St. Basil on Pagan Literature

and its value for Christians:

...Now it is said that even Moses first trained his mind in the learning of the Egyptians, and then proceeded to the contemplation of Him who is. And wise Daniel at Babylon first learned the wisdom of the Chaldeans and then applied himself to the divine teachings. Since the virtuous deeds, likewise, of the men of old have been preserved for us, either through an unbroken oral tradition or through being preserved in the words of poets or writers of prose, let us not fail to derive advantage from this source also...

We Live in A Novel

or on a movie set:

...WikiLeaks, which is known for publishing state secrets, apparently has found a new home for its files: A Cold War bunker, inside a Swedish mountain, that's been described as fit for a "James Bond" movie.

A company called Bahnhof is hosting the WikiLeaks site from a literal cave inside White Mountain, near Stockholm, Sweden, according to news reports from Forbes, The Associated Press, and the Norwegian news website VG Nett.

The MIT Technology Review, where we spotted this story, describes the situation this way:

"If Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is trying to turn himself into a Bond villain, he's succeeded: the ongoing distributed denial of service attack against Wikileaks has forced his minions to move the site to a fortified data center encased in a cold war-era, nuke-proof bunker encased in bedrock. Really..."

One Bread, One Body

by the Bishops of England and Ireland on the Eucharist.

...Christian faith is centred on the person of God's living Word, made flesh and present among us. 'Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely.' As Christians we find our nourishment and strength in the Scriptures precisely because God speaks to us now through them. Word and Sacrament are a seamless robe. Scripture and Eucharist are intimately interwoven in the life of the Church: '... the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body.

She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body.' This nourishing with God's Word takes place in a special way at Mass. The Eucharist is where the Scriptures are most at home and where they speak most powerfully to us. In the early Church, it was those books which were read at the Eucharist which became accepted as the 'Canon' of Scripture. Today those same Scriptures keep us in living communion with the witness of the Apostles. It is in hearing God's Word that the Church is built up and grows. The Catholic Church finds the roots of its teaching on the Eucharist in the Scriptures, always read within the living Tradition of the whole Church.

The meaning of the Eucharist is rooted in the faith of the people of the Old Testament, especially in the doctrine of 'covenant'. The covenant was a treaty or alliance between two parties, used in the Scriptures of the special relationship which God established with his people, Israel. There were close links in Jewish thought between 'covenant', 'sacrifice' and 'communion meal'. In the Book of Exodus (24.1-11), God's new relationship (covenant) with his chosen people is sealed with the pouring of blood (sacrifice) and the eating together of some of the sacrificial food (communion). Moses said of the blood, 'Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you'. The blood was sprinkled upon both the altar (symbolising God) and the people, a powerful expression of the unity of life which God establishes between himself and Israel. By eating the sacrificial food together, the people were made one as they shared the blessings of God. The fundamental Covenant which spans the Old Testament and the New Testament remains the same: 'I will be their God and they shall be my People.' Unity with God and unity with each other belong together. Only those ready to enter fully into God's covenant could share together in the communion sacrifice. To participate in the 'communion' is to commit oneself to God and to the people he makes his own.

Through the prophets, God promised his people a 'covenant of peace', writing his law on their hearts. Our Christian faith is that Jesus Christ is the Mediator of this new covenant. At the Last Supper, Jesus echoed the words of Moses: 'This is my blood of the covenant', or 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood which will be poured out for you.' By sharing together the cup of blessing, the cup of eternal salvation, we enter together into this new covenant established by the pouring out of his blood upon the cross. Jesus is the Anointed One, the 'Messiah' or 'Christ', who provides us with the new manna, the bread of life, the sacrificial gift of his own body and blood.

 The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and St Paul understood the Last Supper as Jesus celebrating the Passover with his disciples. John's Gospel preserved the Passover theme by setting the death of Jesus at the moment the Passover lambs were being slain in the Temple. Jesus' death is that of the Passover Lamb, the Suffering Servant of God, led like a lamb to the slaughter. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the one whose life given for us and poured out for us brings healing and peace. By our communion together in the body and blood of Christ, we are drawn deeper into the community of the new covenant, ever more committed to God and to each other in Christ. By taking part in the Eucharist, we are united with the living Christ in his work of reconciliation...

Footnotes in the original. PDF version available here.

Covenant the Key to Scripture

or so believes Benedict:

...Ratzinger holds true to his belief in the “intrinsic unity of the Old and the New Covenant, the two parts of the Holy Scripture,” an awareness he says he acquired “since the very first day” of his early theological studies. He first made his theological views on Judaism public in 1990, when as the cardinal in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was interviewed in “Jews and Judaism in the Universal Catechism,” a piece published simultaneously in Studi Cattolici (in Italian) and Midstream (in English).

He says, “We can read the New Testament only together with what preceded it, otherwise, we would completely fail to understand it...”

For more on his covenantal view of Scripture, see this. For more on his biblical theology, see this.

And More Modern Myths: The Dark Ages

Rodney Stark on science and religion:

...Recent historical research has debunked the idea of a "Dark Ages" after the "fall" of Rome. In fact, this was an era of profound and rapid technological progress, by the end of which Europe had surpassed the rest of the world. Moreover, the so-called "Scientific Revolution" of the sixteenth century was a result of developments begun by religious scholars starting in the eleventh century. In my own academic research I have asked why these religious scholastics were interested in science at all. Why did science develop in Europe at this time? Why did it not develop anywhere else? I find answers to those questions in unique features of Christian theology...

And a Protestant gentleman pointing out that the whole "Dark Ages" thing doesn't just hit at Catholicism:

The whole idea of “the dark ages” was invented by critics of Christianity. The first people to label a dozen centuries as “dark” thought that there had been brightness and knowledge in the Graeco-Roman world with its supposedly sunny paganism, and there was brightness and knowledge again in the Renaissance or the Englightenment with their recovery of the classics and their historical-critical investigations, but that in between there was a period of darkness. Notice what’s in that dark period: Christianity. Evangelicals should be very cautious about marking those dozen centuries on our timeline as “dark.” We might be trying to point out that there were some corruptions of faith and practice between the earliest church and the great Reformation, which is true. But if we paint with a broad brush, we end up painting the same “dark ages” picture as the faith’s most radical critics. Dismissing the middle ages has proven to be a good first step to dismissing Christianity...

Once the myth has been dispelled, and the terra incognita on our mental maps has been opened up for exploration (HERE THERE BE DRAGONS), we can even admit that there actually was such a thing as a dark age in the medieval period. It lasted about 150 years, from just after the death of Boethius (who was going to translate Plato and Aristotle into Latin for the barbarian kings who had taken over Rome) to the rise of Charlemagne and the massive educational renewal of the Carolingian reforms. There were some other dips and dark spots throughout the middle centuries, but they were all compensated for by renewals and revivals like the rise of the medieval universities, the Cluniac reforms, intellectual trade with the Muslim world, and other events we’re not supposed to know about. We are supposed to be obedient moderns and believe that a thin trickle of faithfulness and thought has run through the vast desert of ignorance and corruption. But that is the opposite of the truth. In fact, the dark ages were very short, and the great tradition of Christianity is very big.

Begone, myth of the dark ages! Bring me the Summa Theologia, let’s teach our children some Latin and Greek. Protestants should refuse to be driven out onto a narrow strip of land when the whole tradition is rightly ours...

Naturally, he and I have some serious disagreements on some points (the tradition is rightly yours? This would be the tradition where Thomas is a Dominican priest, Charlemagne a Catholic king, the universities protected by the popes and bishops...? Aren't you guys supposed to despise tradition?) but that aside, he makes valuable points.

Novena of the Immaculate Conception: Day 3

To continue:

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
did prepare a worthy dwelling place for Your Son,
we beseech You that, as by the foreseen death of this, Your Son, You did preserve Her from all stain,
so too You would permit us, purified through Her intercession, to come unto You.
Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, world without end.

Amen.

Day Three

O Blessed Virgin Mary, glory of the Christian people, joy of the universal Church and Mother of Our Lord, speak for us to the Heart of Jesus, who is your Son and our brother. O Mary, who by your holy Immaculate Conception did enter the world free from stain, in your mercy obtain for us from Jesus the special favor which we now so earnestly seek...
(State your intention here...)
O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will.
Amen.

Benedict on Causes of the Sex Abuse Crisis

An absence of justice is not mercy:

At one point, Seewald suggests that the evident episcopal mishandling of abuse cases represents a complete “failure” for the church. By way of response, Pope Benedict says: “The Archbishop of Dublin told me something very interesting about that. He said that ecclesiastical penal law functioned until the late 1950s; admittedly, it was not perfect – there is much to criticise about it – but nevertheless it was applied. After the mid-sixties, however, it was simply not applied any more.

“The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather a Church of love: she must not punish . . . This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people.”...

More Modern Myths: The Middle Ages

a time of terrors and trials, a time of fear and ignorance, a time...of the establishment of universities?

There are so many myths about the Middle Ages, it has to be suspected that the general level of "knowledge" about things medieval is actually negative.

Here are some of the more famous ones...

A book, Regine Pernoud's Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths tackles a number at once ... review. There is a new book on the scientific aspects, James Hannam's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science.

Cybermissile of Incredible Sophistication

and nobody seems to know who fired it:

...The construction of the worm was so advanced, it was “like the arrival of an F-35 into a World War I battlefield,” says Ralph Langner, the computer expert who was the first to sound the alarm about Stuxnet. Others have called it the first “weaponized” computer virus.

Simply put, Stuxnet is an incredibly advanced, undetectable computer worm that took years to construct and was designed to jump from computer to computer until it found the specific, protected control system that it aimed to destroy: Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

The target was seemingly impenetrable; for security reasons, it lay several stories underground and was not connected to the World Wide Web. And that meant Stuxnet had to act as sort of a computer cruise missile: As it made its passage through a set of unconnected computers, it had to grow and adapt to security measures and other changes until it reached one that could bring it into the nuclear facility.

When it ultimately found its target, it would have to secretly manipulate it until it was so compromised it ceased normal functions.

And finally, after the job was done, the worm would have to destroy itself without leaving a trace.

That is what we are learning happened at Iran's nuclear facilities -- both at Natanz, which houses the centrifuge arrays used for processing uranium into nuclear fuel, and, to a lesser extent, at Bushehr, Iran's nuclear power plant...

The whole piece is incredible.

The White Council

Okay, not quite. But still cool:

...there is a group that works for the Holy See known as the International Theological Commission. It isn't one of the regular Vatican dicasteries (departments) but an advisory body. Basically, it's a group of theologians from around the world who are selected by the Holy See to advise on various theological matters.

As such, it writes reports for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (whose prefect is also president of the ITC). These do not of themselves have the character of magisterial statements (at least they don't necessarily), but they are useful summaries of where mainstream Catholic theology is...

While not all topics that the commission talks about end up getting turned into position papers, this is an indication of what subjects the ITC may address in print. So: In the next few years we may see papers on theological method, God in relation to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and the relationship of social doctrine to broader Christian doctrine.

Each a worthy subject.

Also, there's this:

At the end of their deliberations the members of the International Theological Commission will be received in audience by the Holy Father.

I'll be interested to see the transcript of the address the Holy Father gives them. It may contain further pointers about what they're doing and what's likely to come out in the future.

Incidentally, there are two volumes out of the ITC's previous documents, the first collecting them from 1969 (when the commission was founded) through 1985 and the second from 1986 to 2007. Many of these are not available in English anywhere else (that I know of).

They make for fascinating reading. For example, back in 1985 they did a document on the consciousness of Christ (y'know... did he know he was God, know his mission, etc.... all that stuff the trendy theological kids want to deny). In the introduction to the document the commission writes:

In fact, who would trust a Savior who may not have known who he was or was unwilling to be what he was? It is clear, then, that the Church attaches maximum importance to the problem of the awareness (consciousness) and human knowledge of Jesus. We are not dealing with mere theological speculations but with the very foundation of the method and mission of the Church in all its intimacy.

Yeah! Take that, theological trendies!

Anyway, you might want to get the books (and there are Kindle editions, too!)
International Theological Commission: Texts and Documents, 1969-1985
International Theological Commission, Vol II: 1986-2007

Why Christianity Lacks Gurus

The East seeks the perfection of man by way of practice, by way of exercising the strength and virtue latent within him.  Thus, one can find gurus who claim, by their own strength and exercise of the right spiritual practices, found their way to Enlightenment.

In contrast, Christianity is much more like an AA meeting.  There are those who have successfully gotten on the wagon, but only by confessing their radical insufficiency for the task, placing everything in the hands of a higher power, and acknowledging their own aptitude for falling back off the wagon again.  A lot of the guys are there to confess their failures--but the most important part is that they acknowledge them.  You are not cast out of AA for failing again and again--the goal is not the perfection of a way of life, but of acknowledging your brokenness, your dependency, and placing yourself as best you can into the hands and arms and heart of ones who love you, will carry you with them in their hands and arms and heart.  No one here is striding along, confident in their own Promethean strength (if they are, they're gonna fall), nor even walking out of that meeting confident that now they've been cured, they've been healed, they're done with this and can move on.

No--the saints of AA, like the saints of the Church, remain within the organization for their entire lives, knowing that when they see their brethren who have fallen off the wagon that there, but for the grace of God, go I.  Why do some dry out and others not?  No mortal man, without really rare revelations from God, can say, and so we are not to judge, lest we be judged.  We are to love as Christ loved, to tell the truth in the fullness of love, to give up on expressing bewilderment over the sins and failings of others, over their blindness, over their ineptitude, because God puts up with the same and worse from us every single day of our lives--even from the great saints.  We are finite, and he is infinite.  We are fallen, only raised up by him.

"For the just man falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble to ruin."--Proverbs 24:16

If even the just among men fall so often, what about we, the ones scraping along?  The saints went to confession all throughout their lives and received last rites at the end--no confident enlightenment there.  The only ones who went to the grave confident were those who threw themselves on the mercy of God, not the ones who'd wiped out all trace of sin--because I don't think there were any of these.  St. Thomas's confessor at the end came out sobbing, "The sins of a child!" not "He had no sin to confess at all!"

Levant on Wikileaks

A different perspective on Assange:

...His obsession is to embarrass the world’s freest countries — the U.S. and U.K. And as to repressive regimes, well, put it this way, Assange says U.S. forces must remember “shooting the Taliban is shooting the Afghan people.”

He’s not anti-war. He’s on the other side.

Assange published the names of Afghan human rights activists and others who have co-operated with the U.S. — giving out names of villages and GPS coordinates.

That’s not journalism. That’s not whistleblowing. That’s setting up “deadly revenge attacks,” says Reporters Without Borders.

Zabihullah Mujahid is grateful. He’s a Taliban spokesman who says “we know how to punish them.”

Assange published details about technology used to stop improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from being detonated. WikiLeaks calls roadside bombs a “rebel investment,” proudly pointing out for every dollar spent by the terrorists, the U.S. and Canada have to spend a thousand to defend against them. So Assange published those anti-IED details online.

This week, Assange started to publish 250,000 U.S. diplomatic messages, many marked secret. The fight against terrorism is being endangered.

Other members of WikiLeaks have complained about Assange’s anti-American obsession. But it’s his show now...

We Never Walk Alone

so saith Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman:

...thou hast but to kneel down reverently in prayer, and thou art at once in the society of Saints and Angels.

Wherever thou art, thou canst, through God’s incomprehensible mercy, in a moment bring thyself into the midst of God’s holy Church invisible, and receive secretly that aid, the very thought of which is a present sensible blessing.

Art thou afflicted? Thou canst pray. Art thou merry? Thou canst sing psalms.

Art thou lonely? Does the day run heavily? Fall on thy knees, and thy thoughts are at once relieved by the idea and by the reality of thy unseen companions.

Art thou tempted to sin? Think steadily of those who perchance witness thy doings from God’s secret dwelling-place.

Hast thou lost friends? realize them by faith. Art thou slandered? Thou hast the praise of Angels. Art thou under trial? Thou hast their sympathy.

For All Your Papal Condoments Needs

The Pope's book-length interview has its own blog.

Novena of the Immaculate Conception: Day 2

To continue:

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
did prepare a worthy dwelling place for Your Son,
we beseech You that, as by the foreseen death of this, Your Son, You did preserve Her from all stain,
so too You would permit us, purified through Her intercession, to come unto You.
Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, world without end.

Amen.

Day Two

O Mary, ever blessed Virgin, Mother of God, Queen of angels and of saints, we salute you with the most profound veneration and filial devotion as we contemplate your holy Immaculate Conception, We thank you for your maternal protection and for the many blessings that we have received through your wondrous mercy and most powerful intercession. In all our necessities we have recourse to you with unbounded confidence. O Mother of Mercy, we beseech you now to hear our prayer and to obtain for us of your Divine Son the favor that we so earnestly request in this novena...
(State your intention here...)
O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, you had influence with your Divine Son while upon this earth; you have the same influence now in heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from him the granting of my petition if it be the Divine Will.
Amen.

The Spirit of Vatican II

was meant to be one of contrition, awareness of our brokeness, and gratitude for God's redeeming grace:

Here's a neglected piece of history for you regarding the perpetual debate about Vatican II and the so-called "Spirit of Vatican II."

On July 1, 1962, Pope John XXIII issued an encyclical entitled Paenitentiam Agere. It's a beautiful document explaining how the success of the then-upcoming Second Vatican Council would be contingent on the internal and external penances of the clergy and laity.

Thus, John XXIII exhorted all Catholics to redouble their efforts to offer prayerful penances for God's providential guidance at the Council.

I have no idea how well this encyclical was received, but it is interesting that Blessed John XXIII intently sought the prayers and sacrifices of the Church in preparation for this Ecumenical Council. Perhaps our thoughts about what Vatican II should or shouldn't have been should begin with John XXIII's observation that a broken and contrite spirit is essential for determining God's will...

Dress To Impress (The TSA)!

Perfect for all your flying needs!  As long as the scanners don't heat the metallic ink and harm the wearer, of course...

Our Lady of Walsingham

ora pro nobis:

Bishop Andrew Burnham gave this homily at St John the Evangelist, New Hinksey, Oxford, at a Solemn Mass of St Andrew on Saturday 27th November 2010. At the end of the Mass he laid aside his crozier and mitre at the feet of Our Lady...

He's off to become a priest in the ordinariate, established by Pope Benedict XVI.

Modern Mythology

and some responses:

Freedom of speech is a great thing. Unfortunately, it comes at a price: When citizens are free to say what they want, they'll sometimes use that freedom to say some pretty silly things.

And that's the case with the 12 claims we're about to cover. Some of them are made over and over, others are rare (though worth addressing). Either way, while the proponents of these errors are free to promote them, we as Catholics have a duty to respond. Hopefully, this will help you do just that...

A New Springtime

won't come if nobody tends the garden. Here's some who are:

...When the parish school closed, he rented the building out and used the income to renovate the old convent into a faith formation center. He brought in two enthusiastic young evangelists, newly married Andy - with his wife, Megan - and a exuberant young woman named Kree.  They work with a Catholic group called Dirty Vagabonds, which specializes in the personal evangelization of urban youth.  These recent graduates of the Franciscan University of Steubenville sport lots of conversation-starting tattoos, live very simply in the faith formation building, and spend their afternoons going out and meeting the kids in the neighborhood and the projects nearby.  They have resurrected the parish youth group and renovated the rectory basement into an "Underground" gathering space.  After only 4 months, attendance is going up steadily – with non-Catholic black and Chinese kids.

Fr. Maduri has also begun an outreach to local Hispanics.  He brought in Nancy, a quietly vibrant and efficient woman, whom he had worked with in another parish, to run adult faith formation.  He is forming a critical core of the parshioners, sending them to conferences, bringing in speakers to give retreats, putting on Life in the Spirit seminars, and bringing us in to teach his parishioners about gifts discernment.

But Fr. Maduri has even bigger plans.  Next year, he will be collaborating with a Catholic Chinese woman to begin reaching out to the huge number of non-Christian Chinese immigrants in the area.  When I realized that I was in the midst of a group of life-long Italian Catholics who were planning to learn Chinese (!) in order to evangelize their new neighbors who have no Christian background, I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto!”

How rare is this?  As the late Avery Cardinal Dulles noted:

“Asked whether spreading the faith was a high priority of their parishes, 75 percent of conservative Protestant congregations and 57 percent of African American congregations responded affirmatively, whereas only 6 percent of Catholic parishes did the same. Asked whether they sponsored local evangelistic activities, 39 percent of conservative Protestant congregations and 16 percent of African American congregations responded positively as compared with only 3 percent of Catholic parishes.”

No wonder the beleagured Diocese of Brooklyn is watching and supporting Fr. Maduri's efforts.  All Archbishop Dolan has to do to find a remarkable example of new "vigor" in his backyard is hop the subway to Brooklyn.

Most Precious Blood parish reminded me of the amazing impact that the Parisian parish of St. Sulpice, and its pastor, Jean Jacques Olier, had on the French Catholic revival of the 17th century.  How tragic that 21st century Catholics have only heard of Saint Sulpice via the Da Vinci Code! When it comes to the evangelical and missionary traditions of the Catholic Church, we are anything but "deep in history" or we would know that evangelizing mega-churches were not invented by American evangelicals!...