Book Review

Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, OSB

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Last year a kind reader sent me several of Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, OSB books and I am quite indebted for that. I had read previously of Fr. Jaki and had wanted to read his books. Fr. Jaki who is a Benedictine and originally from Hungary and holds doctorates in theology and physics and is one of the foremost thinkers in the the intersection of science and theology. Often when you get theologians speaking on science or scientists speaking on theology it is often problematic. Fr. Jaki is one of those rare exceptions that can write on both disciplines to good effect.

One of the most interesting books I have ever read is his 1974 Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe. The title may be off putting to many, but I think this is a book many will enjoy. Most that read my blog are probably aware of the many scientific achievements that have been made by those who are members of the Church and especially individual priests and monks. The Church’s history in this regard and has recently popularized in books such as Thomas E Woods Jr.’s How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization Though sadly most people only hear a distorted version of the Galileo affair. Some have even heard the conjecture that it was specifically Christianity that helped science to finally bloom. What Fr. Jaki has done in this book is to put flesh to that theory and the facts to overwhelmingly show this as being true.

Fr. Jaki is quite an accomplished historian of science and in the case of this book a historian of philosophy. The beginning chapters of the book each take on a different culture and gives a very thorough overview of that culture and its underlying philosophy. His overview of the culture and philosophy Hinduism, the Egyptians, Greeks, Mayans, etc is worth reading just of itself and he packs a lot of information in the multiple chapters dedicated to these cultures. The main thrust of the question throughout the book is why did not science develop further in these cultures. Often we find the beginnings via mathematics and astronomy and looking back at some of these achievement we wonder why they didn’t make the next step, especially in some cases the next step was not very distant. We find that in all of these cultures that even with some promising beginnings that the scientific method is always stillborn.

The books subtitle From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe gives a clue to why this is. Al of these seemingly diverse cultures pretty much agreed on the idea that the universe was eternal and that it was constantly going through cycles of growth, death, and reverse and that these endless cycles repeated the same history as had gone before. Their view of the universe was like that of the mythical Phoenix. What I found interesting that this idea had also infected the Greeks and I found even more amazing just how recently into history this idea had continued on. We are rather spoiled now with the idea of the big bang firmly in our consciousness and the idea of the universe having a beginning matches exactly with the Judeo-Christian tradition and theology on this subject.

As Fr. Jaki shows it is not just the idea of a start of the universe that helps science in the right direction, it is the idea of a universe that is intelligible with underlying rules that can be explored with man’s reason that was so missing in previous philosophies. Monotheism and a created universe is a great help in the development of the scientific method. Though this is also not enough. Islam which has much in common with Christianity on this score (since they lifted it in the first place) later developed some ideas that truncated the so-called Golden Age of Islam. As Pope Benedict mentioned in his infamous Regensburg address "Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word." This idea is scientific poison since it implies that the underlying rules can change and thus exploring them is useless. This ties in with the idea by some of the universe being created and recreated constantly instead of God creating the universe and then holding it in existence. All of these ideas became like walls for scientists since they assumed them and rarely looked beyond them. Scientists often assume they are working on pure science and not tainted by any philosophy, this though is pretty much never the case.

Now I realize I am not giving Fr. Jaki overview and critique the justice it deserves since he says all of this so much better and much more accurately than I can. But if you are interested in how Christianity gave birth to the scientific method, then this is a great book on the subject. Those that attack the Church for being anti-science only show their ignorance and are really quite unthankful for what they were given by the Church in the first place. Though this is an ignorance that so many articles, books, textbooks, etc work to further.

Now as good a writer that Fr. Jaki is on the history and philosophy of science he is also a very good spiritual writer. He has recently written books on the Litany of the Sacred Heart, Litany of Loreto, The Litany of the Holy Name, The Litany of St. Joseph and a book on the Rosary called Twenty Mysteries. The books on the litanies are really really good. Now you might think that books on these litanies would be just short pamphlets. These in fact our full length books. In each of the books he takes each phrase from the litany and then gives a three to five page mediation on it. These mediations combine history, theology, philosophy, and social commentary. These reflection on each refrain will really hold your interest as both being informative, but also containing good spiritual insights. I especially like his social commentary as he relates the phrase back to our modern culture.

I recently also read his Miracles and Physics which I had recently ordered. I had received The Physics of Christianity by Frank J. Tipler for review and I didn’t know what to think of it before reading it and feel pretty much the same after reading it. I enjoyed the first half of the book that mostly talked on physics but found it increasingly odd as he expounded on God as singularity and miracles .I think he gets miracles mostly wrong since he tries to frame them in a one hundred percent physics perspective where all miracles are just divinely ordered as far as timing goes. This thinking lead to miracle of loaves and fishes becoming the miracle of sharing and sin discussed as a genetic disorder and even Jesus (and I am not joking here) having small testes. I was looking for something much more sane on the subject which is why I picked up Fr. Jaki’s Miracles and Physics. This book wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but was still quite interesting. He details the history of the demythologizers of miracles in the scientific community over mostly the last two hundred years. Though he also critiques though who over scientific reasoning in defense of miracles that when followed really end up denying all miracles. This is a shorter book of 96 pages but again shows Fr. Jaki skill as a historian of science and his ability to critique bad philosophy.

Fr. Jaki does have rather a large catalog of books and the one thing I know is that I will be working through more of them.

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Liturgy

Cross? What Cross?

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Anthony Esolen at Mere Comments has a good forensic examination of what is wrong with the Glory and Praise hymnal titled Cross? What Cross?

I’ve recently been strapping on the swamp boots to wade through something called Glory and Praise, perhaps the most commonly used Roman Catholic hymnal in the United States and Canada. Oh, it is sloppy and noisome work, logging the bathos, stupidity, banality, heresy, and textual vandalism. I’ve concluded, though, that there is one factor that touches every problem, something that helps explain these apparently disparate acts of mischief:

— the neutering of old masculine language about mankind and even God
— the heedless fouling up of the old poetry, to update a "thou" and a "thee"
— the seizing of every chance to talk about dancing (not to be found in the New Testament, I suspect, unless it’s Salome) and about the motherhood of God"
— in general, the louche emphasis upon feelings, not repentance, but soft and syrupy feelings
— the blithe arrogation of God’s words to ourselves, speaking in the first person
— the arrogation of God’s grace and majesty to ourselves: "We are the Bread, we are the Body"
— the celebration of our own wonderfulness, and the decrying of sin — that is, other people’s sins
— the abandonment of traditional liturgical forms, traditional poetry and song — all relegated to the status of the "old fashioned," for trotting out, like Grandmama’s silver, at certain feasts, and that’s it
— the passing along of counterfeit "folk" music, actually performance music, like "Do You Remember the Kind of September," only not nearly as good
— the mincing baby-talk in the verses, along with a bogus primitivism, a la the Indians in Hollywood: "You are child of the universe."

It’s narcissism, all of it. It’s the pretty boy at the side of the pool, gazing upon his image in the water, ignoring his parents, the woman in love with him, the reality of the world around him. He wants to remain a pretty boy forever — he wants a disembodied "union" with no ties to the past, no duties to his fellows, and no law to obey. It’s music that encourages a choir full of American Idols, shimmying and shaking and calling attention to themselves, while envying one another (I’ll bet some of our bloggers have stories about infighting among the twenty self-appointed soloists of a "Christian" choir).

What’s missing from the hymnal? Oh, music, poetry — and one thing above all: the Cross. The Cross sure does seem a fine cure for narcissism. In all our arguments about ordination and (in the Catholic church) lay "ministry," nobody ever says, "I want the right to be ordained a priest because I demand to be crucified!" Or, "I want to serve as a lector because I want to be crucified!" Hardly — these things and many more are considered clerical plums that everybody ought to be able to pop in the mouth, if they choose. We are Church, don’t you know, not to mention Bread and Body and God Almighty. If there is a single new "hymn" that is written in the shadow of the Cross, encouraging the taking up of what will leave your back stooped and your shoulders cut with splinters, I haven’t seen it. Meanwhile, a part of my own crucifixion seems to be the necessity of listening to it all, and watching the performers. Silence would be infinitely better.

Gerald at the Cafeteria is Closed has a "Gather Us In" parody.

Then there is always my Missal Defense Flash game to help you take out your frustration.

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Feed up

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Tony at Catholic Pillow Fight complains about my truncated site feed. Now I too am annoyed by sites that only have a partial site feed, but it doesn’t annoy me too much to click through to the whole post. But I have never considered those that read RSS feeds offline an can’t do this. There are more an more tools such as Google Gears that allow you to read feeds offline.

Though for those who want an RSS feed that lists the whole post including graphics simply use my ATOM feed. I have two feeds – one partial and one full. Unfortunately some browsers do not auto detect both feeds.

Some time ago I built the full feed when a reader requested that capability. So I will throw a pillow back at Tony and say "Hey all you had to do was ask."

Though to make it easier for others in my sidebar I now list both feeds under Site Feed and give a description.

What annoys me the most are those that have no RSS feed at all. For example Ellen at Oblique House a long time Catholic blog has never enabled her feed. If you create a blogspot blog now of days one is automatically created, older blogs though have to enable this in their settings. Other sites that annoy me that are without feeds is the excellent Catholic Report and the multiple Catholic news sites that do not have a feed (Catholic World News is the exemption). What really annoys me is new sites that go online without one. Once you get use to using an aggregator the thought of having to manually go to a site becomes quite annoying and often when I find a good site without a feed I just pass on it.

So for those subscribe to my partial feed here is my full feed http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/atom.xml

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Punditry

NAB

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Fr. Neuhaus has criticized the NAB translation for years and his latest post at First Things continues it:

The New American Bible (NAB), an unfortunate translation episcopally imposed upon Catholics for readings at Mass, has prompted earlier comment in First Things (see here and here). The problem keeps coming back, not least in pastoral counseling. Take the woman who had had it with her husband’s lying to her. I mentioned to her Our Lord’s admonition to forgive “seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22). That’s the way it reads in every widely used English translation, including the Douay-Rheims, an earlier English translation used by Catholics. Jesus obviously intended hyperbole, indicating that forgiveness is open-ended. Keep on forgiving as you are forgiven by God, for God’s forgiving is beyond measure or counting.

But this woman had been reading her NAB, according to which Jesus said we should forgive not “seventy times seven,” but “seventy times.” She had been keeping count, and her husband was well over his quota. Then there is Matt. 5:32 and 19:9, where in both passages Jesus says: “But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress.” In other widely used English translations, it is “unfaithfulness” or “marital unfaithfulness.” The Douay-Rheims says “excepting in the case of fornication.”

In both passages, the NAB puts it this way: “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery.” Meaning a previous marriage had not been annulled by the diocesan marriage tribunal? Whatever.

Now to be perfectly fair, in the three passages mentioned there are ancient authorities that lend some support for the NAB translation. For instance, some ancient texts of Matthew 19 read “he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery,” which is closer to the NAB version. But in the tradition of translation, scholars have overwhelmingly decided that the manuscripts referring to unchastity or unfaithfulness are to be preferred.

Again and again, when manuscript authorities differ from one another, the NAB chooses against the scholarly consensus and the centuries-old tradition of English translation. Why is that? Is the purpose to deliberately destabilize the faithful’s already shaky familiarity with biblical texts? Maybe the idea is just to be different. What’s the point of a new translation if it isn’t very different from other translations?

The NAB is a banal, linguistically inept, and misleading translation. Why did the bishops force it upon the Catholic people, demanding that it and it alone be used in the readings of the Mass? Various answers are given: Because it was produced by the guild of Catholic biblical scholars and, while it may not be very good, at least it is ours. Because the bishops hold the copyright, and charges for using the NAB in Mass guides and elsewhere is a cash cow for the financially strapped bishops conference. Because the bishops really don’t care whether Catholics use a worthy and reliable translation of the Bible.

If the NCCB needs a revenue stream maybe they can request parishes to pay a fee so that they don’t have to use the NAB. A kind of reverse royalty. When the new English translation is finally available it will be an odd contrast to still have those stilted readings from the NAB. It would be so much better to be able to use a translation such as the RSV-CE 2nd edition.

Fr. Neuhaus does not even mention just how bad the notes are for the NAB in this post. I remember early in my conversion I saw a study edition of the NAB at a book store and I was quite excited to get it. My excitement diminished over time as I read through it and looked at the footnotes. I often thought "that can’t be right." Only later did I find that some of the footnotes portrayed a very modernist and almost Jesus Seminar feel and a fruit of the seventies in which they were written in. The footnotes have a "no it didn’t happen" that way tone to them. They reminded me of a priest I met at my Mother’s parish in the seventies who explained to me how all those biblical miracles really weren’t miracles.

Jimmy Akin previously reviewed the NAB.

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Five Years

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

On the 24th of this month I completed my first five years of blogging. An article in the National Catholic Register by Tim Drake on Catholic blogging first got me following the blogs of Mark Shea, Amy Welborn, Lane Core Jr., Catholic Light and others at a time when you could go through all of the catholics blogs that existed at that time in twenty minutes or less. Like many bloggers I first got hooked by the comment sections which sometimes lead to wanting to establish your own blog. I first started out at blogspot with my first blog Atheist to a Theist and started The Curt Jester six months later.

The strange thing is that when I started my first blog I had never though of doing any sort of comedy or parody. I had intended just commentary as I was exercising my newly Catholic world view on the news of the day. Shows how little I know myself. Though I can slightly blame Victor Lams whose hilarious and creative blog led the way for me. Victor doesn’t post that much anymore, except on his myspace page.

I remember being quite happy when I was getting ten hits a day and quite a nobody in St. Blogs (a term coined by the first Catholic Blogger Kathy Shaidle who celebrates her seven years of blogging this month.) Ironically my first post that got some major traffic was my Litany of Blog Humility where one of the phrases was "where That Mark Shea may notice every blog but mine" in which Mark Shea did link to. Mark has been very kind to me over the years as have countless others. This is the part where I thank all the little people, you know the little people who I have enslaved to crank out my RSS feed and maintain my site. Though I don’t have my little people sing annoying little songs after I screw something up like those nasty Oompa Loompas. Seriously though, I have to thank my readers, commenters, and those who send me parody ideas and news stories. Being a Jester isn’t any fun unless somebody laughs back or at least groans back at one of my puns.

There are lots of things I never intended to do such as being Catholic, writing daily, and considering my lack of drawing skills – spending time doing graphic related humor. So of course I end up doing all three.

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Punditry

There they go again

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

A reader sent me the following story

“Is the candidate worthy?” intoned Bishop Patricia Fresen ceremonially, as lifelong Catholic Juanita Cordero stood before her in a pure white gown, about to be ordained as a priest. The question was asked three times during the ordination ceremony on Sunday, July 22, as one female priest and two female deacons were invested with the power to perform sacraments?—?a function forbidden to women under canon law. They are part of a movement from within the Roman Catholic Church that has been ordaining female priests since 2002, though those involved say that the tradition of women priests and bishops dates as far back as Mary Magdalene, whom they consider an apostle of Jesus. The participants in this movement fervently hope to be embraced by the Vatican, as other splinter groups have been before them.

Sunday’s ordination, witnessed by more than 100 invited guests, took place at an interfaith center in Santa Barbara that reporters agreed not to name in exchange for an invitation to attend. (Reporters also agreed not to print the names or orders of the nuns in attendance.)

I always found this partial secretiveness on those supporting women’s ordination to be quite the opposite of what they say. No doubt you will get an ear full of how they are being prophetic, etc. Funny I don’t recall the prophets that were afraid to speak up and face the consequences of their actions. If they truly believe they are following the will of the Holy Spirit then for these supporters to want to hide their affirmation of the Holy Spirit’s will to reporters is rather odd. From their perspective wouldn’t this be like the actions of Peter in the courtyard? "Women’s ordination is the will of Christ, but don’t quote me on that or indicate my name or anything about me."

…The women ordained Sunday join 18 others in North America who belong to an international organization called Roman Catholic Women Priests, which counts among its number approximately 50 female priests and deacons worldwide, including a few whose identities remain undisclosed in an effort to protect their jobs within the church. Also secret are the identities of the male bishops who ordained Bishop Fresen. Film and documentary evidence of that ceremony is being kept by a notary public, not to be released until the deaths of the male bishops.

Oh the bravery! It reminds you of the martyrs who gave their life rather than to go deny any aspect of Church teaching. Oh I forgot, the new martyrs are celebrated for denying any aspect of Church teaching.

At least two additional Santa Barbara women are studying to be ordained, perhaps as early as next year. Besides their gender deviating from the Catholic priest norm, neither of the two deacons ordained Sunday — who are scheduled for re-ordination as priests on July 28— is celibate. Norma Coon, of San Diego, has been married for 40 years. Toni Tortorilla, of Portland, lives with her lesbian partner. Cordero, a newly anointed priest who lives in San Luis Obispo, is a former nun who has been married for 30 years to a former Jesuit priest.

What you mean besides women’s ordination they have other issues with Church teaching? This of course is always the way it is. They are never totally orthodox with women’s ordination being the one and oly exception. It is always a slew of things and it is up to them to help push back the gates of Hell that must have opened and prevailed against the Church until they came along.

The ceremony, which took place on the feast day of Mary Magdalene, also differed from the standard Catholic ordination in the names the presiding clergy used for God, who is ordinarily referred to as “the Father.” The female priests instead referred to “Mother and Father” and to “God/de.” (The latter is pronounced like “God,” with the silent, extra letters hinting at a goddess that those in the ceremony declined to refer to explicitly.) Jesus Christ retained his masculine identity, however.

I thought it was pronounced "gaudy" and in the stoles they weary. Poor Mary Magdalene she suffers so much abuse now of days.

The reason that the women are determined to remain Roman Catholics, instead of forming their own church or joining another—such as the Episcopal Church, which ordains female clergy—is that they consider the Roman Catholic Church to be their family, albeit a dysfunctional one, and they have no intention of abandoning it.

Now if only they would realize that they are thr dysfunctional part of the family. This is rather interesting since Mark Shea wrote on Monday the philosophical divide between some converts and some cradle Catholics as seeing the Church as family.

There is another aspect of women’s ordination that is just so un-Catholic. If as a Catholic you really believe that the Church is in error on something than you would act as the reformer saints did. Foremost it would be prayer by these advocates for the Church. There is just no history of reform by disobedience in the Church. Saint reformers were often persecuted for calling their religious orders back to their charisms and the Gospel. Yet when their superiors and bishops had them disciplined or gave them orders they were obedient to them, even when it was unfair. It was their heroic sanctity and obedience to the Church that would lead to true reforms. Just as lack of humility and disobedience is the easiest way to sort out false seers, the same criteria can be easily applied to the false reformers.

“The meaningfulness of the Catholic tradition to me is the long history of mysticism in the church,” said priest Victoria Rue, who also teaches theology and theater at San Jose State University. She finds particular inspiration in the women mystics of the Middle Ages. “Priesthood,” added Rue, “is about leadership within the community.” There are many types of ministries to which people are called, she said, concluding, “I feel called to the ministry of the liturgy,” which she described as communal worship.

Well Victoria Rue is much better at theater than theology and theater is exactly right for the playacting of these pseudo ordinations. This is the world where "I feel called" is suppose to trump the Church. Not even all men who feel called to the priesthood are, and it is the bishop who makes the final decisions as to who become seminarians and ultimately who he accepts as having a vocation to the priesthood. Strangely vocation is one of those words I never see in these articles.

This article also doesn’t even pretend to have a shred of journalistic integrity. It is totally one sided on the question of women’s ordination with not even the feigned balance some articles on women’s ordination have.

They added that excommunication, contrary to popular belief, does not remove one from the church; it only means that one cannot receive the sacraments. “Nothing can put you out of the church once you have been baptized,” said Fresen. However, after the first seven women priests ordained on the Danube in 2002 were promptly excommunicated, none of the other ordained females has been excommunicated.

That the groups of women trying to simulate a sacrament since 2002 have not been formally excommunicated seems to be true. Canonist Ed Peters Excommunication Blotter doesn’t list any excommunication due to women’s ordination since 2002, though this is based on information in the public record. Considering that Cardinal Mahony is their Bishop I would be skeptical as to it happening in their case. The only people he seeks to discipline are nuns that criticize him on TV. I would love to be wrong here.

Diogenes posts on this story:

Viewed as a magic act, the present paradigm-shattering stunt is a disappointment. It’s one thing to watch a conjurer pull a rabbit out of a hat, another to watch him pull a hat-lining out of a hat. So here we see three perfectly conventional Unitarians kneel down, the secret formula is intoned over their heads, and — presto! — when they get to their feet we find three perfectly conventional Unitarians. None of the parties starts off close enough to Catholic churchmanship to make the ceremony a plausible counterfeit, whence it’s hard to see why they bother in the first place.

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