Punditry

Looking through my RSS feeds I spotted the headline “Was There a Mrs. Christ? Probably Not”.

Then I saw the article was from Father James Martin S.J. at America Magazine.  My first charitable thought was that maybe this was headline editing and didn’t match the story.  No in his article he states:

But does this mean that Jesus was married? Probably not.

Though maybe a “probably not” is as strong of a defense we can expect from some quarters.  He follows this up with another muscular statement:

It is more likely that Jesus was celibate.

He then engages in a little scriptural apologetics in regards to the question.

And what do the Gospels say? For one thing, the Gospel of Mark describes Jesus, who had settled in the town of Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, as receiving a surprise visit from his family, who had come from his hometown, Nazareth. “A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ ” Why no mention of a wife?

Not bad, but it isn’t like this is the only example you could give.  The total lack of a mention of a wife in the New Testament or any subsequent mention in historical texts from the Church Fathers and others just might be a clue. Please Father put the Dan Brown novel down and come up with a defense for this ridiculous assertion stronger than “probably not.”

Now I am no hater of Fr. Martin as I actually enjoyed a couple of his books, but this is not even his first apologetic fail.  An article he did last year on Five myths of Christmas also was a weak-tea defense of the faith and even stated that it was a myth that Jesus was an only child. While you could nuance that statement to some extent relying on Joseph having been previously married – he only added to the  confusion.

NPR has a story “College Course Lumps Homosexuality, Rape, Murder”

GetReligion posts on the one-sided nature of the story and asks “Is this a smear job or simply bad journalism?” Well as a Catholic I say “both/and”.

Tim Drake of the National Catholic Register has a solid piece on the story which includes the fact that the complaining group didn’t even contact the University first to complain before taking the story to the press along with other relevant details.

This type of conflation to portray things in the worst light possible is nothing new for opponents of the Church. Not that long ago when the revised norms (Normae de Gravioribus Delictis) issued by the Holy See included women’s ordination. Headlines shouted how the Church viewed women’s ordination as the same thing as child sexual abuse.  Funny how journalist can’t make the simplest distinctions when it doesn’t fit their agenda.

Twenty million young women rose to their feet with the cry, “We will not be dictated to,” and proceeded to become stenographers – G.K. Chesterton

I was reminded of this quote do to the recent trend of S&M porn for women. It seems I can hardly get away from the book “50 Shades of Gray” which shows up in searches at Audible, Amazon, and appears on shelves in warehouse stores such as Costco. Recently I started seeing advertisement for a book of the same sick genre at Goodreads on their main page. This disturbing trend has hardly had any outcry from the professional feminist and some people even see it as female sexual emancipation. So we went from women who didn’t want to be tied down at home to women that want to be tied up at home – to update Chesterton’s phrase.

In related news of the perverse Mark Shea posts another example of sexual perversion moving from the “just a taboo stage” to arguments for acceptance.

Being part of the Amazon Vine program I eagerly scan through the books and other merchandise available for review when they send out their emails.

Recently one book I saw was called Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves.  Seeing that title the thought that came to me was if there was one book that had about zero chance of catching my interest this was one.  Sounds just like a title given to a typical Catholic dissent-fest.  Later the same day on EWTN I heard the same book referenced in a positive manner, so I dug up the email from the trash and had them send it to me.

Considering all the media coverage and the  phony “war on women” meme  and the fact that Catholic women who are dissenters are constantly being presented to us this book is quite timely.  This book is partly a response to the attacks on religious freedom and how the narrative was shaped concerning Catholic women and the use of contraceptives.

This book in some ways could have been called “Surprised by the truth of the Church’s teachings on sexual morality” as it is partly a “Surprised by Truth”-like format of conversion stories.  Not the common Protestant-to-Catholic conversion stories but mostly concerning Catholic women who were in opposition to Church teaching and who came to see the wisdom and the truth of her teaching.  These women from a variety of backgrounds and professional experience not only provide the genesis for how they came to accept Church teaching, but explain those teachings in a very accessible way.  All of these chapters were very well written and had me quite captivated by their personal stories. Along with these stories are also a couple of essays that go with the subject at hand.

Seeing how God worked in these women’s lives was a joy to see and a couple of the stories related really had me praising God – which unfortunately is not something I do as much as I should.  The story of one women’s affect on another headed to get an abortion is worth the price of the book – just so awesome! This book covers a lot of topics including: fear of children, contraception, same-sex attraction, beauty, the ends of dating, the sexual abuse crisis, stable marriages and family life, etc.

Even as a man I could relate to some of the background of the stories on how secular feminism had shaped their lives.  Being raised in a house that subscribed to Ms. Magazine and Psychology Today and where Alan Alda was the pinnacle of what a man should be — it is not just women who get subverted by this message.

This book is a great antidote to so much of what we hear and it presents faithful Catholic women who can fully articulate their faith and who have had the same struggles as so many others.  Maybe the title that confused me is a positive thing and I sincerely hope that those who struggle with the truth of what the Church teaches will pick this book up.  They might be seriously challenged by what this book presents, but they won’t be talked down to or feel attacked by it.

Excellent speech give by Cardinal Dolan on religious freedom which as per her usual delivery combines humor, history, and analysis. The Venerable Archbishop Sheen story he shares is also hilarious.

Which brings us to now. For the threats to our “first and most cherished freedom” are abundant, but let me list just two.

One comes from those called secularists, who will tolerate religion as long as it’s just considered some eccentric private hobby for superstitious, unenlightened folks, limited to an hour on the Sabbath, with no claim to any voice in the public square. Such, of course, is hardly “free exercise,” as Michelle Obama recently pointed out: “Our faith . . . just isn’t about showing up on Sunday . . . it’s about what we do on Monday through Saturday.”

Here is the PDF for the speech.

You can have you “deeply held beliefs” just as long as you don’t act on them is part of the pushing freedom of religion to mean being allowed to go to church

Well, as the Democratic National Convention also revealed, add another marquee Democrat to the list of blind faithful—a notably religious one, another former Democratic president: Jimmy Carter.

Carter has said many times, including very recently, that he can’t see how or where or why God or Scripture could ever justify abortion. That’s for sure. The Georgian Baptist has scoured his Bible on that one, and indeed found no justification for killing unborn human life. And Carter certainly never stumped for gay marriage.

And yet, there was Jimmy Carter, at the convention last week, stumping for Barack Obama, a president with a party platform that supports these things, and then some. To raucous applause from the “pro-choice” faithful, Carter gushed that Obama has given everyone an “equal chance in life,” creating a “fairer, stronger, and more inclusive America.”

The 87-year-old said he will be casting a vote for Obama “with confidence and conviction,” knowing that Obama has the “right policies” to lead America to a “better future.” [Source]

There are a lot of things that annoy me about Jimmy Carter – other than that I voted for him when I was 18. Mostly though what annoys me is the fact that he never really stood up for life in a meaningful way.  He could have been the conscience of the party calling them back from the brink of full throated apologists for the culture of death. He might have been able to assert some leadership as a former Democratic President, instead he will mention that he is pro-life at times – yet it never stops him from endorsing increasingly pro-abortion candidates. This type of behavior from pro-life Democrats is pretty much the norm with few exceptions such as Rep. Rebecca Hamilton.

Now if only this type of behavior was restricted to Democrats.  Unfortunately excuse making on the Republican side can be just as egregious.  Often social conservatives are treated as an embarrassment and many pro-life issues are not even addressed.  The issue of contraception is one that the GOP won’t touch despite the fact it is a gateway to abortion and that some forms of contraceptive are abortion-inducing.  When Sen. Santorum would bring this up there was pretty much a collective shoooshing for him to be quiet about such issues.  What was the last time you heard a “pro-life” politician talk about the numbers of children killed via IVF?  Then there was the recent defense of the rape and incest abortion exception.  Whenever it comes to fully following through on pro-life convictions it becomes more about political expediency than doing what is right.  We point out the hypocrisy of pro-life Democrats voting for Obamacare and then push through a presidential candidate with no pro-life trail consisting of any action other than words. We make fun of how President Clinton focused-group everything and then make pro-life policy decisions with a concern towards polls.  Certainly we can move forward incrementally in creating a culture of life – but we will achieve not even that when we compromise the protection of life and advance the fiction of the 100% pro-life politician.

It is one thing to vote to reduce evil, the problem is that we are minimizing the extent of the evil.  Politics might be the art of the possible, but it is easy to forget that with God all things are possible – even being fully pro-life and supporting those that are the same.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan praying at each of the conventions was something I had no problem with in contrast to what I saw as problems with the Al Smith Dinner invite. Much is being made at what he said in his prayer with this being the relevant sections. The closing prayers is something not covered by the networks and usually something that gets no coverage other than those who look for it.

Thus do we praise you for the gift of life. Grant us the courage to defend it, life, without which no other rights are secure. We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected. Strengthen our sick and our elders waiting to see your holy face at life’s end, that they may be accompanied by true compassion and cherished with the dignity due those who are infirm and fragile.

We praise and thank you for the gift of liberty. May this land of the free never lack those brave enough to defend our basic freedoms. Renew in all our people a profound respect for religious liberty: the first, most cherished freedom bequeathed upon us at our Founding. May our liberty be in harmony with truth; freedom ordered in goodness and justice. Help us live our freedom in faith, hope, and love. Make us ever-grateful for those who, for over two centuries, have given their lives in freedom’s defense; we commend their noble souls to your eternal care, as even now we beg the protection of your mighty arm upon our men and women in uniform.

I really like the turn of phase “those waiting to be born” as evoking something much more than the term the “unborn.” Classing as “unborn” is accurate, but it has a divide too much like the term “undead.” The Cardinals phrase illustrated to me my slight uneasiness with the word “unborn” and focuses more showing a person awaiting an event other than an event making the person.

Now you can always find a fringe in any political party and often it shows a feeling that is only displayed by the fringe. So the vileness of a Twitter stream relating to what the Cardinal said could be just the temper tantrum of the fringe – but boy are some Democrats reactions to a rather mild prayer vile and so full of f-bombs that they could populate every weapons warehouse in the world. I happen to think that this reaction is not just indicative of the fringe and expresses the very anti-Catholic animosity of many Democrats.

It was inaccurate when it was reported that Democrats booed God. The booing was a response to the fact that the vote taken on the amendment to add the mention of God and the Jerusalem being the capitol of Israel back to the party’s platform. This fraud on the ironically named Democrats in this instance deserved more than just booing. You can’t break down exactly the majority “no” votes as to whether the objection was to God, Jerusalem, or both – but certainly there was a majority objection and the whole event was scripted and the convention attendees forgot to follow the script. Are the majority of Democrats really against God particularly? Probably not, but there is certainly an atheist contingent of the party that is represented all out of proportion to the general public. A general idea of God can get by them, just not a personal God that actually means “Thou shalt not kill” and includes those waiting to be born. The anti-Catholicism of the party is mostly because of the particularity of God and the fact that the Church teaches those particular details that can be inconvenient. The pelvic-central nature of the convention is in opposition as the Church sees the whole person in the image of God. If the gates of hell prevailed and the Church just became the theological flavor of the month, the Democrats anti-Catholicism would disappear. But it is everything else that will disappear, before the Church stops teaching the truth.

Photo Credit

Sr. Simone Campbell at Democratic National Convention

TWS: On the legal question, do you think there should be penalties against abortion doctors? I mean, should it be illegal to perform abortions?

CAMPBELL: That’s beyond my pay grade. I don’t know.

Wow that seems like a very similar reply dodge. The very same one then-Candidate Obama gave during the forum at Saddleback Church. I wonder which of the other 10 Commandments are above her pay grade? Bless me Father I am not sure I sinned because it is beyond my pay grade. Plus doesn’t it seem rather odd for a women religious to be speaking in terms of pay grade anyway? Strangely it seems to me that if you are the Executive Directory of an organization that lobbies for social justice this might just possibly be within your pay grade? Really for every Catholic it it within our pray grade.

She is part of the Nuns on a Bus and somehow she didn’t notice the the President had thrown Catholic consciences under the bus.

Ironically for a Democratic convention there was a large elephant in the room that Sister Campbell studiously ignored. To rant on the Ryan budget that had no chance of going through at a convention where abortion is not only enshrined in their platform but something cheered every night of the convention. If anybody that wants to take up prudential points concerning a budget that is there prerogative – though it is rather amazing that the complexity of the Federal budget was not above her pay grade. To ignore the abortaphant in the room is another story. Giving the party of death a Catholic veneer by speaking at their convention without mentioning this is an act where usually the pay grade is compensated with 30 pieces of silver. Jesus’ request was “Not let the little children come to me – in pieces.”

I would further rant about what she did, but I think I will spend some time praying for her instead.

Article via Father Z

photo credit: Eelke de Blouw via photo pin cc