Around St. Blogs
The Pope Tweeted!
Awesomeness. I actually saw the Tweet “live,” or about as live as it gets. Which is amazing, since I pay attention to Twitter just about as much as I do wheat commodities.
At least one of the papal grunts saved the Holy Father from the terror of actually typing out that message on a tablet of any kind.
Elizabeth Scalia…
…has, over the past couple of years, become one of my favorite writers. Mind you, when I say “favorite writers” I think of people like William Blake. Bl. John Paul II. Oscar Wilde. Flannery O’Connor. You get the picture: Scalia is just plain good.
Check out her latest, “Illuisions of Equality,” to see what I mean.
She maintains an uncanny ability to exist within the world of St. Blogs (and the blogosphere in general) without becoming insufferably negative about her particular hobby horses (which we all have). Scalia can take a decision or issue she clearly disagrees with and cut to the heart of the matter, displaying both her knowledge and tendency toward prayerful contemplation. We don’t always agree on everything, but I always love the way she says it.
So consider this a fan letter should you ever see it, Elizabeth, and keep writing for yourself and for us!
Of Guns and Bishops
“Will I ever learn that there’ll be no peace, that the war won’t cease / Until He returns?” – Dylan, “When He Returns”
I’ve witnessed quite the flap in recent days over a statement from the USCCB, issued in November 2000’s “Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice.” Since the statement hit the mainstream through CNS, it has angered some, emboldened others, and has been more-or-less misapplied by fans and detractors alike. The phrase in question — a footnote, no less — reads:
However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions — i.e. police officers, military use — handguns should be eliminated from our society.”
In order to ascertain what drives this statement, we have to understand our obligation as a Christian people to work for peace. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Sons of God” (Mt 5:9). Working toward the the elimination of all violence is a direct biblical mandate, and even when we make licit use of force, we do so in an effort to bring peace.
Notice, however, that the bishops believe handgun regulation is the desired goal “in the long run.” Through the promotion of a peaceful and just society, we should work towards that long-range goal in which individual members of society have no need of a handgun for defensive purposes.[1] We would all prefer to live in a society where defensive force — especially force which has the potential to be deadly — would never be necessary.
Yet clearly, we as a society have not reached this point, and this explains why the bishops do not call for a blanket ban on the individual possession of handguns. In fact, here is what they do recommend:
“As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer — especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner — and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.”
Reasonable enough, and something every responsible handgun owner would advocate (even if there will always be squabbling over what constitutes “sensible regulation”).
One of the things we must always keep in mind when reading over social justice issues is the “already” and the “not yet” of the Christian reality. In a very real way, the victory of Christ has become manifest through the Church and the world. Christ has already come into the world, triumphing over sin and death; at the same time, however, this victory is only absolutely manifest when He returns. By working for peace, we simply usher in something Christ has already established in the eschaton.
Unfortunately, those who work for peace and justice often fall into the heresy of Pelagianism. This is the belief that we ourselves usher in the “not yet” portion of reality. A Pelagian would argue that ultimate peace will be established by humanity, that we have the “power” to finally destroy the effects of sin which remain in Christ’s wake.[2] The bishops rightly avoid this error by pointing towards the “not yet” reality of peace which — while we have a responsibility to usher in through our actions — can only be delivered in that final moment of Christ’s triumph. In essence, the Christian becomes like John the Baptist, preparing the way for the Lord; but it is not John the Baptist himself who reestablishes unity with God.
To conclude, then, I’m willing to go one further than the bishops. I say we have a responsibility to prepare the way for that day when even law enforcement and military have no need for handguns, by staying true to Christ’s message of peace, which will be fully realized by humanity when He returns.
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[1] However, one can validly argue that a handgun is a moral neutral, and thus is not evil-in-itself. One must also acknowledge licit use through the hobby/sport of marksmanship, which in-itself contains no other aim but the development of good aim.
[2] Unarguably, every societal debacle in the history of the world has found its root in Pelagianism, where humanity claims to have established a utopia free from the negatives shackling previous/contemporary structures. Societies that fail to account for sin are doomed to die by it.
On the Liturgy of the Word
I’ve penned a brief article on the value of the Liturgy of the Word, which can be viewed over at Working to Beat Hell.
Worship Songs
Great post over on the First Things blog by Jeremy Pierce, in which he examines the elements of a bad worship song. It’s tongue-in-cheek, of course, as his point relates to how these songs are often biblically based.
For my part, I loathe just about every single praise and worship tune I hear. It’s all saccharine: sweet and tasty, but the aftertaste is there to remind you that what you’ve just consumed is fake. P&W tunes operate out of an emotional construct, which is unsustainable in both human and spiritual relationships. My argument isn’t always with the content of these songs (often being very scriptural), but rather with the method of delivery and what one hopes to incite in the worshiper.
Any art involving words — if it is to have any lasting, enduring affect — must appeal primarily to the intellect. It should give you cause to pause, to relate, to grow, to ponder. It should be actualized. All too often, the point of P&W is to get you excited, to pump you up and get you going. And then what?
I say I loathe “just about” every P&W song I hear, because occasionally I run across a good one. The music I hear when I’m with a local young adults group always seems to fit the mood of Eucharistic Adoration, and is extremely well done.
I haven’t posted this quote by Flannery O’Connor in a while, but I’m always reminded of it when I encounter terrible Christian art:
The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that, because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality…But the real novelist, the one with an instinct for what he is about, knows that he cannot approach the infinite directly, that he must penetrate the natural human world as it is.
UPDATE: My buddy (the newly-minted Br. Benedict — woohoo!) brings up a good point with the “me me me” theme so prevalent in P&W.
One of the places Jeremy Pierce’s satire falls short is that he doesn’t acknowledge the larger theological sense of what the “me/I/my, etc” means in the Psalms. When I pray the psalms — and I do, five times a day, as I promised my bishop I would — the “me” isn’t Josh Miller. “Me” isn’t even the original composer of the Psalm, in the traditional narrative sense.
The “me” we refer to when we pray the Psalms through a Christian context is Jesus Christ, addressing the Father. Thus, in my prayer, I unite with Christ as he unites with the Father. It becomes relational inasmuch as I incorporate myself into the mystery of my adopted sonship, through the Son Jesus Christ.
In the end, then, the Psalm really isn’t about “me” even when it uses the term. It always points toward Jesus Christ, who points towards the Father.
In every good icon, notice where Mary’s hand leads. She’s the preeminent example of what it means to be Christian for a reason: it was never about her.
UPDATE (x2): Instead of simply providing negative examples, I thought I’d post a positive example of a song that might be considered P&W (in a gospel sense) which does precisely what these songs should do.
Unfortunately, not every songwriter is Bob Dylan, and not every songwriter is capable of crafting a work whose lyrics about God aren’t easily interchangeable with the word “baby.”
Great performance by this kid, by the way:
Academic Freedom is Dead
Thanks to David over at Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex for saying all that needs to be said about the University of Illinois’ decision to terminate Dr. Kenneth Howell.
The University of Illinois taught me a lesson first-hand, so it is not surprising that it continues to perpetuate that lesson: academic liberalism (and indeed, modern liberalism in general) is a façade constructed to push a set of ideals. It’s all about respecting other people’s opinions, until those opinions happen to conflict with the party line.
And when the party line is breached, look out. It becomes sinister, wicked, underhanded — and Amen, Amen I say to you — evil. Meanwhile, the Catholic viewpoint is proclaimed openly in a spirit of charity and love, always with regard to the intrinsic dignity of the human person, regardless of where they fall on any moral spectrum.
I would hope that Dr. Howell might find a job at a Catholic school, but this might be difficult. The game is the same, only a little less visceral. The seminary system is a good option as well, but the pay isn’t so great.
Three Reasons You Should Be Reading John C. Wright
A friend tipped me to John C. Wright’s blog, found here. Three reasons to add him to the blogroll and the bookshelf:
- He writes pretty darned good Sci-Fi/Fantasy. I’d read The Golden Age books before I knew anything of his innate awesomeness.
- He once declared, “If Vulcans had a church, they’d be Catholics.” Having spent the summer around process theology, I cannot tell you how true this statement is.
- He continues to write things like this, in response to a review of one of his stories:
No comment about the story says anything about the story-writer: the reviewer here breaks the fourth wall and makes a personal comment about my ability to “get it” because that is the automatic reflex of her particular philosophy, which suffers from one weakness that crops up in every follower of it I have ever met, bar none, no matter their background or education.
Leftists all argue by Ad Hominem. Philosophy, for them, is not a search for truth, but a martial aid to augment a limp and failing self-esteem.
Leftist have to make comments uplifting themselves and putting down the opposition, because their philosophy does not allow for anything else. It is not as if they can say that there is an objective standard that they fulfill better than other men, and base their pride on that. It is not as if they can say the objective rules of logic support their conclusions.
Nope. Moderns are the children of Marx, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, and other frauds and charlatans posing as thinkers. What the bigs frauds do is pretend everything evolves, or everything is historical necessity, or everything is willpower, or everything is subconscious impulses. All these theories are vague enough to fit any situation — what Karl Popper called ‘un-disprovable’ — but more importantly, all allowed for ad Hominem dismissal of criticism by calling character of the critic into question: as Marx did by dismissing economists as merely spokesmen for economic interests, as Hegel did by dismissing ancient writers as being undeveloped (as if truth depended on when you spoke it), as Freud did with Jung, and so on and on.
The little frauds follow the big frauds. They assume all disagreement is based on ignorance or malice, and not on differences of axioms, exposure to different experience, or the judicious people placing different weight on the testimony of contradictory witnesses.
What makes it ironic is that these modern intellectuals more often than not do not know who invented the ideas they are reciting, or have not read the original works.
Pretty much sums up why I left the vapid wasteland of leftist groupthink in a college dorm.
By the Way… You Tweet?
If so, feel free to follow me.
I despise Twitter a little less than I once did. Ironically, Joshua Claybourn’s continuing campaign against all-things-Twitt forced me to fire up the account I’d created late last year. I was on a quest to figure out one thing: why do people use it at all?
I’m yet to find a satisfactory answer, and largely still agree with Claybourn. Here’s what I’ve seen over the last month or so:
- Microblogging. Many moons ago, I used to have a small section dedicated to links I’d find throughout the day, and they posted on the blog’s sidebar. Twitter acts as a kind of rolling list for a lot of people, though I find it to be fairly inefficient for such a task. On any user’s main interface, your links are likely to be rolled over by more posts.
- Networking. Tweet Catholic is a great place to follow folks who share similar interests.
- Random Musings and Life Updates. I’m a fan of the random, and I especially appreciate it when separated friends chime in with what they’re doing. This may annoy you, but I’ve come to depend on it as the ultimate form of passive-aggressive communication. I’ve been doing the Facebook thing for years now.
- Celebrities and Politicians. A ton of ‘em tweet. I follow a few politicians, but not many. If you want to stay up-to-the-minute with Demi Moore or Newt Gingrich though, go to town.
- Poetry. Haiku lives and breathes on Twitter. In fact, “The Cubs in Haiku” is the most entertaining thing I’ve found on the service thus far.
Really, Twitter is a lot like barking through a tin can telephone with multiple strings. As long as someone’s on the other end of the line, you’re likely to be heard. But for the average user, it mostly comes down to realtime communication.
Its ultimate value – past novelty, instant communication, and a way to waste time – seems minimal. But what do I know: Google is rumored to be interested to the tune of $1 billion.
I suppose I’ll keep going with it, if for no other reason than that I’m still trying to figure out just exactly why other people are using it.
Does the Mullet Make the Man, or Does the Man Make the Mullet?
Outside of the occassional YouTube video post, I’ve been rather quiet over the past couple weeks. I know I still owe some of you emails, so thanks for your patience; I’ll be responding shortly.
So, what’s shakin’?
- A change in the weather means more illness. Nothing like the flu I caught near the end of February, though. Good riddance to that. If anyone has a spare “pair” of sinuses handy, send them my way.
- Last quarter is done. Good riddance to that also.
- The Kindle 2 is still awesome. Too bad I’ve been strapped for free reading time lately.
- I like my classes. This goes a long, long way.
- I thought about growing a mullet for diaconate ordination, and this became a kind of running joke amongst friends. Though I imagine I was the one most amused by it. I’d planned on furnishing the sidewalls with an alpha and an omega. A little something for the people in the pews. “All good things…”, however: the quasi-mullet met an unceremonious end about 24 hours after someone came up to me in the hallway and said, “Josh, if I give you $5, will you get a haircut?” Anyway, it’s simply too much effort to keep a quality mullet going nowadays, what with all that sleeping I prefer to do in the mornings
I haven’t had much time for the blogosphere lately. And frankly, I haven’t had the gumption. More on that later. But I can recommend two blogs my regulars might not be following, which always take a reasonable and educated look at faith, theology, philosophy, politics and culture. The first is Carl Olson’s Insight Scoop, and the second is the group-run Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex. Add ‘em to the rolls.
More a little later on.
Blog Recommedation: Follow Leonetti Across America. On Foot.
Jon Leonetti – a great, great guy if there ever was one – is a former seminarian who is now walking across America with another like-minded soul, Jesse Weiler. Never met Jesse, but he’s from Aurora, so he must be solid.
A life immersed in the love of God is important. So important that we have decided to walk over 3,500 miles, Ocean to Ocean, across America, stopping to speak at church’s, school’s and youth gatherings a long the way.
Pretty awesome, and I hope they make it. You can follow their journey here.
C-L-S: Have We Entered the “Labronze Age”?
David at Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex looks at the declining quality of students in universities, adding his own commentary to selections from an article by Prof. Thomas F. Bertonneau.
Looking back at the time I spent at the University of Illinois (’98-’02), I couldn’t agree more.
In defense of the modern college student – students who no doubt consistently display their “rejection of reading, their inability to articulate themselves in anything resembling coherent English, and a general substitution of emotivism for rational discourse” – I respond, hey: we’re only a product of the culture, and one can’t HOPE that this will CHANGE any time soon.
The Inauguration
David Delaney of the Institue of Catholic Thought at the Newman Center on the campus of the University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign mirrors my thoughts on today’s inauguration.