Imagination and immateriality

Joe Heschmeyer’s post on “the dog that didn’t bark” is turning out (for me, at least) to be a gift that keeps giving.

If you’ll remember — if not, just follow the link — Joe’s post was on Eucharistic theology. His major point was, if Catholic Eucharistic theology is wrong, then we should see in the writings of the Church Fathers a theology that the Church denies; we should see a Lutheran or Calvinist or Evangelical theology. But since several of the Church Fathers directly assert that the bread and wine become the true Flesh and Blood of Christ, we must believe that Protestant interpretations are wrong and the Catholic understanding correct.

Into the combox came a particularly long and rambling vomit from an ex-Catholic turned anti-Catholic. Two-thirds of the way through, we finally come across a specific, on-topic objection:

Anyways, again, as I’ve stated in other posts, the Lord’s Supper MUST be symbolic since, “Not one of His bones shall be broken” [Jn 19:36, cf. Ps 34:20]. Think about it, if the Eucharist is the true body, blood, soul, and divinity, then His bones would be broken every time your teeth crush the host. Yet, “the Scripture cannot be broken” [Jn 10:35]. Also, since He called himself the Door [Jn 10:7-10] and Vine [Jn 15:1-8] (among others), should I take that literally and worship doors and vines as you do with the host? It’s irrational. Not just Eucharistic or “apostolic succession” teachings, but almost all RCC teachings.

Is the Church being overly literal in insisting on the Real Presence? Or is what we’re seeing here a failure of imagination?

The silence of Jesus and ecclesial caution

In yesterday’s post on the silence of Jesus, I neglected to bring up an important concern: In Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, Jesus told the apostles in general, and St. Peter in particular, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” In other words, the Church has the power to declare teachings binding on the Christian’s conscience.

This, I hasten to add, is not a blank check, nor has the Catholic Church ever construed it as such. Contra Lord Acton’s assertion of the papacy’s absolute power (and how it tends to corrupt absolutely), the pope and the bishops are “accountable to God’s revelation, to the fundamental structure of the Church given it by Christ, to the seven sacraments, to the creeds, to the doctrinal definitions of earlier ecumenical councils, and to ‘other obligations too numerous to mention …’”.[1] Nevertheless, the authority to bind and loose knocks the pins out of the claim, “Jesus didn’t say it, so I don’t have to believe it.”

But this point led one person to ask:

OK ... But then wouldn’t the Church have the authority to change at least some of these things later? I’m not saying that it necessarily should, but if you have a reform movement and a status quo movement (on say women as priests) it seems a tad convenient to say that Jesus’ silence on the issue can be used by the status quo side as evidence, while also supporting the power of the Church to modify, fill in the gaps, etc.

Sherlock Holmes and the silence of Jesus

In his 1911 tongue-in-cheek essay, “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes”, Msgr. Ronald Knox coined the term Sherlockismus to describe “a special kind of epigram”, an ambiguous statement that is nevertheless memorable.

One example Knox gives is from the story “Silver Blaze”: While discussing the case with Holmes, Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard asks him, “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes replies, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory, puzzled, objects, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” To which Holmes rebuts, “That was the curious incident.”

Had the person who removed Silver Blaze from his stable been an outsider, the dog would have raised the alarm. Since the dog remained quiet, Holmes deduced, the perpetrator must have been an insider — the trainer, in fact, who was trying to hobble the horse to win a bet. Sir Arthur’s earliest biographer, John Dickson Carr, exclaimed: “Call this ‘Sherlockismus’; call it any other fancy name; the fact remains that it is a clue, and a thundering good one at that.”[1]

Joe Heschmeyer uses the Sherlockismus in a look at early Church Eucharistic theology. In one of those “D’oh!” moments that strike me much more often than you might think, I realized in reading Joe’s excellent post that the “dog that didn’t bark” also gives us a clue about what is not found in Scripture.

Contraceptives are for suckers

Before you read this post, you should go to What Does The Prayer Really Say and read this heart-tugging question Fr. John Zuhlsdorf received, as well as his compassionate reply. I’ll be here when you get back.

*          *          *

Let me start by setting up a hypothetical situation: You’re handed a pair of dice. To play this game, you roll the dice; if any number other than two comes up, you win $1; if you roll snake-eyes, though, you pay $40.

Now, elementary probability theory tells you that your odds of losing are 35:1 against on any given roll. Like any other casino game, of course, it’s structured so that over time people lose more money than they win. But that’s not going to happen to you if you only roll the dice once or twice, right? And, really, it’s possible to roll the dice sixty or seventy times before that costly deuce comes up, so you individually could win more than you lose, right?

And that’s how casinos make money off of suckers like you: the dice are under no obligation to conform to your optimistic expectations. A hot table doesn’t have to stay hot; a cold table doesn’t have to warm up. You could just as easily lose that forty clams on the first roll as on the thirty-second; you could roll deuces twice in just three rolls. Sooner or later, you will throw the two … you just don’t know when. The only way to prevent it is to step away from the table.

Breaking the spell of Planned Parenthood

Some months ago, while discussing the cognitive dissonance infecting the pro-choice ranks and the “Lies and Lila Rose” issue, I got the sense that we were on the verge of a watershed event in the pro-life battle, that the supporters of the Great Western Atrocity were on the edge of a cascade failure. “As Saletan and other pro-choice advocates continue to struggle with their cognitive dissonance, ugly truths about abortion that NARAL and their intellectual puppets at the Alan Guttmacher Institute have tried so desperately to squelch continue to surface. I predict … that this will eventually trigger a series of revelations about Planned Barrenhood that the MSM won’t be able to ignore.”

Despite the questionable ethics of entrapment journalism, the fact remains that LiveAction’s videos shattered Planned Barrenhood’s façade of concern for women. Then came the revelation of Kermit Gosnell’s “little shop of horrors” and the fact that the Pennsylvania Department of Health “literally licensed Gosnell’s criminally dangerous behavior”. Then Virginia passed a health bill requiring abortion clinics to meet the same safety standards of hospitals, forcing opponents to defend access at the cost of appearing hypocritical about women’s health.

Now, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations, has written a letter to Planned Barrenhood president Cecile Richards, asking her “to comply with current federal regulations and legal obligations by providing Congress with a wide range of documents within two weeks of the date of the letter,” according to LifeNews.

The other shoe has finally dropped.

Time to act is almost gone!

I've already posted on the new HHS rules on The Impractical Catholic. I don't need another 1,000-word essay on the matter. Just go over there, click the links and let our government hear your voice! That's what the democratic process is for! Now now now! September 30th is almost here!

Hatred of homosexuals betrays Christ

On August 26th, Stacy Trasancos wrote “Can’t Even Go to the Park”, a modest little grump about homosexual PDAs that, due to some ill-meaning gay activists, suddenly went viral. It may not have been the most charitable thing ever written, but as gripes go it was pretty mild.

The same can’t be said for much of the international reaction. The forces of love and tolerance have inflicted upon her an international virtual blanket party, a worldwide vomit of unbalanced hatred completely unmerited by what she wrote.

As of this writing, the post itself has had 975 comments, the vast majority of them running from the merely pained to the viciously foul to the “Nurse, get me one hundred milligrams of thorazine STAT!” level of pure looniness. One charming example: “What a c**t. I hope her children are kidnapped, raped, and murdered. It would be better than having them grow up with such a twisted f**k for a mother!”

Worse than that, though, are all the LGBTQ apologists who have put on the mask of sober rationality to say, “Well, yes, such reactions are extreme and hard to condone, but you asked for it, you hateful b***h!” Or: “It’s only the natural frustration of people who have been oppressed by Christian bigots for two millennia.”

Some thoughts on “Dating With An Audience”

There isn’t a St. Patrick’s Day that goes by that I don’t try to watch that great John Ford classic, The Quiet Man. The picture it gives of Ireland in the 1920s may strike modern sensibilities as a bit saccharine, especially in its almost total ignorance of Catholic-Protestant tensions (the Catholic priest even subtly helping the Church of Ireland vicar retain his benefice). However, it’s a great story, with fine moments from the whole cast, and fairly authentic in its portrayal of small-town Irish sensibilities.

The mainspring of the plot is the attempts of Sean Thornton (John Wayne), a man born in the little village of Innisfree but who grew up in America, to woo and win the fiery Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O’Hara), the sister of a rival landowner, “Red” Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen). But besides Squire Danaher’s malicious hatred, Thornton must also deal with the Irish rules of courtship and marriage; for all her seeming independence, Mary Kate can’t — or won’t — marry Thornton without Danaher’s acquiescence.

I bring all this up because Elizabeth Hillgrove’s fine essay on Virtuous Pla.net, “Dating With An Audience”,  reminded me of one particular scene: Thornton trying to court Mary Kate traditionally while riding with her on a jogging cart under the vigilant (and quite intoxicated) eye of Michaleen Og Flynn (played to perfection by Barry Fitzgerald).

Elizabeth was talking of teens dating in the presence of chaperones. It occurred to me that adults could stand to be monitored by third parties as well.

Salvation and invincible ignorance

In the combox under “Startling revelation! Catholic Church against gay marriage!” writes concerned reader Lori Bisser:

Hi, I am respectfully wondering in this portion: “Should the liberals leave the Church? I’m sure a few of my fellow bloggers would wish for it. But when Jesus asked the Twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ they responded, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’ (Jn 6:67-68). If you care for someone, you wish for their conversion of heart; to wish them out of the Church is not much better than wishing them to go to hell … in fact, the two desires are almost equivalent.” Are you saying that if a person is not Catholic, they are going to hell? Or am I making a giant leap?

Yes, you are respectful, Ms. Bisser, and for that I thank you. As for whether it’s a leap …?

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus: “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” You hear this quite frequently with hard-line conservatives, especially those who wish Vatican II undone and hold little respect for the popes who have followed Ven. Pius XII (1939-1958). But this maxim is not as absolute as some might think (or wish).

Should we be “desirable” … or “sexy”?

• Sexy adj. /ˈsɛksi/ From sex (Middle French sexe < Latin sexus (“gender”); thought to be connected with Latin seco, secare (“divide, cut”) by the concept of division, or “half” of the race) + -y — 1: sexually suggestive or stimulating; erotic. 2: generally attractive or interesting; appealing.
• Desirable adj. /di-ˈzī-rə-bəl/ From desire (Middle English desiren < Old French desirer < Latin desiderare, orig., prob., to await from the stars < de-, from + sidus, star) + -able — 1: having pleasing qualities or properties; attractive. 2: worth seeking or doing as advantageous, beneficial, or wise; advisable.

If there’s a clear line between sexy and desirable, finding it is challenging enough.

Consider the picture of Penélope Cruz at left: I found the picture when I searched Bing for images of “desirable”. There’s no doubt she’s one of the most beautiful women in the world today. Sexy, yes, beyond shadow of a reasonable doubt. But without unnecessarily vilipending Ms. Cruz (since I don’t know her personally) — is she really desirable?

A certain kind of trousered ape, a type all too familiar to us, would answer, “Well, yeah! Duh! Who wouldn’t like to wake up to that in the morning?” This is precisely the attitude that gets us the perennial female complaint, “Men are pigs!” And, unfortunately, even the best of us aren’t so far from the trousered ape that we don’t wonder what Ms. Cruz would look like with bed hair, no makeup and the sleep still in her eyes.