Today is my dear husband's birthday. It's so rare to have a weekend birthday that we had formed all sorts of plans and ideas how to celebrate.
Alas, the girls and I are all sick now with that bug that Kitten caught. It doesn't look like we'll even make it to Mass tomorrow, let alone out to celebrate today.
Luckily, I made the cake yesterday, before I came down with this thing (well, okay, I could tell it was coming, which was why I made the cake yesterday). And we have a few small gifts to give him, along with out love, our appreciation, and our careful efforts not to give him this yucky virus.
Life happens, plans get changed. We'll pick another Saturday to take Thad out on the town for a day of fun. Today, we'll just remind him how much we love him as best we can under the circumstances, even if that means blowing our kisses from a safe, germ-avoidance distance. :)
We love you, Thad! Happy birthday!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
"I'm Sorry You Were Offended" Doesn't Fly at the Vatican
Apparently, SSPX Bishop Williamson's apology for his remarks about the Holocaust has been deemed by the Vatican to be decidedly of the "non-apology apology" variety, so popular among American politicians, large corporations, and anyone else who thinks that never having to say you're sorry is the best defense against lawsuits:
But as someone who doesn't believe in "hate crimes" per se, since I think this is an attempt to legislate people's thoughts, I also wonder if it's wise for Germany to pursue hate-crimes charges against Bishop Williamson. Won't this just have the effect of making him a "martyr" figure to those groups who are openly anti-Semitic in their views? Won't such actions give him an even bigger public notoriety upon which to spread the idea that he's being "persecuted" for denying the Holocaust?
In any event, I'm glad to see that the Vatican is insisting that Bishop Williamson must truly apologize for what he said, not merely apologize for the fact that people were offended by it. What is chilling in the State is absolutely proper in the Church, in that the Church has the right to insist that Bishop Williamson stop believing falsehoods--and spreading them--as a condition of being returned to full communion with the Catholic Church as a clergyman. It may be good enough, from the standpoint of free speech, that one might only have to apologize for offending others. But from the standpoint of Christian charity and respect for our fellow men, the apology for believing and spreading untruths needs to be sincere.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican said Friday that the apology issued by an ultraconservative bishop who denied the Holocaust was not good enough to admit him into the Catholic Church as a clergyman.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said Bishop Richard Williamson's statement "doesn't appear to respect the conditions" the Vatican set out for him.
In an interview broadcast last month on Swedish state TV, Williamson denied 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, saying 200,000 or 300,000 were murdered. He said none were gassed.
Williamson apologized for his remarks on Thursday, saying he would never have made them if he had known "the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise."
But he did not say his comments had been erroneous, nor that he no longer believed them.The Vatican is perfectly correct to press for a real apology from Williamson. But as an American who believes in free speech rights, even for those whose speech is erroneous, wrong-headed, and needlessly insulting, I can't help but find this part of the article a bit chilling:
Don't get me wrong: I think Holocaust denial is something which should not be done, as it ignores the evidence of history, minimizes the sufferings of those who perished in concentration camps etc. during World War II, and is usually linked to some kind of anti-Semitic agenda on the part of the speaker; it offends against truth and charity either to claim that this open attack upon the Jewish people of Europe never happened, or was much smaller than reported.On Friday, Germany's justice minister, Brigitte Zypries, said Germany could issue a European-wide arrest warrant on hate crimes charges for Williamson, because the Swedish TV interview was conducted in Germany.
State prosecutors in Regensburg, Germany, have already opened a preliminary investigation into whether Williamson broke German laws against Holocaust denial.
But as someone who doesn't believe in "hate crimes" per se, since I think this is an attempt to legislate people's thoughts, I also wonder if it's wise for Germany to pursue hate-crimes charges against Bishop Williamson. Won't this just have the effect of making him a "martyr" figure to those groups who are openly anti-Semitic in their views? Won't such actions give him an even bigger public notoriety upon which to spread the idea that he's being "persecuted" for denying the Holocaust?
In any event, I'm glad to see that the Vatican is insisting that Bishop Williamson must truly apologize for what he said, not merely apologize for the fact that people were offended by it. What is chilling in the State is absolutely proper in the Church, in that the Church has the right to insist that Bishop Williamson stop believing falsehoods--and spreading them--as a condition of being returned to full communion with the Catholic Church as a clergyman. It may be good enough, from the standpoint of free speech, that one might only have to apologize for offending others. But from the standpoint of Christian charity and respect for our fellow men, the apology for believing and spreading untruths needs to be sincere.
Bam!
Chef Emeril Lagasse has done a really, really nice thing. He has sent a set of his signature pans to a seventy-year-old woman.
The woman, you see, had one of his saucepans--it was her favorite pan--but she lost it.
When the police took it as evidence.
Because she used it to beat off a houseful of teenage attackers:
As for the teenage boys who tried to attack this inimitable lady, all I can say is, if you can be thwarted in your criminal activities by a septuagenarian wielding nothing but a designer saucepan, then you really, really need to think the whole "life of crime" as a career option.
The woman, you see, had one of his saucepans--it was her favorite pan--but she lost it.
When the police took it as evidence.
Because she used it to beat off a houseful of teenage attackers:
ELYRIA, Ohio—Chef Emeril Lagasse says he felt so bad when he heard a woman lost one of his trademark pans warding off home intruders that he’s replacing the item.Now that's what I call "kicking it up a notch."
Lagasse is sending a set of his signature cookware to Ellen Basinski, who fought off the young attackers at her home in Elyria west of Cleveland Tuesday. (...)
Basinski was on the phone with her husband when four boys pushed their way into her home.
Her husband, Lorain County Judge David Basinski, overheard the scuffle and raced home while his wife grabbed her favorite pan to defend herself.
As for the teenage boys who tried to attack this inimitable lady, all I can say is, if you can be thwarted in your criminal activities by a septuagenarian wielding nothing but a designer saucepan, then you really, really need to think the whole "life of crime" as a career option.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
A Good Start
If you want to make God laugh, says the old proverb, tell Him your plans.
I thought of that, and of Karen Edmisten's thoughtful post, quite a bit today. Unlike past years, you see, I hadn't made detailed elaborate torturous difficult impossible Lenten plans. I made mild, simplified, focused, balanced, realistic Lenten plans, instead. I was going to have a good Lent this year...
...and out of the starting gate Kitten contracted the nasty cold/flu type thing that's been going around. She was coming down with it yesterday, but still wanted to go to Mass (and to tell the truth, the other adult soprano who regularly makes it to practice and Mass would have been pretty horrified if she'd been the only one there, as some of the songs we were singing were unfamiliar). I let her come with us, as she didn't seem too bad yesterday, but the poor girl spent most of today in bed with a mild fever and lots of congestion-related misery.
So today I was divided between teaching the other two girls and taking care of Kitten; of course, since she is thirteen this mostly means providing plenty of juice and soup and tissues and cough syrup doses on schedule and so forth. Still, as one of her sisters put it, it's weird when one of them is sick--it's like she's here, but not really, Bookgirl said, working through her algebra lesson alone.
I knew what she meant, and understood Kitten's desire to get up in the afternoon, too, even if it was just to lie on the couch and watch a movie with her sisters, who missed her quite a bit by that time. Somehow between the movie and dinner and laundry and tidying Kitten's room for her and bedtime I completely forgot to do any of the simple Lenten prayers or readings or activities I'd planned to do, to add to the simple sacrifice which was the only Lenten thing I actually accomplished today.
But tonight, as I gave a sleepy Kitten a bedtime dose of medicine and some water and made sure she had tissues and other things within reach and smoothed the top of her hair and kissed her forehead, she murmured, "Thanks for taking care of me today." And I smiled, and thought that the best way I can please God is by living my vocation, even when prayers and spiritual readings have to be pushed aside in favor of chicken soup, juice with a straw, and little plastic cups with ruby cough syrup measured out to the right little line. Even when it's Lent.
I thought of that, and of Karen Edmisten's thoughtful post, quite a bit today. Unlike past years, you see, I hadn't made detailed elaborate torturous difficult impossible Lenten plans. I made mild, simplified, focused, balanced, realistic Lenten plans, instead. I was going to have a good Lent this year...
...and out of the starting gate Kitten contracted the nasty cold/flu type thing that's been going around. She was coming down with it yesterday, but still wanted to go to Mass (and to tell the truth, the other adult soprano who regularly makes it to practice and Mass would have been pretty horrified if she'd been the only one there, as some of the songs we were singing were unfamiliar). I let her come with us, as she didn't seem too bad yesterday, but the poor girl spent most of today in bed with a mild fever and lots of congestion-related misery.
So today I was divided between teaching the other two girls and taking care of Kitten; of course, since she is thirteen this mostly means providing plenty of juice and soup and tissues and cough syrup doses on schedule and so forth. Still, as one of her sisters put it, it's weird when one of them is sick--it's like she's here, but not really, Bookgirl said, working through her algebra lesson alone.
I knew what she meant, and understood Kitten's desire to get up in the afternoon, too, even if it was just to lie on the couch and watch a movie with her sisters, who missed her quite a bit by that time. Somehow between the movie and dinner and laundry and tidying Kitten's room for her and bedtime I completely forgot to do any of the simple Lenten prayers or readings or activities I'd planned to do, to add to the simple sacrifice which was the only Lenten thing I actually accomplished today.
But tonight, as I gave a sleepy Kitten a bedtime dose of medicine and some water and made sure she had tissues and other things within reach and smoothed the top of her hair and kissed her forehead, she murmured, "Thanks for taking care of me today." And I smiled, and thought that the best way I can please God is by living my vocation, even when prayers and spiritual readings have to be pushed aside in favor of chicken soup, juice with a straw, and little plastic cups with ruby cough syrup measured out to the right little line. Even when it's Lent.
Offering
Amy Welborn has a lovely post up today on the value of "offering it up." She's focusing on the experience of being on the receiving end, to hear that others are praying or working or sacrificing for you, and she invites reflections in her comment box.
In one sense, I think that one of the many joys of parenthood is that we find out what it's like to have someone, someone small and helpless and dependent, turn to us with a bright, beaming smile and say, "I did this for you!" Whether the action is something we find amazing and helpful, like discovering that a small child has, unbidden, picked up all of his toys, or whether the action is less amazing and less helpful, such as discovering that a small child has taken the dish washing sponge and used it to wash a section of the kitchen floor, we can't help but feel a certain amount of joy just at their desire to help, when they are so little, and can do so little.
And this joy is even more palpable when they do something, not to please Mom or Dad, but to please a sibling. We are, sadly, as parents, used to hearing them squawk and squabble at each other, so finding out that an older sister has decided to make her little brother's bed, simply as an act of charity, is a sweet and precious delight to a parent's heart.
God doesn't need us to offer things up for each other. He can do everything, without our help. In many ways, our clumsy, well-meaning actions are like those of the child who accidentally empties a dishwasher full of dirty dishes--we leave Him with more work to do, when all is said and done. But I think, loving Father that He is, that He delights in our efforts to grasp the corner of our neighbors' crosses, not because our help is efficacious on its own, but because He sees that we are trying, however clumsily or weakly or misguidedly, to be like Him.
And because we are pleasing Him, we somehow find that our own crosses have gotten a little lighter; that as we reach out to help those around us, to shoulder some of their burdens and pray for some of their trials and listen to some of their fears and calm some of their worries and wipe away some of their tears, He is pouring out His grace upon the neighbor we our helping and on us, in a measure out of all proportion to our efforts.
When we appear in prayer before God, hampered by our own smallness and weakness and sinfulness, yet presenting to Him the faded dandelions of our prayers and sacrifices and asking Him to help someone else, someone in need, I think He smiles as much as any parent being presented with a similar backyard bouquet and a simultaneous selfless request for a cookie for a baby sister. If we, who are flawed human parents, would meet such a request with a tray of cookies and juice for every child in the backyard, how much more so does He shower us with graces, because we take the time to ask for help for someone else.
All of this, of course, reminds me not only to continue praying for Michael Dubruiel and his whole family, but it also reminds me that I had formed the intention to order some of Michael's books before the end of February, taking advantage of OSV's generous decision to double Michael's portion of the books' proceeds which go to the children's college fund. Like many good intentions, mine ended up on the back burner, until I looked at the calendar and realized that February was almost over. If you, like me, also intended to do this but have forgotten until now, the link for OSV's catalog page featuring Michael's books is here.
When we perform small, simple acts of charity for each other, whether in prayer, in sacrifice, or in material help, we are indeed pleasing God. We are becoming citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, who never hesitate to perform the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy for each other, and never get trapped in the prideful way of thinking which believes that we are sufficient for ourselves, that all of our good blessings and good fortune come from our own intelligent planning. For like the children in a family, we know that every good thing we have comes from our Father, and if we wish to become like Him we will cheerfully extend hands in help and in prayer whenever a cross our neighbor is carrying becomes weighted down with suffering, with pain, or with grief.
In one sense, I think that one of the many joys of parenthood is that we find out what it's like to have someone, someone small and helpless and dependent, turn to us with a bright, beaming smile and say, "I did this for you!" Whether the action is something we find amazing and helpful, like discovering that a small child has, unbidden, picked up all of his toys, or whether the action is less amazing and less helpful, such as discovering that a small child has taken the dish washing sponge and used it to wash a section of the kitchen floor, we can't help but feel a certain amount of joy just at their desire to help, when they are so little, and can do so little.
And this joy is even more palpable when they do something, not to please Mom or Dad, but to please a sibling. We are, sadly, as parents, used to hearing them squawk and squabble at each other, so finding out that an older sister has decided to make her little brother's bed, simply as an act of charity, is a sweet and precious delight to a parent's heart.
God doesn't need us to offer things up for each other. He can do everything, without our help. In many ways, our clumsy, well-meaning actions are like those of the child who accidentally empties a dishwasher full of dirty dishes--we leave Him with more work to do, when all is said and done. But I think, loving Father that He is, that He delights in our efforts to grasp the corner of our neighbors' crosses, not because our help is efficacious on its own, but because He sees that we are trying, however clumsily or weakly or misguidedly, to be like Him.
And because we are pleasing Him, we somehow find that our own crosses have gotten a little lighter; that as we reach out to help those around us, to shoulder some of their burdens and pray for some of their trials and listen to some of their fears and calm some of their worries and wipe away some of their tears, He is pouring out His grace upon the neighbor we our helping and on us, in a measure out of all proportion to our efforts.
When we appear in prayer before God, hampered by our own smallness and weakness and sinfulness, yet presenting to Him the faded dandelions of our prayers and sacrifices and asking Him to help someone else, someone in need, I think He smiles as much as any parent being presented with a similar backyard bouquet and a simultaneous selfless request for a cookie for a baby sister. If we, who are flawed human parents, would meet such a request with a tray of cookies and juice for every child in the backyard, how much more so does He shower us with graces, because we take the time to ask for help for someone else.
All of this, of course, reminds me not only to continue praying for Michael Dubruiel and his whole family, but it also reminds me that I had formed the intention to order some of Michael's books before the end of February, taking advantage of OSV's generous decision to double Michael's portion of the books' proceeds which go to the children's college fund. Like many good intentions, mine ended up on the back burner, until I looked at the calendar and realized that February was almost over. If you, like me, also intended to do this but have forgotten until now, the link for OSV's catalog page featuring Michael's books is here.
When we perform small, simple acts of charity for each other, whether in prayer, in sacrifice, or in material help, we are indeed pleasing God. We are becoming citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, who never hesitate to perform the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy for each other, and never get trapped in the prideful way of thinking which believes that we are sufficient for ourselves, that all of our good blessings and good fortune come from our own intelligent planning. For like the children in a family, we know that every good thing we have comes from our Father, and if we wish to become like Him we will cheerfully extend hands in help and in prayer whenever a cross our neighbor is carrying becomes weighted down with suffering, with pain, or with grief.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy
The third commandment, that we must keep holy the Sabbath day, is one of the trickiest ones for modern-day Catholic (and Christian) Americans to follow. Employers increasingly expect and demand that employees will work at least some hours over the weekends, Sundays not excepted; our sprawling landscape and distance between home and grocery store sometimes (especially when gas prices are high) make it difficult to avoid a quick stop for necessities on the way home from church--especially when church and store are close together, and home is twenty or thirty minutes by car away; and most restaurants, entertainment venues, and similar businesses remain open, expecting that at least some of us will spend at least some of our money on these activities before the close of the day on Sunday.
The Church is quite reasonable about what does and does not constitute violation of the Sunday observance. Necessary work such as that performed in hospitals, police and fire departments, and even hotels is seen as a reminder of Our Lord's words that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Works of charity are always proper to a Sunday, too, whether they involve caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, or simply ministering to our own families' physical needs for the day with meals and other works.
But it is unfortunate that in America, Sunday has blended into Saturday and simply gets called "the weekend." While large numbers of Americans do go to some form of church or worship service, equally large numbers treat the day as another business day. All Christians, Catholics included, find ourselves walking a fine line between meeting the demands of our secular, consumer-driven society, and insisting on some respect for Sunday as a day that should be set aside for worship, for family, for rest and recreation, and for charitable acts, not for business (and especially not for non-essential, unpaid work so often demanded by corporate employers on that day).
It wasn't all that long ago in America when most stores and businesses simply were not open on Sunday. Not every restaurant was, either, though some were to offer Sunday brunch or to meet the needs of travelers or or those who had to work in the fields mentioned above. By and large, Sunday just wasn't a day to do your shopping. People understood the concept of a rest from labor, and looked forward to Sunday as a break from the usual routine.
Once things changed, though, there hasn't been much of a push to go in the opposite direction (Chik-fil-A is a notable exception). The notion that giving up Sunday business meant giving up too much revenue became deeply ingrained in American companies, especially retail establishments. And now, with the economic crisis beginning to take its toll, some people are pushing to expand Sunday store hours even further, to make stores and businesses open the same hours on Sunday as they are the rest of the week.
Recognizing, perhaps, the reality that this particular genie is much harder to put back in the bottle than it was to take out, the European community is still fighting against Sunday shopping. Granted, many are more worried about losing Sunday as a secular holiday than in losing the religious significance of the day; some countries which fight hard against Sunday shopping have seen precipitous declines in the number of regular church-goers. Still, it's interesting to follow:
The Church is quite reasonable about what does and does not constitute violation of the Sunday observance. Necessary work such as that performed in hospitals, police and fire departments, and even hotels is seen as a reminder of Our Lord's words that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Works of charity are always proper to a Sunday, too, whether they involve caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, or simply ministering to our own families' physical needs for the day with meals and other works.
But it is unfortunate that in America, Sunday has blended into Saturday and simply gets called "the weekend." While large numbers of Americans do go to some form of church or worship service, equally large numbers treat the day as another business day. All Christians, Catholics included, find ourselves walking a fine line between meeting the demands of our secular, consumer-driven society, and insisting on some respect for Sunday as a day that should be set aside for worship, for family, for rest and recreation, and for charitable acts, not for business (and especially not for non-essential, unpaid work so often demanded by corporate employers on that day).
It wasn't all that long ago in America when most stores and businesses simply were not open on Sunday. Not every restaurant was, either, though some were to offer Sunday brunch or to meet the needs of travelers or or those who had to work in the fields mentioned above. By and large, Sunday just wasn't a day to do your shopping. People understood the concept of a rest from labor, and looked forward to Sunday as a break from the usual routine.
Once things changed, though, there hasn't been much of a push to go in the opposite direction (Chik-fil-A is a notable exception). The notion that giving up Sunday business meant giving up too much revenue became deeply ingrained in American companies, especially retail establishments. And now, with the economic crisis beginning to take its toll, some people are pushing to expand Sunday store hours even further, to make stores and businesses open the same hours on Sunday as they are the rest of the week.
Recognizing, perhaps, the reality that this particular genie is much harder to put back in the bottle than it was to take out, the European community is still fighting against Sunday shopping. Granted, many are more worried about losing Sunday as a secular holiday than in losing the religious significance of the day; some countries which fight hard against Sunday shopping have seen precipitous declines in the number of regular church-goers. Still, it's interesting to follow:
But over the past few years, Europe has faced a push from politicians to abandon the tradition to follow the American retail model. "Sunday is an extra day of growth," Mr. Sarkozy explained, when he announced his plan to overturn a 102-year-old law legally sanctioning Sunday rest. "It is extra purchasing power and other countries are doing it."
England took the lead in embracing the Sunday shopping culture in 1994, and was soon followed by Sweden and Spain. Once freed from communist dictatorships, countries like Hungary and Croatia joined the trend. In Roman Catholic Poland, Sunday shopping has become a national pastime. Now, with the issue dividing much of the Continent, the tide is shifting.
"American capitalism used to look great – you have lower corporate taxes, more freedom, it's easier to create your own business – but the recession has put a damper on it, and people are asking 'What is the point?' Has it made people richer?" asks Stephen Miller, author of "The Peculiar Life of Sundays." "Now, Europeans want to distinguish their capitalism from an American version they see as too frantic, too excessive. They want to protect their day off, they want to keep their social model."
Croatia had overturned bans on Sunday trading in 1994, but then slammed the door shut to Sunday shopping last month, when a new ban took effect. The change is seen as a concession to the Catholic Church. Major retailers have appealed, saying the change could lead to 7,000 jobs lost and score of store closures at a time when the Croatia can ill afford the blow.
I hope that Europe can succeed in retaining their Sunday laws. It's much harder to turn back the clock, and renew a sense that Sunday should be a day of rest, when the culture has decided that it no longer is.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover
I didn't listen to Obama's speech tonight. I tend not to like to listen to these speeches, but to read them, instead, so that I can focus on the words, instead of on such things as delivery, camera angles, fawning, swooning news anchors with leg-tingling-syndrome, and the like.
But as I read over Obama's words from this transcript, I was haunted by a sense of familiarity. Surely we've been down a road like this one before? Surely we've heard some of these same words?
What follows will be quotes from Obama's speech tonight in bold print, compared with quotes from Herbert Hoover's annual message to Congress from Dec. 1931 in italics. There are some very interesting similarities--and some even more interesting differences:
President Obama's speech was a collection of liberal ideas which it seems that he and the Democrats in Congress want to employ, opportunistically one might think, under the cloak of the economic crisis. But if what is now barely being called a recession ends up being an actual depression, the waves of history may end up discrediting the notion that we can socialize our way out of economic turmoil by spending federal government money on energy and health care and free college for all and all the other usual elements of the liberal laundry list, just as the waves of the past battered down some of President Hoover's ideas about solving the economic crisis of his day.
But as I read over Obama's words from this transcript, I was haunted by a sense of familiarity. Surely we've been down a road like this one before? Surely we've heard some of these same words?
What follows will be quotes from Obama's speech tonight in bold print, compared with quotes from Herbert Hoover's annual message to Congress from Dec. 1931 in italics. There are some very interesting similarities--and some even more interesting differences:
The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.Like I said, some interesting similarities; some interesting differences. But reading through the two speeches, hearing the echoes of the past in the crisis of the present, I can't help but think that poor President Hoover had no idea how much worse things were going to get before they ever got better, how so many Americans clamored for the promise of government handouts and freebies in Roosevelt's proposed New Deal, and how it really, in the opinion of many historians, took the wartime prosperity fueled by World War II and its demands upon the American manufacturing industry (even before we actually entered the war) before the downward spiral was stopped, and the economic situation in America began to improve.
If we lift our vision beyond these immediate emergencies we find fundamental national gains even amid depression. In meeting the problems of this difficult period, we have witnessed a remarkable development of the sense of cooperation in the community. For the first time in the history of our major economic depressions there has been a notable absence of public disorders and industrial conflict. Above all there is an enlargement of social and spiritual responsibility among the people. The strains and stresses upon business have resulted in closer application in saner policies, and in better methods. Public improvements have been carried out on a larger scale than even in normal times. The country is richer in physical property, in newly discovered resources, and in productive capacity than ever before. There has been constant gain in knowledge and education; there has been continuous advance in science and invention; there has been distinct gain in public health. Business depressions have been recurrent in the life of our country and are but transitory. The nation has emerged from each of them with increased strength and virility because of the enlightenment they have brought, the readjustments and the larger understanding of the realities and obligations of life and work which come from them.
As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President's Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government -- I don't. Not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited -- I am. I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardship. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years. And that's why I pushed for quick action. And tonight, I am grateful that this Congress delivered, and pleased to say that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now law. (Applause.)
Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector -- jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges; constructing wind turbines and solar panels; laying broadband and expanding mass transit.
The emergencies of unemployment have been met by action in many directions. The appropriations for the continued speeding up of the great Federal construction program have provided direct and indirect aid to unemployment upon a large scale. By organized unity of action, the states and municipalities have also maintained large programs of public improvement. Many industries have been prevailed upon to anticipate and intensify construction. Industrial concerns and other employers have been organized to spread available work amongst all their employees instead of discharging a portion of them. A large majority have maintained wages at as high levels as the safe conduct of their business would permit. This course has saved us from industrial conflict and disorder which have characterized all previous depressions. Immigration has been curtailed by administrative action. Upon the basis of normal immigration the decrease amounts to about 300,000 individuals who otherwise would have been added to our unemployment. The expansion of Federal employment agencies under appropriations by the Congress has proved most effective. Through the President's organization for unemployment relief, public and private agencies were successfully mobilized last winter to provide employment and other measures against distress. Similar organization gives assurance against suffering during the coming winter. Committees of leading citizens are now active at practically every point of unemployment. In the large majority they have been assured the funds necessary which, together with local government aids, will meet the situation. A few exceptional localities will be further organized. The evidence of the Public Health Service shows an actual decrease of sickness and infant and general mortality below normal years. No greater proof could be adduced that our people have been protected from hunger and cold and that the sense of social responsibility in the nation has responded to the need of the unfortunate….
The concern is that if we do not restart lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins.
You see -- (applause) -- you see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education, how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.
But credit has stopped flowing the way it should. Too many bad loans from the housing crisis have made their way onto the books of too many banks. And with so much debt and so little confidence, these banks are now fearful of lending out any more money to households, to businesses, or even to each other. And when there is no lending, families can't afford to buy homes or cars. So businesses are forced to make layoffs. Our economy suffers even more, and credit dries up even further.
That is why this administration is moving swiftly and aggressively to break this destructive cycle, to restore confidence, and restart lending.The situation largely arises from an unjustified lack of confidence. We have enormous volumes of idle money in the banks and in hoarding. We do not require more money or working capital -- we need to put what we have to work.
The fundamental difficulties which have brought about financial strains in foreign countries do not exist in the United States. No external drain on our resources can threaten our position, because the balance of international payments is in our favor; we owe less to foreign countries than they owe to us; our industries are efficiently organized; our currency and bank deposits are protected by the greatest gold reserve in history.
Our first step toward recovery is to reestablish confidence and thus restore the flow of credit which is the very basis of our economic life. We must put some steel beams in the foundations of our credit structure. It is our duty to apply the full strength of our government not only to the immediate phases, but to provide security against shocks and the repetition of the weaknesses which have been proven.
Second -- second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values -- Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped to bring about. In fact, the average family who refinances today can save nearly $2,000 per year on their mortgage. (Applause.)
I recommend the establishment of a system of home-loan discount banks as the necessary companion in our financial structure of the Federal Reserve Banks and our Federal Land Banks. Such action will relieve present distressing pressures against home and farm property owners. It will relieve pressures upon and give added strength to building and loan associations, savings banks, and deposit banks, engaged in extending such credits. Such action would further decentralize our credit structure. It would revive residential construction and employment. It would enable such loaning institutions more effectually to promote home ownership. I discussed this plan at some length in a statement made public November 14, last. This plan has been warmly endorsed by the recent National Conference upon Home Ownership and Housing, whose members were designated by the governors of the states and the groups interested.
And that's why I've asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort -- because nobody messes with Joe. (Applause.) I -- isn't that right? They don't mess with you. I have told each of my Cabinet, as well as mayors and governors across the country, that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. I've appointed a proven and aggressive Inspector General to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud. And we have created a new website called recovery.gov so that every American can find out how and where their money is being spent.
I have referred in previous messages to the profound need of further reorganization and consolidation of Federal administrative functions to eliminate overlap and waste, and to enable coordination and definition of government policies now wholly impossible in scattered and conflicting agencies which deal with parts of the same major function. I shall lay before the Congress further recommendations upon this subject, particularly in relation to the Department of the Interior. There are two directions of such reorganization, however, which have an important bearing upon the emergency problems with which we are confronted. (...)
These words -- these words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.
Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us. (Applause.)
I know -- look, I know that we haven't agreed on every issue thus far -- (laughter.) There are surely times in the future where we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. I know that. (Applause.) That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months, and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.
And if we do -- if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis; if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity; if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, "something worthy to be remembered."
Many vital changes and movements of vast proportions are taking place in the economic world. The effect of these changes upon the future can not be seen clearly as yet. Of this, however, we are sure: Our system, based upon the ideals of individual initiative and of equality of opportunity, is not an artificial thing. Rather it is the outgrowth of the experience of America, and expresses the faith and spirit of our people. It has carried us in a century and a half to leadership of the economic world. If our economic system does not match our highest expectations at all times, it does not require revolutionary action to bring it into accord with any necessity that experience may prove. It has successfully adjusted itself to changing conditions in the past. It will do so again. The mobility of our institutions, the richness of our resources, and the abilities of our people enable us to meet them unafraid. It is a distressful time for many of our people, but they have shown qualities as high in fortitude, courage, and resourcefulness as ever in our history. With that spirit, I have faith that out of it will come a sounder life, a truer standard of values, a greater recognition of the results of honest effort, and a healthier atmosphere in which to rear our children. Ours must be a country of such stability and security as can not fail to carry forward and enlarge among all the people that abundant life of material and spiritual opportunity which it has represented among all nations since its beginning.
President Obama's speech was a collection of liberal ideas which it seems that he and the Democrats in Congress want to employ, opportunistically one might think, under the cloak of the economic crisis. But if what is now barely being called a recession ends up being an actual depression, the waves of history may end up discrediting the notion that we can socialize our way out of economic turmoil by spending federal government money on energy and health care and free college for all and all the other usual elements of the liberal laundry list, just as the waves of the past battered down some of President Hoover's ideas about solving the economic crisis of his day.
But the Flesh is Weak
My husband Thad and I were having a little conversation about Ash Wednesday the other day. It went something like this:
None of the girls are old enough to be obligated to fast (since Church law only requires it of those who are 18 and not yet 60); and though I encourage various voluntary acts of sacrifice I wouldn't want any of them to attempt a full fast on Ash Wednesday as of yet (they're still growing, and I wouldn't want anybody to faint at Mass). So while I realize that Thad is right in that I tend to get all focused and worried about the fasting, I also know that somebody's got to think about the logistics of providing three regular meals to the girls (and possibly a snack when we get home from church, since dinner will be so very early) while also having available foods for the "two smaller meals" and the "one main meal" for Thad and me to eat when necessary. And our situation is nowhere near as complicated as the mom of many, whose older teens must fast and whose younger children must abstain but not fast and whose two-year-old is on a hunger strike and refuses to eat anything but Vienna sausages with ketchup.
The funny thing is, my worries and concerns about Ash Wednesday's fasting obligation have nothing to do with food deprivation. I frequently postpone or skip meals; I used to miss breakfast daily; and though I'm now good about remembering to eat breakfast, the price I pay for that is not being hungry enough/forgetting to eat lunch. I'm not one of those people who finds going without food for long periods of time to be difficult in and of itself.
So why do I get all worried about Ash Wednesday?
I worry that I'll forget, and eat something between meals. I worry that I'll be dishing up dinner for the girls and taste something absentmindedly. I worry that I won't remember to eat before church and will then get distracted when hunger finally hits. Because I pay so little attention to what I eat and when I eat it ordinarily, I worry when there are rules!
Sometimes I think that Martha, in the Bible, was a lot like me. Going along in "ordinary time," cooking food for herself, her sister Mary, her brother Lazarus--no big deal. Sure, she might have wished that Mary would take a few more turns in the kitchen, but then again, Mary was liable to put things away in the wrong place and use the wrong pans for things--so on the whole, Martha didn't mind being chief cook and bottle washer.
But then Jesus stopped in. With twelve disciples. And they were staying for dinner. And there were rules, rules about hospitality and serving and good hostessing and a host of other things to think about. And Martha got panicked, and frantic, and annoyed until all of that made her storm out of the kitchen and ask Jesus to tell her sister to come and help her.
And we know the rest of the story, how He told her that she was worried about many things, when only one thing was necessary; how He told her to stop worrying, and that her sister Mary, in focusing on Him, had chosen the better part.
Lord, I don't mean to get all caught up in rules and worrying and planning in regard to the Ash Wednesday fast. But as You Yourself put it, the flesh is weak.
Erin: ...so, since we need to leave here about 5:15 in order to be at church by six to run through the music before Mass starts at 6:30 and then we're staying after Mass to practice Sunday's music instead of having choir practice on Thursday, I'm thinking that you and I should make our one main meal lunch instead of dinner, since there really won't be time for dinner anyway...Which goes to show two things: one, how well my dear one knows me, and two, how little he understands the female planning mind, especially when the plans involve an extra little wrinkle like fasting.
Thad: Stop.
Erin: What?
Thad: Just stop. Don't start planning and worrying about the fasting. You do this every year! It will be fine.
None of the girls are old enough to be obligated to fast (since Church law only requires it of those who are 18 and not yet 60); and though I encourage various voluntary acts of sacrifice I wouldn't want any of them to attempt a full fast on Ash Wednesday as of yet (they're still growing, and I wouldn't want anybody to faint at Mass). So while I realize that Thad is right in that I tend to get all focused and worried about the fasting, I also know that somebody's got to think about the logistics of providing three regular meals to the girls (and possibly a snack when we get home from church, since dinner will be so very early) while also having available foods for the "two smaller meals" and the "one main meal" for Thad and me to eat when necessary. And our situation is nowhere near as complicated as the mom of many, whose older teens must fast and whose younger children must abstain but not fast and whose two-year-old is on a hunger strike and refuses to eat anything but Vienna sausages with ketchup.
The funny thing is, my worries and concerns about Ash Wednesday's fasting obligation have nothing to do with food deprivation. I frequently postpone or skip meals; I used to miss breakfast daily; and though I'm now good about remembering to eat breakfast, the price I pay for that is not being hungry enough/forgetting to eat lunch. I'm not one of those people who finds going without food for long periods of time to be difficult in and of itself.
So why do I get all worried about Ash Wednesday?
I worry that I'll forget, and eat something between meals. I worry that I'll be dishing up dinner for the girls and taste something absentmindedly. I worry that I won't remember to eat before church and will then get distracted when hunger finally hits. Because I pay so little attention to what I eat and when I eat it ordinarily, I worry when there are rules!
Sometimes I think that Martha, in the Bible, was a lot like me. Going along in "ordinary time," cooking food for herself, her sister Mary, her brother Lazarus--no big deal. Sure, she might have wished that Mary would take a few more turns in the kitchen, but then again, Mary was liable to put things away in the wrong place and use the wrong pans for things--so on the whole, Martha didn't mind being chief cook and bottle washer.
But then Jesus stopped in. With twelve disciples. And they were staying for dinner. And there were rules, rules about hospitality and serving and good hostessing and a host of other things to think about. And Martha got panicked, and frantic, and annoyed until all of that made her storm out of the kitchen and ask Jesus to tell her sister to come and help her.
And we know the rest of the story, how He told her that she was worried about many things, when only one thing was necessary; how He told her to stop worrying, and that her sister Mary, in focusing on Him, had chosen the better part.
Lord, I don't mean to get all caught up in rules and worrying and planning in regard to the Ash Wednesday fast. But as You Yourself put it, the flesh is weak.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Communion and Politics
This petition has been making the rounds in the Catholic blogosphere; it's by PewSitter.Com, and has been analyzed by canon lawyer Ed Peters here. Essentially, the petition calls upon the Catholic bishops to discipline publicly, under Canon 915, those prominent Catholics whose public dissent on matters like abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, ESCR, same-sex marriage, etc. is causing scandal to the faithful.
Mark Shea's brief blog post on this petition is titled "Torture would be a good thing to add to the list."
Now, I've expressed before how glad I am that Mark Shea has written so clearly and so often on the issue of torture. In no way do I mean the following to imply any dissent from the Church's teaching that torture is a grave moral evil.
But as regards this petition, I disagree.
First of all, if you, or I, or anyone else were asked quickly to list six prominent national Catholic political figures who supported torture, could we? Maybe I'm just singularly ill-informed (always a possibility) but I can't think of any specific Catholic national political figure who is known for his or her action, agitation, speeches and votes in favor of legalized torture on demand, so to speak.
As far as the issues listed go, I can certainly list a half-dozen or more Catholic legislators or political figures who are defiantly pro-abortion (even if they phrase it as "personally opposed, but..."), including our current Vice President. Most of these are also in favor of ESCR, at the very least, among the issues specifically mentioned in the petition. I can't say for certain which of them are specifically in favor of euthanasia, human cloning, or even same-sex marriage (which Democrats are as likely to be coy about as Republicans, knowing how unpopular this issue is with voters), but when it comes to the basic life issues it's easy to name those prominent Catholics who are pro-abortion in their political work, votes, speeches, and other actions.
Moreover, and this is where I see the crux of the matter, these people are directly and specifically claiming that they can be active, practicing Catholics in good conscience while simultaneously voting for, working for, raising funds for etc. abortion; that they can be regular communicants who happen to think abortion should be legal, and so on. If someone has already created the "You can't be Catholic and pro-Torture" bumper sticker, I apologize for thinking it's not yet available; but what is certain is that the awareness of the torture issue still lags, with some if not many Catholics completely unaware of the specifics of our government's involvement with and support of torture tactics, of which among our politicians are enthusiasts for torture, and of just what the Church teaches on the matter.
No one can claim, though, to be unaware of what the Church teaches about abortion. Even non-Catholics are scandalized when they see wealthy, prominent, politically connected Catholics applauded and praised in their own parishes, even during Mass, despite their approval of and support for the vicious, vile murder of unborn children in the womb. It is possible to suppose that a Catholic legislator who voted in favor of "enhanced interrogation" techniques could be unaware both that these techniques involve torturing suspects and that the Church considers torture a grave moral evil; I can state with certainty that I was never taught that torture was intrinsically evil in all my years of attending Catholic schools. But even my admittedly deficient Catholic education didn't hide the truth about abortion--we knew it was evil, and even though some of our teachers tried to play the game of "Well, sure, abortion's evil, but not as evil as President Reagan's arms race and his evil support of the Contras in Nicaragua" most of us weren't really buying it. Abortion was murder, and murder was terribly wrong.
The petition writers probably don't mean to suggest that they support torture by leaving it off the list; this is one of those times when the proverb about silence meaning consent doesn't apply. But adding torture to the list in a sincere but misguided attempt to be more "bipartisan" about grave evil misses the boat, in my opinion; it's not the fault of the petition writers if there happen to be a lot more prominent Catholic pro-abortion Democrats than prominent Catholic pro-abortion Republicans. I definitely think that this petition, and Canon 915's penalties, ought to apply equally to all pro-abortion Catholic political figures, regardless of party affiliation, but there's no really just way to enact "diversity" here by making sure there are just as many Republicans as Democrats on the list.
Since the average "pew sitter" Catholic is probably a lot less aware of the torture issue than those of us who spend lots of time in the Catholic blogosphere, it's hard to argue that "prominent Catholic torture dissenters" are causing scandal and leading vast numbers of Catholics astray on the issue of torture (let alone causing scandal outside the Church). It is, unfortunately, all too easy to make the case that prominent Catholic abortion dissenters have done too much over the last forty years to shape the abortion debate within the Catholic American community, to the extent of causing some to think that "dissent" on abortion is perfectly consistent with the behavior of a devout, weekly communicant.
But the influence prominent Catholic dissenters have on the abortion issue arguably pales in comparison to the influence prominent Catholic dissenters have had on another issue, which, like torture, didn't make the list. That issue is contraception, for which prominent Catholics on both sides of the political spectrum vote, fund, support, and work for. Unfortunately asking Catholics in America to sign a petition asking bishops to deny communion to prominent contraception apologists would probably be met with a deafening silence.
Mark Shea's brief blog post on this petition is titled "Torture would be a good thing to add to the list."
Now, I've expressed before how glad I am that Mark Shea has written so clearly and so often on the issue of torture. In no way do I mean the following to imply any dissent from the Church's teaching that torture is a grave moral evil.
But as regards this petition, I disagree.
First of all, if you, or I, or anyone else were asked quickly to list six prominent national Catholic political figures who supported torture, could we? Maybe I'm just singularly ill-informed (always a possibility) but I can't think of any specific Catholic national political figure who is known for his or her action, agitation, speeches and votes in favor of legalized torture on demand, so to speak.
As far as the issues listed go, I can certainly list a half-dozen or more Catholic legislators or political figures who are defiantly pro-abortion (even if they phrase it as "personally opposed, but..."), including our current Vice President. Most of these are also in favor of ESCR, at the very least, among the issues specifically mentioned in the petition. I can't say for certain which of them are specifically in favor of euthanasia, human cloning, or even same-sex marriage (which Democrats are as likely to be coy about as Republicans, knowing how unpopular this issue is with voters), but when it comes to the basic life issues it's easy to name those prominent Catholics who are pro-abortion in their political work, votes, speeches, and other actions.
Moreover, and this is where I see the crux of the matter, these people are directly and specifically claiming that they can be active, practicing Catholics in good conscience while simultaneously voting for, working for, raising funds for etc. abortion; that they can be regular communicants who happen to think abortion should be legal, and so on. If someone has already created the "You can't be Catholic and pro-Torture" bumper sticker, I apologize for thinking it's not yet available; but what is certain is that the awareness of the torture issue still lags, with some if not many Catholics completely unaware of the specifics of our government's involvement with and support of torture tactics, of which among our politicians are enthusiasts for torture, and of just what the Church teaches on the matter.
No one can claim, though, to be unaware of what the Church teaches about abortion. Even non-Catholics are scandalized when they see wealthy, prominent, politically connected Catholics applauded and praised in their own parishes, even during Mass, despite their approval of and support for the vicious, vile murder of unborn children in the womb. It is possible to suppose that a Catholic legislator who voted in favor of "enhanced interrogation" techniques could be unaware both that these techniques involve torturing suspects and that the Church considers torture a grave moral evil; I can state with certainty that I was never taught that torture was intrinsically evil in all my years of attending Catholic schools. But even my admittedly deficient Catholic education didn't hide the truth about abortion--we knew it was evil, and even though some of our teachers tried to play the game of "Well, sure, abortion's evil, but not as evil as President Reagan's arms race and his evil support of the Contras in Nicaragua" most of us weren't really buying it. Abortion was murder, and murder was terribly wrong.
The petition writers probably don't mean to suggest that they support torture by leaving it off the list; this is one of those times when the proverb about silence meaning consent doesn't apply. But adding torture to the list in a sincere but misguided attempt to be more "bipartisan" about grave evil misses the boat, in my opinion; it's not the fault of the petition writers if there happen to be a lot more prominent Catholic pro-abortion Democrats than prominent Catholic pro-abortion Republicans. I definitely think that this petition, and Canon 915's penalties, ought to apply equally to all pro-abortion Catholic political figures, regardless of party affiliation, but there's no really just way to enact "diversity" here by making sure there are just as many Republicans as Democrats on the list.
Since the average "pew sitter" Catholic is probably a lot less aware of the torture issue than those of us who spend lots of time in the Catholic blogosphere, it's hard to argue that "prominent Catholic torture dissenters" are causing scandal and leading vast numbers of Catholics astray on the issue of torture (let alone causing scandal outside the Church). It is, unfortunately, all too easy to make the case that prominent Catholic abortion dissenters have done too much over the last forty years to shape the abortion debate within the Catholic American community, to the extent of causing some to think that "dissent" on abortion is perfectly consistent with the behavior of a devout, weekly communicant.
But the influence prominent Catholic dissenters have on the abortion issue arguably pales in comparison to the influence prominent Catholic dissenters have had on another issue, which, like torture, didn't make the list. That issue is contraception, for which prominent Catholics on both sides of the political spectrum vote, fund, support, and work for. Unfortunately asking Catholics in America to sign a petition asking bishops to deny communion to prominent contraception apologists would probably be met with a deafening silence.
Blogging and Lent
It happens every year about this time: Catholic blogger after Catholic blogger announces that he or she will be taking a "blogging break" during Lent.
Some are big names, voices which I'll miss during their forty-days' self-imposed silence. Others are smaller or less well-known, friendly mommy bloggers who make the announcement of their decision to drop out with confidence, hesitation, or anything in between. Still others make some small changes to their blogging habits, blogging only certain days a week or on certain topics, restricting comments or temporarily disabling their stat-tracking so they can't worry about the number of visits or comments they get, or otherwise tackling aspects of blogging they think are becoming too great a temptation to some kind of sinful habits, like gossip or the desire for attention.
All of that is fine, so far as it goes. I can't imagine ever telling anyone that his or her personal sacrifice wasn't a good idea (unless that person is one of my daughters with the annual question, "Can I give up math for Lent? It would help me control my temper..." to which the answer is always some variation on the phrase "Nice try."). But adults, presumably, know their own temptations and struggles best, and if reading blogs, writing blogs, reading or participating in comment boxes, etc. have become either a temptation or perhaps an unwise use of one's time, that's for the person making the sacrificial decision to decide.
What concerns me about the "I'm giving up blogging for Lent" announcement is the copycat behavior it sometimes inspires.
In my earlier Lenten post I wrote about the struggle that would go on at my college when some girls would give up makeup for Lent. Pretty soon, some of the simplest, kindest souls would be agonizing over the question: shouldn't I give up makeup, too? Isn't it just vanity to wear makeup? If I don't give it up, doesn't that just prove that I'm too vain, too worldly, too focused on appearance? Doesn't it just prove that I'm not holy?
My forty-year-old self can say to these young girls that as we get older sometimes the wearing of a little makeup (at least in public) is an act of charity--but I digress. In all seriousness, though, one person's temptation is another person's indifference; the sort of girl who thought makeup was a bother but at least covered up a vexing blotchy complexion problem probably isn't motivated by overweening vanity to wear it in the first place, and shouldn't be troubled if her own conscience leads her to give up afternoon coffee, instead.
And just as the motivations for giving up makeup vs. continuing to wear it vary, so do the motivations for giving up blogging vs. continuing to blog vary. What can be troubling, though, to some souls is the way the "I'm giving up blogging" announcement is sometimes made.
Suppose a fictional blogger says the following: "I'm giving up blogging/reading blogs/commenting for Lent. I've become too focused on blogging and not focused enough on God. I'm prideful about checking my stats. I want the attention of lots of comments, and get disappointed when I don't get many. I waste too much time blogging instead of living my vocation as a wife and mother. I get hurt too easily by negative feedback and think I need to spend more time nurturing the real relationships in my life instead of the virtual ones."
That might be very honest for our fictional blogger--but sometimes others who read this kind of statement become as bewildered as the girls in my college used to be when a popular girl would announce her decision to give up makeup in order to be less vain, less tempted to shallowness, and less focused on appearance. This is because some people read this, not as a personal list of what blogging is in their life (which it is, and which I'm sure it's absolutely meant to be) and instead as a definitive list of the factual deleterious effects blogging may have on the Christian soul.
In other words, the confused Catholic blogger may read these kinds of posts from people he/she admires, and start to think that the following things are universally true:
Spending too much time reading novels can distract us from God. Surrounding ourselves with people who admire us can foster pride. Being the first person to sign up for every parish ministry opportunity can feed a disordered desire for attention. Spending hours on the phone each day can get in the way of our attentive living of our proper vocations. Any kind of human contact can create situations which involve hurt feelings. And almost any sort of hobby can have the sense of being removed from the real world (e.g., what good is stamp collecting, etc.?) but that doesn't make them worthless.
Those people who decide to give up blogging for Lent are doing so because they see some spiritual value in doing so--but that doesn't mean that giving up blogging for Lent has some kind of across the board, special value for everyone. For myself, the situation is a bit different, at least right now; I find myself on the brink of answering a call from God to use the writing talents it has pleased Him to give me in a way I've never been able to do before, but before I reach the point where I'll really be able to consider myself anything more than a clumsy novice in this particular art, I've got to get more practice in. And that means writing, not just for myself, not just in a private journal locked away from the world, but out in plain sight, where my deficiencies can be noticed and corrected and my strengths sharpened and tuned, so to speak. It means writing on a daily basis, on whatever topics are at hand. It means writing whether I feel like it or not, whether I'm satisfied before I hit that "publish" button or not.
The limits I've set on myself so far have only involved weekends, when blogging is more difficult for me. So during Lent I'm going to try to write at least one post over the course of the weekend, too, even if it's very short and not even remotely news-driven. My keeping my weekends "writing-free" isn't something that a "real" writer gets to do, after all; most of them have deadlines and contracts and other forces pushing them to do at least some writing on Saturday or Sunday as well as during the week.
Now, I'm not suggesting that others ought to take up more blogging during Lent, because I know that what is a sacrifice for some isn't for others, and that only we ourselves can ponder what God wants of us, and listen to His voice as we try to discern His will. Whether we decide to blog more, blog less, quit blogging for Lent entirely, or some other action is up to us. So long as we're focused on our own spiritual challenges, and avoid the temptation to think that we should do what everybody else is doing, we'll make the right decisions about our Lenten sacrifices.
Update: Thanks to Patrick Archbold, I realized that I forgot to link to the earlier post which explains the reference to girls giving up makeup for Lent; I've added that now. Gentlemen readers may still want to skip over that part, as you have no idea how insanely competitive Catholic college girls can get over their Lenten sacrifices (all with the goal of winning the Most Holiest M.R.S.-degree Candidate Ever award, which presumably comes with a cute Catholic marriage-minded guy so swept off his feet by all the holiness that he can't wait until second-semseter senior year to pop the question.)
Some are big names, voices which I'll miss during their forty-days' self-imposed silence. Others are smaller or less well-known, friendly mommy bloggers who make the announcement of their decision to drop out with confidence, hesitation, or anything in between. Still others make some small changes to their blogging habits, blogging only certain days a week or on certain topics, restricting comments or temporarily disabling their stat-tracking so they can't worry about the number of visits or comments they get, or otherwise tackling aspects of blogging they think are becoming too great a temptation to some kind of sinful habits, like gossip or the desire for attention.
All of that is fine, so far as it goes. I can't imagine ever telling anyone that his or her personal sacrifice wasn't a good idea (unless that person is one of my daughters with the annual question, "Can I give up math for Lent? It would help me control my temper..." to which the answer is always some variation on the phrase "Nice try."). But adults, presumably, know their own temptations and struggles best, and if reading blogs, writing blogs, reading or participating in comment boxes, etc. have become either a temptation or perhaps an unwise use of one's time, that's for the person making the sacrificial decision to decide.
What concerns me about the "I'm giving up blogging for Lent" announcement is the copycat behavior it sometimes inspires.
In my earlier Lenten post I wrote about the struggle that would go on at my college when some girls would give up makeup for Lent. Pretty soon, some of the simplest, kindest souls would be agonizing over the question: shouldn't I give up makeup, too? Isn't it just vanity to wear makeup? If I don't give it up, doesn't that just prove that I'm too vain, too worldly, too focused on appearance? Doesn't it just prove that I'm not holy?
My forty-year-old self can say to these young girls that as we get older sometimes the wearing of a little makeup (at least in public) is an act of charity--but I digress. In all seriousness, though, one person's temptation is another person's indifference; the sort of girl who thought makeup was a bother but at least covered up a vexing blotchy complexion problem probably isn't motivated by overweening vanity to wear it in the first place, and shouldn't be troubled if her own conscience leads her to give up afternoon coffee, instead.
And just as the motivations for giving up makeup vs. continuing to wear it vary, so do the motivations for giving up blogging vs. continuing to blog vary. What can be troubling, though, to some souls is the way the "I'm giving up blogging" announcement is sometimes made.
Suppose a fictional blogger says the following: "I'm giving up blogging/reading blogs/commenting for Lent. I've become too focused on blogging and not focused enough on God. I'm prideful about checking my stats. I want the attention of lots of comments, and get disappointed when I don't get many. I waste too much time blogging instead of living my vocation as a wife and mother. I get hurt too easily by negative feedback and think I need to spend more time nurturing the real relationships in my life instead of the virtual ones."
That might be very honest for our fictional blogger--but sometimes others who read this kind of statement become as bewildered as the girls in my college used to be when a popular girl would announce her decision to give up makeup in order to be less vain, less tempted to shallowness, and less focused on appearance. This is because some people read this, not as a personal list of what blogging is in their life (which it is, and which I'm sure it's absolutely meant to be) and instead as a definitive list of the factual deleterious effects blogging may have on the Christian soul.
In other words, the confused Catholic blogger may read these kinds of posts from people he/she admires, and start to think that the following things are universally true:
- blogging distracts us from God
- blogging fosters pride
- blogging feeds a disordered desire for attention
- blogging gets in the way of our attentive living of our proper vocations
- blogging creates situations for hurt feelings
- blogging is too removed from the "real" world to have any value
Spending too much time reading novels can distract us from God. Surrounding ourselves with people who admire us can foster pride. Being the first person to sign up for every parish ministry opportunity can feed a disordered desire for attention. Spending hours on the phone each day can get in the way of our attentive living of our proper vocations. Any kind of human contact can create situations which involve hurt feelings. And almost any sort of hobby can have the sense of being removed from the real world (e.g., what good is stamp collecting, etc.?) but that doesn't make them worthless.
Those people who decide to give up blogging for Lent are doing so because they see some spiritual value in doing so--but that doesn't mean that giving up blogging for Lent has some kind of across the board, special value for everyone. For myself, the situation is a bit different, at least right now; I find myself on the brink of answering a call from God to use the writing talents it has pleased Him to give me in a way I've never been able to do before, but before I reach the point where I'll really be able to consider myself anything more than a clumsy novice in this particular art, I've got to get more practice in. And that means writing, not just for myself, not just in a private journal locked away from the world, but out in plain sight, where my deficiencies can be noticed and corrected and my strengths sharpened and tuned, so to speak. It means writing on a daily basis, on whatever topics are at hand. It means writing whether I feel like it or not, whether I'm satisfied before I hit that "publish" button or not.
The limits I've set on myself so far have only involved weekends, when blogging is more difficult for me. So during Lent I'm going to try to write at least one post over the course of the weekend, too, even if it's very short and not even remotely news-driven. My keeping my weekends "writing-free" isn't something that a "real" writer gets to do, after all; most of them have deadlines and contracts and other forces pushing them to do at least some writing on Saturday or Sunday as well as during the week.
Now, I'm not suggesting that others ought to take up more blogging during Lent, because I know that what is a sacrifice for some isn't for others, and that only we ourselves can ponder what God wants of us, and listen to His voice as we try to discern His will. Whether we decide to blog more, blog less, quit blogging for Lent entirely, or some other action is up to us. So long as we're focused on our own spiritual challenges, and avoid the temptation to think that we should do what everybody else is doing, we'll make the right decisions about our Lenten sacrifices.
Update: Thanks to Patrick Archbold, I realized that I forgot to link to the earlier post which explains the reference to girls giving up makeup for Lent; I've added that now. Gentlemen readers may still want to skip over that part, as you have no idea how insanely competitive Catholic college girls can get over their Lenten sacrifices (all with the goal of winning the Most Holiest M.R.S.-degree Candidate Ever award, which presumably comes with a cute Catholic marriage-minded guy so swept off his feet by all the holiness that he can't wait until second-semseter senior year to pop the question.)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Ubi Caritas?
Although no new revelations have followed the Legion of Christ's dissemination of the information that Fr. Maciel had engaged in a sinful relationship and had fathered at least one child, many Catholic writers and bloggers have continued to discuss the matter. Thomas Peters of American Papist has done the most thorough job, but there have been many thoughtful and thought-provoking articles and essays written thus far, and interest in the situation as it concerns the future of the Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi movement continues.
I am one of those who believes that a true healing, a true moving forward for the Legion, simply cannot happen until enough information is known, whether this information is revealed through a Vatican investigation or from the Legion itself. Right now there is a lot of ambiguity about some rather important matters; this is not some quest for vulgar details, which are unedifying and which no one needs to know. However, the important, still unknown aspects of Fr. Maciel's behavior include the following:
And since we are speaking of virtue, it is, perhaps, worth discussing another one.
If you ask five people associated with the Legion (either LC or RC) what the Legion's charism is, I think you will get 4.5 different answers. I have noticed with puzzlement how difficult it seems to be for the members and associates of the Legion to say simply or clearly just what the order's charism is, especially since the imitation of Fr. Maciel is suddenly off the table as a legitimate charism.
But the one thing that seems to be said most often is something like this: the Legion's charism is to bring charity to the Church and the world, to focus on Christ's great commandment of Love, and to spread that love within the Church and in the world. I've even seen it stated this way: charity is the charism.
Strictly speaking, a theological virtue proper to all Christians can't really be said to be one religious order's charism. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity also bring charity to the world--but their charism, unless I'm greatly mistaken, is to do so by meeting the physical and spiritual needs of the world's poorest people, living among them, sharing their poverty, treating them in their illnesses, suffering with them, and so on.
So, it would be proper to ask the Legion just how they are to bring charity to the world; the Holy Spirit, one might say, is in the details of the charism, not the vague generalities about it.
Further, if we look at Christ's great commandment (summarized briefly as the duty to love God with our whole hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves), it is difficult to see how the Legion actively lives this outside the Legion. That is, while the Legion points to such works and ministries as their various Legion-affiliated apostolates and programs and groups and clubs and so forth, the answer to the question "How do you spread the Gospel of Charity to the world?" seems to be "By getting as much of the world as possible into the Legion, through the Legion, Regnum Christi, or some other aspect of the Movement." There is no other religious order I can think of that works this way; Franciscans don't think you have to be Franciscan to be able to experience Christ's love, nor do Dominicans think you have to be Dominican, etc. For the Legion, however, the focus seems to be on getting people to join the Legion in some fashion or other; if you are not interested in being involved in Regnum Christi, in letting your sons enter a Legion seminary or your daughters become consecrated women, or in getting involved with Legion-run apostolates or ministries, then you are an outsider, before whom a constant positive impression of the Legion must at all times be maintained. That is, no criticism of the Legion can be allowed to be discussed with you, and if you, the outsider, has any negative impressions of the Legion, this is just proof that you are an enemy of the Legion, unworthy to join in the Movement, etc.
In fact, the duty of charity seems to disappear when those in the Legion are confronted with negative opinions of those outside; I have spent too much time reading comment boxes lately, but I can say that I've been surprised, unpleasantly so, to see people representing themselves not only as LC/RC but even as LC priests, who have compared critics to a mob, to enemies of Christ, to the Gerasene demoniac, etc. It is one thing to hear of this mentality within the Legion; it is another to encounter it, and to realize with pity and sorrow that many within the Legion really do still think that they are the victims here, that this "persecution" they are suffering is only proof of how pleased God is with the work of Fr. Maciel, and that they must therefore persevere, refuse to think ill of any aspect of the Legion regardless of how tainted it might have been by Fr. Maciel's sins (which may have been the result of a brain injury, or might have been the evil seduction of a woman in the power of the devil trying to destroy the Legion, etc.), and reject firmly any suggestion that they might need to reexamine their constitutions which in their mind have been given some sort of super-approval by the Holy See. I wish to state, here, in the strongest possible way that this is not the only attitude I've encountered, and that I'm truly heartened by those others in the Legion who have expressed honestly their disgust at Fr. Maciel's sins, their great sorrow for the victims, and their willingness to participate in a process of investigation and reformation whatever that might involve. Nevertheless, it is equally disheartening to realize how many are not saying these things, but are instead exhorting each other to persevere in the Movement and hold fast to the charism, without any willingness to examine how much of the Movement was designed to facilitate the double life of a man who may have been a predator, or whether the charism is even valid.
To return to that, though, one can then ask whether a charism of charity is valid if it is only practiced internally, within the order and its affiliates, so to speak. But then one must further ask if even that is true: is what is practiced within the Legion actually charity?
It may seem that a culture which restricts criticism, compels a positive attitude, and instructs its members always to appear satisfied with the vocation God has given them to the Legion (which seems always to be presented as a great gift in and of itself; that is, it is not the vocation to the priesthood or the consecrated life per se which is celebrated, but the vocation to the Legion) is really only doing so to foster an atmosphere of good will and pleasantness, to avoid the backbiting or jealousy or complaining attitude which are not helpful in religious life. However, on closer examination one has to wonder; is it true charity which stifles every negative thought and insists on the appearance of happiness and goodwill? Is it charity, which presents the vocation to the Legion as so high and noble a calling that those who fail must be considered unworthy? Is it charity that makes some RC members ostracize former members who have decided to become, in Legion terminology, "inactive," on the grounds that such are akin to those who put their hands to the plow, but then turned back? Was it charity that is responsible for reports from within the Legion that some priests instructed seminarians to think very poorly of their own human fathers (because all men who marry are simply too "weak" for the call to the priesthood and to chastity) and instead to take Fr. Maciel as their "fatherly" role model?
A strange sort of charity, that forbids criticism of those inside the Movement, and all but commands criticism of those outside of it. If the Legion's charism really is "charity," then where is this charity? How does it resemble the love of Christ, who poured Himself out upon the Cross for the salvation of all men? How does it resemble His washing of His disciples' feet, His curing of the sick, His preaching and teaching--showing us examples of humble service, care for others, and the perfection of all charitable works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual?
It has been repeated often, in regard to the Legion, that by their fruits we shall know them. What are these fruits? Where are they? I have heard the statistics: 700 priests, about 1300 seminarians. But the priests' main duty is to minister to their own Legion and Regnum Christi members, and the priests have, according to many reports, an unusually high attrition rate--that is, Legion priests leave either the Legion or the priesthood itself at a higher rate than normal. To compare, with Mother Teresa's order the fruits in terms of care for the poor and forgotten are visible and well-known, as is the case with many other religious orders; but the "fruits" of the Legion are nearly as hard to pin down as the elusive "charism."
I think that there will be much further clarity on these and other questions as time goes by, but if I could wish for one thing, it would be for those inside the Legion to realize that those of us outside with serious questions about it are not being motivated by "lack of charity," as they like to frame debates like these. This is not an "us against them" moment. The sins of Fr. Maciel do carry with them some serious questions about the future of the Legion, and it is not at all uncharitable to believe that true healing, true consideration of the will of God in all of this, can't even begin to happen until more is known about the degree to which Fr. Maciel entangled the Legion with his own perversions. By casting themselves as "victims" and these recent events as a new "persecution" which the LC/RC members must heroically and in martyr-like fashion endure and through which they must persevere is to ignore the real victims, first of all, and to close their eyes to the frightening possibility that the Legion's charism might not be a valid one, after all. It would be better, and more heroic, to face this terrible possibility with courage and the determination to do whatever has to be done to salvage what can be salvaged, than to blame all of the negativity on "the media" or "bloggers" or other "outsiders," and to keep clinging to the idea that Fr. Maciel's sins (and aren't we all sinners?) couldn't possibly have anything to do with the Legion he founded and headed, even during the years when his child was growing up without her father.
I am one of those who believes that a true healing, a true moving forward for the Legion, simply cannot happen until enough information is known, whether this information is revealed through a Vatican investigation or from the Legion itself. Right now there is a lot of ambiguity about some rather important matters; this is not some quest for vulgar details, which are unedifying and which no one needs to know. However, the important, still unknown aspects of Fr. Maciel's behavior include the following:
- Was there more than one woman with whom Fr. Maciel was (or was credibly believed) to be involved?
- Is there more than child whose father is Fr. Maciel?
- Was the mother of the child we so far know about an adult or a minor when she became pregnant with Fr. Maciel's child?
- What, if any, impact do these revelations have on the previous accusations involving Fr. Maciel and the abuse of young men/seminarians?
- To what extent was financial fraud (the misuse of Legion funds to supply Fr. Maciel with money to pay his mistress or provide for his child) committed? How many upper-level Legionary priests were aware at least of the financial irregularities, even if they were truly unaware of the use to which Fr. Maciel was putting this money?
- How many (if any) high-ranking Legion priests knew that Fr. Maciel was living a double life? Are any of them still in high positions of authority in the Legion?
And since we are speaking of virtue, it is, perhaps, worth discussing another one.
If you ask five people associated with the Legion (either LC or RC) what the Legion's charism is, I think you will get 4.5 different answers. I have noticed with puzzlement how difficult it seems to be for the members and associates of the Legion to say simply or clearly just what the order's charism is, especially since the imitation of Fr. Maciel is suddenly off the table as a legitimate charism.
But the one thing that seems to be said most often is something like this: the Legion's charism is to bring charity to the Church and the world, to focus on Christ's great commandment of Love, and to spread that love within the Church and in the world. I've even seen it stated this way: charity is the charism.
Strictly speaking, a theological virtue proper to all Christians can't really be said to be one religious order's charism. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity also bring charity to the world--but their charism, unless I'm greatly mistaken, is to do so by meeting the physical and spiritual needs of the world's poorest people, living among them, sharing their poverty, treating them in their illnesses, suffering with them, and so on.
So, it would be proper to ask the Legion just how they are to bring charity to the world; the Holy Spirit, one might say, is in the details of the charism, not the vague generalities about it.
Further, if we look at Christ's great commandment (summarized briefly as the duty to love God with our whole hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves), it is difficult to see how the Legion actively lives this outside the Legion. That is, while the Legion points to such works and ministries as their various Legion-affiliated apostolates and programs and groups and clubs and so forth, the answer to the question "How do you spread the Gospel of Charity to the world?" seems to be "By getting as much of the world as possible into the Legion, through the Legion, Regnum Christi, or some other aspect of the Movement." There is no other religious order I can think of that works this way; Franciscans don't think you have to be Franciscan to be able to experience Christ's love, nor do Dominicans think you have to be Dominican, etc. For the Legion, however, the focus seems to be on getting people to join the Legion in some fashion or other; if you are not interested in being involved in Regnum Christi, in letting your sons enter a Legion seminary or your daughters become consecrated women, or in getting involved with Legion-run apostolates or ministries, then you are an outsider, before whom a constant positive impression of the Legion must at all times be maintained. That is, no criticism of the Legion can be allowed to be discussed with you, and if you, the outsider, has any negative impressions of the Legion, this is just proof that you are an enemy of the Legion, unworthy to join in the Movement, etc.
In fact, the duty of charity seems to disappear when those in the Legion are confronted with negative opinions of those outside; I have spent too much time reading comment boxes lately, but I can say that I've been surprised, unpleasantly so, to see people representing themselves not only as LC/RC but even as LC priests, who have compared critics to a mob, to enemies of Christ, to the Gerasene demoniac, etc. It is one thing to hear of this mentality within the Legion; it is another to encounter it, and to realize with pity and sorrow that many within the Legion really do still think that they are the victims here, that this "persecution" they are suffering is only proof of how pleased God is with the work of Fr. Maciel, and that they must therefore persevere, refuse to think ill of any aspect of the Legion regardless of how tainted it might have been by Fr. Maciel's sins (which may have been the result of a brain injury, or might have been the evil seduction of a woman in the power of the devil trying to destroy the Legion, etc.), and reject firmly any suggestion that they might need to reexamine their constitutions which in their mind have been given some sort of super-approval by the Holy See. I wish to state, here, in the strongest possible way that this is not the only attitude I've encountered, and that I'm truly heartened by those others in the Legion who have expressed honestly their disgust at Fr. Maciel's sins, their great sorrow for the victims, and their willingness to participate in a process of investigation and reformation whatever that might involve. Nevertheless, it is equally disheartening to realize how many are not saying these things, but are instead exhorting each other to persevere in the Movement and hold fast to the charism, without any willingness to examine how much of the Movement was designed to facilitate the double life of a man who may have been a predator, or whether the charism is even valid.
To return to that, though, one can then ask whether a charism of charity is valid if it is only practiced internally, within the order and its affiliates, so to speak. But then one must further ask if even that is true: is what is practiced within the Legion actually charity?
It may seem that a culture which restricts criticism, compels a positive attitude, and instructs its members always to appear satisfied with the vocation God has given them to the Legion (which seems always to be presented as a great gift in and of itself; that is, it is not the vocation to the priesthood or the consecrated life per se which is celebrated, but the vocation to the Legion) is really only doing so to foster an atmosphere of good will and pleasantness, to avoid the backbiting or jealousy or complaining attitude which are not helpful in religious life. However, on closer examination one has to wonder; is it true charity which stifles every negative thought and insists on the appearance of happiness and goodwill? Is it charity, which presents the vocation to the Legion as so high and noble a calling that those who fail must be considered unworthy? Is it charity that makes some RC members ostracize former members who have decided to become, in Legion terminology, "inactive," on the grounds that such are akin to those who put their hands to the plow, but then turned back? Was it charity that is responsible for reports from within the Legion that some priests instructed seminarians to think very poorly of their own human fathers (because all men who marry are simply too "weak" for the call to the priesthood and to chastity) and instead to take Fr. Maciel as their "fatherly" role model?
A strange sort of charity, that forbids criticism of those inside the Movement, and all but commands criticism of those outside of it. If the Legion's charism really is "charity," then where is this charity? How does it resemble the love of Christ, who poured Himself out upon the Cross for the salvation of all men? How does it resemble His washing of His disciples' feet, His curing of the sick, His preaching and teaching--showing us examples of humble service, care for others, and the perfection of all charitable works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual?
It has been repeated often, in regard to the Legion, that by their fruits we shall know them. What are these fruits? Where are they? I have heard the statistics: 700 priests, about 1300 seminarians. But the priests' main duty is to minister to their own Legion and Regnum Christi members, and the priests have, according to many reports, an unusually high attrition rate--that is, Legion priests leave either the Legion or the priesthood itself at a higher rate than normal. To compare, with Mother Teresa's order the fruits in terms of care for the poor and forgotten are visible and well-known, as is the case with many other religious orders; but the "fruits" of the Legion are nearly as hard to pin down as the elusive "charism."
I think that there will be much further clarity on these and other questions as time goes by, but if I could wish for one thing, it would be for those inside the Legion to realize that those of us outside with serious questions about it are not being motivated by "lack of charity," as they like to frame debates like these. This is not an "us against them" moment. The sins of Fr. Maciel do carry with them some serious questions about the future of the Legion, and it is not at all uncharitable to believe that true healing, true consideration of the will of God in all of this, can't even begin to happen until more is known about the degree to which Fr. Maciel entangled the Legion with his own perversions. By casting themselves as "victims" and these recent events as a new "persecution" which the LC/RC members must heroically and in martyr-like fashion endure and through which they must persevere is to ignore the real victims, first of all, and to close their eyes to the frightening possibility that the Legion's charism might not be a valid one, after all. It would be better, and more heroic, to face this terrible possibility with courage and the determination to do whatever has to be done to salvage what can be salvaged, than to blame all of the negativity on "the media" or "bloggers" or other "outsiders," and to keep clinging to the idea that Fr. Maciel's sins (and aren't we all sinners?) couldn't possibly have anything to do with the Legion he founded and headed, even during the years when his child was growing up without her father.
Friday, February 20, 2009
So Long, Farewell....
...oh, don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. :)
But tonight our choir is singing at a little parish event (spaghetti dinner and talent show; we've been promised the musical stylings of "Frank Sinatra" and "Johnny Cash" among others). Since our choir director's family has been nicknamed "the Von Trapp family" ever since they arrived at our church, she thought it would be fun for our contribution to include a medley from The Sound of Music.
Alas, the medley doesn't include "How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria?," which is one of my favorites. But we will be singing "So Long, Farewell," at the end, which is really cute with the children in the choir singing most of the parts.
But we're probably leaving in about an hour, I still have to braid Kitten's hair and help make sure everybody's ready, and I'm too pressed for time to blog.
See you Monday! Or sooner, maybe!
But tonight our choir is singing at a little parish event (spaghetti dinner and talent show; we've been promised the musical stylings of "Frank Sinatra" and "Johnny Cash" among others). Since our choir director's family has been nicknamed "the Von Trapp family" ever since they arrived at our church, she thought it would be fun for our contribution to include a medley from The Sound of Music.
Alas, the medley doesn't include "How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria?," which is one of my favorites. But we will be singing "So Long, Farewell," at the end, which is really cute with the children in the choir singing most of the parts.
But we're probably leaving in about an hour, I still have to braid Kitten's hair and help make sure everybody's ready, and I'm too pressed for time to blog.
See you Monday! Or sooner, maybe!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
ACORN and the Mortgage Crisis
Remember ACORN?
Turns out they plan to have a role in the ongoing mortgage crisis; Michelle Malkin has the story:
I realize that there are good people out there who got talked into borrowing too much or who paid too much for their homes in a bubble market, who are now stuck "underwater" paying a too-high mortgage for a home that's now only worth a fraction of the purchase price. I realize, too, that compassionate solutions including community-based aid ought to be considered in dealing with families who are faced with the awful prospect of losing their homes.
But as Malkin herself opines in the essay, home ownership is not a civil right. Buying a home means taking on a legal obligation to pay back any part of the purchase price you're unable to pay up front (which for most people is most of the price of the home, these days). Losing the ability to pay your mortgage is a tragedy, but it's not a situation that gives anyone the right to demand that the government pony up the cash to pay the difference.
Government funds don't materialize out of thin air. Responsible homeowners, taxpayers, small buisness owners etc. will be taxed at higher and higher rates to pay for those defaulting on their mortgages. If there were only a few such mortgages, and a relatively stable economy, it would be one thing to suggest government help for those in need--but demanding such help, even to the point of civil disobedience, in an already shaky economy has the potential to make things a whole lot worse, not better.
Demanding that people be allowed to remain in their homes essentially for free is a blatant cry for socialism; it deserves to be challenged as such. Capitulating to the demand that those whose homes are being foreclosed ought to be able to stay in those homes is a very bad idea.
Turns out they plan to have a role in the ongoing mortgage crisis; Michelle Malkin has the story:
Trumpets ACORN: “On Feb. 19, ACORN members will launch a new tactic in fighting foreclosures: civil disobedience. Participants in the ACORN Home Savers campaign nationwide will simply refuse to move out of foreclosed homes, or in some cases, will move back in. ACORN homesteaders intend to squat in their homes until a comprehensive, federal solution for people facing foreclosure is put in place.”Lovely.
ACORN’s foot soldiers, funded with your tax dollars, will scream, pound their fists, chain themselves to buildings, padlock the doors and engage in illegal behavior until they get what they want. It’s a recipe for anarchy. Threatens Baltimore ACORN’s Louis Beverly, who calls himself a “Foreclosure Fighter”:
“After you’ve used all your legal options, your last resort is civil disobedience. We’re talking about families who have been in their homes 20 or 30 years. People who are assets in the community, who look out for the elderly, who have community associations, and these are the people being kicked out of the community.” [...]
Instead, ACORN offices, funded with your tax dollars, are training teams of “Home Savers”—described as “people ready and willing to mobilize on short notice to defend the homesteaders against attempts to evict them.” Ready, willing and able to mobilize on short notice because they are either unemployed or employed full time as ACORN shakedown artists.
Guess who’s encouraging them to defy the law. Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, who told them: “Stay in your homes. If the American people, anybody out there is being foreclosed, don’t leave.” The housing bullies will be assisted by left-wing propaganda documentarians at the Brave New Foundation, headed up by Hollywood lib Robert Greenwald, who will disseminate sob stories to crank up pressure while Obama pushes his housing entitlement plan.
ACORN is targeting the following cities: Tucson, Ariz.; Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Contra Costa County, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Baltimore, Md.; New York, N.Y.; Houston, Texas; San Mateo County, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Wilmington, Del.; Broward County, Fla.; Boston, Mass.; Flint, Mich.; Detroit, Mich.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Raleigh, N.C.; Durham, N.C.; Albany, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Dallas, Texas.
I realize that there are good people out there who got talked into borrowing too much or who paid too much for their homes in a bubble market, who are now stuck "underwater" paying a too-high mortgage for a home that's now only worth a fraction of the purchase price. I realize, too, that compassionate solutions including community-based aid ought to be considered in dealing with families who are faced with the awful prospect of losing their homes.
But as Malkin herself opines in the essay, home ownership is not a civil right. Buying a home means taking on a legal obligation to pay back any part of the purchase price you're unable to pay up front (which for most people is most of the price of the home, these days). Losing the ability to pay your mortgage is a tragedy, but it's not a situation that gives anyone the right to demand that the government pony up the cash to pay the difference.
Government funds don't materialize out of thin air. Responsible homeowners, taxpayers, small buisness owners etc. will be taxed at higher and higher rates to pay for those defaulting on their mortgages. If there were only a few such mortgages, and a relatively stable economy, it would be one thing to suggest government help for those in need--but demanding such help, even to the point of civil disobedience, in an already shaky economy has the potential to make things a whole lot worse, not better.
Demanding that people be allowed to remain in their homes essentially for free is a blatant cry for socialism; it deserves to be challenged as such. Capitulating to the demand that those whose homes are being foreclosed ought to be able to stay in those homes is a very bad idea.
Colorblind
Actor Gary Graham has some interestingly conservative views. First there was this intriguing piece about abortion; now, there's this thought-provoking piece confronting Eric Holder's remarks about race in America:
I am appalled. I just found out that I am a racist and a coward and I did not know it.
Eric Holder said yesterday, “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”
How could I have been so self-deluded?
Wow. I know, huh? The things you find out about yourself if you just listen to newly appointed/elected government officials.
I always thought that I treated everyone fairly in my daily life with no preference or deference to anyone based solely on skin color. I always loved the words of Dr. Martin Luther King who said so eloquently, that he dreamed of a day when people “would be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”. But now…I find out that that philosophy is racist and cowardly. And it is proclaimed by the top law enforcement officer in the land, our new Attorney General, Eric Holder.
Apparently, I’m a racist coward because I want to be color blind. This great national offense of racism doesn’t want to die - even though we just elected our first black president. Just when you thought it was okay to climb out of the past, to put racial injustice and animosity behind us…the Attorney General in the national media yesterday drags it back out. [...]
I don’t believe in Black History Month any more than I believe in White History Month. To me, Black History Month is a complete insult to Blacks. We must prop up an entire race of people, give them special awards, honors, and recognitions, underscoring their accomplishments and achievements and contributions to society, based on their color… as if it’s so truly remarkable that they did it in the first place…and are African American to boot? Stop the presses! A black person accomplished something great! As if they couldn’t have done it on their own, without help. As if they are somehow inferior to whites. That they somehow overcame their blackness…and did all these wonderful things despite the obvious disadvantage, encumbrance, disability…of being a person of color.
Am I the only one in America…who finds this the least bit patronizing and insulting…and downright, well, racist? [...]
So…let me get this straight. If I’m a racist coward because I don’t want to talk about race all the time, don’t want to even think about it, just wish all racism would go away, and everybody just get along as if we we’re all just human beings…and truly do want to judge people not based on skin color, but on the content of their character… Does that mean Dr. Martin Luther King was also a racist? If he were here today, and repeated those words about ‘content of character’ …would Eric Holder call Dr. King a coward?
I hear Eric Holder’s words and I get a chill up my spine. It doesn’t sound like freedom from racism to me. It sounds like reverse racism. It smacks of concepts like “reparations”…”affirmative action” (code for racial preferences)…and “get-even-with-‘em”… So, Mr. Holder, what can I infer from your words…but a tacit warning?
This, Mr. Attorney General…this is what you want to stir up? You should be ecstatic for the ultimate affirmative action as reflected on November 4th. White guilt to a very large extent enabled a charming but inexperienced young socialist to assume the reins of the most powerful nation in the world. And still we are cowards because we don’t talk about race enough?
Dude - are you off your meds??
Pardon me a second. I'm still chortling over the masterful description of Obama as a "charming but inexperienced young socialist." It's just so--apt.
That aside, I think Graham has some excellent points. Race relations in America aren't helped by the constant drumbeat to focus on, recognize, and celebrate what makes us different, as we're constantly told to do via diversity training and so on. Rather, I think we move forward away from racism when we stop the microscopic analysis of all of our often-superficial differences, and focus, instead, on the common humanity that unites us, and draws us together both as members of the human family and as Americans.
It used to be that the goal of improving race relations was to reach the state of colorblindness. Eric Holder seems to think that that's nowhere near enough, and that most Americans are still closet racists who don't have the courage to move beyond the old racial barriers.
I'm not going to deny that actual racism still exists in America. But when Holder says that Americans are a "nation of cowards" unwilling to socialize or worship with people of different races, it's clear that he's seeing racism where none is present. As Graham's essay suggests, wouldn't it be awfully--racist--to seek out the company of others just because their skin color or racial origin is different from our own?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Pelosi's False Catholicism
Everyone has heard about how things went when Nancy Pelosi met with the Pope:
The Holy Father put the truth out there, right in front of Pelosi. The Church teaches that abortion is gravely morally evil, and that Catholic lawmakers have a duty to work against abortion; they can never work for it, as Nancy Pelosi does.
But Nancy focused on two other areas, instead of discussing her heterodoxy and dissent which puts her sharply at odds with the Church. She focused on what can be called "social justice" issues, such as poverty, hunger, and religious freedom, condescendingly praising the pope for his work in these areas. She then turned the focus to her "cultural Catholic creds," presenting a picture of herself as a child meeting another pope, and pictures of her "Catholic" family.
This is instructive because it's what so many of those who claim to be Catholic while still thinking abortion's just dandy do all the time. "I'm Catholic!" they insist. They claim that abortion's just one tiny little issue which doesn't compare to the "really good" work of the Church in matters like poverty and hunger (and, according to Pelosi, global warming). They claim that their family heritage in the Church gives them the right to keep considering themselves Catholic even though they have betrayed Christ in His tiniest little ones, and have acted like Judas in agitating for the murder of the innocent. They insist that abortion is one of those issues on which "good people" can disagree, ignoring the fact that the Church couldn't speak any more clearly than she already does on just how evil abortion is--and no "good people" are apologists for evil.
Those Catholics who call themselves "pro-choice" ignore all of that. They pat themselves on the back for donating to food shelters, building Habitat for Humanity homes, and voting for Democrats to help the poor and the hungry, but they ignore the poor children destroyed in the womb, or their mothers who hunger for truth and love but seek the empty hatred of abortion as a remedy for their inconvenient pregnancies. They hold up their First Communion pictures and talk about their emotional ties to the Church, but deny the unborn victims of abortion the chance to be baptized into that faith or to learn about the great gift of salvation offered to us by God. They pretend that abortion is just a little, political issue that means nothing, and turn away from the reality of the nearly forty million dead, and the thousands upon thousands who die each day while they not only do nothing to help these innocent victims, but actually work to increase their numbers by liberalizing abortion laws even further, and opening up government funding to pay for the massacre of the unborn.
Nancy Pelosi is a type of that dissident, faithless "Catholic" who has no moral qualms about murder, so long as the victims are invisible, helpless, and much too young to vote. It is to be hoped that Pope Benedict XVI's direct and loving words calling her back to the truth will bear fruit in her soul, before she ends her life in the state of (objective) grave sin which her work in favor of abortion is placing her every day.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI met privately with U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, and told her that all Catholics, especially those who are lawmakers, must work to protect human life at every stage.But Pelosi chose to spin the meeting a different way:
Pelosi, a Catholic Democrat from California, has been criticized by many Catholics for her support for keeping abortion legal.
"His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death," the Vatican said in a statement about the Feb. 18 meeting.
Natural law and the church's own teaching require "all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development," the statement said.
In a statement released by her staff, Pelosi said, "In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the church's leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father's dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel." The papal trip is scheduled for the second week of May.I'm going to unpack that a little bit, because it's really interesting what Pelosi's trying to say; it's what most so-called "pro-choice Catholics" try to say whenever they get the opportunity.
Pelosi also said, "I was proud to show His Holiness a photograph" from a papal audience she had with her parents in the 1950s, "as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren." Pelosi's husband, Paul, accompanied her to the meeting with the pope.
The Holy Father put the truth out there, right in front of Pelosi. The Church teaches that abortion is gravely morally evil, and that Catholic lawmakers have a duty to work against abortion; they can never work for it, as Nancy Pelosi does.
But Nancy focused on two other areas, instead of discussing her heterodoxy and dissent which puts her sharply at odds with the Church. She focused on what can be called "social justice" issues, such as poverty, hunger, and religious freedom, condescendingly praising the pope for his work in these areas. She then turned the focus to her "cultural Catholic creds," presenting a picture of herself as a child meeting another pope, and pictures of her "Catholic" family.
This is instructive because it's what so many of those who claim to be Catholic while still thinking abortion's just dandy do all the time. "I'm Catholic!" they insist. They claim that abortion's just one tiny little issue which doesn't compare to the "really good" work of the Church in matters like poverty and hunger (and, according to Pelosi, global warming). They claim that their family heritage in the Church gives them the right to keep considering themselves Catholic even though they have betrayed Christ in His tiniest little ones, and have acted like Judas in agitating for the murder of the innocent. They insist that abortion is one of those issues on which "good people" can disagree, ignoring the fact that the Church couldn't speak any more clearly than she already does on just how evil abortion is--and no "good people" are apologists for evil.
Those Catholics who call themselves "pro-choice" ignore all of that. They pat themselves on the back for donating to food shelters, building Habitat for Humanity homes, and voting for Democrats to help the poor and the hungry, but they ignore the poor children destroyed in the womb, or their mothers who hunger for truth and love but seek the empty hatred of abortion as a remedy for their inconvenient pregnancies. They hold up their First Communion pictures and talk about their emotional ties to the Church, but deny the unborn victims of abortion the chance to be baptized into that faith or to learn about the great gift of salvation offered to us by God. They pretend that abortion is just a little, political issue that means nothing, and turn away from the reality of the nearly forty million dead, and the thousands upon thousands who die each day while they not only do nothing to help these innocent victims, but actually work to increase their numbers by liberalizing abortion laws even further, and opening up government funding to pay for the massacre of the unborn.
Nancy Pelosi is a type of that dissident, faithless "Catholic" who has no moral qualms about murder, so long as the victims are invisible, helpless, and much too young to vote. It is to be hoped that Pope Benedict XVI's direct and loving words calling her back to the truth will bear fruit in her soul, before she ends her life in the state of (objective) grave sin which her work in favor of abortion is placing her every day.
Mr. Monk's Worst Nightmare
Here's a report from a hotel housekeeper in which she spills some dirty little secrets:
My daily list of 15 rooms (out of 325 in the hotel) consisted of DOs (due out) and Os (occupied), which in housekeeping lingo meant the guests were scheduled to check out or were staying another night. An occupied room was less labor-intensive (making the beds rather than changing the sheets saved me 20 minutes), but there was always the possibility the guest would stay in the room while you worked. [...]
I cut corners everywhere I could. Instead of vacuuming, I found that just picking up the larger crumbs from the carpet would do. Rather than scrub the tub with hot water, sometimes it was just a spray-and-wipe kind of day.After several weeks on the job, I discovered that the staff leader who inspected the rooms couldn't tell the difference between a clean sink and one that was simply dry, so I would often just run a rag over the wet spots. But I never skipped changing the sheets. I wouldn't sink that low, no matter how lazy I was feeling.
It's to be hoped that Ms. Rupp's colleagues feel the same way about the sheet-changing thing.
There are a lot of things one could say about an article like this: that our nation's standards of cleanliness leave a lot to be desired, that people who trash hotel rooms shouldn't get to demand perfection, that it's not such a bad idea to take a can of Lysol along on vacation, etc. But the part of the article I'm pondering is this one, from the end:
And all I can think--along with dozens of other stay-at-home, laundry-and-dishes-and-bathroom-cleaning-and-vacuuming-and-tidying moms, I'm sure--is hey, sister, at least you got paid.I didn't know maids received tips, so it took me weeks to realize that the coins left in rooms were an intentional gift. My tips were paltry: I almost never received more than $1, and at times guests left religious pamphlets. One day, however, I was shocked to find a crisp $100 bill lying on a table. Although the generous tip put a little spring in my step and compelled me to do a better job that day, it didn't change my work ethic for long.
I apologize to you now if you ever stayed in one of my rooms. You deserved better. But if housekeepers were paid more than minimum wage -- and the tips were a bit better -- I might have cleaned your toilet rather than just flushed it.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Transparency
I was glad to see, earlier today, that Rod Dreher had picked up this excellent piece from First Things: On the Square, in which Fr. Raymond J. deSouza discusses his disappointment with the National Catholic Register for thus far failing to do much reporting on the Father Maciel situation. From Fr. deSouza's essay:
Some quiet changes have been made. though; the "Our Founder" page on the Legion of Christ website has been changed to read, simply:
The twelve years I have been associated with the National Catholic Register correspond exactly to the time since the public allegations against Fr. Maciel were published for the first time in February 1997 in the Hartford Courant. Over that time, the approach of the editors has been not to cover the story save when absolutely necessary, and then to give it minimal coverage at best.
That is not surprising. After all, Fr. Maciel was the ultimate proprietor until 2005. To be fair, as a general rule the National Catholic Register has not given wide attention to scandals in the Church, preferring to focus on areas of Catholic vitality. Even taking that into account, however, those who write and edit for the newspaper must confess now that our coverage of Fr. Maciel’s case has been inadequate. Even the decision to cover this breaking news with wire stories continued that practice.
The newspaper was used on occasion to defend Fr. Maciel, and the newspaper’s officers did so elsewhere. The publisher, Fr. Owen Kearns, LC, as American spokesman for the Legion of Christ in 1997, could not have been more direct: “Each of these allegations is false. Fr. Maciel has never engaged in sexual relations of any sort with any seminarian or novice, nor has he engaged in any of the other improprieties alleged.”
Fr. Kearns believed then that he was speaking the truth. We now know that he was not. He was not the publisher then, but he is now. It is awkward, to say the least, to have the current publisher on the public record saying things on a major news story that are not true. Sooner rather than later, he and many others will have to recant and repent of all that Fr. Maciel allowed them to do in his defense. [...]
We now know that what the National Catholic Register reported about Fr. Maciel was not the whole truth. That may be understandable, as it appears that Fr. Maciel devoted his considerable energies and talents to obscuring the whole truth about his life. If what we have heard repeatedly is true—that those who lived with him for years had no inkling that anything was awry—then the National Catholic Register was just another in a long line deceived by a master fraudster.
Yet that does not let the Register off the hook when, as a newspaper, it chose not to pursue the truth with any vigor. Even at this late date, it has never reported the full extent of the accusations against Fr. Maciel. Worse still, it published what was false. Even if we once thought it to be true, we now know it to be false. Ordinary Christian morality demands of that the newspaper correct what it published. Fundamental journalistic ethics demands the same. Simple justice demands it.
I think Fr. deSouza ought to be commended for saying this so forthrightly. The National Catholic Register likes to be thought of as the "good NCR," as Rod puts it; thus do they distinguish themselves from the oft-heterodox National Catholic Reporter, lovingly nicknamed the National Catholic Distorter by orthodox Catholics tired of dissent peddled as news. Yet the Reporter has covered the sex abuse scandals; the Register has, thus far, been extremely minimal in its terse mentioning of the fact that Father Maciel had at least one mistress and fathered at least one child.
Thomas Peters at American Papist has been staying on top of this whole situation; here, he links to Fr. deSouza's article, and adds:{update: for online newsies, Catholic.net is also run by the Legionaries of Christ/Regnum Christi, and similarly has nothing to say about the Maciel scandal, from what I can tell.}I don't think any of the Legion's various news outlets have spoken much about the scandal; the few things I've seen have linked back to the original Zenit or NCR article, with no further information. The impression being given is not that this was earth-shaking, devastating news which has serious ramifications for the whole organization, but instead that it was something of minor importance about a deceased former Legionary (who just happened to be "Our Founder") with no specific consequence whatsoever to the current operation of the Movement's ministries and practices.
Some quiet changes have been made. though; the "Our Founder" page on the Legion of Christ website has been changed to read, simply:
Father Marcial Maciel, LC, is the founder of the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi Movement. He was born on March 10th, 1920, in Cotija de la Paz, Michoacan (Mexico). He founded the Legion of Christ on January 3rd, 1941 and started the Regnum Christi Movement in 1959.The Second Vatican Council says: : “It redounds to the good of the Church that institutes have their own particular characteristics and work. Therefore, the spirit and aims of each founder should be faithfully accepted and retained.” (Perfectae caritatis, 2).
For that reason, Legionaries and Regnum Christi members try to become familiar with the life and work of their founder: Father Marcial Maciel, who under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit established this new religious family, which has since been approved and welcome by the Catholic Church.
There was a much longer, more admiring biography there before; but even this seems problematic. How can the "spirit and aims" of Father Maciel be "faithfully accepted and retained" when the Legion itself can't possibly know how many of Fr. Maciel's rules and practices for the Legion were put into place to cover up his sinful lifestyle? How can the Legionaries become familiar with the "life and work" of their founder when so much of that life, and thus, necessarily, so much of that work, are now suspect?
Much has been said about the Legion's need for transparency in the process of distancing themselves from Fr. Maciel and moving forward into a new, post-Maciel reality with their organization. But remaining silent about the deficiencies of the founder isn't really being transparent about the problems, which may subtly infect so much of the Legion's organizational structure. Fr. Maciel was the one who created the notion that "charity" meant putting on a positive face and refraining from criticizing the Legion in public, espeically to "outsiders." This practice, from much of the Legion's response to the Maciel scandal, still seems to be standard operating procedure--which raises the question as to how many of Maciel's practices, which may have aided him in his double life, still remain in force in the Legion.
Avoiding Lenten Pitfalls
Lent begins next week, and I've noticed several Catholic bloggers talking about making their preparations for it: what to give up, what devotions to add, what good spiritual reading to incorporate into their daily schedule, and what works of charity or almsgiving they can focus on during the forty days when we enter into our Lord's Passion and offer up our sacrifices and prayers for our own spiritual growth and for the aid of others.
It has been my policy not to get into the specifics of my own Lenten observances, especially since I put my real name on this blog. There's a certain temptation to pride that can go into such things, and while I know that those who do share are simply trying to help others ponder what they can do to make Lent a time of fruitfulness, I also know that this is a prime opportunity for a kind of spiritual one-upmanship (e.g., "I'll see you that daily rosary and raise you a Litany of the Saints!" etc.).
But I think that some general observations about Lent might be worth sharing. Like many, I have at times struggled with approaching Lent in the right spirit, and have encountered certain specific pitfalls that have made Lent less spiritually productive than it might otherwise have been. So, in no particular order, here are the pitfalls I've experienced (I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones I'm most familiar with):
1. "Sacrifice" means doing or giving up things in the way that is the most difficult, the most burdensome, the most tiring, the most stressful, and the most impossible. If you're not burned out, exhausted, starving (metaphorically, anyway), and stressed by the end of Lent, this is proof that you didn't "do Lent" right, and were way too easy on yourself. I don't know why or how I ever got this idea, but it seemed like a good one at the time; the point of Lent was to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually miserable, and anything less than pure misery meant that you were just a weakling and a slacker.
The danger of this idea is, of course, that it will work out exactly as planned, that you will take on so much in the way of sacrifice, prayer, reading, and almsgiving that you will be burned out, exhausted, starving and stressed by Easter Sunday. This is not the point of our Lenten observances. Yes, you should know that you are, indeed, "giving things up," or offering something special to the Father during this time; Lent should not be just like every other season. But that doesn't mean that you have to be worn out with prayer and good works by the end of Lent, either; such a level of overdoing it means that instead of spiritual growth you're likely to be in a mode of grudging endurance long before the end of the season is near.
2. If one devotion, spiritual book, or sacrifice is good, then five are five times as good. Although this goes along with number one, above, the difference is that the person who gets caught in this Lenten pitfall often doesn't start out trying to do too much. Sadly, this one happens sometimes when we see or hear about others' plans; the times this has happened to me I've had some reasonable and "do-able" Lenten ideas, but have then heard of other books or devotions that others were using, and thought that I should adopt these practices as well.
It doesn't take long before we're right back in the exhausted/burned out stage; our simple Lenten plans have been augmented so much by the good ideas others have that we honestly can't keep up with it all anymore. The temptation to keep adding various sacrifices or devotions throughout Lent is a strong one, but I've learned to make my plans before Ash Wednesday, and then stick to them, more or less.
3. It is Mom's job to make Lenten plans for the whole family. Now, this one has a kernel of truth in it; certainly if the children are very young this is mostly true, and also if some plans involve the whole family (like giving up TV or having an extra meatless meal one day in addition to Friday every week). But often we moms think it's up to us to plan everything, from how often the family will attend daily Mass or Stations of the Cross to what additional prayers will be said to what our teenage children should give up, without striving to inspire our children to make their own choices of sacrifice and spiritual development (and that doesn't even get into the sometimes-serious problem of us treating our husbands this way, too, and assuming they need our help giving something up for Lent). At each age, our children will need different amounts of help from us. The toddler set doesn't "do" much for Lent; the elementary school set may need lots of help to join in various devotions. But from middle-school on, we should be stepping back and encouraging them to come up with their own sacrificial offerings, not merely giving them a list of family-approved activities and prayers.
4. It's just not Lent without [fill in the blank]. I remember vividly what it was like, not my first Lent with a baby (since she was only a few months old and could be carted around anywhere), but my second Lent as a mom, with two young children, a baby and the older one who was now a toddler. This was the year when some of my "Lenten Musts" fell by the wayside; I think we made it to an Ash Wednesday Mass, but evening Stations of the Cross, Holy Thursday, and the Good Friday services which began at seven p.m. were out of the question that year. It felt so strange to me, and I felt almost guilty for "skipping" such essential parts of Lent.
You would think that the experience of the next few years when some of these observances remained iffy at best for our young family would have taught me not to focus so much on these things, but to learn, instead, what I could do with my little ones and to be at peace regardless of what we could do for Lent. You would be wrong; as soon as they were old enough, I started putting demands on my family: we would attend Stations every Friday, or nearly every Friday; we would be at every service during the Triduum, we would take part in whatever spiritual offerings our parish made available. It just wasn't Lent without all those things.
But God taught me otherwise, because life kept intervening, everything from sick children to scheduling conflicts to everyday reality which made such ambitious plans unworkable. Gradually I learned that there were times and situations which made it impossible to be present for every devotional opportunity; more importantly, I learned that while all of these things are very good, it is not good to ignore one's family's realities and demand attendance at all the parish's Lenten activities--and then to be disappointed if things didn't work out.
5. The externals are what it's all about. I have, in the past, gotten caught up in the Lenten observances so much that I forget about the interior conversion that is supposed to be the whole point of Lent.
But the Bible reminds us of a few things that say otherwise:
6. If I just do [x, y, and z] I will become holy. This one is closely related to number five above; instead of merely focusing on the externals, though, I've sometimes thought that merely doing all the right things in terms of fasting, prayer, spiritual reading and devotions, etc. would almost automatically produce in my spirit the proper disposition, making me "holier" during Lent whether I really wanted to be holy or not.
I don't know how many times in the Gospels our Lord warned us about the Pharisees, but this is pretty much what they always thought--that their strict observance of the Law of Moses somehow made them close to God, and gave them the right to look down on all the poor schmucks and sinners who couldn't even begin to match them in terms of prayers and actions and gestures and (very public) almsgiving. Instead, our Lord called them "whited sepulchers," pointing out that all their observances were not even close to being pleasing to God, because they emanated from a place of pride, not of humble faith and grateful love.
I've learned that it's far better to identify some real spiritual struggle in my life, and to think of a way of offering some fasting or prayer or sacrifice specifically to address this fault, than to multiply my observances in the hope that the sheer act of doing various things will produce the desired level of holiness or closeness to God. Rather than discuss anything personal, I'll offer an example that used to crop up in the Catholic college I attended: one girl would decide that her own struggles with vanity made it necessary for her to give up makeup for Lent, a good and noble act of sacrifice; but then dozens of other girls would decide that they ought to do this too, leading to an almost comical-Dr.-Seuss-starbellied-sneetches situation: the "holy" girls on campus were the ones spending Lent without makeup, while the "vain" and "less holy" girls were the ones taking shameless advantage of the situation by still looking attractive.
The reality, of course, was far more complex. Some of the "makeupless" girls didn't have any particular issue with vanity in the first place, and moreover had beautiful skin and naturally dark lashes, such that the "sacrifice" of going without cosmetics wasn't that big of a deal; meanwile, some of the girls who continued to wear makeup also didn't have that much of a problem with vanity, and decided not to jump on such a visible Lenten bandwagon but to focus on bad habits of their own, like laziness or untidiness. But the first group of girls "looked" holier than the second to the casual observer.
The point is that the level of one's holiness, or interior change, during Lent has a lot more to do with what's going on inside your heart and soul than it does with whether you're jumping on the latest "But this will make me holy!" bandwagon. The quest for holiness is a lifelong journey, and there is no special shortcut, no Lenten Observance To End All Lenten Observances, that will speed us down the path toward true holiness any faster than our own attempts to be patient, cheerful, humble and faithful in everything we do.
These are just some of the Lenten Pitfalls I've encountered in my life; I'm sure some of you could think of others, as well. But as we head into Lent next week, I hope I can avoid these pitfalls in order to benefit spiritually from the great gift of this penitential season.
It has been my policy not to get into the specifics of my own Lenten observances, especially since I put my real name on this blog. There's a certain temptation to pride that can go into such things, and while I know that those who do share are simply trying to help others ponder what they can do to make Lent a time of fruitfulness, I also know that this is a prime opportunity for a kind of spiritual one-upmanship (e.g., "I'll see you that daily rosary and raise you a Litany of the Saints!" etc.).
But I think that some general observations about Lent might be worth sharing. Like many, I have at times struggled with approaching Lent in the right spirit, and have encountered certain specific pitfalls that have made Lent less spiritually productive than it might otherwise have been. So, in no particular order, here are the pitfalls I've experienced (I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones I'm most familiar with):
1. "Sacrifice" means doing or giving up things in the way that is the most difficult, the most burdensome, the most tiring, the most stressful, and the most impossible. If you're not burned out, exhausted, starving (metaphorically, anyway), and stressed by the end of Lent, this is proof that you didn't "do Lent" right, and were way too easy on yourself. I don't know why or how I ever got this idea, but it seemed like a good one at the time; the point of Lent was to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually miserable, and anything less than pure misery meant that you were just a weakling and a slacker.
The danger of this idea is, of course, that it will work out exactly as planned, that you will take on so much in the way of sacrifice, prayer, reading, and almsgiving that you will be burned out, exhausted, starving and stressed by Easter Sunday. This is not the point of our Lenten observances. Yes, you should know that you are, indeed, "giving things up," or offering something special to the Father during this time; Lent should not be just like every other season. But that doesn't mean that you have to be worn out with prayer and good works by the end of Lent, either; such a level of overdoing it means that instead of spiritual growth you're likely to be in a mode of grudging endurance long before the end of the season is near.
2. If one devotion, spiritual book, or sacrifice is good, then five are five times as good. Although this goes along with number one, above, the difference is that the person who gets caught in this Lenten pitfall often doesn't start out trying to do too much. Sadly, this one happens sometimes when we see or hear about others' plans; the times this has happened to me I've had some reasonable and "do-able" Lenten ideas, but have then heard of other books or devotions that others were using, and thought that I should adopt these practices as well.
It doesn't take long before we're right back in the exhausted/burned out stage; our simple Lenten plans have been augmented so much by the good ideas others have that we honestly can't keep up with it all anymore. The temptation to keep adding various sacrifices or devotions throughout Lent is a strong one, but I've learned to make my plans before Ash Wednesday, and then stick to them, more or less.
3. It is Mom's job to make Lenten plans for the whole family. Now, this one has a kernel of truth in it; certainly if the children are very young this is mostly true, and also if some plans involve the whole family (like giving up TV or having an extra meatless meal one day in addition to Friday every week). But often we moms think it's up to us to plan everything, from how often the family will attend daily Mass or Stations of the Cross to what additional prayers will be said to what our teenage children should give up, without striving to inspire our children to make their own choices of sacrifice and spiritual development (and that doesn't even get into the sometimes-serious problem of us treating our husbands this way, too, and assuming they need our help giving something up for Lent). At each age, our children will need different amounts of help from us. The toddler set doesn't "do" much for Lent; the elementary school set may need lots of help to join in various devotions. But from middle-school on, we should be stepping back and encouraging them to come up with their own sacrificial offerings, not merely giving them a list of family-approved activities and prayers.
4. It's just not Lent without [fill in the blank]. I remember vividly what it was like, not my first Lent with a baby (since she was only a few months old and could be carted around anywhere), but my second Lent as a mom, with two young children, a baby and the older one who was now a toddler. This was the year when some of my "Lenten Musts" fell by the wayside; I think we made it to an Ash Wednesday Mass, but evening Stations of the Cross, Holy Thursday, and the Good Friday services which began at seven p.m. were out of the question that year. It felt so strange to me, and I felt almost guilty for "skipping" such essential parts of Lent.
You would think that the experience of the next few years when some of these observances remained iffy at best for our young family would have taught me not to focus so much on these things, but to learn, instead, what I could do with my little ones and to be at peace regardless of what we could do for Lent. You would be wrong; as soon as they were old enough, I started putting demands on my family: we would attend Stations every Friday, or nearly every Friday; we would be at every service during the Triduum, we would take part in whatever spiritual offerings our parish made available. It just wasn't Lent without all those things.
But God taught me otherwise, because life kept intervening, everything from sick children to scheduling conflicts to everyday reality which made such ambitious plans unworkable. Gradually I learned that there were times and situations which made it impossible to be present for every devotional opportunity; more importantly, I learned that while all of these things are very good, it is not good to ignore one's family's realities and demand attendance at all the parish's Lenten activities--and then to be disappointed if things didn't work out.
5. The externals are what it's all about. I have, in the past, gotten caught up in the Lenten observances so much that I forget about the interior conversion that is supposed to be the whole point of Lent.
But the Bible reminds us of a few things that say otherwise:
Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. (Joel 2:13)None of these verses means that sacrifices, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, etc. are not to be done. They are, though, a reminder that these things are supposed to be working an interior change, making us closer to God, drawing us out of our sinful ways and strengthening us in virtue, making us kinder, more peaceful, more gentle, more patient, more caught up in the things of God and less focused on the things of the world which will pass away.
For you do not desire sacrifice; a burnt offering you would not accept.
My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled heart. (Psalm 51: 18-19)
For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts. (Hosea 6:6)
6. If I just do [x, y, and z] I will become holy. This one is closely related to number five above; instead of merely focusing on the externals, though, I've sometimes thought that merely doing all the right things in terms of fasting, prayer, spiritual reading and devotions, etc. would almost automatically produce in my spirit the proper disposition, making me "holier" during Lent whether I really wanted to be holy or not.
I don't know how many times in the Gospels our Lord warned us about the Pharisees, but this is pretty much what they always thought--that their strict observance of the Law of Moses somehow made them close to God, and gave them the right to look down on all the poor schmucks and sinners who couldn't even begin to match them in terms of prayers and actions and gestures and (very public) almsgiving. Instead, our Lord called them "whited sepulchers," pointing out that all their observances were not even close to being pleasing to God, because they emanated from a place of pride, not of humble faith and grateful love.
I've learned that it's far better to identify some real spiritual struggle in my life, and to think of a way of offering some fasting or prayer or sacrifice specifically to address this fault, than to multiply my observances in the hope that the sheer act of doing various things will produce the desired level of holiness or closeness to God. Rather than discuss anything personal, I'll offer an example that used to crop up in the Catholic college I attended: one girl would decide that her own struggles with vanity made it necessary for her to give up makeup for Lent, a good and noble act of sacrifice; but then dozens of other girls would decide that they ought to do this too, leading to an almost comical-Dr.-Seuss-starbellied-sneetches situation: the "holy" girls on campus were the ones spending Lent without makeup, while the "vain" and "less holy" girls were the ones taking shameless advantage of the situation by still looking attractive.
The reality, of course, was far more complex. Some of the "makeupless" girls didn't have any particular issue with vanity in the first place, and moreover had beautiful skin and naturally dark lashes, such that the "sacrifice" of going without cosmetics wasn't that big of a deal; meanwile, some of the girls who continued to wear makeup also didn't have that much of a problem with vanity, and decided not to jump on such a visible Lenten bandwagon but to focus on bad habits of their own, like laziness or untidiness. But the first group of girls "looked" holier than the second to the casual observer.
The point is that the level of one's holiness, or interior change, during Lent has a lot more to do with what's going on inside your heart and soul than it does with whether you're jumping on the latest "But this will make me holy!" bandwagon. The quest for holiness is a lifelong journey, and there is no special shortcut, no Lenten Observance To End All Lenten Observances, that will speed us down the path toward true holiness any faster than our own attempts to be patient, cheerful, humble and faithful in everything we do.
These are just some of the Lenten Pitfalls I've encountered in my life; I'm sure some of you could think of others, as well. But as we head into Lent next week, I hope I can avoid these pitfalls in order to benefit spiritually from the great gift of this penitential season.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Liturgy Wars in South Africa
My sincere thanks to the reader who sent me the link to this article:
A furor has erupted in the South African Catholic Church over the first round of English-language changes in the Mass.
The Southern Cross, a southern African Catholic weekly newspaper, reports that clergy, liturgists and laity are up in arms about some of the new language being used during the constant parts of the Mass, saying the changes are confusing and fail to reflect the common usage of the English language and culture in the region.
Some commentators have said the changes fail to recognize the different ways English is spoken. Many fear that similar confusion and anger will rise up in some of the 10 other English-speaking countries governed by the revisions should there be no recognition of language and cultural differences.
The Southern Cross has reported extensively on the changes and reaction to them in recent weeks. The newspaper also has devoted more space on its Web site to its bloggers, such as Jesuit Father Anthony Egan, and more space in its print version for opinion pieces, commentary and letters to the editor since the Dec. 1 changeover.
The changes, which the South African bishops put into effect the first Sunday of Advent, are among those being discussed by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.
What kind of furor are the changes causing? Well, consider this, from a letter written by Bishop Kevin Dowling: (all emphasis added--E.M.)
To me there is no cogent reason why the language which the People of God in any place use to express their faith and spirituality, and to celebrate the Eucharist, the sacraments and so on has to conform to a Latin text. People ask why — and rightly so. I am concerned that this latest decision from the Vatican may be interpreted as another example of what is perceived to be a systematic and well-managed dismantling of the vision, theology and ecclesiology of Vatican II during the past years.
I believe the English-speaking conferences of bishops should have stood their ground and challenged the decisions taken at the Vatican as an expression of collegial discernment. We should have communicated to the Vatican that “it seems good to the Spirit and to us” that we proceed with our discernment together with the whole People of God about what is the best way we can express and celebrate our faith in English and every other language.
Our objective as Church should surely be that instead of making everyone conform to a dead-language text we need to allow diversity in cultural and linguistic expressions of faith communities around the world.
Bishop Dowling has, I think, however unwittingly, illustrated just why we so desperately needed a new English translation in the first place.
The Mass is not supposed to be a vehicle for cultural and linguistic diversity. Nor is the Mass supposed to be a reflection of what the community thinks is the best way to express and celebrate their faith.
The Mass, instead, is supposed to be the highest form of worship, the fitting sacrificial prayer offered to the Father in Heaven. What it is, and what it is supposed to express and convey, is very much expressed by those "dead language" texts, which are then supposed to be faithfully and carefully translated into the vernacular--or left alone in the Latin language, if faithful and careful translation is considered too difficult to accomplish for some reason.
There are plenty of devotions, prayers, etc. by which a community can express their faith with all the cultural diversity wanted. I've seen lovely examples of this, such as processions in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, wherein the ethnic and cultural celebrations blend beautifully with ancient Catholic customs and prayers. But the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass transcends the here and now, and transports us all back to Calvary. When we kneel as the Eucharistic Prayer is offered by the priest, we are not there to express ourselves in any way, but to unite ourselves to Christ's sacrifice, re-presented in an unbloody way upon the altar.
And the "vision, theology, and ecclesiology of Vatican II" does not contradict this. Only a false imposition of agendas far removed from the Council itself, and left to run riot for the last four decades, saw in the Council a chance to reshape the Mass into a vehicle for cultural expression and communal self-importance, in a way that was very much at odds not only with the Council, but with the Church throughout the ages.
Now, at last, some of the disruption and chaos packaged as authentic worship is being reined in, and a new focus on the proper sort of worship we offer to God through the celebration of the Mass is being seen. The good efforts to retranslate some of the more loose and problematic of the English texts, especially those which stripped the language of majesty, reverence, and a celestial focus, replacing those things with familiarity, irreverence, and a very mundane focus, are finally underway--but, as can be seen from the reaction in South Africa to an early version of those new texts, it's going to take a lot of education about what worship is and why it does, indeed, matter how closely our prayers resemble those Latin texts before people--and even bishops!--understand why this must be done.
I hope that the situation in South Africa will be handled well, and that the new texts will eventually be accepted by all Catholics there. There is much to be celebrated in the new English translation of the Mass--but we should probably take the example being set by our South African brothers and sisters seriously, and be prepared to offer our enthusiastic acceptance of the new prayers when they are given to us here, so as to offset some of the agitation by those who fear, rightly so, that they are losing their chance to use the Mass as their own personal plaything, a blank slate on which they can impose their own agendas, personalities, and desires quite apart from the Church's understanding of what worship really is.
On My Blogroll
I don't generally announce the fact that I've added a new blog to my blogroll. This is largely because ordinarily I'm adding some terrific blog that's been recommended to me for months and months by lots of people, and after I've been reading it for some time I finally remember to put it over on my list, at which point announcing that it's there would be somewhat superfluous, since by this time everyone but me already has the link.
But this blog is brand new, so chances are that you haven't seen it yet. It's called A Caustic Wave of Discernment, which quirky title suits the quirky author, my dear husband Mr. Manning, rather well.
Mr. M. has blogged before, but his earlier forays into the blogging world have been somewhat low profile. He first blogged on Vox, a platform he liked except for the fact that since only other Vox users could leave comments there wasn't a whole lot of readership or traffic. He then tried Wordpress very briefly; unfortunately his first attempt to say something mildly negative about then-candidate Obama was followed by Obamabot trolls essentially shutting down any hope of civilized discourse, which led him to give up on that particular venture.
I managed to talk him into giving Blogger a try, since I've found it to be pretty user-friendly overall. He's been writing his new blog for a little over a week, so I think he's ready for some traffic and comments--in any case, I gave him fair warning that I was going to post this! :)
But this blog is brand new, so chances are that you haven't seen it yet. It's called A Caustic Wave of Discernment, which quirky title suits the quirky author, my dear husband Mr. Manning, rather well.
Mr. M. has blogged before, but his earlier forays into the blogging world have been somewhat low profile. He first blogged on Vox, a platform he liked except for the fact that since only other Vox users could leave comments there wasn't a whole lot of readership or traffic. He then tried Wordpress very briefly; unfortunately his first attempt to say something mildly negative about then-candidate Obama was followed by Obamabot trolls essentially shutting down any hope of civilized discourse, which led him to give up on that particular venture.
I managed to talk him into giving Blogger a try, since I've found it to be pretty user-friendly overall. He's been writing his new blog for a little over a week, so I think he's ready for some traffic and comments--in any case, I gave him fair warning that I was going to post this! :)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
May I Direct Your Attention...
...to my first-ever piece for the fascinating and erudite website, MercatorNet?
It's here:
Leaving the kids to the village idiot.
The piece expands on some of what we talked about here, in regard to television sets being mounted everywhere you go, and parents' increasingly hard task to keep the culture--or at least some elements of it--from our children.
If you'd be so kind as to click the link, read the essay, maybe even leave a comment if you feel so inclined, I'd be so grateful! Thanks!
It's here:
Leaving the kids to the village idiot.
The piece expands on some of what we talked about here, in regard to television sets being mounted everywhere you go, and parents' increasingly hard task to keep the culture--or at least some elements of it--from our children.
If you'd be so kind as to click the link, read the essay, maybe even leave a comment if you feel so inclined, I'd be so grateful! Thanks!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Nothing Says Love Like...What???
Back around Christmas time, Matthew Archbold had this terrific post up about his children seeing lewd window displays at the Mall, and the call he made to complain about it.
The Dallas monument to tacky excess in consumer spending known as the Galleria has, I'm afraid, gone even further than the scanty panty ads the Archbolds witnessed back in December, with a truly ugly Valentine's Day display:
The Dallas monument to tacky excess in consumer spending known as the Galleria has, I'm afraid, gone even further than the scanty panty ads the Archbolds witnessed back in December, with a truly ugly Valentine's Day display:
At the Galleria and NorthPark Center, large hearts made of packaged condoms are on display, part of a Valentine's Day promotion and a national AIDS/HIV awareness effort.The hearts, each made of more than 200 condoms, are in the windows of Armani Exchange stores across the country. In other cities, they've come under fire from critics who found them tacky, intrusive and offensive.
But at the Galleria this morning, most shoppers walked by without even pausing.
Many thought the condoms were just red circles or small, colored tiles.
“Until you said something, I didn’t even notice they were made of condoms,” said Wenda Blankenship, 54.
“I do think it is inappropriate though. Sex is meant to be private. It doesn’t need to be on display.”
But AIDS awareness groups say the hearts convey a strong message to adults and youths alike.
“It raises consciousness about the issue,” said Fernie Sanchez, a supervisor at AIDS Arms Inc., based in Dallas.
“At the very least, they are talking about it, whether they agree or disagree with the campaign.”
Still, Sanchez said he understood why some parents might be upset.
Frank discussions about sex and disease are needed, he said. Many times, though, "parents would rather do that on their own time in their own homes.
No, really? And what about parents whose religious beliefs cause them to find condoms morally abhorrent--you know, like Catholics (the ones who accept church teaching, not the "personally opposed" variety the media treats like trained monkeys, trotting them out to give their completely ignorant and unformed-conscience opinions whenever sexual issues are in the news, that is?). Should they be forced by a "conscience-raising" ad campaign to explain their opposition to prophylactics to their curious kids, all because a day at the mall turned into a head-on collision with the dominant immoral culture? It's bad enough to have to teach children to shield their eyes from posters of nearly-nude models adorning the entrances to the tawdry lingerie stores. But parents should no more have to protect their children from public displays of condoms than they should have to protect them from public nudity. It may be true in the twisted minds of morally infantile adults that love is synonymous with condom use, but this sick message doesn't belong anywhere near the purity and innocence of children.
Here Comes The....Recession?
Apparently, the economic situation is causing some couples to put their wedding plans on hold:
And while the Wedding Professionals Industry might be concerned at a drop in spending, seeing weddings go from $30K to $20K in two years' time, some of us think that $20,000 is anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand dollars too much to spend on a single party, except for those few individuals whose annual incomes support such an expense and whose social positions make it an expectation.
Let's face it: most people don't spend twenty or thirty thousand dollars so that all their extended family members can simply gather to witness the beginning of a lifelong marriage between two people who are part of that family. Most people--well, let's look at an average breakdown of costs for a $20,000 wedding, from this site:
As someone whose whole wedding cost less than the price of an average engagement ring, I can't really feel too much sorrow at the idea that an economic slowdown might mean the end of the over-the-top wedding extravaganza (for most people, anyway).
And for those who think that the huge wedding, the catered reception, the live band, the photographer, and the flowers are traditional and required regardless of economic concerns, consider what Rebecca Mead, author of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, had to say:
Unfortunately, all this economizing is only decreasing the cost of a wedding by about a third; and trends such as couples getting together to purchase one pricey cake-topper to share, passing it along from wedding to wedding, show that the focus isn't--yet--on simplicity and restraint, but on having that big bash at a discount.NEW YORK (AP) -- Maria Ayson and Nolan Green Jr. should be married by now.
The couple set a date, picked their reception hall, bought the dress, booked the photographer and ordered the cake for a Saturday last August. Then came the bad news.
''When he got laid off, we were kind of caught with our pants down,'' said Ayson.
Rather than trying to plan a wedding while Green was looking for a new job in electronics retailing, the couple decided to push their date back a whole year. Ayson said putting off the wedding ''was the best thing for our sanity and for ourselves.'' Especially since his new job forced a move to Los Angeles, while she remained in San Francisco.
The delay until Aug. 9, 2009, also gave them time to rethink their wedding plans and try to find ways to scale back the party, without sacrificing on the celebration.
That's a step that countless couples are taking, as economic reality confronts one of consumer culture's most cherished institutions, the dream wedding. From do-it-yourself decorations to dancing to an iPod instead of a DJ, couples are scouring for savings.
The numbers tell much of the story: This year couples are expected to spend an average of $20,400 on their weddings, down 6.5 percent from 2008. The forecast also marks a 29 percent drop from 2007's average of $28,700, according to The Wedding Report, a market research company based in Tucson, Ariz. [...]Joyce Scardina Becker, president of the Wedding Industry Professionals Association, said she started to hear from members last year that business was slowing down. Becker, who owns Events of Distinction, a wedding planning service in Marin County, Calif., advises couples to be honest about how much they have to spend, so that they can work with planners to economize in certain areas.
''In the past, brides and grooms liked to hold their budget as if they're playing poker,'' she said. ''They need to be more forthcoming, and lay their cards out on the table.''
And while the Wedding Professionals Industry might be concerned at a drop in spending, seeing weddings go from $30K to $20K in two years' time, some of us think that $20,000 is anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand dollars too much to spend on a single party, except for those few individuals whose annual incomes support such an expense and whose social positions make it an expectation.
Let's face it: most people don't spend twenty or thirty thousand dollars so that all their extended family members can simply gather to witness the beginning of a lifelong marriage between two people who are part of that family. Most people--well, let's look at an average breakdown of costs for a $20,000 wedding, from this site:
Estimated Costs for a $20,000 WeddingGifts, here, mean attendant's gifts; the "ceremony" quote is low, considering some Catholic parishes now "charge" at least $1,000 for the parish's costs involved in a wedding. And the website itself points out that some other fees and costs weren't included in this list--one obvious one is that the average cost of a diamond engagement ring today is somewhere between $3500 and $4000, and so the "rings" in this list are only the wedding bands.
Reception: $7000
Attire $2200
Photo/Video $3500
Music $2000
Flowers $2000
Stationery $400
Rings $800
Transport $800
Gifts $700
Ceremony $500
As someone whose whole wedding cost less than the price of an average engagement ring, I can't really feel too much sorrow at the idea that an economic slowdown might mean the end of the over-the-top wedding extravaganza (for most people, anyway).
And for those who think that the huge wedding, the catered reception, the live band, the photographer, and the flowers are traditional and required regardless of economic concerns, consider what Rebecca Mead, author of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, had to say:
But I think brides and grooms will be surprised to discover how many elements of a wedding that are thought of as essential now were not seen that way not so long ago. I came across one survey done in the 1930s of middle-American, middle-class brides and grooms, and of them, one third had not had an engagement ring, one third had not had a reception in addition to a wedding ceremony, and one third had not had a honeymoon. Of course, these "traditions" of NOT having a ring, reception, or honeymoon are not ones it is in the wedding industry's interests to promote!It's too early to tell whether the present economic realities will cause a permanent decrease in the opulent and ostentatious display known as the American wedding. But if the pressure on brides and grooms, and their families, to order embossed napkins and ice sculptures and skyscraper cakes and similar excesses can lessen a bit, I think it would be a good thing.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Coming to America?
I wonder what to make of this news, which has been circulating the last few days:
More than 5,300 people were killed in Mexico last year in connection to criminal activity, and some experts predict things will get worse. Along with Pakistan, Mexico was identified in a Department of Defense report last year as a country that could destabilize rapidly.
If that were to happen, officials are concerned that the drug violence could cross the Rio Grande into southern Texas.
Cesinger said the plan currently does not address a potential flood of refugees, though "It may be something that comes into consideration."
"Worst-case scenario, Mexico becomes the Western hemisphere's equivalent of Somalia, with mass violence, mass chaos," said Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "That would clearly require a military response from the United States."
Carpenter, who recently authored a study entitled "Troubled Neighbor: Mexico's Drug Violence Poses a Threat to the United States," said Mexican government could collapse, although it's unlikely.
"That's still a relative longshot, but it's not out of the question," Carpenter said. "It's obviously prudent for all of the states along the U.S.-Mexican border and the military to consider that possibility and not get blindsided should it happen."
Some lawmakers in Texas have begun questioning how to deal with a potentially massive influx of Mexican citizens.
"Do you strengthen the borders so people cannot get in by the thousands every day, or do you create detention centers where people are held until their status is determined?" asked state Sen. Dan Patrick. "This is a potential refugee problem..."
It's a little unsettling to be a Texas resident and hear that our government is planning what to do in the event that Mexico becomes like Somalia in terms of stability. It's even more unsettling that so few news outlets are talking about this--so far; I have a feeling that there will be a lot of people who have thoughts and ideas about this story once it gets a little more exposure. The problem of illegal immigration is a complex one, but even more complex is the notion of handling an influx of desperate people fleeing drug violence in our neighbor to the south. Clearly, we would want to provide a safe place for the innocent in such an event; equally clearly, though, we would have to be realistic about what the US could actually do (especially given the billions being thrown at such critical pork projects in a desperate attempt to spend our way out of an economic crisis). And the potential that some of the violent criminals responsible for this turn of events in the first place would use the chaos to enter our country themselves is a rather strong, and unsettling one. Maybe that border fence should have been built, after all. At least then there'd be a chance that we could keep the instigators of this hypothetical future scenario from posing as innocent refugees desperate for some help from Uncle Sam.
A Prayer Request
A reader writes the following prayer request:
Dear Erin,Heavenly Father, you give us all good things, and never fail to hear your children's fervent prayers. Please bless your servant Don, grant to him swift healing of his ailments, and help him and his family in this hour of need. I ask this through the intercession of Our Lady of Good Success, and of Saint Paulina who herself suffered from diabetes during her earthly life. Amen.
Would you please pray for my friend Don, who had diabetes for years before it was diagnosed? Consequently his body has been severely damaged. He's lost the sight in one eye, and his kidneys have been damaged to point where this family man in his early forties is looking at dialysis. He's despondent and doesn't know how he's going to pay for everything.
I don't know how to help my friend except by prayer, and I am trying to get St. Blog's involved. Will you please remember him in your intentions?
Thank you, and may Our Lady protect you.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
CPSIA Update
Remember this post?
Here's a sad update:
So am I, frankly. This is madness. Many of the books my children loved were gently-loved classics from our local used book store. It's sad to see such a terrible act of destruction wreaked upon treasures from the past, all because greedy companies used lead paint in plastic garbage peddled to American children in the recent past.
Here's a sad update:
A poster at Etsy reports:
I just came back from my local thrift store with tears in my eyes! I watched as boxes and boxes of childrens books were thrown into the garbage! Today was the deadline and I just cant believe it! Every book they had on the shelves peior to 1985 was destroyed!
To tell the truth, I am afraid to call and ask my thrift shop what they are doing.
So am I, frankly. This is madness. Many of the books my children loved were gently-loved classics from our local used book store. It's sad to see such a terrible act of destruction wreaked upon treasures from the past, all because greedy companies used lead paint in plastic garbage peddled to American children in the recent past.
Throwing Pork at the Problem
I don't, as a general rule, much like Maureen Dowd. Her New York Times editorials so often have a bit of an insubstantial feel, as if she has poured vinegar and pepper not upon a kernel of truth, but on a wilted meringue left over from some Clinton-era Democrat fundraiser.
But every now and then she writes something I can't help but agree with, and today is one of those days:
When has any American economy improved because Democrats decided to grow the government? Unfortunately, that's their strategy again this time: stimulate the economy by making sure that various members of Congress can bring home enough bacon, in the form of government grants, federal projects, and so on, to their own home districts to offset the declining profits, widespread layoffs, and other effects of the present economic situation.
If this economic downturn weren't based in a real financial crisis, that strategy might work--that is, it might have relatively little impact on the economy which would then be free to recover on its own, so to speak. But the financial crisis is real, and the effects of what the Democrats are doing here is not unlike a doctor deciding he can cure a patient's broken leg by performing cosmetic surgery on her face--ineffective, and leading to further problems with the limb that's actually broken which will be worse if left untreated.
I may only agree with Maureen Dowd once in a decade, but at least we're agreeing on something important: this stimulus package is a disaster.
But every now and then she writes something I can't help but agree with, and today is one of those days:
Aside from Dowd's incautious cracks at Geithner's youth (which gives us the opportunity to recall that Maureen is ten years older than the US Secretary of the Treasury), this piece was right on. Congress is reaching an agreement, and President Obama will soon sign a stimulus package law that will cost us just under $800 billion--and yet there are no guarantees. Not only are the banks not really being held accountable, but this bill is stuffed with so much pork that it reminds me a little of this (which really ought to be renamed "The Stimulus"):So much for the savior-based economy.
Tim Geithner, the learned and laconic civil servant and financial engineer, did not sweep in and infuse our shaky psyches with confidence. For starters, the 47-year-old’s voice kept cracking.
Escorting us over the rickety, foggy bridge from TARP to Son of TARP by way of TALF — don’t ask — Geithner did not, as the president said when he drew on the wisdom of Fred Astaire, inspire us to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again.
The Obama crowd is hung up on the same issues that the Bush crew was hung up on last September: Which of the potentially $2 or $3 trillion in toxic assets will the taxpayers buy and what will we pay for them?
Despite the touting, the Treasury chief unveiled a plan short on illumination, recrimination, fine points and foreclosure closure. The Dow collapsed on its fainting couch as Sports Illustrated swimsuit models rang the closing bell. [...]Geithner is not even requiring the banks to lend in return for the $2 trillion his program will try to marshal, mostly by having the Fed print money out of thin air, thereby diluting our money, or borrowing more from China. (When, exactly, can China foreclose on us and start sending us toxic toys again?)
There’s a weaselly feel to the plan, a sense that tough decisions were postponed even as President Obama warns about our “perfect storm of financial problems.” The outrage is going only one way, as we pony up trillion after trillion.
Geithner is coddling the banks, setting it up so that either we’ll have to pay the banks inflated prices for poison assets or subsidize investors to pay the banks for poison assets.
When has any American economy improved because Democrats decided to grow the government? Unfortunately, that's their strategy again this time: stimulate the economy by making sure that various members of Congress can bring home enough bacon, in the form of government grants, federal projects, and so on, to their own home districts to offset the declining profits, widespread layoffs, and other effects of the present economic situation.If this economic downturn weren't based in a real financial crisis, that strategy might work--that is, it might have relatively little impact on the economy which would then be free to recover on its own, so to speak. But the financial crisis is real, and the effects of what the Democrats are doing here is not unlike a doctor deciding he can cure a patient's broken leg by performing cosmetic surgery on her face--ineffective, and leading to further problems with the limb that's actually broken which will be worse if left untreated.
I may only agree with Maureen Dowd once in a decade, but at least we're agreeing on something important: this stimulus package is a disaster.
Blogging for Soup
Over at the blog My Three Sons, Daddio has raised some interesting questions about what he calls "blog begging." Excerpt:
So here are my thoughts, in no particular order:
1. Many Catholic bloggers are employed directly by the Church, or by various Catholic ministries, by Catholic non-profits, and the like. I don't think that any of us would want to see a situation wherein nobody but single people fresh out of college could "afford" to work in such positions, but at the same time we ought to recognize that these sorts of jobs are not glamorous careers with high compensation and terrific benefits. Especially in today's world, where the expectation is that a family will have two incomes and costs reflect that expectation, it's pretty hard for a man working as a parish DRE to make enough money for his growing homeschooling family's needs. If he manages to run a popular blog in his spare time, and people are willing to contribute to it to help make it possible for him to keep blogging, why not give them the opportunity?
2. Many Catholic bloggers are former Protestants who were employed in some way in their own churches before hearing and answering a call from God to turn to the Catholic Church and encounter His Real Presence in the Eucharist. A former Protestant minister may sometimes be able to become a Catholic priest, receiving special permission to do so if he is married and has a family; but the vast majority of former Protestant ministers, teachers, preachers, writers, speakers etc. who once earned decent livings in these fields may find themselves facing not only the ordinary ramifications of a conversion to Rome (e.g., family disappointment, pressure from friends etc.) but also the very real loss of their ordinary source of income. And though they may (and do) find other ways to earn a living, the chances are good that there will be a huge difference between what they earned before and what they can earn now. Imagine, for a moment, being a graduate of a school of theology, having a degree that is geared toward a life of ministry in a Protestant church or setting--and then becoming Catholic, and finding those jobs not only scarce but filled quickly by all the well-known long-time Catholic writers, teachers, speakers, non-profit managers, etc. out there. Your skill set, in other words, isn't in demand in your new faith home, but those corporations out there (that is, "The Man") are generally going to be dismissive of the resume of a person in the middle forties whose previous experience was all in church and non-profit work.
3. It is easy to tell someone that if they want to be a writer they should write a book (or write articles etc.) Most of those Catholic bloggers out there who do have a PayPal button on their blogs already are writers; they write copious articles, they have written books. Guess what? Writing for the Catholic market is a one-way ticket to starvation, unless you have some other source of income--but as writers know, a full-time job is usually a death-knell to any hopes of a writing career. I did the least amount of writing in my life when I worked in a corporate office; the mental tiredness at the end of a day of petty corporate tasks doesn't always provide the most fertile environment for wit and imagination to flourish. This is especially true for writers of non-fiction; a J.K. Rowling may be able to scratch enough Harry Potter ideas out on napkins during her job as a waitress to make an eventual go of it, but it's a little hard to research what third-century Church Fathers had to say about the Holy Spirit in between taking orders or waiting on customers.
There are two realities here that most of those who don't write for publication aren't necessarily aware of. The first is that while freelance work is out there, it doesn't pay especially well (from the standpoint of earning a living, that is). If I add up all the money I earned in freelance work last year, for instance, I might be able to pay for two weeks' worth of groceries--if the company who owes me the money eventually gets around to paying me for the work, which they have not done as of yet (which is the known, and most often encountered, bane of a freelancer's existence). Granted, with Mr. M.'s full-time employment I can afford to be patient--but not every freelance writer is in the same boat, and some of them, who work a lot harder than I do to submit articles of every kind to every publication imaginable while also maintaining lively blogs and working on books and other projects, are depending on those checks just to pay the ordinary bills. Any delay in payment means that you might have to postpone such luxuries as a trip to the dentist or a new pair of shoes for the child who has outgrown his old ones. True, the freelance Catholic writer could just stop writing and start working at Wal-Mart instead on the grounds that at least the checks will show up on time--but I think we'd all be a lot poorer without some of these people's thoughts and ideas helping to inform Catholic discourse.
The second reality, specific to Catholic writing, is this, and it's a shameful one: Catholics don't pay for Catholic media. Compared to the general Christian writing market, Catholic writers have little hope of selling more than a relative handful of copies of a book that may have taken them hundreds of hours to research and write. Few parishes have any kind of budget to buy and maintain good Catholic materials in a sort of parish library; few of those who attend Mass weekly ever purchase a single Catholic book or subscribe to a Catholic magazine or paper (aside from diocesan papers which are often sent to every registered parish family in a diocese), and few Catholic publishers will consider publishing a manuscript from a Catholic writer who has not already managed to establish himself or herself as some kind of noted Catholic personality without their help--because the Catholic publishers have almost no budget to promote a new writer, and know they might have some chance of selling an author's book if the author is someone the public already knows.
So with those two realities in mind, a Catholic writer almost can't afford not to write a blog. But the time he or she spends on blogging is time that can't be put towards paid writing, either, leaving the blogger in the position of needing to spend time on a public, visible activity which is wholly uncompensated.
If we really don't want Catholic writers to have to beg for money on their blogs, we could support them by buying their books. Many of us spend tons of money on various forms of expensive media entertainment, but how often do we think we need a good spiritual book to read, or a reflection on the Gospels, or some work encouraging us to persist in our vocations with humility and charity? If some Catholic writers have to put up a PayPal button in order to keep writing such good books, in a country with 60 million Catholics, 42% of whom attend Mass weekly, then doesn't this say something about us all?
Okay y'all, I may be stepping on something delicate here, but I've got to ask. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but why are people always begging for money on their blogs? I don't know why this bothers me, but I always get a little annoyed when I see those things, kinda like the never-ending PBS fundraisers. "You're enjoying our programming, now don't you feel guilty???" Ummm.. not really. Run a commercial. Or go off the air. I could care less. [...]Now, I was just going to leave a lengthy comment over at My Three Sons, but as I thought about it, I thought there might be a lot of people with similar thoughts or questions; anyway, I have trouble being brief enough for the average combox (no, really? you gasp). I think there's some general misunderstanding about Catholic bloggers, donation drives, writers' pay, and the like that perhaps I can help clear up.
And it's not just those serious circumstances. Why are certain bloggers always asking for free books or other stuff on Amazon? Or soliciting donations for ordinary living expenses, or sometimes for literally no reason at all? Are we supposed to feel guilty for reading and not paying? If you want to be a writer, write a book. Sell articles to magazines. Put more ads on your blog. Or, if you really think you're good, sell subscriptions to your own website. Here's a hint: if people won't pay for it, you're probably not that good at it.
I'm sorry to be harsh, but couldn't they just spend less time blogging and get a real job if they are that hard up? I know you really really want to be a successful writer, or an entrepreneur with a home-based business, and only do what you love and only work for yourself. So would all the rest of us! But I, for one, will continue working for The Man, because it pays well and has good benefits.
So here are my thoughts, in no particular order:
1. Many Catholic bloggers are employed directly by the Church, or by various Catholic ministries, by Catholic non-profits, and the like. I don't think that any of us would want to see a situation wherein nobody but single people fresh out of college could "afford" to work in such positions, but at the same time we ought to recognize that these sorts of jobs are not glamorous careers with high compensation and terrific benefits. Especially in today's world, where the expectation is that a family will have two incomes and costs reflect that expectation, it's pretty hard for a man working as a parish DRE to make enough money for his growing homeschooling family's needs. If he manages to run a popular blog in his spare time, and people are willing to contribute to it to help make it possible for him to keep blogging, why not give them the opportunity?
2. Many Catholic bloggers are former Protestants who were employed in some way in their own churches before hearing and answering a call from God to turn to the Catholic Church and encounter His Real Presence in the Eucharist. A former Protestant minister may sometimes be able to become a Catholic priest, receiving special permission to do so if he is married and has a family; but the vast majority of former Protestant ministers, teachers, preachers, writers, speakers etc. who once earned decent livings in these fields may find themselves facing not only the ordinary ramifications of a conversion to Rome (e.g., family disappointment, pressure from friends etc.) but also the very real loss of their ordinary source of income. And though they may (and do) find other ways to earn a living, the chances are good that there will be a huge difference between what they earned before and what they can earn now. Imagine, for a moment, being a graduate of a school of theology, having a degree that is geared toward a life of ministry in a Protestant church or setting--and then becoming Catholic, and finding those jobs not only scarce but filled quickly by all the well-known long-time Catholic writers, teachers, speakers, non-profit managers, etc. out there. Your skill set, in other words, isn't in demand in your new faith home, but those corporations out there (that is, "The Man") are generally going to be dismissive of the resume of a person in the middle forties whose previous experience was all in church and non-profit work.
3. It is easy to tell someone that if they want to be a writer they should write a book (or write articles etc.) Most of those Catholic bloggers out there who do have a PayPal button on their blogs already are writers; they write copious articles, they have written books. Guess what? Writing for the Catholic market is a one-way ticket to starvation, unless you have some other source of income--but as writers know, a full-time job is usually a death-knell to any hopes of a writing career. I did the least amount of writing in my life when I worked in a corporate office; the mental tiredness at the end of a day of petty corporate tasks doesn't always provide the most fertile environment for wit and imagination to flourish. This is especially true for writers of non-fiction; a J.K. Rowling may be able to scratch enough Harry Potter ideas out on napkins during her job as a waitress to make an eventual go of it, but it's a little hard to research what third-century Church Fathers had to say about the Holy Spirit in between taking orders or waiting on customers.
There are two realities here that most of those who don't write for publication aren't necessarily aware of. The first is that while freelance work is out there, it doesn't pay especially well (from the standpoint of earning a living, that is). If I add up all the money I earned in freelance work last year, for instance, I might be able to pay for two weeks' worth of groceries--if the company who owes me the money eventually gets around to paying me for the work, which they have not done as of yet (which is the known, and most often encountered, bane of a freelancer's existence). Granted, with Mr. M.'s full-time employment I can afford to be patient--but not every freelance writer is in the same boat, and some of them, who work a lot harder than I do to submit articles of every kind to every publication imaginable while also maintaining lively blogs and working on books and other projects, are depending on those checks just to pay the ordinary bills. Any delay in payment means that you might have to postpone such luxuries as a trip to the dentist or a new pair of shoes for the child who has outgrown his old ones. True, the freelance Catholic writer could just stop writing and start working at Wal-Mart instead on the grounds that at least the checks will show up on time--but I think we'd all be a lot poorer without some of these people's thoughts and ideas helping to inform Catholic discourse.
The second reality, specific to Catholic writing, is this, and it's a shameful one: Catholics don't pay for Catholic media. Compared to the general Christian writing market, Catholic writers have little hope of selling more than a relative handful of copies of a book that may have taken them hundreds of hours to research and write. Few parishes have any kind of budget to buy and maintain good Catholic materials in a sort of parish library; few of those who attend Mass weekly ever purchase a single Catholic book or subscribe to a Catholic magazine or paper (aside from diocesan papers which are often sent to every registered parish family in a diocese), and few Catholic publishers will consider publishing a manuscript from a Catholic writer who has not already managed to establish himself or herself as some kind of noted Catholic personality without their help--because the Catholic publishers have almost no budget to promote a new writer, and know they might have some chance of selling an author's book if the author is someone the public already knows.
So with those two realities in mind, a Catholic writer almost can't afford not to write a blog. But the time he or she spends on blogging is time that can't be put towards paid writing, either, leaving the blogger in the position of needing to spend time on a public, visible activity which is wholly uncompensated.
If we really don't want Catholic writers to have to beg for money on their blogs, we could support them by buying their books. Many of us spend tons of money on various forms of expensive media entertainment, but how often do we think we need a good spiritual book to read, or a reflection on the Gospels, or some work encouraging us to persist in our vocations with humility and charity? If some Catholic writers have to put up a PayPal button in order to keep writing such good books, in a country with 60 million Catholics, 42% of whom attend Mass weekly, then doesn't this say something about us all?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
When to Speak Out against the Tyranny of Tolerance
Speaking of the Crunchy Con blog, I enjoyed reading this post and the resulting comments yesterday:
At the monastery this weekend, there was an academic conference going on. One of the papers was about drawing lessons from St. Cyprian's writings during an early age of martyrdom -- lessons that Christians living in contemporary liberal democracies can use to determine when they are obligated to speak up for their faith, and when they are permitted to keep silent without betraying their faith.
I didn't get to talk to the professor about the question, nor to sit in on the discussion, but her paper brought to mind something that I've been thinking about for a while. Not long ago, I asked a couple of smart Christian journalist friends who work in secular media why they never wrote about homosexuality, religion and public policy. I know that they're both interested in cultural and religious matters, and both are conservative Christians. Both of them said to me that they have careers to protect, which is a big reason why they keep their views on that subject to themselves in their writing.
I've also talked to Christian friends in the academy. One, a graduate student in theology at a Protestant university, told me that you'd have to be an idiot to defend traditional Church and Biblical teaching about homosexuality inside the university today. He said that's a certain way to end your academic career before it gets started. "Even in a religious university setting?" I asked him. He told me that the pro-gay sentiment is overwhelming on faculties, and if you're like him, and take the Scriptural view, you have to keep your head down and your mouth shut if you want to get a job. [...]
So, are there any general rules Christians, or political conservatives, should apply to themselves when speaking out for their religious faith, or moral/social convictions, could cost them their job? Granted, it's a far more serious question for religious believers, for whom failing to speak out under certain circumstances could constitute denial of the faith. Still, any ideas about when one is obliged to speak out, and when one is permitted, and perhaps even required, to remain silent?
Of course, since Rod chose to frame the issue of when to speak out and when to remain silent around the hot-button issue of traditional Christian teaching about the immorality of homosexual activity, this red-flag-waving caused the usual stampede of loving tolerant homosexual activists bent on denouncing as hateful bigots who should be marginalized and excluded from society anyone who disagreed with them that homosexual activity, and gay marriage especially, are the summit of all human existence which only bigotry could possibly see as even remotely problematic from any moral standpoint. Still, despite the attempted derailing of the entire thread, most posters managed to stay on topic and discuss the competition between free, vigorous, energetic speech which should characterize both university inquiry and journalism (among other professions) and the kind of prudence which should accept the reality of the present age in its ceaseless homage to liberal thought paid in both those institutions, and, accordingly, remain silent in order to remain employed.
It is a particular puzzle for modern man; liberated from the moral constraints of the past, the one thing he is not particularly free to express is his choice to take up those moral constraints voluntarily, because he thinks they are true, profound, noble, and holy. He is especially not free to discuss these moral truths with others who have rejected them, and is further not free to admit to having acted publicly on those convictions, particularly at the ballot box. Choosing to do any of those things in settings other than those where he knows his views will be accepted and respected (e.g. church, or a gathering of like-minded individuals) is taking the risk that he will suffer some unpleasant consequences; at work, the most likely consequences are to be reprimanded in some way, forced to endure the brainwashing known as "diversity training," or, at worst, terminated from his employment.
Though this is clearly an unjust situation, it is less clear what to do about it. There are times when a man of good character will realize that he is in a completely intolerable position and must act for the good of his own conscience; but there are also times when a man of good character will accept the dictates of the 0ften-overlooked virtue called prudence, and realize that it is not the time nor the place to make the kind of statement that could easily get him fired. There is no need for him to lie about his views, of course; following the example of St. Thomas More he could simply remain silent.
How are we to know the difference--to know when to act, and to know when to be quiet? The Holy Spirit should be our guide in these difficult situations, and prayer and seeking the advice of a good spiritual director are important. But I think that when the consequences of speaking out are likely to be severe, the justification for speaking out ought also to be severe; that is, a mere lunchroom conversation will rarely rise to the level of a situation where we must speak, but pressure to add one's name to a public petition which runs counter to one's views, or to teach or lecture in such a way that supports the position you know is morally wrong, or to write in such a way that you are defending the position opposite to your own, would be different matters.
All of this, of course, makes me think of the situation of the Episcopal Church in Fort Worth; an interesting letter from one of those remaining within TEC can be read here. While I don't agree with the writer, it's clear from the timeline that Bishop Iker did everything he could to remain in the ECUSA, even sending women to Dallas since he couldn't in good conscience help them become female priests himself. But as so often happens, those determined to become a more "tolerant" church were also determined to force their idea of tolerance on everybody else, regardless of how many consciences were violated in the process, and in the end I think Bishop Iker had to stand up for the truth and take the actions he has so far taken to protect the souls in his care.
Our modern world is continually seeking to advance its agenda, and so much of that agenda is so diametrically opposed to the Gospel that we're most likely going to run afoul of it sooner or later. When the time comes to stand on our convictions, we should be prepared to do so; and our previous habits of prudence and silence will strenghten and aid is if that day comes. The kind of tolerance that tolerates evil but not goodness isn't really tolerance; it's tyranny. And tyrants have a way, eventually, of drawing that line in the sand which no good man can cross.
Fun Timewaster
Mark Shea links to the "Bus Slogan Generator," and I made a version of the one I posted in the comments yesterday under this post at Rod Dreher's blog:
Your turn! :)
Your turn! :)
Monday, February 9, 2009
Attention, Older Americans: The Stimulus Plan Could Kill You
Drudge had the link to this, which points out some disturbing information about some of the detritus buried in the stimulus plan:
But the bigger issue here, as the author points out, is that this is really intended as an end-run around the debate on socialized medicine. By implementing key provisions that will allow greater federal oversight of doctors, forbid doctors to make decisions without being "guided" by bureaucrats whose only interest is cutting costs (and for whom patient care is completely unimportant), and mandate rationing of care among the elderly, the Democrats are hoping to get Hillary-style health care ramrodded into our society without any discussion of it at all.
This has nothing to do with the economy. It's nothing less than a massive power grab aimed at one of the few American industries still operating in the red. Giving the federal government such extreme control of the health care industry under the guise that stimulating the economy demands this course of action is an outright lie, buried in a spending plan that the Democrats are obviously hoping is too massive to have permitted a careful reading.
Tom Daschle knows as well, or better, than anyone that it wasn't "Senate Protocol" that kept Hillary Clinton from selling a massive government health care program to Americans in the first place; it was the people. The more Americans were informed about government health care and what that would mean for their freedom, their choices, their privacy, and their right to go to the doctor without a federal bureaucrat standing by with a veto that would forbid them from getting the care they needed and wanted, the more Americans rejected it. And this attempt to sneak socialized medicine into our society without any debate at all is the sort of thing that, in better days, would have caused good men to throw boxes of taxed tea into the nearest harbor, if you get my drift.
If you are as outraged by this as I am, please consider contacting your members of congress (contact information below) and tell them you do NOT want these health care provisions in the final version of the stimulus bill. This is especially important if your representative or senator is a Democrat.
To contact your Representative, click here.
To contact your Senator, click here.
The economy may be sick, but slipping a dose of government health care into the so-called "remedy" is too bitter a pill to swallow.
Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.
Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”[...]
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision. [...]
And slipping all of this in is deliberate:
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”I'd argue with the author of this piece about medical records tracking: having one's medical records in electronic form might be a good idea, but having these records maintained on a federal government system is lunacy. The scope of the federal government is already so large that it seems as though the early American anti-federalists had the right idea; increasing that scope to allow unelected federal bureaucrats to poke around in our private medical records is quite frankly an obnoxious idea to anyone who still values freedom over government intrusion.
But the bigger issue here, as the author points out, is that this is really intended as an end-run around the debate on socialized medicine. By implementing key provisions that will allow greater federal oversight of doctors, forbid doctors to make decisions without being "guided" by bureaucrats whose only interest is cutting costs (and for whom patient care is completely unimportant), and mandate rationing of care among the elderly, the Democrats are hoping to get Hillary-style health care ramrodded into our society without any discussion of it at all.
This has nothing to do with the economy. It's nothing less than a massive power grab aimed at one of the few American industries still operating in the red. Giving the federal government such extreme control of the health care industry under the guise that stimulating the economy demands this course of action is an outright lie, buried in a spending plan that the Democrats are obviously hoping is too massive to have permitted a careful reading.
Tom Daschle knows as well, or better, than anyone that it wasn't "Senate Protocol" that kept Hillary Clinton from selling a massive government health care program to Americans in the first place; it was the people. The more Americans were informed about government health care and what that would mean for their freedom, their choices, their privacy, and their right to go to the doctor without a federal bureaucrat standing by with a veto that would forbid them from getting the care they needed and wanted, the more Americans rejected it. And this attempt to sneak socialized medicine into our society without any debate at all is the sort of thing that, in better days, would have caused good men to throw boxes of taxed tea into the nearest harbor, if you get my drift.
If you are as outraged by this as I am, please consider contacting your members of congress (contact information below) and tell them you do NOT want these health care provisions in the final version of the stimulus bill. This is especially important if your representative or senator is a Democrat.
To contact your Representative, click here.
To contact your Senator, click here.
The economy may be sick, but slipping a dose of government health care into the so-called "remedy" is too bitter a pill to swallow.
You Can Take It to the Bank
President Obama is calling on Americans to get behind the stimulus plan:
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama pushed for his emergency economic stimulus with an urgent one-two punch Monday, addressing the nation in the first prime-time news conference of his presidency after taking his campaign directly to recession victims in hard-hit Indiana. "Doing nothing is not an option," Obama warned during a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., where unemployment has passed 15 percent.Speedy passage of legislation to pump federal money into the crippled economy, once seemingly assured with bipartisan support, has become a much heavier lift and a major test of Obama's young presidency.
On the day that an $838 billion version of the legislation cleared a crucial test vote in the Senate, Obama warned darkly of the consequences he contended would result from inaction. By a 61-36 margin, the package was advanced toward a vote on final Senate passage Tuesday -- with all but three Republican senators opposing it.
"Our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse," he said. Officials have frequently suggested the current recession, which has catapulted the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent and erased 3.6 million jobs, is the worst U.S. economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But no one has been suggesting the economic downturn could be permanent.
Doing nothing is not an option? Not so, says Robert Higgs:
Oakland, Calif. - As we wait to see how the politicians in Washington will alter the stimulus package the Obama administration is pushing, many questions are being raised about the measure's contents and efficacy. Should it include money for the National Endowment for the Arts, Amtrak, and child care? Is it big enough to get the economy moving again? Does it spend money fast enough? Hardly anyone, however, is asking the most important question: Should the federal government be doing any of this?
In raising this question, one risks immediate dismissal as someone hopelessly out of touch with the modern realities of economics and government. Yet the United States managed to navigate the first century and a half of its past – a time of phenomenal growth – without any substantial federal intervention to moderate economic booms and busts. Indeed, when the government did intervene actively, under Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the result was the Great Depression. [...]
Federal intervention rests on the presumption that officials know how to manage the economy and will use this knowledge effectively. This presumption always had a shaky foundation, and we have recently witnessed even more compelling evidence that the government simply does not know what it's doing. The big bailout bill enacted last October; the Federal Reserve's massive, frantic lending for many different purposes; and now the huge stimulus package all look like wild flailing – doing something mainly for the sake of being seen to be doing something – and, of course, enriching politically connected interests in the process.
Our greatest need at present is for the government to go in the opposite direction, to do much less, rather than much more. As recently as the major recession of 1920-21, the government took a hands-off position, and the downturn, though sharp, quickly reversed itself into full recovery. In contrast, Hoover responded to the downturn of 1929 by raising tariffs, propping up wage rates, bailing out farmers, banks, and other businesses, and financing state relief efforts. Roosevelt moved even more vigorously in the same activist direction, and the outcome was a protracted period of depression (and wartime privation) from which complete recovery did not come until 1946.
I'm a big believer in the idea that there is no problem so bad, no crisis so terrifying, that the combined bungling power of hundreds of Congressmen and women along with thousands of federal bureaucratic officials can't make it much, much worse. So I'm sympathetic to what Mr. Higgs is saying; in fact, few people I've spoken to expect the huge bailout to do more than the last huge bailout did. It's easy to forget we've already, under President Bush, passed a plan to spend as much as 700 billion dollars; since there's "only" $350 billion of that money remaining, we're told, we urgently need this new plan to spend about $900 billion more.
Unfortunately, in politics illusion is often more important than reality. If President Obama doesn't get his stimulus package passed, it's entirely possible that the gloom-n-doom media will spook the markets as easily as a lightening bolt spooks a herd of cattle, and the resulting rush to the cliffs will, indeed, be blamed on the president's supposed inaction. From the standpoint of a man who has already voiced public concern about his legacy, this is a no-brainer: if the first infusion of taxpayer-supplied cash doesn't do the trick, there can always be more stimulus plans, given ever more creative titles to remind us of how important they are to our national well-being; and so long as some important benchmarks are passed, victory can be declared and credit taken by President Obama for whatever good seems to be coming from throwing money at the problem.
But doing nothing is almost certainly going to lead to criticism, at least in the short term, and there is thus a risk that Obama's legacy might be tarnished by the naysaying voices of those who insist that if only the President would have made Congress spend more of our money...
Congress is, of course, always ready to spend more of our money. But Congress also wants to have someone to blame it on if things go badly; you don't get re-elected if despite (or because of) bailouts with a combined total of sixteen billion dollars or so, your constitutents are increasingly unemployed, broke and angry--and they blame you. So in the event of bailout failure Congressional Republicans can take the virtuous high road of having not supported the second bailout, and Congressional Democrats can hope everybody forgot about the first one and talk about their misplaced trust in the young and inexperienced president, and both can achieve their ultimate goal of being elected again and again to serve in Congress.
So President Obama shouldn't relax about that legacy just yet. If the stimulus package spin can make enough people believe we're on the road to recovery, we might just end up there, and he can take the credit. But if things don't pan out quite that way, his legacy might end up tarnished after all--by the people on his side of the aisle, who will drop their involvement in passing the stimulus package like a hot potato should it start to smell even remotely like a political liability.
Maciel in the Mexican Media
Last week, I posted a bit from a Mexican media source about Fr. Maciel; this source, I was told by readers who can read Spanish, is not a trusted media source, but is more like a "National Enquirer" paper.
Over the weekend, though, it seems as though some more mainstream Spanish media sources have picked up the Maciel story, with Spanish-language newspapers, blogs, and editorials being written.
Even in Google translator, these are interesting to read. Several make the point that people within the Legion had to be aware of Fr. Maciel's lifestyle, and that his co-conspirators and enablers could very well still be entrenched within the Legion; this is, naturally, aside from rumors about the mother's age at the time of conception which have so far remained unfounded rumor the point of greatest concern among observers of the Legion.
This article refers to the Ex LC, Life-after-RC and American Papist blogs, and their role in helping to spread the information:
Over the weekend, though, it seems as though some more mainstream Spanish media sources have picked up the Maciel story, with Spanish-language newspapers, blogs, and editorials being written.
Even in Google translator, these are interesting to read. Several make the point that people within the Legion had to be aware of Fr. Maciel's lifestyle, and that his co-conspirators and enablers could very well still be entrenched within the Legion; this is, naturally, aside from rumors about the mother's age at the time of conception which have so far remained unfounded rumor the point of greatest concern among observers of the Legion.
This article refers to the Ex LC, Life-after-RC and American Papist blogs, and their role in helping to spread the information:
Esa fachada de santa infalibilidad se desmoronó cuando los blogs Ex LC Blog, Life alter LC y American Papist destaparon el lunes 2 de febrero que “hoy, el P. Scott Reilly, LC, director territorial de Atlanta, Georgia, le anunció a quienes trabajan en esa dirección territorial de la Legión de Cristo que Marcial Maciel tuvo una amante, procreó con ella al menos un hijo y vivió una doble vida”. La noticia fue prontamente recogida por los principales diarios del mundo.
Lo cierto es que, de acuerdo al New York Times y a testigos presenciales que pidieron el anonimato, Corcuera y otros altos lÃderes de la Orden tenÃan ya semanas de acercarse a sus seguidores más fieles para informarles del hecho. Pero no hay indicio de que pensaran hacerlo público o, cuando menos, no pronto.
I find it interesting that the Mexican media seems to be picking up steam on the Maciel story at a time when the American media seems to have let it die down. Granted, there aren't any new revelations or new circumstances which warrant any further hard news stories; but as the Mexican press seems to be pointing out, there are still a whole lot of unanswered--and very pertinent--questions. Among these seem to me to be the following:
1. Within the Legion, who knew about Fr. Maciel's double life?
2. What exactly did they know, and for how long did they know it?
3. What, if anything, did they do to aid or facilitate this life (e.g., turning a blind eye to accounting irregularites that would naturally follow the disappearance of large sums of cash being used by Fr. Maciel to support his lifestyle, etc.)?
4. How many of these people are still living, still working within the Legion, and still involved in any way with the handling of the dissemination of this information?
Without honest answers to at least these four questions--and there are others, of course--it seems to me that the Legion can't even pretend to be "healing," "moving forward," and so on. It is one thing to take down the pictures of Fr. Maciel at one of the Legion's facilities in Rome, as one of the Mexican media sources reports is being done; it's another altogether to continue to permit those who did know--and surely at least a few did--what was going on to remain blameless, and even, perhaps, in current positions of authority within the Legion.
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Push for Universal Health Care
Earlier this week, President Obama signed an expansion to the State Children's Health Insurance program:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a law expanding a health program to include 3.5 million uninsured children, advancing an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system despite the embarrassing withdrawal of his nominee to lead the initiative.
Obama signed the legislation at a White House ceremony just hours after the U.S. House of Representatives voted 290-135 for the $32.8 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, which was approved by the Senate last week.
"In a decent society, there are certain obligations that are not subject to trade-offs or negotiations -- healthcare for our children is one of those obligations," Obama said.
The bill was "a downpayment on my commitment to cover every single American," he added.
President George W. Bush twice vetoed similar bills, arguing it would raise taxes and encourage businesses and families to drop private insurance and switch to the program.
The bill signed by Obama aims to increase the number of children covered by SCHIP to 11 million from the 7.4 million currently enrolled. [...]
The SCHIP program is designed to help working families who cannot afford private health insurance but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid healthcare coverage for the poor.
Republicans had criticized provisions in the bill that allowed states like New Jersey and New York to provide coverage for higher-income families, some earning as much as $88,000.
Those greedy Republicans! How dare they suggest that people making $88,000 a year can afford their own insurance for their children! Of course, the reality is that people making significantly less than that amount will end up paying, via taxes, for insurance for people who earn more, but we can't let reality get in the way of feel-good government and huge increases in the number of people who qualify for government health care.
The push for socialized medicine continues; I expect that only the dismal economy has kept a new mandate for universal health care off of the Democrats' legislative table for the time being.
One of the things I find frustrating about my fellow Catholics is that more and more of them seem to think that universal health care is not only a good idea, but is what Christ would want, and is the most fair, just, equitable way of making sure that everybody gets adequate health care imaginable. Sadly, there is evidence to the contrary:
Paramedics arrived at the accident scene within minutes after the man on a bicycle collided with a motorcycle in the western city of Itami. But 14 hospitals contacted to provide medical care for the injured 69-year-old all refused to admit him citing a lack of specialists, equipment, beds and staff, according to Mitsuhisa Ikemoto, a fire department official. The Jan. 20 incident was the latest in a string of recent cases in Japan in which patients were denied treatment, underscoring health care woes in a rapidly aging society that faces an acute shortage of doctors and a growing number of elderly patients. One of the hospitals finally agreed to provide care when the paramedics called a second time more than an hour after the accident. But the man, who suffered head and back injuries, died soon after from hemorrhagic shock, which occurs when cells do not receive enough oxygen and nutrients to function. The victim might have survived if a hospital accepted him more quickly, Ikemoto said. "I wish hospitals are more willing to take patients, but they have their own reasons, too," he said. The motorcyclist, also hurt in the accident, was denied admission by two hospitals before a third accepted him, Ikemoto said. He was recovering from his injuries. The man's death prompted the city to issue a directive ordering paramedics to better coordinate with an emergency call center so patients can find a hospital within 15 minutes. But hospitals still cannot be punished for turning away patients if they are already full. Similar problems have occurred frequently in recent years. More than 14,000 emergency patients were rejected at least three times by Japanese hospitals before getting treatment in 2007, the latest government survey showed. Japan has had universal health care the 1960s. But with an aging populating, rising costs--though Japanese citizens pay a monthly health-insurance fee to the government--and shrinking numbers of doctors and other health professionals willing to accept the pay which is determined for their services by the central government, the system is beginning to implode. So while Americans agitate for "free government health care," many of them aren't looking at the real costs. A hard look at what's going wrong in Japan might be worth taking--if anyone were willing to take it. Unfortunately Americans have not been inclined to do so; too many Americans think that health care should be "free" and that only greedy medical profiteers think otherwise. For now, we just have to deal with a huge expansion of SCHIP at a time when we're ill-prepared to pay for any such expansions. In the long run, adding more and more middle-class families to SCHIP may end up diminishing access to services for more and more of those who sign up for the program. We tend to forget that we get what we pay for, and this is espeically true when what we're getting is "free."TOKYO (AP) - After getting struck by a motorcycle, an elderly Japanese man with head injuries waited in an ambulance as paramedics phoned 14 hospitals, each refusing to treat him. He died 90 minutes later at one facility that finally relented—one of thousands of victims repeatedly turned away in recent years by understaffed and overcrowded hospitals.
Translator Needed
Okay, I took some Spanish in college, but aside from learning a lot about the professor's love of her native Cuba I didn't learn a whole lot of Spanish.
If someone out there is fluent enough in Spanish to translate this news story (which I think is from Mexico), I'd really appreciate it! As it is, I think I've got the gist of it, but not well enough to be sure of all the details.
The story is as follows:
Thanks in advance!
THIRD UPDATE: Another commenter has offered this valuable perspective below:
"I'm not saying these accusations aren't true, but I'd take anything from this source with more than a grain of salt. This is an alternative news source that follows Lopez Obrador, who they call the Peje, and he caused a huge ruckus in Mexico when he lost his presidential bid in 2006. He's so far to the left he calls Chavez a friend. So I'd look for other sources for your news. If even Universal and Reforma need to be looked at with a grain of salt, much more so this publication. Just my two cents."
I appreciate that, because along with an inability to read much Spanish I also have no idea which Mexican media sources might be trustworthy and which aren't.
I've heard elsewhere that Maciel's child's mother was 15 at the time the pregnancy occurred; so far, though, that still appears to be rumor. As I said before, I appreciate the legitimate need to protect the identity of the woman and her daughter--but if this was a case of abuse of a minor than that adds a gravity to the situation that will need to be addressed.
I have also seen in a few places some hints that the child of Fr. Maciel, now in her twenties, plans to make a statement in the immediate future. Again, this is not verified at this time, but would certainly shed light on some of the unanswered questions if it were to take place.
SECOND UPDATE: An anonymous commenter (thank you so much for doing this, btw!!) in the comments box below has posted a much smoother translation, which is as follows; I'm leaving my first update below this one for now, but will probably remove it later:
"The girl that Maciel got pregnant was 15 years old.
Currently 20, the daughter of the priest wants to sell her tale, for which reason the order is coming forward to contain the damage this will cause.
Fr Marcial Maciel founder of the Legion of Christ, was 68 when he got the fifteen year old girl pregnant in 1988 in a real abuse of a minor, the priest always knew of the existence of the girl, in fact always sent the mother money. So comments Juan Jose Vaca in a radio interview with Carmen Aristegui.
Juan Jose Vaca ex-Legionary of Christ, joined the congregation at 10 years old, and was a member for 30 years, commented the long time assistent to Marcial Maciel to the reporter that the Legionaries knew of the existence of this girl 5 years before the father (ed: Vaca) left the priesthood.
The current superior of the legionaries confronted Maciel about his actions and for the money he was wasting, since on each trip he left with 10 to 15 thousand dollars.
It is said that the daughter of Fr Maciel, currently 20 years old, wants to sell her story, and that is why the order is coming forward with it to contain the damage and prevent further scandal.
Vaca mentioned that he witnessed two situations in which Maciel got into it with three women, once in Rome between 1955 or 1956 and another two in the Kennedy airport during the same dates. "
FIRST UPDATE: (from earlier, but I'll leave it for now) This is a rather awkward translation from Google's translator. I would really, really like someone to confirm the facts in the story, which are that the child's mother was 15 at the time of the abuse, that the Legion knew of the child's existence at least five years ago (and possibly longer; the phrase is unclear) and that money was being paid to the family. So if you can help, please do!
Google's version:
15 years was the pregnant girl who Maciel
In 20 years actualmete the priest's daughter wants to sell his story is why the order is underway to try to diminish the impact of the move.
Father Marcial Maciel founded the Legion of Christ was 68 years when a pregnant 15 year old girl in 1988 in a real abuse of a minor, the priest always knew of the existence of the girl, in fact if you send money to the mother . rioja and Juan José Vaca said in a radio interview with Carmen Aristegui.
Juan Jose Vaca former Legionary of Christ from the 10 years, was 30 years with the Legionaries of Christ and long time assistant of Marcial Maciel told the reporter that the legionaries knew of the existence of this little girl 5 years before the father left the pontifical.
The current top of rioja legionaires faced Maciel to answer for their actions and that the money spent since it always went on every trip with 10 thousand to 15 thousand dollars.
It is said that the daughter of Father Maciel, who is now 20 years and wants to sell his story is why the order is underway to try to diminish the impact and prevent further damage done.
Vaca said that he witnessed two situations where Maciel got three women, one in Rome between 1955 and 56 and two at Kennedy Airport for the same dates.
If someone out there is fluent enough in Spanish to translate this news story (which I think is from Mexico), I'd really appreciate it! As it is, I think I've got the gist of it, but not well enough to be sure of all the details.
The story is as follows:
TenÃa 15 años la niña a quien Maciel embarazó
De 20 años actualmete la hija del sacerdote quiere vender su historia es por eso que la orden se está adelantando para tratar de restar impacto al hecho.
El Padre Marcial Maciel fundador de la Legión de Cristo tenÃa 68 años cuando embarazó a niña de 15 años en 1988 en un autentico abuso de una menor, el sacerdote siempre supo de la existencia de la niña, de hecho siempre le mandaba dinero a la mamá. asà lo comentó Juan José Vaca en entrevista radiofónica con Carmen Aristegui.
Juan José Vaca ex legionario de Cristo desde los 10 años, estuvo 30 años con los Legionarios de Cristo y asistente mucho tiempo de Marcial Maciel comentó a la reportera que los legionarios sabÃan de la existencia de esta niña 5 años antes de que el padre dejara el pontificio.
El actual superior de lo legionarios se enfrentó a Maciel para responder por sus actos y por el dinero que este gastaba ya que este siempre salÃa en cada viaje con 10 mil a 15 mil dólares.
Se dice que la hija del padre Maciel que en la actualidad tiene ya 20 años quiere vender su historia es por eso que la orden se está adelantando para tratar de restar impacto al hecho y prevenir mayores daños.
Vaca Mencionó que fue testigo de dos situaciones en donde Maciel se metió con tres mujeres, una en Roma entre 1955 o 56 y otras dos en el Aeropuerto Kennedy por las mismas fechas.
If anyone can translate this and doesn't mind his/her unofficial translation being posted here, I'll update this post with the translated version.
Thanks in advance!
THIRD UPDATE: Another commenter has offered this valuable perspective below:
"I'm not saying these accusations aren't true, but I'd take anything from this source with more than a grain of salt. This is an alternative news source that follows Lopez Obrador, who they call the Peje, and he caused a huge ruckus in Mexico when he lost his presidential bid in 2006. He's so far to the left he calls Chavez a friend. So I'd look for other sources for your news. If even Universal and Reforma need to be looked at with a grain of salt, much more so this publication. Just my two cents."
I appreciate that, because along with an inability to read much Spanish I also have no idea which Mexican media sources might be trustworthy and which aren't.
I've heard elsewhere that Maciel's child's mother was 15 at the time the pregnancy occurred; so far, though, that still appears to be rumor. As I said before, I appreciate the legitimate need to protect the identity of the woman and her daughter--but if this was a case of abuse of a minor than that adds a gravity to the situation that will need to be addressed.
I have also seen in a few places some hints that the child of Fr. Maciel, now in her twenties, plans to make a statement in the immediate future. Again, this is not verified at this time, but would certainly shed light on some of the unanswered questions if it were to take place.
SECOND UPDATE: An anonymous commenter (thank you so much for doing this, btw!!) in the comments box below has posted a much smoother translation, which is as follows; I'm leaving my first update below this one for now, but will probably remove it later:
"The girl that Maciel got pregnant was 15 years old.
Currently 20, the daughter of the priest wants to sell her tale, for which reason the order is coming forward to contain the damage this will cause.
Fr Marcial Maciel founder of the Legion of Christ, was 68 when he got the fifteen year old girl pregnant in 1988 in a real abuse of a minor, the priest always knew of the existence of the girl, in fact always sent the mother money. So comments Juan Jose Vaca in a radio interview with Carmen Aristegui.
Juan Jose Vaca ex-Legionary of Christ, joined the congregation at 10 years old, and was a member for 30 years, commented the long time assistent to Marcial Maciel to the reporter that the Legionaries knew of the existence of this girl 5 years before the father (ed: Vaca) left the priesthood.
The current superior of the legionaries confronted Maciel about his actions and for the money he was wasting, since on each trip he left with 10 to 15 thousand dollars.
It is said that the daughter of Fr Maciel, currently 20 years old, wants to sell her story, and that is why the order is coming forward with it to contain the damage and prevent further scandal.
Vaca mentioned that he witnessed two situations in which Maciel got into it with three women, once in Rome between 1955 or 1956 and another two in the Kennedy airport during the same dates. "
FIRST UPDATE: (from earlier, but I'll leave it for now) This is a rather awkward translation from Google's translator. I would really, really like someone to confirm the facts in the story, which are that the child's mother was 15 at the time of the abuse, that the Legion knew of the child's existence at least five years ago (and possibly longer; the phrase is unclear) and that money was being paid to the family. So if you can help, please do!
Google's version:
15 years was the pregnant girl who Maciel
In 20 years actualmete the priest's daughter wants to sell his story is why the order is underway to try to diminish the impact of the move.
Father Marcial Maciel founded the Legion of Christ was 68 years when a pregnant 15 year old girl in 1988 in a real abuse of a minor, the priest always knew of the existence of the girl, in fact if you send money to the mother . rioja and Juan José Vaca said in a radio interview with Carmen Aristegui.
Juan Jose Vaca former Legionary of Christ from the 10 years, was 30 years with the Legionaries of Christ and long time assistant of Marcial Maciel told the reporter that the legionaries knew of the existence of this little girl 5 years before the father left the pontifical.
The current top of rioja legionaires faced Maciel to answer for their actions and that the money spent since it always went on every trip with 10 thousand to 15 thousand dollars.
It is said that the daughter of Father Maciel, who is now 20 years and wants to sell his story is why the order is underway to try to diminish the impact and prevent further damage done.
Vaca said that he witnessed two situations where Maciel got three women, one in Rome between 1955 and 56 and two at Kennedy Airport for the same dates.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
More Thoughts on the Legion
I will be blogging about other things, soon I promise. But because of a few reactions to the post I wrote below, as well as some things I've been discussing with friends and family, I wanted to offer a few more thoughts.
First, I don't want people to think that all LC/RC programs or materials ought instantly to be suspect, and I certainly think there are many good people who have become involved in some way with the Legion. However, I do think that given the seriousness of the situation involving Fr. Maciel and the wholly inadequate Legion response, those who are involved with the Legion should keep their eyes and ears open as these events continue to unfold.
And they will, though one of the grave disappointments so far is that the Legion appears to believe that the matter is closed. Fr. Maciel did bad things, they reluctantly admit, but we still cherish him as our founder and though we are sad we are all ready to move on and put this behind us. Lest anyone think I'm mischaracterizing the Legion response, consider this:
And there are rumors that the mother of Father Maciel's young daughter might have been only fifteen years old at the time she became pregnant; these will have to be taken seriously, as the impregnation of an underage girl adds statutory rape to Fr. Maciel's potentially criminal conduct. The Legion keeps insisting on "privacy" for Fr. Maciel's child and her mother; while I would never want to inflict more suffering on these women, the details could be the difference between an adult relationship--terrible, but not criminal--and an abusive one with a minor, which could involve the Legion in some liability, even after Fr. Maciel's death.
In fact, the Legion could be liable in some sense anyway, if Fr. Maciel was consipiring with other Legion members to use Legion funds, in secret, for the support of these two women (and, we must fact the possibility, perhaps others).
In other words, it is extremely premature to talk of moving forward, putting this all behind them, and the like, on the part of the Legion. The situation has yet to be fully known or understood; it cannot and will not be swept under the rug so that the Legion can go on its merry way, pretending that their founder was a misunderstood saint who unfortunately had some minor personal failings.
Further, the stubborn clinging to the notion that Fr. Maciel's great gifts and the "charism" he gave to the Legion (though no one seems to know exactly what that "charism" is, making it easily the most undefined charism of a religious order ever to be given as a gift of the Holy Spirit, as they claim it was) is going to have to stop. There is every possibility that Fr. Maciel spent much of his life in an objective state of serious sin (does anyone really believe he fell into sin only once, somewhere in his late sixties, and that one instance happened to produce a child?). It is looking increasingly silly to read things like this, from Legion documents (found on their website and elsewhere):
And from the official letter Fr. Alvaro wrote to Regnum Christi members:
This is not over, no matter how much the Legion would like to pretend it is. A more forceful response, clearly distancing the Legion from the grave evil found in the life of their founder (whose title ought no longer to be capitalized, at the very least), is the minimum necessity for the Legion to remain any semblance of integrity throughout this crisis. Anything less suggests that they are not taking this seriously, and plan to change absolutely nothing--despite the extreme likelihood that there are other living members of the Legion who knew about Fr. Maciel's sins, and have helped and may even be continuing to help cover them up.
That's why those involved, however tangentially, with the Legion need to be careful. A healthy organization would react with horror to what has so far been revealed, and promise a thorough investigation--or beg Rome to conduct one on their behalf. An unhealthy, cultish organization will circle the wagons, say vague things about "sad" and "inappropriate" behavior, insist despite it all that their Father Founder was a great gift of the Holy Spirit to the whole Church and that nothing has changed that, and insist with tight lips that it's all in the past and it's time to move on. You can see for yourself which path the Legion and its affiliated organizations have so far chosen to follow.
First, I don't want people to think that all LC/RC programs or materials ought instantly to be suspect, and I certainly think there are many good people who have become involved in some way with the Legion. However, I do think that given the seriousness of the situation involving Fr. Maciel and the wholly inadequate Legion response, those who are involved with the Legion should keep their eyes and ears open as these events continue to unfold.
And they will, though one of the grave disappointments so far is that the Legion appears to believe that the matter is closed. Fr. Maciel did bad things, they reluctantly admit, but we still cherish him as our founder and though we are sad we are all ready to move on and put this behind us. Lest anyone think I'm mischaracterizing the Legion response, consider this:
That last is particularly outrageous. There were victims--how many we don't yet know, aside from the woman who has a daughter by Fr. Maciel--but the coldness and hardheartedness of dismissing their suffering by saying that surely by now they've received care completely boggles the mind. Nothing the Legion is doing is in any way good if this is the attitude they take in the face of terrible suffering inflicted upon innocent people by their own founder.The pain the Legionaries are experiencing now “is so great precisely because this is something we did not know before,” Scarafoni said.
However, he said, “We are serene. Certainly, it is a time of great trial for us and in the face of this there is great suffering.”
Scarafoni had told the Mexican news agency Notimex that the Legionaries were living through “a process of purification.”
He told CNS, “When you are faced with such great pain, it means that you must grow, you must be better, you must be purified spiritually because you must continue to move forward motivated by even higher ideals. This is especially true when you are faced with the unexpected.”
At the same time, he said, “there is much gratitude. Our gratitude to him remains very strong because we have received so much that is good from him. This is something we cannot and will not deny.” [...]
Religion News Service reports that Scarafoni said the Legion had no plans to apologize to any alleged abuse victims or offer them pastoral care. "They have surely found a way by now to receive adequate care," he said.
And there are rumors that the mother of Father Maciel's young daughter might have been only fifteen years old at the time she became pregnant; these will have to be taken seriously, as the impregnation of an underage girl adds statutory rape to Fr. Maciel's potentially criminal conduct. The Legion keeps insisting on "privacy" for Fr. Maciel's child and her mother; while I would never want to inflict more suffering on these women, the details could be the difference between an adult relationship--terrible, but not criminal--and an abusive one with a minor, which could involve the Legion in some liability, even after Fr. Maciel's death.
In fact, the Legion could be liable in some sense anyway, if Fr. Maciel was consipiring with other Legion members to use Legion funds, in secret, for the support of these two women (and, we must fact the possibility, perhaps others).
In other words, it is extremely premature to talk of moving forward, putting this all behind them, and the like, on the part of the Legion. The situation has yet to be fully known or understood; it cannot and will not be swept under the rug so that the Legion can go on its merry way, pretending that their founder was a misunderstood saint who unfortunately had some minor personal failings.
Further, the stubborn clinging to the notion that Fr. Maciel's great gifts and the "charism" he gave to the Legion (though no one seems to know exactly what that "charism" is, making it easily the most undefined charism of a religious order ever to be given as a gift of the Holy Spirit, as they claim it was) is going to have to stop. There is every possibility that Fr. Maciel spent much of his life in an objective state of serious sin (does anyone really believe he fell into sin only once, somewhere in his late sixties, and that one instance happened to produce a child?). It is looking increasingly silly to read things like this, from Legion documents (found on their website and elsewhere):
"469. Since it has been ordained by God that the person and life or Our Father Founder cannot be separated from the life and spirituality of the Legion, we the Chapter Fathers recognize the necessity to carefully gather and conserve all material dealing with the person, life, work and word of Our Founder.""
"6) What formation did you receive to prepare you to be a founder?
Certainly, there is no such thing as a program of studies to become a founder. As with the prophets or apostles, when God chooses someone for a mission, he prepares him and engages him to carry out his work; the founder is only an instrument in his hands. But the Church definitely requires certain studies of applicants to the priesthood. Father Maciel did some of his priestly studies at the Montezuma seminary and completed them later on in Mexico City under the care of Bishop Francisco González Arias, bishop of Cuernavaca, who presided over the tribunal of his theology exams and ordained him a priest on November 26, 1944."
"«There are thousands and thousands of postcards, letters, cards ... Written at airplanes and airports, at waiting rooms, in the bed of a hospital, in the silence of a chapel ...Father Maciel offers a treasure of spirituality on each page, and outlines the charism of the Legion of Christ and of the future Regnum Christi Movement. His letters reveal him to be an integral priest, as a founder and confessor, as a friend of Christ, and as a son of the Church. And his memorable and expressive words are charged at the same time with sweetness and energetic strength, with sincerity and humility. They reveal the human being who smiles or cries while he writes to his men;, the priest who loves and forgives; the father who instructs, corrects, and encourages his children, and who prays for them” (The Legion of Christ: a History. By ANGELES CONDE - DAVID MURRAY). "
And from the official letter Fr. Alvaro wrote to Regnum Christi members:
As regards truth, the first thing we see in Christ’s presence is that he is the Truth, which leads us to look at everything through him. In the present case, regarding the person of our Father Founder, I cannot but recognize all the good I received through him. Through the charism he passed on to us, many people have received from God what has given meaning to our lives: love for Christ, the Blessed Virgin, the Church, the Pope and souls. These are our loves. On a personal level, I am grateful to him for being the instrument God used to give my entire life meaning, seeking eternal salvation, the path to God. This is the truth I experienced, and it would be impossible to find enough words to thank him.Faith, humility, and mercy ought first to be displayed to the victims of Father Maciel, before the Legion starts talking about practicing them internally--or cultivating that attitude toward Fr. Maciel's memory, as I suspect is being suggested here.
It is also true that he was a man, and these things that have hurt and surprised us—and I don’t believe we can explain with our reason alone—have already been judged by God. It is true that we are going through much suffering and a great deal of pain. As in a family, these pains draw us together and lead us to suffer and rejoice as one body. This circumstance we are living invites us to look at everything with much faith, humility and charity. Thus we place it in the hands of God, who teaches us the way of infinite mercy.
This is not over, no matter how much the Legion would like to pretend it is. A more forceful response, clearly distancing the Legion from the grave evil found in the life of their founder (whose title ought no longer to be capitalized, at the very least), is the minimum necessity for the Legion to remain any semblance of integrity throughout this crisis. Anything less suggests that they are not taking this seriously, and plan to change absolutely nothing--despite the extreme likelihood that there are other living members of the Legion who knew about Fr. Maciel's sins, and have helped and may even be continuing to help cover them up.
That's why those involved, however tangentially, with the Legion need to be careful. A healthy organization would react with horror to what has so far been revealed, and promise a thorough investigation--or beg Rome to conduct one on their behalf. An unhealthy, cultish organization will circle the wagons, say vague things about "sad" and "inappropriate" behavior, insist despite it all that their Father Founder was a great gift of the Holy Spirit to the whole Church and that nothing has changed that, and insist with tight lips that it's all in the past and it's time to move on. You can see for yourself which path the Legion and its affiliated organizations have so far chosen to follow.
Disappointed, So Far
After promising to do so much earlier, Faith and Family Live has published a reaction to the Fr. Maciel news, here. As you can see, all they have done is link to the National Catholic Register and Zenit; Zenit's article is particularly dismaying in tone, something I'll probably write about tomorrow.
It is mentioned at Faith and Family that the National Catholic Register is their "sister site." It is not mentioned that the Register and Faith and Family are both Legion affiliated, and that Zenit relied heavily on Legion funds at its inception (though the degree to which it is still affiliated with the Legion are difficult to determine; I have been searching for information on the non-profit organization "Innovative Media, Inc." and its president, Antonio Maza, with little success).
Granted, Faith and Family has discussed the fact that their publisher is a Legion of Christ priest. However, it is harder to discover that they are published by Circle Media, which under its "profile" and "affiliations" buttons shows links to the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi website.
Why does this matter? Does it make a difference that Faith and Family is essentially "owned" (as far as I can determine) by the Legion?
Only in this sense: there are a lot of ministries and apostolates owned by the Legion, who are going to be impacted, whether they like it or not, by the latest revelations about Fr. Maciel. The news about Fr. Maciel is not merely "sad news" or a "disappointment" or "hard to understand" or "not appropriate for a priest." It is, in a word, damnable, especially in light of the fact that we're talking about the founder of a religious order, here; one, moreover, who was treated like a living saint by his followers during his life.
And if those groups, ministries, apostolates etc. which are part of the "Movement" don't take steps, right now, to denounce this evil for what it is in no uncertain terms, and stop referring to their founder as a saintly genius who may have turned out to be "a little flawed," then I can tell you in the fullest confidence that within a breathtakingly short period of time the entire Legion will be swept away, and God Himself will do the sweeping.
And that would be a pity, because there are a lot of Legion-Regnum Christi affiliated apostolates out there; not all of them deserve to come to an end. In addition to NCR, Faith and Family, and (possibly, to some degree) Zenit some of them are as follows:
Circle Press
Challenge (girls' club)
Christian Life
Compass
Conquest
ePriest
Familia
K4J (Kids' Bible school)
Leadership Training Program
Mission Hope
Mission Youth
Pilgrim Queen of the Family
Pure Fashion
SportsLeader
Vocation Action Network
Vocation.com
myrcresource.com (Center for Integral Formation) (the "private" version of Circle Press for RC members, currently featuring a volume of "Mama Maurita's" letters among other books)
and there could be more, but that's all I have time for right now.
I'm listing them because it's not always obvious that these programs are Legion affiliates; many of them come from what's called "Mission Network," which itself just has a small "sponsored by Regnum Christi" tag at the bottom of the web pages. On the "FAQ" page we learn that Mission Network is an "outreach" of Regnum Christi.
I've heard from people whose kids joined a Challenge or Conquest club under the impression that it was simply a parish activity, only to discover the Legion connection later; I've seen moms distribute info on a K4J Bible school program without any idea that K4J is sold by the Legion. The very number of programs which operate under Legion auspices makes it hard to know that some new prayer group or ministry starting up at your parish or in your town is a Legion program, unless you go out and look for the information.
But people are starting to connect these sorts of dots, and will not be very inclined to sign their children up for programs run by people who still keep pictures of "Nuestro Padre" up on the walls, and buy and read "Mama Maurita's" letters in order to discuss her possible canonization. I have not been at all impressed with the official Legion responses coming out so far, and if the Regnum Christi response is going to be vague expressions of sadness and links to the official LC statements, then perhaps it's best if people who are clearly much more horrified by Fr. Maciel's conduct than they appear to be cut off any involvement with them.
It is mentioned at Faith and Family that the National Catholic Register is their "sister site." It is not mentioned that the Register and Faith and Family are both Legion affiliated, and that Zenit relied heavily on Legion funds at its inception (though the degree to which it is still affiliated with the Legion are difficult to determine; I have been searching for information on the non-profit organization "Innovative Media, Inc." and its president, Antonio Maza, with little success).
Granted, Faith and Family has discussed the fact that their publisher is a Legion of Christ priest. However, it is harder to discover that they are published by Circle Media, which under its "profile" and "affiliations" buttons shows links to the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi website.
Why does this matter? Does it make a difference that Faith and Family is essentially "owned" (as far as I can determine) by the Legion?
Only in this sense: there are a lot of ministries and apostolates owned by the Legion, who are going to be impacted, whether they like it or not, by the latest revelations about Fr. Maciel. The news about Fr. Maciel is not merely "sad news" or a "disappointment" or "hard to understand" or "not appropriate for a priest." It is, in a word, damnable, especially in light of the fact that we're talking about the founder of a religious order, here; one, moreover, who was treated like a living saint by his followers during his life.
And if those groups, ministries, apostolates etc. which are part of the "Movement" don't take steps, right now, to denounce this evil for what it is in no uncertain terms, and stop referring to their founder as a saintly genius who may have turned out to be "a little flawed," then I can tell you in the fullest confidence that within a breathtakingly short period of time the entire Legion will be swept away, and God Himself will do the sweeping.
And that would be a pity, because there are a lot of Legion-Regnum Christi affiliated apostolates out there; not all of them deserve to come to an end. In addition to NCR, Faith and Family, and (possibly, to some degree) Zenit some of them are as follows:
Circle Press
Challenge (girls' club)
Christian Life
Compass
Conquest
ePriest
Familia
K4J (Kids' Bible school)
Leadership Training Program
Mission Hope
Mission Youth
Pilgrim Queen of the Family
Pure Fashion
SportsLeader
Vocation Action Network
Vocation.com
myrcresource.com (Center for Integral Formation) (the "private" version of Circle Press for RC members, currently featuring a volume of "Mama Maurita's" letters among other books)
and there could be more, but that's all I have time for right now.
I'm listing them because it's not always obvious that these programs are Legion affiliates; many of them come from what's called "Mission Network," which itself just has a small "sponsored by Regnum Christi" tag at the bottom of the web pages. On the "FAQ" page we learn that Mission Network is an "outreach" of Regnum Christi.
I've heard from people whose kids joined a Challenge or Conquest club under the impression that it was simply a parish activity, only to discover the Legion connection later; I've seen moms distribute info on a K4J Bible school program without any idea that K4J is sold by the Legion. The very number of programs which operate under Legion auspices makes it hard to know that some new prayer group or ministry starting up at your parish or in your town is a Legion program, unless you go out and look for the information.
But people are starting to connect these sorts of dots, and will not be very inclined to sign their children up for programs run by people who still keep pictures of "Nuestro Padre" up on the walls, and buy and read "Mama Maurita's" letters in order to discuss her possible canonization. I have not been at all impressed with the official Legion responses coming out so far, and if the Regnum Christi response is going to be vague expressions of sadness and links to the official LC statements, then perhaps it's best if people who are clearly much more horrified by Fr. Maciel's conduct than they appear to be cut off any involvement with them.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Legion Needs A Fresh Start
The mainstream press has started to pick up the Fr. Maciel story. Reuters:
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The founder of an influential Catholic religious order, who was disciplined in 2006 for sexual abuse of boys and men, also fathered at least one child with a mistress, his order acknowledged on Wednesday.
The latest scandal to rock the Roman Catholic Church concerns Father Marcial Maciel, founder of Legionaries of Christ, who died last year at the age of 87.
News reports and blogs in the Catholic media have said that Maciel, a Mexican, had lived a double life for many years and members of the order had been told privately that he had an affair and fathered at least one child.
Asked if the reports were true, Father Paolo Scarafoni, a spokesman at the order's headquarters in Rome, told Reuters: "We cannot deny the existence of these facts but we can't go into detail because we have to respect the privacy of people involved."
He added: "Recently, we have come to know some aspects of his life that are very difficult to understand, aspects of his life that were not appropriate to the life of a priest."
Apparently, "...difficult to understand..." and "...not appropriate to the life of a priest..." are the Legion's official take, since Jim Fair said almost the same thing. Sadly, this is a weak-as-dishwater, wholly ineffectual response to the reality of Fr. Maciel's life, and it doesn't bode well for the Legion that they can't seem to see just how horrific and outrageous this all is for them, given their long-held belief that "Nuestro Padre" was a saint whose informal canonization by his order during his life would be swiftly followed by an official one once he had left this earthly existence.
More mainstream media reactions at the Boston Globe, the Dallas Morning News, and the New York Times. And Damian Thompson with the UK's Telegraph gets pretty outraged:
The Legionaries of Christ, a hitherto dynamic conservative order of 800 priests and 70,000 lay affiliates, is on the verge of falling apart following reports that its founder, the late Fr Marcial Maciel, fathered at least one child at a time when he was demanding the strictest moral standards from his cult following.
Maciel, a Mexican priest who died a year ago aged 87, was lavishly praised by Pope John Paul II but sent into exile by Pope Benedict XVI as punishment for sexual assaults against young men decades ago. It was widely thought that he wasn't a ladies' man. So you can imagine the shock when it was revealed this week that, in old age, he secretly fathered a daughter.
This new scandal is tearing apart the Legionaries, conservative priests known for their extreme preachiness and natty dress. And their lay affiliate organisation, Regnum Christi, is also on the verge of collapse. It's becoming clear not only that Maciel was a liar of the first order, but so that his lieutenants covered up many details of his life while demanding that he be treated as a living saint. [...]
One interesting aspect of this sordid business: although the Legionaries are extremely conservative – their strangely good-looking Roman seminarians always sport ruler-straight side partings – their critics extend across the whole Church. The holier-than-thou manner of Legionary priests and Regnum Christi lay people gets up everyone's noses. Of course, there is a lot of sympathy for good Catholics who have been duped – but this is the risk you run with personality cults. The question for this wealthy and well-connected order is: what next? And no one seems to know the answer.
What next, indeed?
I'm with those who believe the Legion ought to be disbanded, and start again as a new order with a new charism and a new founder. The Legion, however, seems to think they can murmur words like "difficult to understand" and "not appropriate for a Catholic priest" and remain exactly the same order that, knowingly or not, enabled and covered all of this up for far too long.
Donations for Amy Welborn's Family
Danielle Bean has posted a link to a Paypal account for the Dubruiel family:
At Faith and Family Live (the site is having some trouble today, though)
and here, at her own blog.
Also, Danielle and others have reported that the proceeds from Michael's book, The How-To Book of the Mass, go to the children's college fund.
I'm sure that any help we can give at this time will be greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: Father Zuhlsdorf is collecting a spiritual bouquet here. Please leave your prayers and messages to be sent to the family.
At Faith and Family Live (the site is having some trouble today, though)
and here, at her own blog.
Also, Danielle and others have reported that the proceeds from Michael's book, The How-To Book of the Mass, go to the children's college fund.
I'm sure that any help we can give at this time will be greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: Father Zuhlsdorf is collecting a spiritual bouquet here. Please leave your prayers and messages to be sent to the family.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Valley of the Shadow
Amy Welborn has just announced the sad news that her husband, Michael Dubruiel, has died. My deepest sympathies and heartfelt prayers are with Amy and her family at this time; the loss of a loved one is always a tragedy, but a sudden death adds to the pain of loss the bewildering questions: why? why now? what could we have done? that haunt those left behind.
There is a tendency in these moments to think that if only we had known, or seen, some crucial clue the outcome might have been different. But I think that's a temptation to be rejected; God can, and sometimes does, save those we think are doomed to die, and He can just as easily call home to Himself someone we were sure would live many more decades.
The truth is that we are, all of us, living in the valley of the shadow of death. None of us will escape death; some of us will taste it sooner rather than later, while others of us may remain on this earth to see our grandchildren's children. God alone knows how long He has planned for our earthly lives to be; each moment is a unique treasure, and the years we have given, however many or few, are a gift of love by our Father Who hopes we will use them to become like His Son.
But lest the sting of death seem capricious or unfair, we should remember two things. The first is that death was not God's choice for us, but our own. Our first parents made the choice of disobedience that led to death for us all; thrust from the Garden into a world of pain and suffering and endless toil, death might almost have seemed like a mercy to our ancient forebears.
The second is more important. We are immortal. And because of the sacrifice, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have the hope of eternal life. Death, then, is sad because we must part, for an unknown length of time, from some dear and familiar person; but it is not the sorrow of being forever sundered from our beloved that fills us. As we mourn, we also pray that the deceased will speedily enter Heaven; we commend him to God's mercy, and pray for the repose of his soul, that he will soon be with God, praising Him in the courts of Heaven surrounded by angels and saints.
We walk together in the valley of the shadow. Even when the one who has fallen is not known to us, we join in the prayers for eternal rest, and for the healing and comfort of the family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, after all, and we can't remain unmoved in the face of the suffering of our fellow Christians. Comforting those who sorrow and praying for the living and the dead are works of mercy; as we show mercy, so shall mercy be shown to us in our hour of need.
So I pray tonight for the repose of the soul of Michael Dubruiel, and for healing and comfort for Amy Welborn and her whole family. I know that many, many others will be praying this prayer in the days to come, too, and the Father Who loves us all will hear our prayers, and will answer them in His generous love and boundless mercy.
There is a tendency in these moments to think that if only we had known, or seen, some crucial clue the outcome might have been different. But I think that's a temptation to be rejected; God can, and sometimes does, save those we think are doomed to die, and He can just as easily call home to Himself someone we were sure would live many more decades.
The truth is that we are, all of us, living in the valley of the shadow of death. None of us will escape death; some of us will taste it sooner rather than later, while others of us may remain on this earth to see our grandchildren's children. God alone knows how long He has planned for our earthly lives to be; each moment is a unique treasure, and the years we have given, however many or few, are a gift of love by our Father Who hopes we will use them to become like His Son.
But lest the sting of death seem capricious or unfair, we should remember two things. The first is that death was not God's choice for us, but our own. Our first parents made the choice of disobedience that led to death for us all; thrust from the Garden into a world of pain and suffering and endless toil, death might almost have seemed like a mercy to our ancient forebears.
The second is more important. We are immortal. And because of the sacrifice, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have the hope of eternal life. Death, then, is sad because we must part, for an unknown length of time, from some dear and familiar person; but it is not the sorrow of being forever sundered from our beloved that fills us. As we mourn, we also pray that the deceased will speedily enter Heaven; we commend him to God's mercy, and pray for the repose of his soul, that he will soon be with God, praising Him in the courts of Heaven surrounded by angels and saints.
We walk together in the valley of the shadow. Even when the one who has fallen is not known to us, we join in the prayers for eternal rest, and for the healing and comfort of the family. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, after all, and we can't remain unmoved in the face of the suffering of our fellow Christians. Comforting those who sorrow and praying for the living and the dead are works of mercy; as we show mercy, so shall mercy be shown to us in our hour of need.
So I pray tonight for the repose of the soul of Michael Dubruiel, and for healing and comfort for Amy Welborn and her whole family. I know that many, many others will be praying this prayer in the days to come, too, and the Father Who loves us all will hear our prayers, and will answer them in His generous love and boundless mercy.
The Maciel Situation
By now, most people have read the latest allegations concerning the late Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ. If you haven't, here are some links to go to:
Amy Welborn's take;
Patrick Madrid,
American Papist,
Life-after-RC,
Rod Dreher,
Catholic Culture,
Ed Peters,
CNA.
I may add more as things continue to unfold, especially if there are more official Legion statements made public.
Let me start by saying that I have long believed there are very serious problems with the Legion and many of its apostolates. I have a family member who was briefly involved with the Legion, and in addition have heard from many others who have experienced problems with Legion-led ministries or groups. One of the most frequent, and disturbing, aspects of Legion spirituality was their tendency to elevate Fr. Maciel to a state of near-sainthood during his life; even after his discipline, many in the Legion saw him as a suffering Christ-figure, unjustly accused by his enemies, instead of a person who may have had some very serious sinful behavior in his life.
Some of the writers of the posts linked to above have expressed their personal belief that the Legion will have to formally repudiate Fr. Maciel at this point in order to continue as an order; one can certainly have a flawed founder, and not all religious orders were founded by canonized saints, but a founder who has been guilty of egregiously sinful conduct without ever admitting to it and openly repenting (indeed, while insisting until his death that he was innocent) is not really an advantage for an order. That's why it saddened me (though, alas, it didn't surprise me) to read this from the CNA article linked to above and here:
And the language employed by spokesman Jim Fair, that there were "aspects of his (Maciel's) life that weren’t appropriate for a Catholic priest..." and that God "works through flawed human beings..." could be more minimizing of the serious nature of the present allegations. We're not talking about some minor financial irregularity or some similar offense: Maciel is reported to have fathered at least one child, who is now in her early twenties--an indication that Maciel's sexually sinful behavior was continuing even in the somewhat recent past, long after the time period during which the original sexual abuse allegations, involving seminarians, were made.
Quite frankly, it seems as though there were aspects of Fr. Maciel's life that weren't appropriate for a serious Christian, let alone a practicing Catholic, let alone a Catholic priest who stood at the head of a growing religious order. The Legion needs to confront this with honesty and integrity, sooner rather than later, instead of minimizing the situation and pretending that they can keep their pictures of "Nuestro Padre" in their seminaries and continue their habit of treating Fr. Maciel's letters and writings as key spiritual formation documents. It cannot be done.
Admitting that the man who founded their religious order was a man who apparently did not live up to the vow of chastity he had taken as a priest is going to be a hard thing for those in the Legion who nearly idolize the man. But we are not to have idols; the Christian response to the Maciel situation is to pray for the man's eternal soul while refusing to pay any more false homage to him, to see him as an admirable character worthy of emulation, or otherwise to elevate the comfortable myths above the stunning and ugly reality. It's time for the Legion to take steps to separate their order from the memory of "Our Founder" who is still lionized all over their website (though silence is kept about the order he received to do penance at the end of his life). The Legion will survive without Fr. Maciel's memory--but they will not survive, if they cling to their practice of considering him a saint.
Amy Welborn's take;
Patrick Madrid,
American Papist,
Life-after-RC,
Rod Dreher,
Catholic Culture,
Ed Peters,
CNA.
I may add more as things continue to unfold, especially if there are more official Legion statements made public.
Let me start by saying that I have long believed there are very serious problems with the Legion and many of its apostolates. I have a family member who was briefly involved with the Legion, and in addition have heard from many others who have experienced problems with Legion-led ministries or groups. One of the most frequent, and disturbing, aspects of Legion spirituality was their tendency to elevate Fr. Maciel to a state of near-sainthood during his life; even after his discipline, many in the Legion saw him as a suffering Christ-figure, unjustly accused by his enemies, instead of a person who may have had some very serious sinful behavior in his life.
Some of the writers of the posts linked to above have expressed their personal belief that the Legion will have to formally repudiate Fr. Maciel at this point in order to continue as an order; one can certainly have a flawed founder, and not all religious orders were founded by canonized saints, but a founder who has been guilty of egregiously sinful conduct without ever admitting to it and openly repenting (indeed, while insisting until his death that he was innocent) is not really an advantage for an order. That's why it saddened me (though, alas, it didn't surprise me) to read this from the CNA article linked to above and here:
Nobody is disputing that God works through flawed human beings; but having an unrepentant (at least, publicly) sinner for one's founder could be a liability; and clinging to that founder in the face of such terrible evidence of his sinful way of life could open the call for the order to be suppressed altogether, something I think the Legion ought to consider.CNA contacted Legionaries of Christ spokesman Jim Fair, but received no specific confirmation of any allegations.
“We’ve learned some things about our founder’s life that are surprising and difficult to understand,” Fair told CNA on Tuesday.
“We can confirm that there are aspects of his life that weren’t appropriate for a Catholic priest.
“Obviously he had human feelings but it remains true that through him we received our charism, which has been approved by the Church.
“Our commitment remains and we‘re going to go forward and love Christ and serve the Church,” he remarked.
Asked to verify the specific allegations, Fair replied:
“Fr. Maciel died over a year ago and obviously whatever has happened is between him and God and God’s judgment and mercy, so we’re going to let him take care of that.”
CNA asked Fair to verify whether the Legionaries of Christ were distributing information on the allegations through their regional directors.
“We communicate internally, but I can’t make any comment beyond that,” Fair replied.
“I know that there have been rumors about are we somehow denouncing him. Obviously we are not. Fr. Maciel was and always will be the father of the legion.
“One of the mysteries of our faith is that God sometimes works through flawed human beings.”
And the language employed by spokesman Jim Fair, that there were "aspects of his (Maciel's) life that weren’t appropriate for a Catholic priest..." and that God "works through flawed human beings..." could be more minimizing of the serious nature of the present allegations. We're not talking about some minor financial irregularity or some similar offense: Maciel is reported to have fathered at least one child, who is now in her early twenties--an indication that Maciel's sexually sinful behavior was continuing even in the somewhat recent past, long after the time period during which the original sexual abuse allegations, involving seminarians, were made.
Quite frankly, it seems as though there were aspects of Fr. Maciel's life that weren't appropriate for a serious Christian, let alone a practicing Catholic, let alone a Catholic priest who stood at the head of a growing religious order. The Legion needs to confront this with honesty and integrity, sooner rather than later, instead of minimizing the situation and pretending that they can keep their pictures of "Nuestro Padre" in their seminaries and continue their habit of treating Fr. Maciel's letters and writings as key spiritual formation documents. It cannot be done.
Admitting that the man who founded their religious order was a man who apparently did not live up to the vow of chastity he had taken as a priest is going to be a hard thing for those in the Legion who nearly idolize the man. But we are not to have idols; the Christian response to the Maciel situation is to pray for the man's eternal soul while refusing to pay any more false homage to him, to see him as an admirable character worthy of emulation, or otherwise to elevate the comfortable myths above the stunning and ugly reality. It's time for the Legion to take steps to separate their order from the memory of "Our Founder" who is still lionized all over their website (though silence is kept about the order he received to do penance at the end of his life). The Legion will survive without Fr. Maciel's memory--but they will not survive, if they cling to their practice of considering him a saint.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Surviving the Third Quarter Blues
Every year, as the days begin to lengthen, and Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow again, and lovely posts about Candlemas illuminate the blog world, something else starts to happen, too. Like a chill winter wind stretching its icy fingers through the cracks around the door, a coldness settles over many a homeschooling family; children who were laughing merrily a month or so ago are settled into a tired grumpiness, from which they drag forth the school assignments of their discontent, while Mom clings desperately to the telephone or Internet as a raft of sanity in an increasingly crazy world.
Veteran homeschoolers have a name for this. We call it the Third Quarter Blues.
In some senses I think that traditional brick 'n mortar schoolers have some of these symptoms; at least, I remember them, too. But my school blues seemed to last from about October until late April, and didn't really disappear altogether until the balmy breezes of May wafted through open classroom windows which were being cleaned by a raft of eager volunteers, the teacher having run out of educational ideas and brightly suggesting a little classroom cleaning adventure, instead.
But for homeschoolers, it's a little different. The glow of the homeschool experience has barely had time to fade by the time that all the excitement of Advent and Christmas rolls around, and even getting back to school just after the new year begins doesn't seem so bad; if anything, it's a welcome return to routine after the hustle and bustle of Christmas.
Before long, though, it happens. A quick glance at the calendar reveals the fact that there are still four or five whole months of school to go; winter weather creates housebound fractious children; that cure-all of moods and lifter of spirits, hot chocolate, runs low, but with Lent right around the corner it doesn't seem worth buying more.
Worse, this is the time when homeschooling stops seeming like a great and grand adventure and starts to feel like just one more thing to get through in the scant hours between dawn and dusk. Subjects you planned out with careful attention have been left in disarray by a few illnesses here or there; ideas you'd had about crafts or extracurricular activities have met with the reality checks of time, finances, skills, and the like; and your early eager confidence comes back to haunt you whenever you remember it in any detail.
I've often said that more people who start homeschooling give up and enroll their children in "regular" schools sometime between mid-January and the end of March than at any other time. I have no scientific proof of this, but lots of anecdotal evidence--parents who were gung-ho in September somehow lose all conviction in these dreary winter months that make up the third quarter of the school year. And yet I think that more of them might stick it out just a little longer if they realized that this, too, shall pass, that the phenomenon called "Third Quarter Blues" is something ordinary and expected, and not, as so many fear, some kind of incontrovertible proof that they shouldn't be homeschooling, and possibly should never have chosen wife and motherhood as a vocation in the first place (though elaborate daydreams of convent life, with its pristine habits, soothing bells telling you what to do all day, and kindly-smiling sisters who never argue with each other or fight over the TV remote, are a sure sign that Third Quarter Blues, not motherhood, is the problem).
So how do we deal with the Blues? Is this just something that has to be Endured and Offered Up, that can't be eased or managed somehow?
Not at all. Granted, I think that some element of the Blues due to weather, winter illness, and so forth is going to be part of our lives no matter what we do; but some of the specific things that plague homeschooling mothers (and fathers) can be dealt with.
Here are a few ideas that might help tackle the Blues:
1. Identify the subject that is giving you the most trouble, and change it or drop it. This might seem drastic, but one thing I've noticed is that I get awfully committed to a program without looking at the reality of it. I see some particular curriculum's approach to math or grammar or science or history as being The Best, and fight to keep teaching it even when the time involved, the fact that my children are struggling with it, and other obvious clues make me see that it's just not working for us right now. There was a time when Catholic homeschoolers had to make do with less than optimal materials, but with homeschooling at a huge level these days, there are tons of books and programs and materials out there--there is no reason to stick to "Excruciatingly Difficult Language Arts for Librarians" if your child is having trouble picking verbs out of a sentence, let alone recogninzing which are participles and what particular function they are having in the sentence. If one subject has turned into a two-hour tearfest every day, that's a good sign that finding a simple workbook instead of the exhaustively thorough textbook may be a particularly good idea.
2. Focus on the basics. We all want homeschooling to be filled with exciting opportunites for our children, but if you've taken on/signed up for several different "extras" it may be time to reevaluate. Now, sometimes these extras are working well and both you and the children are enjoying them, but if you start to feel like you're "car-schooling" more than "home-schooling" it may be time to take another look at what you've committed to above and beyond a regular curriculum. Third quarter is often the time to make those assessments and figure out ways to zero in on the important stuff--and maybe let go of some of the addenda.
3. Take a step back. It's easy to see flaws from close up; try to take a moment to see the bigger picture. I did this not long ago when Kitten turned in a really nice writing assignment; instead of focusing on the couple of small spelling/punctuation errors I thought all of a sudden about teaching her to read, and to write; Kitten didn't really want to learn either, and we had our moments--but here she is, an articulate young lady who is learning to express herself well in written English, and I've gotten to be there every step of the way.
4. Plan for some fun. A few years ago I got in the habit of creating a special school day here or there, where instead of our regular topics we'd have one day focusing on one thing, like dinosaurs or space. I'd make games and find books, and for the whole day we'd just enjoy that one thing. We haven't done that recently, but the girls have asked to do a day like that again, and I think it would be a good idea--a way to have a little more fun while still learning.
5. Track down your anxieties. Are you most worried about your third-grader's math grades? Your teenage child's sudden rebellious attitude? Your crawling infant's newfound fascination with the staircase? The floating "chore strike" which comes from your children's belief that their job is to "do school" and your job is to teach them, cook, clean, launder, scrub, mop, tidy, and entertain? It's a lot easier to tackle problems if instead of free-range anxieties you're dealing with tangible issues which can be solved.
6. Relax. Yes, this is a hard one. Yes, it involves letting go of all of those illusions of perfection we can get caught up in, and which rob us of joy and peace while dangling forever out of reach the image of the perfect homeschooling family. The truth is, there is no perfect homeschooling family, no one right way to do all of this, no measure except the one that says, "Is this working for us?" Taking a deep breath, getting rid of those notions that perfection is hiding somewhere in that textbook from which your children run screaming or that class in organic clay liturgical sculpture you signed them up for but which is taking way too much of your time can be difficult to do. But it's necessary, and not just when Third Quarter Blues strike.
These are just a few suggestions; other veteran homeschooling moms may have other things they do to help get through this often-difficult stretch. I think it's worth it to do what we need to do to get by these dreary months; the fourth quarter, and another successful year of homeschooling, is coming faster than we can imagine!
Veteran homeschoolers have a name for this. We call it the Third Quarter Blues.
In some senses I think that traditional brick 'n mortar schoolers have some of these symptoms; at least, I remember them, too. But my school blues seemed to last from about October until late April, and didn't really disappear altogether until the balmy breezes of May wafted through open classroom windows which were being cleaned by a raft of eager volunteers, the teacher having run out of educational ideas and brightly suggesting a little classroom cleaning adventure, instead.
But for homeschoolers, it's a little different. The glow of the homeschool experience has barely had time to fade by the time that all the excitement of Advent and Christmas rolls around, and even getting back to school just after the new year begins doesn't seem so bad; if anything, it's a welcome return to routine after the hustle and bustle of Christmas.
Before long, though, it happens. A quick glance at the calendar reveals the fact that there are still four or five whole months of school to go; winter weather creates housebound fractious children; that cure-all of moods and lifter of spirits, hot chocolate, runs low, but with Lent right around the corner it doesn't seem worth buying more.
Worse, this is the time when homeschooling stops seeming like a great and grand adventure and starts to feel like just one more thing to get through in the scant hours between dawn and dusk. Subjects you planned out with careful attention have been left in disarray by a few illnesses here or there; ideas you'd had about crafts or extracurricular activities have met with the reality checks of time, finances, skills, and the like; and your early eager confidence comes back to haunt you whenever you remember it in any detail.
I've often said that more people who start homeschooling give up and enroll their children in "regular" schools sometime between mid-January and the end of March than at any other time. I have no scientific proof of this, but lots of anecdotal evidence--parents who were gung-ho in September somehow lose all conviction in these dreary winter months that make up the third quarter of the school year. And yet I think that more of them might stick it out just a little longer if they realized that this, too, shall pass, that the phenomenon called "Third Quarter Blues" is something ordinary and expected, and not, as so many fear, some kind of incontrovertible proof that they shouldn't be homeschooling, and possibly should never have chosen wife and motherhood as a vocation in the first place (though elaborate daydreams of convent life, with its pristine habits, soothing bells telling you what to do all day, and kindly-smiling sisters who never argue with each other or fight over the TV remote, are a sure sign that Third Quarter Blues, not motherhood, is the problem).
So how do we deal with the Blues? Is this just something that has to be Endured and Offered Up, that can't be eased or managed somehow?
Not at all. Granted, I think that some element of the Blues due to weather, winter illness, and so forth is going to be part of our lives no matter what we do; but some of the specific things that plague homeschooling mothers (and fathers) can be dealt with.
Here are a few ideas that might help tackle the Blues:
1. Identify the subject that is giving you the most trouble, and change it or drop it. This might seem drastic, but one thing I've noticed is that I get awfully committed to a program without looking at the reality of it. I see some particular curriculum's approach to math or grammar or science or history as being The Best, and fight to keep teaching it even when the time involved, the fact that my children are struggling with it, and other obvious clues make me see that it's just not working for us right now. There was a time when Catholic homeschoolers had to make do with less than optimal materials, but with homeschooling at a huge level these days, there are tons of books and programs and materials out there--there is no reason to stick to "Excruciatingly Difficult Language Arts for Librarians" if your child is having trouble picking verbs out of a sentence, let alone recogninzing which are participles and what particular function they are having in the sentence. If one subject has turned into a two-hour tearfest every day, that's a good sign that finding a simple workbook instead of the exhaustively thorough textbook may be a particularly good idea.
2. Focus on the basics. We all want homeschooling to be filled with exciting opportunites for our children, but if you've taken on/signed up for several different "extras" it may be time to reevaluate. Now, sometimes these extras are working well and both you and the children are enjoying them, but if you start to feel like you're "car-schooling" more than "home-schooling" it may be time to take another look at what you've committed to above and beyond a regular curriculum. Third quarter is often the time to make those assessments and figure out ways to zero in on the important stuff--and maybe let go of some of the addenda.
3. Take a step back. It's easy to see flaws from close up; try to take a moment to see the bigger picture. I did this not long ago when Kitten turned in a really nice writing assignment; instead of focusing on the couple of small spelling/punctuation errors I thought all of a sudden about teaching her to read, and to write; Kitten didn't really want to learn either, and we had our moments--but here she is, an articulate young lady who is learning to express herself well in written English, and I've gotten to be there every step of the way.
4. Plan for some fun. A few years ago I got in the habit of creating a special school day here or there, where instead of our regular topics we'd have one day focusing on one thing, like dinosaurs or space. I'd make games and find books, and for the whole day we'd just enjoy that one thing. We haven't done that recently, but the girls have asked to do a day like that again, and I think it would be a good idea--a way to have a little more fun while still learning.
5. Track down your anxieties. Are you most worried about your third-grader's math grades? Your teenage child's sudden rebellious attitude? Your crawling infant's newfound fascination with the staircase? The floating "chore strike" which comes from your children's belief that their job is to "do school" and your job is to teach them, cook, clean, launder, scrub, mop, tidy, and entertain? It's a lot easier to tackle problems if instead of free-range anxieties you're dealing with tangible issues which can be solved.
6. Relax. Yes, this is a hard one. Yes, it involves letting go of all of those illusions of perfection we can get caught up in, and which rob us of joy and peace while dangling forever out of reach the image of the perfect homeschooling family. The truth is, there is no perfect homeschooling family, no one right way to do all of this, no measure except the one that says, "Is this working for us?" Taking a deep breath, getting rid of those notions that perfection is hiding somewhere in that textbook from which your children run screaming or that class in organic clay liturgical sculpture you signed them up for but which is taking way too much of your time can be difficult to do. But it's necessary, and not just when Third Quarter Blues strike.
These are just a few suggestions; other veteran homeschooling moms may have other things they do to help get through this often-difficult stretch. I think it's worth it to do what we need to do to get by these dreary months; the fourth quarter, and another successful year of homeschooling, is coming faster than we can imagine!
FOCA: Trial Balloon or Serious Threat?
A reader last week sent me a link to this post at Father Zuhlsdorf's website, wherein the question as to the legitimacy of the FOCA threat was posed via a letter Fr. Z received (all emphasis by Fr. Z):
On the one hand, we all know how gifted Democrats are in the art of floating the trial balloon. It could be that all the FOCA focus is just that--testing the air, seeing what level of outrage can be manufactured by one's opponents, who may then settle down quietly and fail to notice when key provisions of FOCA become law anyway, along with the erosion of the pro-life measures already enacted as described by Fr. Zuhlsdorf's correspondent.
On the other, though, I think it's safe to say that FOCA is really and truly what pro-abortion Democrats, including President Obama himself, really want. More and more often these days I see the opinion expressed on websites and forums that men and women who are uncomfortable with the killing of unborn babies have no business working in the healthcare industry. The notion that abortion is "healthcare" and that those who oppose it on "religious grounds" are no different from, say, a doctor who became a Jehovah's Witness and then suddenly refused to give blood transfusions to patients who needed them is gaining an incredible amount of steam in our abortion-saturated society. The very idea that there is something different about abortion which makes it morally unacceptable to many is being attacked; the push to undo conscience clauses and otherwise mainstream abortion as just another medical procedure is growing in force.
The Freedom of Choice Act, in addition to quite likely requiring that all hospitals and all healthcare professionals offer or participate in abortions, defines abortion as a "fundamental right" and makes any government "interference" with it illegal. But interference is not defined, and neither is government, leading many to suspect that under this law a doctor in a hospital which accepts government funds must perform abortions if he also delivers babies; the hospital must offer abortions if it has a maternity wing, and so on. The implications are clear: FOCA's real purpose is to erase forever the idea that abortion is, in a legal or moral sense, different from childbirth, or that there is any reason, aside from one's personal and/or religious convictions (e.g. one's religious bigotry), to object to it.
There can be no doubt from Obama's language on the issue that this is what he wants. When he speaks of ending the polarizing abortion wars, it's clear that he wants our side to shut up and go away--and while he'd probably prefer that we do so voluntarily, he, and the pro-abortion Democrats whose passion for abortion is inexhaustible, are not opposed to taking legal means to make all opposition to abortion ineffectual and unproductive.
So while it may seem that objecting to FOCA is falling for a fake controversy and giving Democrats the opportunity to sneak through other pro-abortion measures, I see it differently. Certainly the heightened awareness around the FOCA debate has made it harder for Obama to strike down his predecessor's pro-life policies; Obama had to wait until the day after the massive pro-life march in Washington to undo the Mexico City Policy, his first act as president to facilitate the killing of unborn babies.
And all of the discussion and debate is providing our Catholic bishops with another opportunity to highlight the Church's teachings on the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death, which is a good thing. Too many Catholics still think that it's fine to approve of and vote for legal abortion on demand while considering themselves Catholics in good standing, weekly communicants, and so on; the debate over FOCA is a chance to correct that erroneous impression.
While I agree that if all the energy is spent on opposing FOCA there is a chance that smaller pro-abortion measures will slip under the radar, I think the opposite--refusing to oppose FOCA on the grounds that it has no chance of passing--is more dangerous. The lack of a concerted effort to oppose this evil law would only encourage those who truly do want it to become the law of the land; and the failure of Christians and Catholics to oppose FOCA might make it even more possible for the pro-death side to convince their congresspeople that serious opposition to abortion in America is hard to find, and that passing pro-abortion measures won't cost them politically at all.
So we should oppose FOCA on principle, and keep a close eye on Congress and the President when it comes to other pro-abortion baby-killing efforts as well. If we want the ugly darkness of abortion to be revealed for the evil it truly is, we need to keep shining the light of truth on the issue, whether the opportunity to do so is in a big sweeping law that few expect to pass, or a smaller but no less lethal measure that is already spending American tax money to kill babies in poor countries around the world; we must keep focused on abortion no matter what laws or measures or policies Congress and the President approve with the goal of killing ever more unborn humans.
As a Congressional staffer, I am extremely concerned that we pro-lifers are falling into what I am starting to see as the “FOCA Trap.”I'm not so sure.
If my fellow conservatives in Congress – policy makers who actually know what’s possible and what’s not – were speaking privately, I think they would admit that FOCA doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of ever even getting a committee hearing let alone being passed or signed into law. That is because it’s so radical that even most of the pro-abortion Democrats probably wouldn’t even support it.
Now, all this begs the question: why are all the bishops and most of the pro-life activists singularly focused on it? [Good question. Are they falling for a head feint?]
The quick answer is because Obama said at some point that he would sign it into law. Then all the activists, talk radio, the USCCB, etc. all kicked into gear and started on the offense. But is that a good thing?
As I said, anyone serious who knows the Hill knows it will never pass – including Obama. So, while the wagons are all circled around FOCA, Obama, the Democrats and the pro-abortion lobby can pick apart the incremental progress we’ve made over the years on partial-birth, overseas abortion funding, funding for abortions on military bases, embryonic stem cell research, etc. And they’ll do it while we’re all signing post cards in church about FOCA. It’s a brilliant diversion. [...]
On the one hand, we all know how gifted Democrats are in the art of floating the trial balloon. It could be that all the FOCA focus is just that--testing the air, seeing what level of outrage can be manufactured by one's opponents, who may then settle down quietly and fail to notice when key provisions of FOCA become law anyway, along with the erosion of the pro-life measures already enacted as described by Fr. Zuhlsdorf's correspondent.
On the other, though, I think it's safe to say that FOCA is really and truly what pro-abortion Democrats, including President Obama himself, really want. More and more often these days I see the opinion expressed on websites and forums that men and women who are uncomfortable with the killing of unborn babies have no business working in the healthcare industry. The notion that abortion is "healthcare" and that those who oppose it on "religious grounds" are no different from, say, a doctor who became a Jehovah's Witness and then suddenly refused to give blood transfusions to patients who needed them is gaining an incredible amount of steam in our abortion-saturated society. The very idea that there is something different about abortion which makes it morally unacceptable to many is being attacked; the push to undo conscience clauses and otherwise mainstream abortion as just another medical procedure is growing in force.
The Freedom of Choice Act, in addition to quite likely requiring that all hospitals and all healthcare professionals offer or participate in abortions, defines abortion as a "fundamental right" and makes any government "interference" with it illegal. But interference is not defined, and neither is government, leading many to suspect that under this law a doctor in a hospital which accepts government funds must perform abortions if he also delivers babies; the hospital must offer abortions if it has a maternity wing, and so on. The implications are clear: FOCA's real purpose is to erase forever the idea that abortion is, in a legal or moral sense, different from childbirth, or that there is any reason, aside from one's personal and/or religious convictions (e.g. one's religious bigotry), to object to it.
There can be no doubt from Obama's language on the issue that this is what he wants. When he speaks of ending the polarizing abortion wars, it's clear that he wants our side to shut up and go away--and while he'd probably prefer that we do so voluntarily, he, and the pro-abortion Democrats whose passion for abortion is inexhaustible, are not opposed to taking legal means to make all opposition to abortion ineffectual and unproductive.
So while it may seem that objecting to FOCA is falling for a fake controversy and giving Democrats the opportunity to sneak through other pro-abortion measures, I see it differently. Certainly the heightened awareness around the FOCA debate has made it harder for Obama to strike down his predecessor's pro-life policies; Obama had to wait until the day after the massive pro-life march in Washington to undo the Mexico City Policy, his first act as president to facilitate the killing of unborn babies.
And all of the discussion and debate is providing our Catholic bishops with another opportunity to highlight the Church's teachings on the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death, which is a good thing. Too many Catholics still think that it's fine to approve of and vote for legal abortion on demand while considering themselves Catholics in good standing, weekly communicants, and so on; the debate over FOCA is a chance to correct that erroneous impression.
While I agree that if all the energy is spent on opposing FOCA there is a chance that smaller pro-abortion measures will slip under the radar, I think the opposite--refusing to oppose FOCA on the grounds that it has no chance of passing--is more dangerous. The lack of a concerted effort to oppose this evil law would only encourage those who truly do want it to become the law of the land; and the failure of Christians and Catholics to oppose FOCA might make it even more possible for the pro-death side to convince their congresspeople that serious opposition to abortion in America is hard to find, and that passing pro-abortion measures won't cost them politically at all.
So we should oppose FOCA on principle, and keep a close eye on Congress and the President when it comes to other pro-abortion baby-killing efforts as well. If we want the ugly darkness of abortion to be revealed for the evil it truly is, we need to keep shining the light of truth on the issue, whether the opportunity to do so is in a big sweeping law that few expect to pass, or a smaller but no less lethal measure that is already spending American tax money to kill babies in poor countries around the world; we must keep focused on abortion no matter what laws or measures or policies Congress and the President approve with the goal of killing ever more unborn humans.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
