also apply to other people who have been born, and whom the proponents would not advocate killing.  For instance:

-          Consciousness – We all lack consciousness when we sleep; some people are unconscious for long periods in comas.  May we kill them?  Also, we don’t really know how early we acquire “consciousness”, but unborn babies do exhibit extensive mental activity well before birth.

-          Dependence on the mother’s body-  Newborns are not much less dependent than the unborn, and actually require much more conscious effort from their care-givers than unborn babies, a dependence that diminishes only gradually over a number of years.  If dependence renders someone a non-person, we should also be free to kill very young children or anyone else who is seriously disabled.

-          Viability – that is, the baby’s ability to survive outside the womb.  Viability, also, is a subjective term: it is a measure of our ability to care for newborn babies, not something inherent in the babies themselves.  We can keep much younger premature babies alive today than we could just a generation ago. And again, this is an argument for killing anyone who is unable to survive on their own.

-          Whether or not the baby is wanted -   It is a measure of how debased the arguments for abortion have become that some people seriously put forth the proposition that some other persons wanting you can determine whether or not you are a human being.  Shall we “abort” homeless adults if there is no family to claim them?

3)      The only objective, rational, and incontrovertible criteria for determining “personhood” are being A) alive and B) human.  From the moment of conception, whether we call them blastocysts, embryos, or fetuses, unborn babies meet both of these requirements.  They are indisputably alive (contrary to Roe vs. Wade, there is not, and has not been for the past two centuries, a scientific “debate about when life begins”); they are also genetically complete, and already have all the genetic material they will need, everything they will ever need, in fact, except food and protection.

4)      It follows that if we can declare living human beings in the womb non-persons, then we have the power to declare other people non-persons as well.  This is already happening in regard to people in the final stages of life, and in some places to the very seriously disabled, if not yet in law at least in practice.  We even see apparently respectable (!) “authorities” such as Princeton Professor Peter Singer argue for the right to kill newborn babies.  None of us are safe from a state that can declare entire categories of human being expendable.

(Randy Alcorn's Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments provided much of the material for this post)

DON’T BUY THE LIE!

Essential Pro-Life Resources:

Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (link)  

The Elliot Institute (link)  

National Right To Life Committee (link)  

Care-Net (link)

The Nurturing Network (link)


To See The Entire Abortion Myths Series Click HERE 

De Profundis (C.W.Gluck)

    Christoph Willibald Gluck was one of the most influential composers of his time in the mid 18th century; he had an enormous impact on Salieri (whose Requiem Mass we've been sampling for the last couple weeks), Mozart, and many others. Perhaps no composer of his time had a greater influence on the development of the operatic genre. While his music is performed somewhat more often today than that of his protege Salieri, he is no longer one of the better-known composers.
     While Gluck's primary area was opera, he also composed musical settings for a few Psalms, few of which have survived. One that has come down to us is this hauntingly beautiful setting for Psalm 130 (linked below), a performance of which Salieri conducted at his old friend and mentor's funeral in 1788.
   

Sunday Snippets - A Catholic Carnival (2nd Sunday of Advent 2014)

     A Blessed Second Sunday of Advent to all, and welcome to Sunday Snippets – A Catholic Carnival, a weekly convocation of bloggers in union with the Church and the Successor of Peter (a.k.a. the Pope) who share their work from the past week at the main gathering (i.e., the Big Top) hereat This That and the Other Thing, home of our hostess RAnn. 

   Speaking of Popes, we have had a very unusual situation the last few years, unprecedented in modern times - we have two men living who have borne the title and filled the office of Pope: Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict.  No Pope had resigned for centuries before Benedict XVI, mostly to avoid destabilizing the Church.  A retired Pope could undermine the authority of the reigning Pope, or become the focal point, even if he didn’t wish it, of a schismatic movement.  While he papacy doesn’t wield the sort of secular influence it did in the Middle Ages, and Popes are no longer in the habit of imprisoning rivals, the danger still remains of a former Pope complicating the work of his successor, and confusing the faithful.

     I was acutely aware of this tricky situation this past week: I had two items featuring the recently retired Pontiff that were ready to post, but I was a little apprehensive about seeming to be disloyal to Pope Francis, or to be offering up an underhanded criticism by paying too much attention to his predecessor.  I chose in the end to publish both items, but I assure you that they ae not intended to cast any sort of negative light on our current Vicar.  The fact is, from his time as Pope, before that as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and even before that as a leading theologian, Joseph Ratzinger has left a substantial and important body of work, which we’ll be talking about for some time to come.

     Pope Emeritus Benedict himself understands quite well the delicate situation he brought about when he stepped down from the Papacy. He has stayed out of the way, making very few public appearances and even fewer statements.  That’s why apologist Jimmy Akin [article here] is so intrigued by the Pope Emeritus (sort of) publicly countering Cardinal Kasper’s most recent attempt to change the Church’s ancient practice of withholding Communion from divorced and remarried Catholics.  Cardinal Kasper has floated this same proposal several times over the last few decades, but every time he runs up against the same obstacle: Joseph Ratzinger.  This time, Akin surmises, Kasper thought he could take advantage of his long-time adversary’s public reticence, this time boldly citing an essay from 1972 in which a much younger Father Ratzinger seemed to be endorsing Kasper’s current view.  Ratzinger rejected that view decades ago, however, and now a republication of his earlier works has afforded an opportunity to subtly, but clearly, counter Kasper’s fancy footwork.  Read Jimmy Akin’s article to get the full story.

      But perhaps you were wondering when I’d get to the snippets?  Of course.  Here is what was happening at Principium et Finis over the First Week of Advent:

Monday – A follow-up to last week’s post; this composer, in my view, truly deserves to be heard more often: “ Antonio Salieri – Requiem in C Minor: ‘Agnus Dei’” [here]

Tuesday – Sure we love fetuses, but other than that we Pro-Lifers are a hard-hearted lot, are we not?  “Abortion Myth #11” [here]

Thursday – The first Ratzinger post of the week, featuring a document issued by the CDF when he was its head honcho: “On Being A Christian In Public Life” [here]

Friday – Jolly Old St. Nick was not a one-dimensional Saint:  “St. Nicholas: Lover, or Fighter?” [here]

Saturday – Here Joseph Ratzinger appears as Pope Benedict XVI, along with Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Conference: “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Ecumenism?”[here]

Finally, Here's one of our favorite Advent Hymns, based on today's Gospel:

What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Ecumenism?

“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” (John 20:16-27)

     It is clear from the scripture passage above that Christ does not want his body (i.e., the Church) to be divided, and that the failure of “those who believe” in Him to be one is an impediment to evangelization. And yet the division of his Mystical Body into numerous different churches and communities is an ongoing scandal.  We might well wonder whether any sort of unity is really possible.  How could it come about?  What would it look like?

     As it happens, Pope Benedict XVI gave a talk on just this topic to a gathering of Protestant and Orthodox Christians in Cologne, Germany, nine years ago (story and full text here), drawing in part on St. John Paul II’s encyclical Ut Unum Sint [text here], in part on his own reflections.  Benedict warns his listeners (and us) that unity is something that we ourselves can’t make happen, but that “it it is the Lord who gives unity, that we do not create it, that it is he who gives it but that we must go to meet him.”  He does suggest that part of the answer lies in Christians of different communities uniting against common adversaries in the wider world:

Our divisions are contrary to the will of Jesus and they disappoint peoples' expectations. I think that we must work with new energy and dedication to bring a common witness into the context of these great ethical challenges of our time.  

At the same time he recognizes that there are real differences between different Christian traditions: he points out that, from the Catholic perspective, “This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost”. Real unity can only be achieved within the Church established by Jesus Christ, and in accordance with the Truth handed on by Christ. At the same time, he recognizes that we Catholics cannot reasonably demand that Protestants, for instance, simply jettison their entire  experience of faith:

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not! It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline.

This looks like something of an impasse: how can we do both of these things?  Well, we can’t. Pope Benedict goes on to say:

It is obvious that this dialogue can develop only in a context of sincere and committed spirituality. We cannot "bring about" unity by our powers alone. We can only obtain unity as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, spiritual ecumenism – prayer, conversion and the sanctification of life – constitutes the heart of the meeting and of the ecumenical movement (cf. “Unitatis Redintegratio”, n. 8; “Ut Unum Sint”, 15ff., 21, etc.). It could be said that the best form of ecumenism consists in living in accordance with the Gospel.   [italics mine]

Unity, then, will only come as a form of Grace, which we cannot create, but with which we must cooperate if is to be fruitful.  Our cooperation here, as in the rest of the Christian life, takes the form of fidelity, that is, “living in accordance with the Gospel.”      

     In his closing, Pope Benedict describes what that fidelity looks like:

I see good reason in this context for optimism in the fact that today a kind of "network" of spiritual links is developing between Catholics and Christians from the different Churches and Ecclesial Communities: each individual commits himself to prayer, to the examination of his own life, to the purification of memory, to the openness of charity.  

Prayer, first of all, which is calling upon God’s help and submitting to his will; examination of life and purification of memory, in order to remove obstacles emanating from pride, resentment, or decisive emotional attachments, and third, as a sort of summation (just where St. Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13:13), charity, love.  All must be done in a spirit of love toward our separated brethren in Christ.

Russell Moore

     This decade-old talk by the now Pope Emeritus came to mind when I ran across an interview the other day that Kathryn Lopez conducted with Russell Moore [here], president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.  Moore had just returned from the Vatican where he had spoken at a conference on men, women, family, complementarity and various other related unfashionable topics.  There are some interesting connections between his comments and some of the points Benedict made in his talk.

     First of all, when Lopez asks “What was the ecumenical dynamic like”, Moore answers: “Well, this wasn’t one of those ‘let’s pretend we all agree on everything’ ecumenical gatherings, and that’s one of the reasons it was so productive.” He goes on to explain that

Jewish leaders  . . .  Mormons and Taoists and Buddhists spoke from their perspective, without pretending to be part of some generic “faith-based community.” The pope was Catholic. This was one of the few such gatherings I’ve attended where theology was taken seriously, both in our agreements and in our differences. Probably more important than the actual sessions, though, were the coffee breaks and the meals, where we had deep conversations about things that mattered. By the end of the week, I think many of us learned to love one another more.

What stands out for me here (aside from the encouraging endorsement of Pope Francis’s Catholicity: more on that below) is, first of all, the fidelity of all the participants to their own traditions.  Without such fidelity, there can be no authenticity, and without authenticity there can be no love.  And of course as Christians we recognize the importance of personal relationships: do we not come to know God through the person of the Man Jesus Christ?  Notice also, for Moore as for Benedict, the key thing is Love, which can only happen between persons, not institutions.

     Moore’s comments on the Catholic Church are of interest as well, particularly in light of Pope Benedict’s talk.  When asked why “it is important for the Catholic Church to lead on these things”, he answers

For most of our history, English and American Baptist Christians thought the greatest threat to religious liberty would come from the Roman Catholic Church. Now we find that some of our greatest allies on religious freedom are Roman Catholics. The threat to our religious liberties comes from a different papacy than we thought — that of a secularizing statism that seeks to pave over consciences with government power.

This would seem to be an example of what Benedict meant by bringing “common witness into the context of these great ethical challenges of our time.”   Of Pope Francis in particular Moore says:

I was especially cheered by his comments on marriage, especially given the media confusion just weeks earlier over the synod deliberations on the family. Pope Francis made it clear that he believes male/female complementarity is essential to marriage and that this cannot be undone or erased by modern ideologies. He also made clear that he believes that every child has the right to both a mother and a father.

It’s worth noting that the Baptist leader not only welcomes papal leadership in the cultural struggle, but seems as disappointed as many of us Catholics about the confusion emanating from the recent Synod on the Family.

     There is much else that is of interest in Lopez’s interview with Russell Moore, more than I can discuss here, but I’ll look at one last thing.  In response to a question about Christmas, Moore makes the following observations:

. . . the Christmas season ought to drive us to the biblical text, which is not all tinsel and garlands. Instead, the Christmas narrative is set in the context of spiritual warfare, of a light that is shining out of darkness.

For several years, I’ve been convinced that the model we most need in this day is that of Joseph of Nazareth. In a day when fathers are seen as expendable, we should look at Joseph, who sacrificed his own future for his wife and child. In a world filled with orphans in need of families, we should look at the example of this adopting father who poured out himself to become a father to one who was of no biological relation to him.

The Holy Family

It’s refreshing to hear a prominent Baptist speaking of St. Joseph in this way; he sounds almost Catholic (and in fact I have made similar observations myself: here for instance).  

     Of course, I’m not saying that we are seeing the end of the Reformation era divisions in the Church, or even the beginning of the end (to paraphrase Winston Churchill), but such signs of the thawing of emotional barriers, and the working of the Power of Love, are reason for Hope.  I propose that during this Advent, the Season of Hope, we make special intercession to St. Joseph, Foster-father of the Son of God,  Watchful defender of Christ,  Head of the Holy Family (and hence for the entire Christian Family), for the healing of the divisions in his Son’s Mystical Body.

O God, who in Thine ineffable providence didst vouchsafe to choose blessed Joseph to be the spouse of Thy most holy Mother: grant, we beseech Thee, that we may have him for an intercessor in heaven, whom we venerate as our protector on earth. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen. 

St. Nicholas: Lover, or Fighter?

St. Nicholas of Myra Saves Three Innocents From Death (Ilya Repin)

     Hang out your stockings: tomorrow, December 6^th, is the feast day of St. Nicholas of Myra.  Over the last couple of centuries the modern Santa Claus has somehow developed from the figure of this 4^th century bishop, but the real Saint has retained a strong devotion in both the Eastern and Western churches.  I say the “real Saint” with the proviso that he is another one of those Saints about whom little is known with historical certainty; as the biography at Catholic Online [here] tells us, “his episcopate at Myra during the fourth century is really all that seems indubitably authentic.”  Nonetheless, I think it’s reasonable to assume that what has come down to us has some basis, at least, in his life and in the sort of person he was. 

     The most well-known story today concerns his generosity.  Having inherited great wealth from his parents, he decided, while still a young man, to give his money to the poor.  He famously rescued three poverty-stricken young women from being sold into prostitution by secretly throwing bags of money in through their windows. This incident is the inspiration for the tradition of leaving gifts in shoes or stockings on St. Nicholas Day.  He is also known as an exemplar of mercy, which fits nicely with generosity (and with the image of Santa Claus).  The best-known story about him in the first millennium tells how he appeared in a dream to the Emperor Constantine on behalf of three men who had been imprisoned unjustly; having learned that the official who was holding the men had a similar dream, and that the men had been praying for Nicholas’s help, the Emperor set them free.

St. Nicholas (R) has a theological discussion with Arius (L)

     Another old story about St. Nicholas, one which has recently enjoyed new popularity, tells of him attending the Council of Nicaea in 325 where, in a fit of anger, he slapped Arius, for whom the Arian Heresy is named.  This story has an irresistible appeal for many Catholics involved in apologetics, particularly when cast as a humorous contrast to affable image of Santa Claus (the Saint’s slap is often upgraded in these accounts to a more manly punch).  One can find numerous reproductions online, for instance, of ancient frescoes depicting the incident with captions like “I came to give kids presents and punch heretics . . . and I just ran out of presents!”  I have to admit, I have chuckled at some of these myself.  At the same time, it would seem that smacking Arius, heresiarch though he was, falls a little short of the Christian Charity test; the council fathers thought so, at least: we are told that they “deprived [Nicholas] of his episcopal insignia and committed him to prison”. We are also told that Jesus frees him from prison and restores him to his bishopric, so we can take that as confirmation that, despite his impulsiveness, his heart was in the right place. In any case, the incident illustrates another important aspect of the Saint: a man who was fiercely dedicated to preserving and defending the Truth.

     There may seem to be an incongruity between the Jolly Old Saint Nick who comes to the aid of poor maidens and innocent prisoners on the one hand, and the righteous crusader who puts a whuppin’ on heretics on the other, but that’s not the case.  The salvation that Jesus lived, suffered and died to bring us is salvation from sin, not from physical hardships.  What could be more generous or merciful than saving a brother from sin, or even more so, preventing him from leading others into it [see here]?  Granted, we are called to do so with love (Ephesians 4:15), so I wouldn’t recommend emulating St. Nicholas’s smackdown of Arius.  Nonetheless, St. Nicholas embodies an important truth: that Generosity and Mercy are not opposed to Justice and Truth, but are, indeed must be, different sides of the same coin, as Scripture attests:

Show us thy steadfast love, O LORD,
and grant us thy salvation.
Let me hear what God the LORD will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people,
to his saints, to those who turn to him in their hearts.
Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,
that glory may dwell in our land.
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.  (Psalm 85:7-11)

That’s not a bad thing to reflect on this weekend as we celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas: Bishop, Lover, and Fighter.

    

    

On Being A Christian In Public Life

An earlier version of this post was published on the 29th of April this year.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

     One need not buy in to the confusing and often intentionally obfuscating "Wall of Separation" language here in the Unites States to acknowledge that the proper role for a believing Christian to play in public and political life can be a complicated question, and today more than ever with political structures that are both democratic and pluralistic.  As in other areas of decision-making, we need to apply our personal judgment in determining how to act in specific situations, but those judgments must be informed and guided by the moral law and the teaching of the Church.  One teaching document that I have found to be enormously helpful in sorting out this question is the Doctrinal Note On Some Questions Regarding The Participation Of Catholics In Political Life [text here], published November 2002 with the authorization of Pope (now Saint) John Paul II, an under the name of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI).

     The Doctrinal Note, despite its narrow focus (it’s only about eight pages long) is a wonderfully rich yet concise discussion, as one would expect from Joseph Ratzinger.  It’s worth a much fuller treatment than I can give it today (I may address that in the future), but right now I want to look at just a couple of points as a sort of follow-up to my post last week about the Maine State Republican Convention [link].

     First of all, participating in public and political life is a good thing:

It is commendable that in today’s democratic societies, in a climate of true freedom, everyone is made a participant in directing the body politic. Such societies call for new and fuller forms of participation in public life by Christian and non-Christian citizens alike . . . The life of a democracy could not be productive without the active, responsible and generous involvement of everyone, “albeit in a diversity and complementarity of forms, levels, tasks, and responsibilities”. (sec. 1, citations omitted)

As Catholic Christians, however, we have a particular mission to fulfill, a “proper task”:

By fulfilling their civic duties, “guided by a Christian conscience”, in conformity with its values, the lay faithful exercise their proper task of infusing the temporal order with Christian values, all the while respecting the nature and rightful autonomy of that order, and cooperating with other citizens according to their particular competence and responsibility. (sec. 1, citations omitted)

In other words, we need to recognize our mission to be Salt and Light to a world in desperate need of the Truth (see Matthew 5:13), while at the same time respecting the freedom of those who might disagree. 

     The Doctrinal Note goes on to say that such involvement on our part in not only good, but is in fact essential if democratic governance is to survive:

At the same time, the Church teaches that authentic freedom does not exist without the truth. “Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.” In a society in which truth is neither mentioned nor sought, every form of authentic exercise of freedom will be weakened, opening the way to libertine and individualistic distortions and undermining the protection of the good of the human person and of the entire society. (sec. 7, citations omitted)

This last point also indicates the limits of politics and political systems, and actually reminds me of something John Adams once said.  As it happens, my son and I were listening to a recorded version of David McCullough’s excellent biography of Adams while travelling to and from the convention last week.  Adams lived a fascinating life: he was a leader in the movement for American independence, a well-travelled diplomat in 18th century Europe, the first Vice President of the United States under George Washington, and Washington’s successor as President.  He was also a deeply religious man (although not, alas, Catholic) with solid moral convictions who thought seriously and incisively about the nature of government and the proper relationship between the government and the governed (all of which he put into practice as the chief architect of the constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the world’s oldest written constitution that is still in use).

The eminently quotable John Adams

     He was, in addition to all that, an outspoken man of considerable wit.  One of my favorite Adams quotes comes from his legal defense of the British soldiers on trial for shooting Bostonians in the Boston Massacre.  Said Adams: “Facts are stubborn things.”  More to the point of this essay, in reference to the Constitution of the United States he said: “Our constitution was made only for the government of a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”  While Adams believed that a republic is the form of government most suited to the dignity of men, and that the republic established by the U.S. Constitution was the best the world had yet seen, such a system could not succeed if those who were participating in it were more interested in feeding their appetites than they were committed to furthering the good, the true and the beautiful.  True freedom, both the Church and Adams agree, is only possible for people who know, and who have been formed in, the Truth.

     And that leads us to the limits of politics and government.  Our actions as citizens in a republic are guided by, and in that sense subordinate to, our properly formed consciences; likewise, the policies of the government are subject to a higher moral law.  If our consciences are not properly formed, no law can make us good (I approach this idea from a slightly different angle in my post “Hidden Law: Society And The Church” [link]).  At best, we can hope to encourage good behavior by providing incentives for it, and discourage bad behavior by providing disincentives.  And when you have a large number of people with improperly formed consciences combined with government incentives to bad behavior, you face societal and political break-down. 

      What that means for us is that our first and most important task is to be the best Catholic Christians we can be, before we ever cast a vote or sign a petition.  To the degree that we create a more Christian society, we make possible a more just government. We should approach direct political action with the understanding that whatever we do politically (and not, certainly, to subordinate our consciences to majority opinion or the party platform), it is guided by, and in service to, the Higher Truth. Government can do many good and essential things: provide for a common defense, nurture a secure environment for civil society to flourish, build and maintain infrastructure, help alleviate the temporary effects of poverty and abuse. It can not do everything, however, nor should it try: in keeping with the Principle of Subsidiarity [link], we should beware of the the government subsuming responsibilities that rightfully belong to individuals or other associations, especially the family or the Church.  Finally, as Christians we have to know that, however much the state can do, only Jesus Christ can bring about the kingdom of God.

Abortion Myth # 11

MYTH: “Pro-lifers don’t care about women, and do nothing to help babies after they are born.”

TRUTH: The reality is just the opposite – the abortion industry offers women little beyond destroying their children and taking their money, while pro-lifers actually do quite a lot for women before during, and after their pregnancies.  Consider the following:

Photo from cradlemyheart.org

-Abortion clinics (even “non-profits” such as Planned Parenthood, see here) charge women a fee to abort their babies, and make millions of dollars from abortion every year.  Pro-life pregnancy resource centers, in contrast, offer their services for free and are staffed by volunteers who donate their time and money.  There are thousands of pregnancy resource centers, both independent and affiliated with larger networks such as Care-Net [link], and they outnumber abortion clinics by a wide margin.

-From the Life Site summary of Planned Parenthood’s 2013-2013 annual report: “In 2012, abortions made up 93.8% of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy services, while prenatal care and adoption referrals accounted for only 5.6% (19, 506 [as opposed to 327,166 abortions]) and 0.6% (2,197), respectively.  For every adoption referral, Planned Parenthood performed 149 abortions.”   

-Contrary to misleading statements from pro-abortion sources (including President Obama), Planned Parenthood performs NO mammograms.

-Pro-life volunteers provide numerous services both before AND after the baby is born, including free maternity and baby clothes, supplies, free or low cost medical and legal assistance, adoption referrals, parenting support and assistance, and child care.  An increasing number of pregnancy centers offer free ultrasounds. Some pro-life organizations, such as The Nurturing Network [link], even provide help finding employment, housing, and education opportunities for women.

-Pro-life volunteers have helped numerous women seeking peace after the trauma of abortion through programs such as Project Rachel and Rachel’s Vineyard.  Abortion providers offer nothing comparable.

DON’T BUY THE LIE!

Essential Pro-Life Resources:

Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (link)  

The Elliot Institute (link)  

National Right To Life Committee (link)  

Care-Net (link)

The Nurturing Network (link)


To See The Entire Abortion Myths Series Click HERE 

Antonio Salieri: Requiem in C minor: "Agnus Dei"

     As a follow-up to last week's post featuring the unjustly maligned composer Antonio Salieri, here is the "Agnus Dei" from Salieri's Requiem in C Minor.  There is some beautiful music here: I especially like the oboe part that weaves through it (and I have to admit that there are a few brief moments where the strings remind me of Mozart's Don Giovanni, which premiered a year earlier).
     Of course, it's all too easy for us here in the 21st century to think of pieces like this as simply music to be performed, which is in fact how they are usually treated today.  We forget that a work such as this is not only religious in inspiration, but an actual act of prayer; it is not simply a "mass" but a Mass, intended to be used in the highest form of worship available to us in this world (and, in this particular case, as an offering for the dead).  Like religious painters and the builders of the great cathedrals, composers of sacred music strove to make their work as beautiful as possible to honor their Lord and Creator.  In other words, this is not just a work of art: it is an expression of Love.

,