Punditry

As someone who is both in the Catholic world and the geek world I make comparisons and contrasts between these two communities.

When it comes to the use of technology I find that the geek community is much more invested and active.  This fact at first blush would seem rather obvious that geeks take to new technologies and platforms quicker. Yet with the sheer number of Catholics in the world the fact that technology-focused communities have a larger and stronger presence is not a good sign.

One thing I had been thinking about is that there are many daily technology news podcasts.  These types of shows usually involve a group of people and bring on guests for specific technical knowledge. Yet there is really not one daily Catholic news show in this format.  Vatican Radio comes the closest and has a nice international perspective, but I grew tired of all the climate change coverage.  Al Kresta’s radio show which is also podcasted takes a couple of subjects each day to cover and I think does a good job with bringing in knowledgable guests.  Although this show also reruns previous shows rather often and so you don’t really get daily coverage.  Catholic Answers usually has a monthly show on Catholic news.  Rome Reports does a decent job of  daily video coverage of the Vatican. EWTN’s weekly “The World Over” also covers the news along with Raymond Arroyo’s interests.  The Good Catholic life podcast does cover daily news, but it more focused (as it should be) on diocesan happenings. The Catholic Underground weekly podcast has a nice “intersection of faith and culture” with both Catholic and tech news. Catholic Weekend also covers news of the day to some extent.  There are various more long form radio shows such as the Son Rise Morning Show and others that intersect into this area.  But really there are no daily wrap-up shows in the roughly 30 minute format with multiple commentators and guests able to weigh in on specific areas.

I would love there to be a daily show of Catholic news from a panel of people along with guests.  Something in the 30 to 40 minute range.  Providing a Catholic view of what’s going on helps to give listeners a solid perspective.  In fact there should be multiple shows of this type that could focus on stories of international and national interest for Catholics.  Of course the time and money involved requires a lot of effort and Catholics as a whole really don’t support these efforts. On the other side, tech podcasts networks such as TWIT and 5by5 are making money and paying the people involved in the shows.  Leo Laporte’s TWIT network was able to even build a studio providing high quality video and audio productions.  Catholic media is always seemingly in a constant state of survival.  Pledge drives are very common or requests from EWTN to send donations.

As I noted the other day while there are some very good Catholic shows, there really should be so many more of them.  There are many more Apple related podcasts for example than Catholic podcasts.

I think it is rather embarrassing that geeks seem to support such endeavors much more than Catholics as a whole do. I like playing around with gadgets and staying abreast with the world of technology, but my faith is so much more awesome.  The treasury of the Catholic faith is so immense that in our lives we can but put a dent into it. What is more wonderful than Jesus or savior and the Church he gave us? I guess the answer is gadgets and other shiny things.

I started seeing noise on Twitter about an atheist billboard in Times Square.

David Silverman, President of American Atheists stated, “We know that a large population of ‘Christians’ are actually atheists who feel trapped in their family’s religion. If you know god is a myth, you do not have to lie and call yourself ‘Christian’ in order to have a festive holiday season. You can be merry without the myth, and indeed, you should.”

Mr. Silverman continued, “We encourage people to be honest with themselves and their families this year. If you don’t believe in god, tell your family—honesty is the greatest gift, and they deserve it.”

Teresa MacBain, Communications Director and a former pastor stated, “The true beauty of the season—family, friends, and love—have nothing to do with the gods of yesteryear. Indeed, the season is far more enjoyable without the religious baggage of guilt and judgmentalism. Dump the myth and have a happy holiday season.”

So isn't an atheist billboard in Times Square kind of preaching to the choir?

— ➡️Curt Jester⬅️ (@CurtJester) December 13, 2012

“Dump the myth and have a happy holiday season.” Been there done that. Would much rather enjoy the gift of faith and ponder upon the wonders of the Incarnation. I was certainly happy as an atheist, but prefer both happiness and joy.

Billboards like this are theist bait designed to get attention and so this is effective at some level. I do wonder if there really are the masses of people hiding their non-belief? Seems to me that there is now more stigma associated with faith than in agnosticism and atheism. The fundamentalist and the bible thumper has plenty of stereotype attention. While I am sure there are some people who do hide their unbelief. Are they really just waiting for a billboard in Time Square for encouragement to come out? Plus as others have noted there is the odd irony of promoting Santa while saying Jesus is a myth. Maybe campaigns like this are to create a sense of community for atheists. We all seek a sense of community and desire encouragement for the like-minded.

As The Crescat noted Atheists.org, be honest. It’s just Christians you have issue with, not religion in general…. This fact has certainly been noted before that it is almost always Christianity that is aimed at and ridiculed. It would seem that atheism should be an equal opportunity ridiculer of religion. Still it makes sense that this is so in a Christian/post-Christian society and that this would be the target.

The more interesting question is why such campaigns and efforts by atheists are more like political campaigns and attack ad based. Where are the signs/bumper stickers/reaching out efforts promoting the positive joy of atheism. For a group that constantly talks about reason the efforts are largely mockery-based. If you had a positive atheist message on a bumper sticker what would it be? Even in the realm of car magnets atheists mock the Ichtus instead of advancing their own symbol.

When I tweeted something along these lines earlier I got a bunch of joyful replies from atheists on the positive aspects of unbelief. I mean by joyful use of the F-word and assumptions made not based on what I wrote. Apparently the thing to be avoided at all costs is guilt. The sign of a working conscience is now a defect. I found a rather odd way to avoid guilt, I try to avoid sin – fancy that.

It is interesting how the culture seems to view Catholics.  People are amused by nuns roller skating, running in a marathon in a habit, or monks refilling laser cartridges.  The view that Catholics don’t use technology or that they can’t have other interests seems to be the normal assumption.

Maybe this view can be seen also among even Catholics. The coverage of the Pope’s personal Twitter account and his seven tweets today has gotten a lot of attention even among tech blogs. Somehow they expect Catholics to have an Amish aversion to technology and that the Pope would be more likely to place Twitter on the “Index of Forbidden Social Media Applications” than to use it.

https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278808536404852736
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278819486377840640
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278820239943274497
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278861784008499201
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278862015253061633
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278907093065535488
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278907314810023938

I certainly liked that he did a series of tweets after today’s General Audience. But I think the papal iPad should have been the white one. I also really want that papal iPad which could be a 2nd class relic in the future if he is ever canonized. Plus if his cause is ever introduced it means the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will have to read through his tweets. I tweeted before that maybe one day there will be a Denzinger’s list of official tweets published.

Getting back to the attitude regarding Catholics and technology. Part of this is from the false narrative of the Church vs. science which is constantly drilled in.  The fact that it was usually Catholics who were on the bleeding edge of some science is almost totally unknown and like clockwork every year we get some story on the Vatican Observatory because the novelty never wears off.

When it comes to the internet and some other media Catholics have certainly lagged behind.  I really don’t expect for example the Vatican to jump on every new social media initiative and it makes some sense to observe the scene and then enter it when there is a certain critical mass.  For example a Vatican presence on Friendster would have been rather silly or even worse myspace. Although it would be nice if they had someone in the Vatican that monitored this and did things like reserve nicknames in new platforms for future use. It would have been nice if the Pope at least have had an option to use @pope.  There was not much planning ahead before when the Vatican did not get other top level domains other than .va andI believe at one time vatican.va went to a very undesirable site.

The other day I was looking through the top “Religion & Spirituality” podcasts on iTunes and Catholics are hardly represented at all.   In a list of top podcasts in this category you don’t come to a Catholic one until #47 Catholics Answers Live.  There are more Mormon podcasts in the top 100 than Catholic ones.  There are more atheist podcasts in the top 100 than Catholic ones.  Protestants though pretty much dominate.  I listen to a good amount of Catholic podcasts and there are some high quality ones and you can find a couple of them in the iTunes “What’s hot section”. Fr. Roderick’s SQPN (Star Quest Podcast Network) was an early innovator and has expanded and continues to deliver entertaining and informative content.  Still with over a billion Catholics there should be multiple such podcast networks. I like to listen to the EWTN homilies via podcast. Though it is quite annoying that many times they don’t post them in a timely manner and never on weekends.

Catholic radio is another area that severely lagged.  While the Vatican had a radio station early on, Protestants have also dominated the air waves.  The good news is that Catholic radio is rapidly growing.  When I first came to Jacksonville, Fl 15  years ago the Catholic station here was only one of three in the country. Now there are over 200 Catholic radio stations here in the United States.

If you want to go into a technology time warp than pretty much visit any parish website.  In my diocese I have not seen on parish site that does not make me cringe either with 1990 design or bulletins last updated in a previous year.  Internet.org has a wayback machine so that you can see what an archived website looked like in the past. Unfortunately parish websites look like they had been archived sometime in the past.  In fact if you look at the 1997 version of Vatican.va there is very little difference in design compared to now.  If you do web programming like I do I am sure you would cringe at the fact that documents on the Vatican site are formatted using tables – yikes. At least news.va is not an embarrassment to look at.

From the Weekly Standard:

President Obama declares Hanukkah “an opportunity for people of all faiths to recognize the common aspirations we share.”

“He made this comment in his statement on the Jewish holiday emailed to the press:

Michelle and I send our warmest wishes to all those celebrating Hanukkah around the world.

This Hanukkah season we remember the powerful story of the Maccabees who rose up to liberate their people from oppression. Upon discovering the desecration of their Temple, the believers found only enough oil to light the lamp for one night. And yet it lasted for eight.

Hanukkah is a time to celebrate the faith and customs of the Jewish people, but it is also an opportunity for people of all faiths to recognize the common aspirations we share. This holiday season, let us give thanks for the blessings we enjoy, and remain mindful of those who are suffering. And let us reaffirm our commitment to building a better, more complete world for all.

From our family to the Jewish Community around the world, Chag Sameach.

In which Simcha Fisher responds:

Big words from a guy who doesn’t seem to realize that, in the Hanukkah story, HE IS ANTIOCHUS.

Exactly.  This is not the first ironic statement about religious freedom from the President and won’t be the last.

I remember reading through Maccabees  in the lead up to Advent since it is part of the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours.  I was thinking about these parallels in consideration of the HHS mandate.  One of the connections I considered was that it was not as if Antiochus IV Epiphanes immediately went about outlawing Jewish rites and practices and enforcing the worship of Zeus. The introduction of  gymnasia, Olympic-style games, mystery rites and such was welcomed by many Jews to some extent. So often we see in the Old Testament Israel being tempted by something from the outside and wanting to incorporate it into their own culture.  For example demanding to have a King instead of the Judges so they can be like other nations. We have the same tensions within the Church.  People wanting to adopt the wider culture into religious practice to such an extent that there is hardly any difference between the culture and the religious practice of these adherents.

While with the HHS mandate we see some revolt such as the groups and institutions that sued in response, mostly we see very little resistance to the state.  The modern Maccabees are those fighting against this usurpation of religious liberty. For the large part instead of people imitating Judas Maccabees, they are imitating Judas Iscariot instead.  Name one Jesuit institution involved in the lawsuit? An easy question: a big fat zero.  Too many are willing to worship the bureaucratic version of Zeus in big government.  Big government is a jealous god that does not like rivals and would restrict the cult of worship to itself. Caesar soon leads to seizure of both your money and religious freedom.

Thankfully the modern Maccabean revolt is happening in the courtrooms and not the battlefield, but it is still a battle that must be won. This battle also needs to play our via prayer and fasting.

There has been a little coverage of Pope Benedict XVI latest Motu Proprio “On the Service of Charity.” Catholic blog coverage has run down the lines of it being a smack down of, for example, Catholic Charities.

Reading through it, it certainly is much more than that. No doubt the Pope has recognized the problems where Catholic charitable institutions have strayed a bit from their responsibilities to the faith. This has led him to notice that the Code of Canon Law does “not expressly mention charity as a specific sector of episcopal activity.” This document is intended to provide a legislative framework that addresses this and sets forth the various responsibilities for the bishops, charitable institutions, and the faithful.

The introduction starts with:

“The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia) and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable.” (Deus Caritas Est, 25).

It also precisely states what the problem is in that there has been a schism in charitable efforts regarding proclaiming the word and celebrating the sacraments. The “Socialworkering” of charitable efforts have flattened such institutions as secular organizations that do some good things.

These articles in the document are especially of interest (at least for pundit bloggers.)

Art. 7. – § 1. The agencies referred to in Article 1 § 1 are required to select their personnel from among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic identity of these works.

§ 2. To ensure an evangelical witness in the service of charity, the diocesan Bishop is to take care that those who work in the Church’s charitable apostolate, along with due professional competence, give an example of Christian life and witness to a formation of heart which testifies to a faith working through charity. To this end, he is also to provide for their theological and pastoral formation, through specific curricula agreed upon by the officers of various agencies and through suitable aids to the spiritual life.

Art. 8. – Wherever necessary, due to the number and variety of initiatives, the diocesan Bishop is to establish in the Church entrusted to his care an Office to direct and coordinate the service of charity in his name.

Art. 9. – § 1. The Bishop is to encourage in every parish of his territory the creation of a local Caritas service or a similar body, which will also promote in the whole community educational activities aimed at fostering a spirit of sharing and authentic charity. When appropriate, this service is to be established jointly by various parishes in the same territory.

§ 2. It is the responsibility of the Bishop and the respective parish priest to ensure that together with Caritas, other charitable initiatives can coexist and develop within the parish under the general coordination of the parish priest, taking into account, however, the prescriptions of Article 2 § 4 above.

§ 3. It is the duty of the diocesan Bishop and the respective parish priests to see that in this area the faithful are not led into error or misunderstanding; hence they are to prevent publicity being given through parish or diocesan structures to initiatives which, while presenting themselves as charitable, propose choices or methods at odds with the Church’s teaching.

Art. 10. – § 1. It is the responsibility of the Bishop to supervise the ecclesiastical goods of the charitable agencies subject to his authority.

Can we get an Amen?

The goals of this document do not reflect the situation today in the main. So often we find heads and personnel of Catholic charitable agencies at odds with Church teaching. Especially prominent is the fact that so many of these agencies link up with other agencies that are decidedly opposed to Church teaching. The narrowing of social justice into a term charged more with political than Catholic meaning is quite rampant.

So I am very happy to see this document from the Pope. How well the implementation will go is another matter. Remember when Catholic schools cleaned up their act after the promulgation of “Ex Corde Ecclesiae”? Well maybe that didn’t happen. Although this is a slightly different situation where the bishops should have more control and have been given very specific authority regarding it.

Now the pessimist in me would point out that it is hard to expect the bishops to clean house when the USCCB’s “Catholic Campaign for Human Development” is an example of the problem this document addresses. There just has not been really any shakeup with CCHD and while some problems have been addressed I get the feeling that changes have been reluctant. The type of entities that CCHD donates to is rife with interconnecting links to seriously anti-Catholic organizations. Considering that the USCCB is currently using Cokie Roberts to raise money for retired religious or that they had Chris Matthews front and center at the Alfred E. Smith dinner there are certainly some mixed messages. It is alright to advocate the murder of innocents as long as you give your voice to some charitable cause.

Getting to the more optimistic side of me. Good bishops have just been given a legislative framework that is going to help them in coordinating with charitable institutions and correcting problems as they exist. It also means that they have just been given an even larger workload that needs to be managed. The coordination and creation of applicable training along with implementing this document is going to be no easy task. Well just another reason to pray for our bishops.

Like many my reaction to the National Catholic Reporter endorsing Women’s Ordination was “They hadn’t already?” The positive thing to take away at least is that I would rather someone be forthright in what they believe instead of simply undermining from the edges. I am often more annoyed by the somebody where it is quite evident that they oppose Catholic teaching while not quite coming out and saying so. Still it is always sad when somebody rejects the truth.

As always with progressives they always use two things to buttress their points.

• Make what a committee advises dogmatic and turn the dogmatic into opinion.
• Invoke sensus fidelium.

This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking. — Lumen Gentium 25

So the prominent news I have seen today regards the Church of England narrowly voting against women bishops.

Though I might point out that they don’t even have male bishops since they lost apostolic succession. The exception would be if perhaps one of their “bishops” was actually ordained  by for example an Eastern Orthodox bishop. See Apostolicae Curae.

Still CoE watching is always rather interesting considering all the factions and the attempt to please everybody by pleasing nobody.  Fr. Longenecker has a good short rundown on the competing divisions.

I also find the whole theology by vote interesting.  If only we had that before and certainly the Arians would have been pretty happy about that.  Not exactly the best of systems, though Barrabas might disagree.

I also wonder about the whole idea of having women priests but not women bishops?  A holy order glass ceiling. Once you allow for the other will eventually happen.  At least that is true when you realize that this is really seen through a political lens and not a theological one.  In some ways I think this should offend feminists much more than the Catholic teaching.  It is one thing to say that only men can be priests and another to say women can participate in two levels of holy orders, but no further.

Although I feel pretty much the same with the idea advanced by some Catholics that women can be ordained as deacons.  This is similar to me to the Anglican compromise regarding the three levels of holy orders.  Supporters of this will say that this is an “Open theological question” which I guess means that it hasn’t been totally ruled out by the magisterium.  The constant practice of the Church and the fact that early councils such as Nicea I said that deaconesses were not ordained would lead me to be quite skeptical that this would happen.  Still the great thing about being Catholic is that I don’t determine the theology.  I take my cue from the magisterium and then try to learn what the Church teaches.

There has been much buzz in the last week concerning a teenager who reportedly was denied Confirmation due to his Facebook page supporting same-sex marriage. Like most sensationalized media stories I smelled a rat and held off posting about it without further information.  I even saw a headline on a tech site about it and the headline mistakenly stated Communion instead of Confirmation. Well now the priest involved has spoken to LifeSite News:

… Fr. LaMoine, the pastor of Assumption Parish in Barnesville, told LifeSiteNews.com that there were other concerns that contributed to the decision to delay Lennon’s Confirmation, and that the final decision was made by Lennon himself, not the priest.

According to Catholic teaching, Confirmation is a sacrament of initiation that confirms Catholics as “mature” Christians. It is usually administered to young teens.

Fr. LaMoine said that his conversations with the Cihak family began in early October, when he sent a letter to Lennon’s parents, Doug and Shana, encouraging them to start coming to church to support their son.
The priest told LifeSiteNews.com that he only discovered Lennon’s gay marriage post by accident on October 25, the day after having a two-hour meeting with the family. During that meeting the priest had brought up the fact that the Cihaks were not coming to church, as well as “other matters” that the priest said, “I can’t get into here.” No mention was made of Lennon’s views on marriage during that meeting.

The following day Fr. LaMoine’s secretary, who is Facebook friends with Lennon, chanced upon the controversial post and alerted the priest to it.

The priest says that he then telephoned Lennon, and in the course of that conversation the boy said he had chosen not to go forward with Confirmation.

Lennon’s post came days before Minnesotans were slated to go to the polls to vote on an amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. It showed him holding a pro-marriage sign that he had defaced to express his support for “equal marriage rights.”

The priest admits, however, that once he knew that Lennon supported same-sex marriage, and was unwilling to retract his views, that he would not have been able to confirm him.

“You can’t have people out there saying things that are so contrary to the central teaching and doctrine of the Catholic faith, and going through Confirmation,” he said. “After he put it out in the public, we would have looked like a bunch of hypocrites in confirming him.”

As usual Father James Martin S.J. who is always willing to jump in on any story involving same-sex marriage or same-sex acts before all the facts are in said:

Deeply disturbing. Denying confirmation to a teenager because of a Facebook post on same-sex marriage is shortsighted. To have the family feel unwelcome in the parish is worse. To have the mother feel permanently estranged from the church is even worse. How many teenagers are denied confirmation because they are spiteful or do not forgive?

Typical moral equivalence.  I wonder if Fr. Martin was a parish priest exactly how much denial of the Catholic faith would be acceptable before he could not confirm someone?

I know at one time for those being confirmed they were trained and then later asked questions before being confirmed.  If a bishop or priest thought they were not yet prepared the confirmation would be delayed.  Like many things in the Church today people’s experience with this will probably widely vary by location.

Though I would like to look at one of Fr. LaMoine replies regarding looking like a bunch of hypocrites if he was Confirmed.  I think the main concern should be with the young man.  If he had wanted to go ahead with Confirmation he would have been affirming what he didn’t believe in the Baptismal promises regarding the “holy Catholic Church.” Pastorally this is quite a difficult problem since same-sex marriage support among the young is fairly high and no doubt there are many receiving Confirmation who have an inadequate understanding of what the Church teaches which is in contradiction to the messages they are being bombarded with.  Mostly we need to pray for this young man.

The news media once again is trying to apply the Communion wars narrative down to a Confirmation war narrative.  Any stick will do.  That this story went forward without anyone speaking to the parish priest says a lot about the media.  Another of the media memes I have been reading more an more lately was “Jesus didn’t deny Judas the Eucharist.” We should always accept theological opinions from the media that mostly denies both Jesus and the Eucharist – well maybe not.  There is certainly some questions as to whether Judas did indeed receive the Eucharist.  Regardless the distinction between a private sin and a public sin is more at the root of the matter regarding Canon law. Canonist Ed Peters looks at Confirmation and advocacy of ‘gay marriage’ regarding proper disposition.

The picture of the young man with a defaced yard sign that supported traditional marriage has also been all over the media. I do wonder how a photo on his Facebook page got released to the public and whether this was done with his permission?