The Giant Evil Conspiracy and my role in it

There’s nothing so frustrating in discussion of public issues as when the person with whom you’re talking stops challenging your reasoning and starts questioning your motives. Only charity at that point stops you from throwing up your hands: “Okay, I’ll admit it—we’re part of a giant, evil conspiracy to drain all wealth, health, hope and happiness from the universe. Just give me your money, put on these chains, and start chanting ‘Arbeit macht frei,’ alright?”

I ran into that brick wall a couple of weeks ago while discussing the pro-life perspective with a friend of mine. She asked why Catholics care what people of other religions do with their bodies and their kids, and whether they have sex or use birth control. I responded, “We care because that’s what it means to love. That’s what it means to be part of a community: to care what happens to others, and to do what can be done to protect them from evil.”

That wasn’t good enough. If we really cared, we might understand that labor can do damage to a teen, or that the mother and child will likely suffer more in their lives, or that the children of poverty end up in jail or fighting our wars … and so forth and so on. There has to be more going on here than love and compassion; otherwise, we’d concentrate more on these other problems and less on giving a kind of help people don’t want.

Okay, you figured me out. I’m part of one Giant Evil Conspiracy to enslave all America, struggling against another Giant Evil Conspiracy out to destroy the country. It reminds me of how James Longstreet characterized the Civil War in Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels: a nightmare in which you pick your nightmare side, put your head down and try to win.

The loss of original justice

Half a world away, as I sit here listening to Robert Shaw and the London Philharmonic play Mozart's Requiem, uncounted thousands of Japanese people struggle and scramble to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of incomprehensible natural devastation.

The opening stanzas of the sequence "Dies Irae" are eerily appropriate: Day of wrath! O day of mourning! /See fulfilled the prophets' warning, /Heaven and earth in ashes burning! Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth, /When from Heaven the Judge descendeth, /On Whose sentence all dependeth.

In truth, the temblor which struck just off the northeastern shore of Honshū, the main island, is but a small foretaste of the wrack which will come at the End of All Things. Even the apocalyptic warnings of Our Lady of Akita, grim and desperate as they are, leave open the possibility that the hand of the Almighty may yet be stayed; the time when the true End will come—without warning,[1] "like a thief in the night"[2]—is already fixed, and no plea or prayer will halt the descent of the axe.

Yet it's true that many people, even Christians, see no necessary connection between sin and natural disasters. The connection isn't in the fact that disasters occur; tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes and such are all consequences of living on an active, dynamic planet. Even disasters that occur from the collapse of man-made things, from the tower at Siloam[3] to the World Trade Center, aren't direct consequences of sin, though one could argue that our need for such structures is an indirect consequence.

A short burst of inconsequential information

“… [W]e came across the word ‘twitter,’ and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information,’ and ‘chirps from birds.’ And that’s exactly what the product was.”—Jack Dorsey[1]

While I was getting my hair cut at Great Clips yesterday, I listened as the customer next to me regaled his stylist with the tale of a close call he had on the freeway. I’m sure other people across the nation know this one: the young person in the car in the next lane was too busy texting someone to realize her car was drifting into his lane. When he brought her into the present by leaning on his horn, she flashed him a dirty look—of course it was his fault.

Then, later that night, as I was scanning through the secular news, I came across an AP story on MSNBC: An employee of New Media Strategies in Detroit, apparently running into his own frustrations with traffic, tweeted: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive.”

It would have been much funnier if he hadn’t posted it to Chrysler Group’s official Twitter site by mistake. Now he’s unemployed and Chrysler is letting NMS go at the end of their contract. Oops.

Support your local priests!

Yesterday, Cardinal Justin Rigali placed twenty-one of the thirty-seven Philadelphia priests named by the recent grand jury report on administrative leave, pending further investigation. In this decision, he was assisted by Gina Maisto Smith, a former prosecutor who’s now a partner in the law firm Ballard Spahr, according to CNS.

Of the remaining sixteen, eight were cleared, three had already been suspended, two are members of religious orders (which puts canonical action against them out of +Rigali’s hands), and two are no longer active in ministry, their priesthoods impeded. (NB: Since +Rigali turned 75 last April, his resignation is already on the Pope’s desk, pending the nomination of the archbishop’s successor.) There seems to be one unaccounted for, so I’m wondering if there wasn’t an error in CNS reporter Marianne Medlin’s numbers.

Since the story is ongoing, it would be premature to say this en masse suspension “culminates” a month of recriminations and soul-searching for the Philly Archdiocese. Rather, this action—which a more imaginative era of journalism would have quickly dubbed the “Shrove Tuesday Massacre”—has the feeling of being a mere pit stop along a road traveled before, a road becoming distressingly familiar.

According to Rocco Palma, one unnamed bishop has complained, “What were they thinking? In this day and age, this stuff never stays hidden. And it shouldn’t.” Another anonymous priest told him, “I don’t know how your guys [who remain] get out of bed and do Ash Wednesday.”

Fasting and Christian asceticism

For the last week, I’ve been wracking my brain to think of a beginning-of-Lent post that wouldn’t: a) duplicate the reflection on repentance I wrote last year; and b) cover the same ground other Catholic bloggers are covering. Believe it or not, I do strive for some originality.

However, some questions and challenges continue to crop up, no matter how many times Catholic apologists respond to them. On one blog or another, you’ll come across some ex-Catholic or Evangelical type who’ll throw down a bunch of Bible “proof texts” to show that some practice is non-Scriptural. Usually the texts will bear on the question; sometimes, about half the quotations will be condemnations of the unbeliever and the sinner ... interesting but irrelevant.

The main error with the “Show me from the Bible” challenge is that you can’t show from the Bible that everything has to be in the Bible, nor can you demonstrate from Scripture that only what’s in Scripture is binding on Christian conscience. But another problem with sola scriptura arguments is the tendency to pick one or two verses which seem to support one’s position, usually out of their proper context, and ignore a whole host of other references which ought to force the person to re-evaluate the inference.

Such is the case with Lenten fasting and abstinence. Here the Evangelical is likely to whip out this line from St. Paul: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, … who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Tim 4:1, 3). Hah! Take that, you carp-crunching papist!

He's not dying, Jim.

You know you’re a Trekkie when reflecting on some social phenomenon makes you say, “Y’know, this reminds me of that episode when Kirk and Spock ….”

“The Mark of Gideon”: Instead of politely asking Capt. Kirk for a sample of his blood, the leaders of the insanely overpopulated Gideon cook up a bizarre scheme to expose a beautiful girl (was there ever any other on that show?) to a deadly disease (Vegan choriomeningitis) Our Hero carries. You see, sterilization doesn’t work, and they hold love and the creation of life sacred (so birth control isn’t an option), and they live in a germ-free environment that gives them long lives. As a result, they must reintroduce disease to their planet, so they can naturally reduce the population and shorten life spans. After Kirk grumps a bit about being used as a pawn, the beautiful girl’s life is saved … so she can return to the planet as a 23rd-century Typhoid Annie.

Third season? How did you guess?

Get over yourself

“Here I am, Lord; is it I, Lord, who was bringing up three very lovely girls?”

Up to that point, I’d been listening to the “Gather Hymnal Redux” parody with a mixture of amusement and concern. Mildly funny, okay, but didn’t this verge on blasphemy?

But until now—and I’m ashamed, ashamed! to admit it—I’d never heard the melodic similarity between “Here I Am” and the Brady Bunch theme. Now that I’d just been smacked in the face with it, I finally laughed. And when the crooner got to “We remember what you told us, that one time, And it was awesome and we should have wrote it down,” I was howling.

Is my house on fire?

One sure way to bring out the trolls: Give your post a triumphalist title.

Simcha Fisher had a wonderful reflection on a recent study done by Florida State, showing that: 1) there is a causal connection between a woman’s fertility peak and men’s perception of her as attractive; and 2) men already in a romantic relationship with another woman don’t find her as attractive as do unattached men. With her impish sense of humor, Simcha titled the post “New Study: The Church Is Right About Everything”.

It wasn’t long before “Wayne” showed up with: “Yes, the catholic church is right about everything. Limbo, purgatory, paying to out of purgatory. My fave is; there is no salvation outside of the catholic church. The billions payed [sic] out in lawsuits proves that. Another fave of mine is[] that catholic priests are little Christs. Well, the billions in payouts testify to that.” And again: “When in the coffer a coin rings /out of purgatory a soul springs.”

Simcha and another commenter tried to respond; I simply said, “Please don’t feed the trolls.” Their responses got lengthy, semi-coherent jeremiads. I got: “Anthony, if your house was on fire and you were asleep, wouldn’t you was [sic] someone to beat on the door and wake you up?”

Closing the Catholic "debate" on same-sex marriage

Thomas Peters (the American Papist) grumped yesterday, “It’s extraordinary to me how, in a Catholic community which has debated endlessly the morality of LiveAction’s use of false statements in exposing Planned Parenthood …, that there has not been more effort to condemn the claim of pro-SSM Catholics that the debate over marriage is closed.”

Funny. I just wrote about gay marriage the other day. I didn’t realize I needed to mention pro-SSM Catholics. I was hoping to leave the topic alone for awhile.

Frankly, I was a little taken aback. Peters generally has his finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the blogosphere; he should know as well as I that there’s been quite a bit in recent weeks for everyone to chew over. It’s not like we Catholic bloggers are all tied into a central system to get our orders: “Okay, today’s topic will be Planned Parenthood!” Don’t ask me to explain the dog pile over Lila Rose yet again; if you feel like you lost, Tom, don’t worry … we’re still with you on so many other things.

This fit of high dudgeon was brought on by a guest post in the WaPo “on Faith” blog by Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries. New Ways, if you’ll recall, is the “gay-positive ministry” that Cdl. Francis George of Chicago blasted last February for its criticism of Church teaching, saying that, “like other groups that claim to be Catholic but deny central aspects of Church teaching, New Ways Ministry has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and that they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.”

Another gloomy analysis

The last three posts or so have been pretty depressing. So I stepped away from the word processor, did some things around the house, went to Adoration. When I came back, I was going to write a post full of sweetness and light.

Then I read Msgr. Charles Pope’s piece from Monday on Europe's inability to deal with Islamic demands for Shariah law within their enclaves. I also read Abp. Charles Chaput’s address to the Berkley Center for Peace, Religion and World Affairs at Georgetown U … reminding that think-tank that the American concept of ordered peace and justice directly depended on Christian humanism, a humanism based on a particular view of the human being and his relationship to God.

Recently, in Detroit, there were conflicts as the police arrested a couple of Christian missionaries who had gone to an Islamic festival, although they were observing city law while doing so. And now the ACLU has undertaken to represent another enclave in LA who wants to implement Shariah within their boundaries, cheerfully ignoring the fact that Shariah has some direct conflicts with women’s civil rights. (That’s what the ACLU desperately needs … A CLU.)

So much for sweetness and light.