Youthful Maturity vs. Aging Adolescence

In my talks this month, I am repeating something I said in one of the talks last year, namely that in Christianity maturation and rejuvenation go hand-in-hand. We grow in wisdom and age and we grow more childlike at the same time. The secular parody of this -- to grow simultaneously older and more adolescent at the same time -- is on full display in a myriad of ways.

This came to mind this morning when I read over a few things I saw on the internet.

In a morning column, the economist Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University said:

"Experience" is often just a fancy word for the mistakes that we belatedly realized we were making, only after the realities of the world made us pay a painful price for being wrong.

Those who are insulated from that pain-- whether by being born into affluence or wealth, or shielded by the welfare state, or insulated by tenure in academia or in the federal judiciary-- can remain in a state of perpetual immaturity. . . .

Even people born into normal lives, but who have been able through talent or luck to escape into a world of celebrity and wealth, can likewise find themselves in the enviable position of being able to choose whether to grow up or not.

This morning as well, Juan Cole, an American professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history, as if to prove Sowell’s point, wrote an article for the widely read online journal Salon, entitled:

What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick

The rambling and predictable article ended with the following sentence:

You can't say you are waging a war on religious extremism if you are trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency.

It’s the moral equivalency instinct that is triggered by any sense that the ideological bubble is being threatened by realities the ideology can no longer wish away.

Alas, however, Professor Cole is himself a religious man. In the middle of his article, for instance, he puts his professional erudition on display by observing:

As for global warming, green theology, in which Christians and Muslims appeal to Scripture in fighting global warming, is an increasing tendency in both traditions.

Green Theology.

His mistake here, as his co-religionists will have pointed out to him by now, was to use the now-retired term “global warming.” Statistics now show that the earth has been cooling for the last number of years, and, not to be deterred from their faith by facts such as these, the green theologians have renamed the apocalypse. It is now called “climate change,” a way of hedging one’s bets as to which direction that change might take.

On the question of “climate change,” I’m neutral, but on the question of “Green Theology,” I’ll go out on a limb. It’s further evidence of the spiritual crisis among those who fall under G. K. Chesterton’s withering observation that: “When a Man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything.”

Pro-Choice . . .

Sometimes a person is faced with a choice.

In a brutal Vietnamese prisoner of war camp where he was being tortured, John McCain was faced with a choice: he was offered release. He refused the offer, deciding instead to stay with the fellow prisoners under his command.

Many years later John McCain's wife Cindy was visiting an orphanage run by Mother Theresa. There she faced a choice. In the orphanage she saw an abandoned three-month old Bangladeshi girl in need of medical care. She brought the child to the United States, and the McCains later adopted her. Her name is Bridget; she is seventeen years old.

Early in her fifth pregnancy, Sarah Palin was faced with a choice: The Governor of Alaska, in the throes of a demanding and politically promising public career, she was told that the child she was carrying had Down Syndrome, a text-book case for pro-abortion feminists. Sarah Palin chose to have the child. His name is Trig.

Bristol Palin, herself a 17-year-old and the daughter of Sarah and Todd Palin, faced a choice. In her senior year in high school she got pregnant. She accepted responsibility for her behavior, as did the father of the child, and they plan to marry and provide a loving home for the child they are bringing into the world.

In a speech during the primary season, Barack Obama spoke of his support for abortion -- a support so wholehearted that he voted against a bill in the Illinois legislature banning infanticide. In his speech, Obama -- invoking as always the principle of choice -- defended abortion by saying that if one of his daughters happened to get pregnant he would not want her to be "punished with a child."

Bristol Palin and her future husband are not being punished with a child; they are being blessed with one, though they may not be as fully aware of that right now as they soon will be. But even before they discover the fullness of that blessing they will feel something of the moral maturation that comes to those who do the right thing even when it entails self-sacrifice.

The bitter irony is that the term "pro-choice" is almost exclusively used to justify the refusal to take responsibility for a choice.

"Freedom," said Benedict XVI, "isn't opting out; it's opting in."

What he meant by that was that we are given the gift of freedom so that we can use it in ways that are ennobling and selfless and courageous. We opt in by choosing, not the easy way out, but the responsible way forward.

Aña Bailie

My daughter, Aña, a paramedic who will be married next month to a fantastic young man, Mike Orsi, is on her way to Louisiana to help with the hurricane rescue and relief effort. Keep her in your prayers. Here are some visual aids.

Mike & Aña

Dad & Aña

Point of Order, Madame Speaker . . .

I'm sorry, Madame Speaker, but your repeated reference to the fact that you have five children -- clearly meant to telegraph to attentive Catholics your fidelity to Church teaching -- is entirely irrelevant to the discussion of the Church's teaching on the sanctity of life.

The question is not about the mothering of five children but about the murdering of fifty million of them. Your role in the former is no justification for your role in the latter.

Thanks, however, for clarifying how woefully and blissfully ignorant you are of the last 2000 years of Catholic moral theology on this matter. It helps the rest of us understand, and it gives a glimmer of hope that, once apprised of this tradition, you might become a champion of all those children who will otherwise suffer the violence of the abortionist's cold instruments.

For a very short but very incisive moral guide to voting: the Kansas Bishop's "Moral Principles for Catholic Voters."

Go HERE

One needn't be a Catholic to appreciate the clarity, charity, and moral seriousness of this wonderful reflection.

"Above my pay grade . . ."

I have on more than one occasion found myself using the phrase "above my pay grade" -- mostly in deference to the teachings of the Church and my entirely appropriate humility vis-a-vis the theological tradition over which the Church's Magisterium stands guard. But, alas, thanks to Barack Obama's response to a straightforward question about the moral status of the child in the womb, the phrase "above my pay grade" will now live in infamy for years to come. It may be a generation before the moral duplicity now attached to that phrase finally wears off and some future rhetorician can use it without embarrassment.

I apologize for the photograph that follows. But perhaps if Barack Obama took a long look at it, the moral status of the child in the womb would become something on which he might venture an opinion even at his current pay grade.

Catholic Voters Guide

Just prior to my trip to Oxford and Cambridge, I spoke at a catechetical conference sponsored by the four Catholic dioceses of Kansas. I was very impressed with the bishops I met there, and today I have discovered one of the fruits of their labors. It is a very brief but very substantial Catholic voters guide, which I heartily recommend, not just to Catholics but to anyone concerned with casting a vote in a morally intelligent way.

Go here.

London Heathrow

A picture is worth a thousand words.
Let those with eyes to see see.

Theologia a Cruce

Henri de Lubac:

If theology, according to a much-used equivalent expression perpetuated by St. Thomas at the beginning of the Summa, is the science of the Scriptures, then in truth it may be said that the whole of theology is Theologia Crucis [Theology of the Cross], that is Theologia a Cruce [Theology from the Cross]. For it is the Cross which disperses the cloud which until then was hiding the truth.

(Posting from Oxford)

Frorm Oxford, England

I am here at Oxford taking part in the C. S. Lewis Foundation's "Oxbridge" conference. It has been a very rewarding experience, and the people are lovely. The setting, as you can imagine, is stunning. Here is a photo I took of a painter, Richard Pryke, himself a graduate of Keble College Oxford, painting a view of Keble College where I am staying for the conference.

Ritual

C. S. Lewis:

A man performing a rite is not trying to make you think that this is his natural way of walking, these the unpremeditated gestures of his own domestic life. If long usage has in fact made the ritual unconscious, he must labour to make it look deliberate, in order that we, the assistants, may feel the weight of the solemnity pressing on his shoulders as well as on our own. Anything casual or familiar in his manner is not 'sincerity' or 'spontaneity,' but impertinence. Even if his robes were not heavy in fact, they ought to look heavy.

Vocation

“It is the nature of a vocation to appear to men in the double character of a duty and a desire. . . . To follow the vocation does not mean happiness: but once it has been heard, there is no happiness for those who do not follow.” – C. S. Lewis

Modesty

"We know a lot more about how little we know of the universe than did previous generations." Ralph McInerny

My self-indulgence

My newest granddaughter's big sister and her father.

Commentary on Contemporary Developments

"The devil has landed in a furious rage, for he knows his time is short." Rev. 12:12

Hans Urs von Balthasar:

[Christ] taught "differently than the scribes," with an authority never before encountered, even though he taught nothing different from the scribes. The scribes serve the authority of the law that they expound. The tone of Jesus' preaching makes clear that he is the master of the law he explains. . . . For that reason it seems to the listeners, who, after all, are hearing an exposition of words very familiar to them, as if "a completely new teaching is being proclaimed" (Mk 1:27).

Now, when Jesus' "completely new teaching" sounds forth, a completely new head rears itself, that of the apocalyptic beast. The Word has reached the demon, has called it by its name. . . .

Balthasar makes mention of these things in the context of Jesus' first preaching in Mark's Gospel, which occurred after he cast a demon out of a man possessed. Balthasar observes:

. . . in the story of this healing, the demon must depart, but not before he displays himself in a farewell seizure of his victim. According to the Church Fathers, all the persecutions of the Church since the time of Christ are part of this tantrum thrown by the devil on his way out: the head of the serpent has been crushed underfoot, but the body thrashes about in a desperate wrestling with itself.

On Liberty and Guilt . . .

"Humanity is a marvel," wrote Henri de Lubac, "wounded yet indestructible, which finds the meaning of its liberty in the confession of its guilt." Alas, however, he elsewhere observes:

Following another avenue of escape, which seeks its justification in a grandiose theory, there are those who wish to recognize only collective sin, "objectivized" sin, "social" sin, i.e. the sin committed by others. A universe is constructed where evil is everywhere denounced, but now where admitted; where it is always endured, never committed. By thus "transferring the evil which is in man to the evil in the structures" -- called "structures of sin" -- one is led, in addition, to the idea that man is essentially good, and that it is only society which corrupts him, and that he has no need of conversion of heart.

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse . . .

To paraphrase T. S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock:

No! I am not a Weblogger, nor was meant to be;
Am an itinerant scribe, one that will do
To quote a passage, and turn a phrase or two,
Trying not to mince, nor to be too Sunday school,
Deferential, glad to be of use . . .

And so on.

This being more or less the case, please do not mistake this blog entry for a serious revival of this moribund blogsite. It is an experiment almost certainly doomed to fail; the kind of thing one does on a lovely midsummer morning after the second cup of coffee, knowing full well that the circumstances that occasioned it are not likely to be replicated on a regular basis, making the experiment a likely cause of future embarrassment. Nonetheless . . .

Once we post the Emmaus Road Initiative schedule for 2008-2009 -- a schedule even more daunting than lasts year's schedule -- it will be perfectly clear that I will have precious little time to devote to this blog. But it occurs to me that I just might be able to post a thought or two -- "to quote a passage or turn a phrase or two" -- and in this way keep a small conversation going with those interested in the work of the Cornerstone Forum.

If you're on your second cup of coffee, or otherwise feeling experimental, feel free to subscribe to feeds from this blog or stop by again when you're in the neighborhood. If all you find is a stale blog entry, murmur a little prayer for me, for it will be indicative of a very busy schedule, nothing more.

In appreciation for your having stopped by today, here's a bon mot from Hans Urs von Balthasar:

We must not imagine that we can make the entry into a heavenly Jerusalem with a waving of palms and seated on the gentle ass of evolution.

Human Rights and the Challenge of Evangelization

Earlier this year, I met Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, SJ at a conference at Notre Dame sponsored by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. I knew from reliable sources that Fr. Samir is widely considered to be the Vatican's most trusted expert on Islam, and so it was a rare honor to be able to chat with him during dinner at the conference. He was as charming as he was immensely well-informed.

Yesterday, I noticed an article in the Asian Times by Fr. Samir which I think is a must read. It is here.

Also a must read, in my opinion, is an article by Roy W. Brown about the demise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is now well under way at the United Nations. It is an extremely important article. It is here.

World-historical shifts are usually impossible to notice except in hindsight, but today they are happening at a breathtaking pace. These two article are evidence of what is happening.

Loving the Church

My monthly visits to St. Michael's parish in Wheaton, Illinois include a breakfast meetings the morning after the talk with a number of friends, most from the robust Evangelical community that has grown up around Wheaton College. This morning's discussion, which included an Episcopal friend from the philosophy department at Wheaton, was -- as usual -- stimulating and personally inspiring. In the course of the conversation, I made a stammering effort to express the affection that lies at the core of my ecclesiology. Driving to the airport after the morning meeting I realized that what I wanted to say had been said better than I could hope to say it by Henri de Lubac. So from lovely O'Hare airport I am sending along the de Lubac quote. It expresses my sentiments exactly.

Henri de Lubac:

“For myself,” said Origen, “I desire to be truly ecclesiastic.” He thought – and rightly – that there was no other way of being a Christian in the full sense. And anyone who is possessed by a similar desire will not find it enough to be loyal and obedient, to perform exactly everything demanded by his profession of the Catholic faith. Such a man will have fallen in love with the beauty of the House of God; the Church will have stolen his heart. She is his spiritual native country, his “mother and his brethren,” and nothing that concerns her will leave him indifferent or detached; he will root himself in her soil, form himself in her likeness, and make himself one with her experience. He will feel himself rich with her wealth; he will be aware that through her and her alone he participates in the unshakeableness of God. It will be from her that he learns how to live and die. Far from passing judgment on her, he will allow her to judge him, and he will agree gladly to all the sacrifices demanded by her unity. [The Splendor of the Church, 241-2]

In case you missed it . . .

Just passing along another item I think worthy of your attention. This from one of the people who has most successfully cleared his head of fuzzy multicultural pieties, Mark Steyn.

Not Swimming but Drowning
Mark Steyn
National Review Online -- March 6, 2008

A while back I mentioned Harvard's decision to ban men from its pool and fitness center six times a week in the interests of "accommodating" Muslim women. Our pal Michael Graham picks up the theme:

In the old days, Harvard would have laughed if some Catholic or evangelical mother urged “girls-only” campus workouts in the name of modesty. Today, Harvard happily implements Sharia swim times in the name of Mohammed.

At Harvard, that’s called progress.

Well put. And thus "progress" comes full circle. In Minneapolis last year, the airport licensing authority, faced with a mainly Muslim crew of cab drivers refusing to carry the blind, persons with six-packs of Bud, slatternly women, etc, proposed instituting two types of taxis with differently colored lights, one of which would indicate the driver was prepared to carry members of identity groups that offend Islam. Forty years ago, advocating separate drinking fountains made you a racist. Today, advocating separate taxi cabs or separate swimming sessions makes you a multiculturalist.

Every society has culturally self-segregating groups - the Amish and whatnot. But they're usually in small numbers somewhere out on the edge of the map. In Europe and Canada, the self-segregating group happens to be the principal source of population growth, which presents a profound challenge to societal cohesion. America does not face the same scale of problem, but nevertheless "sharia creep" ought to be resisted before it becomes remorseless. The rest of Michael's column goes on to explain why that doesn't happen: at Harvard and elsewhere, bigshot Saudi princes waving gazillion-dollar checks are in effect buying silence about one of the central questions of the day - Islam's relationship with the west.