Tuesday, October 17, 2006

How To Find Evil in Anything

I found a cool site that lets you discern, using numerology, that anything is evil.

For example, check out the result on Dissenting Catholics.

I'd give you the exact result, but the site regenerates it each time which is infinitely funnier.
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This Is Fun

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to ride a toboggan inside MS Paint?

[link]
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Saturday, October 14, 2006

Halos Don't Break

Recently I stumbled across BustedHalo.com. It seemed like a decent Catholic portal at first, as it claims:

Based in wisdom from the Catholic tradition, we believe that the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of all God'’s people. Nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.

Nothing too odious there.

Indeed, they even have a regular column on Catholic sexual norms, and that's usually a topic the liberals weeds among us will avoid, as it's a clear giveaway of their real intentions.

But something didn't smell right, so I spent a lot of time farting around on the site today [that's a metaphor, you hear me? A METAPHOR!], and it's now clear that BustedHalo.com is just another wolf in sheep's clothing.

They get their name by calling to mind our call to Sainthood (the Halo part), and by recognizing that often our quest for holiness is beset by trials and failures (the Busted part). But halos don't break. Holiness is unbreakable; it cannot be soiled.

People break. People can be soiled.

So that you understand why I believe BustedHalo.com has it mostly wrong, let me proffer some examples. Let's take the model set before us in Fr. Gerard Thomas (which he admits is a pseudonym). He is "coming out" as a "gay" priest who remains celibate. Yet the "gay" part seems to have confused dear old Father Whatshisname. He was interviewed by managing editor Mike Hayes and editor-in-chief Bill McGarvey. This link is to the first part of the four-part interview, and I'm quoting from various locations throughout the four parts. [The red parts are what I'd be thinking were I present at the interview.] He is remaining anonymous because:

...my religious superiors told me that I could not write or speak about this publicly because he was afraid that people would somehow misunderstand it... I accepted his decision and that's the reason I'm using a pseudonym [you kinda missed the point there Padre] so there are no bad effects of the kind he was worried about [like suspension without pay].... I think if I were to speak publicly and use my own name I'm sure the higher ups would be furious with me [good thing God can't figure out your pseudonym!]. I do take my relationship with my superiors seriously [when you can be caught, anyway] and I do take that promise of obedience very seriously as well.

I don't think you can consider your vow of obedience to be intact on a technicality, Father. But enough of that; just what do you think the will of God is for the "gays" in our world?

Jesus did not try to change people. Jesus tried to help them accept who they were, and it was only when their illness [such as homophobia?] was preventing them from being a member of the community that he was able to do something.

I think that if Jesus was around today he would be hanging around gay men and lesbians because they are the most marginalized group in the Church [actually, I think that honour belongs to conservatives].

I think he'd indeed be hanging around with them, but not because of their marginalization: because he would have pity on them due to the cycle of sin they are stuck in. "Go then, and sin no more," does not apply only to heterosexuals.

There's a disconnect between what Father is saying and what the Church actually believes: "gay" itself is a loaded term; a vocabulatory stick of dynamite. Its usage implies acceptance of the modern cultural arguments around homosexual inclinations, and ignores the possibility of a "gay" man himself ignoring the mold he's supposed to fit into - a mold fashioned by the gay community itself. What the Catholic Church believes regarding homosexuals is that few of them choose it, and that they are called to and capable of living a life of chastity. "They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." [Catechism source]

Say, Father, we don't have any real statistics regarding homosexual priests. Could you make some up for us?

All the statistics that you read are unreliable, including my own which are largely anecdotal [ooh, goody, I smell an anecdote coming!].... What I did was to set forth a number of 25% of priests who have a homosexual orientation, just to give people a rough context in which to work. The standard figure of 5-10% which is bandied about as the number of gays and lesbians in the general population, is far too low [when we're talking about the priesthood] and some of the more outlandish figures like 50% I thought were far too high, so I thought 25% was reasonable. [I dunno... how about 26.4%? It sounds so much more official.] But once again this is entirely anecdotal and we're never going to know until there are reliable scientific surveys.... I would say a miniscule percentage of that 25 percent are pedophiles [what a relief!].... I would say in general... there's a higher percentage of priests under 50, or under 40, who are gay. I think it would take a sociologist to tell you why that's the case. [You don't trust your own judgment? Um, then why should we?] But I also think that among the guys who are older, there is - —as in the general population - —there's less of a willingness or aptitude to discuss those kinds of things. So there may be precisely the same figure in the older generation as in the younger generation. [So it's either completely different, or exactly the same - gotcha.]

Oh, that's very helpful, thank you.

Tell us, Fr. McFakey, "what do you think a document that celebrates gay men and women in the Church would look like? "

Like nothing we have ever seen before.

Rightly so. Much like a Church document celebrating rhinotillexomania would also be unlike anything we have ever seen before. And by that I mean, thank goodness we've never seen that and never will.

Enough of Fr. GoingToTarshish. What else seems somewhat off about BrokenHalo.com?

I did a search for a few keywords on the site's internal search engine:


Word Hits
Poverty 89
Bush 76
Conservative 66
Environment 60
Gay 55
Liberal 46
Abortion 39
Republican 27
Homosexuality 26
Democrat 20
John Kerry 16
Contraception 10
Gore 8
Masturbation 5
NFP 1

This is sounding less and less like a place for "spiritual seekers" to go, and more like a place for Angry Left malcontents.

I found only one article I saw no problems with: More and More Seek a Robust Orthodoxy by Colleen Carroll Campbell. She makes several points that are key to understanding youth and what their needs are in the modern world:

In the course of interviewing some 500 young adults all across America, I found a growing number of them adopting the teachings and traditions of an orthodox Christian faith. These "new faithful," as I call them, have not seen too little of a secular, hedonistic society to understand its allure. They have seen too much to believe its promises. And they have turned instead to an older promise, one rooted in the traditions that their parents' generation rejected: the promise of a life guided by a transcendent vision and ordered by absolute truth.

Amen, sister!

Oh, what's this? Right beside her article is an accompanying piece by Mike Hayes, one of the interviewers of Fr. NOYB above, entitled They're Not in the Pews on Sunday.

By "they," he's referring, of course, to this new wave of faithful youth who were motivated by the call to orthodoxy that John Paul II made his chief mission, and that Benedict XVI is continuing:

I believe their enormous enthusiasm reflects a sense of faith that is miles wide but only inches deep [based on what exactly?].... Where did they go once the moment died down? One place they didn't go was back to church. According to a study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, only 22 percent of young adult Catholics actually attend Mass weekly [so, what percentage of young adult Catholics are represented in this new, excited-about-orthodoxy generation? Dare to compare?] - a stark contrast to the filled pews of ages past. Undoubtedly there is a small but significant minority of vocal and well-organized young adults whose dedication to the late pope was extraordinary [all coordinated by Karl Rove].... In my experience, many of these young adults will find it difficult to negotiate a world they increasingly realize is no longer black and white but filled with countless shades of gray [It's only because of the attempt to blur the boundaries between right and wrong that we have shades of grey at all].... Who will be this generation's spiritual mentors? [please don't pick Mike Hayes!] While John Paul II and Benedict XVI are admirable men who set the bar of morality appropriately high and may indeed have created a stirring in the hearts and minds of many young adults, they have not aided in creating a spiritual mentoring environment for young adults in conflict. [Yeah, too bad God ain't smart enough to figure out how to "mentor" his own disciples.]

These two articles are compared side by side. So the only glimmer of truth I found on BustedHalo.com was tainted by "the other view" which puts no trust in the promise of Christ never to abandon his Church.

Now, normally I'd simply never visit the site again. This internet thing, so I hear, is big enough for the both of us. But I'm going to stick around their discussion forums for a bit and raise a little... heaven. Any bets as to how long before they politely ask me to make myself welcome somewhere else?
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Ad Limina Comments - Western Edition
or
Jumping Off the Rooftop

On Oct. 9, the bishops from Western Canada met with Pope Benedict XVI for their Ad Limina visit. I've been publishing my thoughts on the Pope's words to the bishops from other parts of Canada (see these links), and I have been eagerly anticipating this meeting with my own region's shepherds for some time.

The Pope addresses three themes:


1. Confession:

The Bishop's responsibility to indicate the destructive presence of sin is readily understood as a service of hope: it strengthens believers to avoid evil and to embrace the perfection of love and the plenitude of Christian life. I wish therefore to commend your promotion of the Sacrament of Penance. While this Sacrament is often considered with indifference, what it effects is precisely the fullness of healing for which we long. A new-found appreciation of this Sacrament will confirm that time spent in the confessional draws good from evil, restores life from death, and reveals anew the merciful face of the Father.

2. The loss of a sense of sin:

Where God is excluded from the public forum the sense of offence against God - the true sense of sin - dissipates, just as when the absolute value of moral norms is relativized the categories of good or evil vanish, along with individual responsibility. Yet, the human need to acknowledge and confront sin in fact never goes away, no matter how much an individual may, like the elder brother [in the parable of the prodigal son], rationalize to the contrary.

3. The plight of aboriginal communities. He encourages the bishops to:

address with compassion and determination the underlying causes of the difficulties surrounding the social and spiritual needs of the Aboriginal faithful.

The three are tied somewhat together, as the Pope strings a common thread through all of them: Forgiveness.

There were times when I felt that God couldn't forgive me – when I believed forgiveness was a thing I didn't deserve. I believed the lie that I had sinned too much and that God was tired of forgiving me. If I was truly repenting, why was the repetitive staccato of habitual sin coming back again and again in my life? How many times must I do a 180-degree turn on my journey to heaven? In a sense I was getting spiritually dizzy: I would sin, repent, draw close to God, and before I knew it I was stuck in sin again and need to repent once more. It felt like all I was doing was repenting.

I'm still stuck on C. S. Lewis these days. Here's one of his thoughts from Mere Christianity on imperfect repentance:

Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it.

One day God showed me a truth regarding his forgiveness – in the story of the prodigal son. The Pope uses this parable in his discussion with the bishops, and I'm sure we've all heard it over and over again. Benedict XVI says it is "one of the most appreciated passages of sacred Scripture," and this I believe is because it contains a million truths.

Look at the father in the story. His son has left home and has wasted his life on reckless living. The father, however, never gives up hope, and keenly watches from his rooftop every day for his son to return. When the prodigal son has had enough of the sinful life, he comes home and his father espies him while he is still a far way off and practically jumps off the rooftop to run and welcome him home.

The son has prepared a fine speech but the father won't listen to it; for him it is enough that he has come back.

Now imagine God in heaven, longing with that same heart for all of humanity. We are all his children, the work of his own creative hand, and he is watching the metaphorical road, hoping to see us come back to him. Also consider that there are really very few people, proportionally speaking, who know of the Father's love and strive to be his true disciples.

So imagine one of his precious ones, having gone astray, sullenly coming back home: will not the Father leap down from his rooftop and come running to us? Will he not say to us, "Yes, yes! Come back! I want you by my side! I want to shower you with my blessings and fill you with my love!" There are so few of us who strive to know God – of course he will forgive us when we fall; we're all he's got!

But then… ­forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Do I forgive as readily and as joyfully as the Father does? Now, as a married man I'll quickly admit that my wife needs to forgive me more frequently than I need to forgive her. But on those rare occasions when I'm the one who is hurt, I hardly find that I'm “jumping off the rooftop” to run and embrace her. It's usually a long, stolid affair where I have to muster up the willpower to suppress the hurt so I can tolerate her tender caresses.

Which brings me full circle to what the Pope said to the Western Bishops:

Commitment to truth opens the way to lasting reconciliation through the healing process of asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness -- two indispensable elements for peace.

I'm delighted that our Holy Father is emphasizing the importance of this. I hope & pray our bishops will recognize the value of his words, and that we'll see more emphasis on the Sacrament of Penance in the coming months.

Lord, help me learn to forgive as you do.

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Friday, October 13, 2006

Mere, Mere, On The Wall

Years ago while studying Theology at Aldersgate College, one of my textbooks was C.S. Lewis' masterpiece Mere Christianity. I recalled this book with fondness, and have wanted to pick it up again for some time.

I found it online for cheap cheap cheap and couldn't resist, and for the last few weeks I've been picking away at it. (It's hard to make time to read when you've got to balance family, work, faith, prayer, and that confounded pastime: blogging).

In going over this work and seeing Lewis' absolute perspective on the world, it occurs to me that we've really lost this sense of reality.

I laughed when I watched Star Wars Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) and saw Obi Wan and Anakin, newly turned to the Dark Side, meet and start yelling at each other. Anakin says, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy," to which Obi Wan responds, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." And then we have an epic lightsaber battle.

But back up a minute... somebody better tell the Jedi Council: that statement is an absolute one itself. Besides, right before that, Obi Wan tells Anakin, "The Sith are evil!" Sounds pretty absolute to me.

Now, far be it from me, a pasty white computer nerd, to think that Star Wars dictates reality. What interests me about these comments is the fact that Hollywood generated them for our popular consumption. In all likelihood, many focus groups thought the lines were just fine.

But then I'm watching CSI tonight, the episode entitled "Fannysmackin'," and I see the characters talking in the locker room about a gruesome case they just solved. The discussion's theme was how the kids who had committed the murder were utterly remorseless when confronted with their crimes, regardless of how well these kids were raised. Then the main character, Gil Grissom, enters and spews forth some wisdom:

The truth is, a moral compass can only point you in the right direction; it can't make you go there. Our culture preaches that you shouldn't be ashamed of anything you do anymore, and unfortunately this city is built on the principle that there's no such thing as guilt. "Do whatever you want! We won't tell." So without conscience, there's nothing to stop you from killing someone. And evidently, you don't even have to feel bad about it.

I'm amazed that prime time TV allowed such a statement to be carried over the airwaves. The whole argument against the strict rules of the Church (contraception, divorce, sexual morality, etc) is blown away by its logical conclusion. For if we allow any one part of the conscience to be turned off, why should we be stunned when other parts turn off too? If "conscience" is not carefully formed, protected, and applied, it is useless.

Here's what C. S. Lewis has to say:

[Before becoming a Christian] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? [....] Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies.

In other words, either there are absolutes, or there is anarchy. I cannot say that something is wrong for me but right for somebody else, for then I have no recourse when others do something to me which I consider wrong but they consider right. If I were to tell a woman seeking an abortion that she is seeking to murder her baby and is putting her soul in jeopardy, then I'd be immediately subjected to a plethora of criticism and labels of intolerance. But if I were to tell the angry mob, "By calling me intolerant you're offending me," they'd respond with, "We won't tolerate intolerance from anybody, bubba! It's one of those things that is never acceptable."

Here's the question, then (and be warned, the answer is what brought me to Catholicism): Who maintains this list of unacceptable things?
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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

A Private Revelation

Many of you know of our miscarriage a few years ago, and our decision to name the lost baby Rachel. To get caught up, click here.

During a recent time of deep prayer, I sensed my little Rachel come up to me and snuggle into my arms. She looked up at me with her bright eyes and said, "Daddy, there's so many kids in heaven! Everybody's a kid, even your grandpa!" The tone was one of excitement and eagerness for me to join her, and yet there was an element of patience & perseverance, as if she knew I had some time to go through first.

Obviously this can't be taken as doctrinal truth, but it rings true to a certain extent. The Church tells us that unless we acquire the heart of a child, we cannot enter the kingdom of God. So if we can only truly approach Jesus once we've given up all our smarts and our worries and our tough-guy exteriors - all barriers that children know none of - then it stands to reason that we'll be restored to that child-like state in his eternal presence in paradise.

Lord, help me be like that more and more on this earth.
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Friday, October 06, 2006

Prayers Needed

I'm doing another TEC retreat this long weekend (it's Canadian thanksgiving, for my foreign visitors), this time in more of a leadership role.

To refresh your memory, here is my description of the first TEC retreat I went on.

Please pray for all those in leadership and the retreatants themselves, that God would cause us to be open to what he has planned for us.
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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Sigh

Long story made short, in a picture:


Create your own at Big Huge Labs.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat a lot of something unhealthy.
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Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Tina, or, Thank God For Sudden Strength

Please pray for Tina, a young girl who tried to solicit me today.

I managed to sputter out some of the Gospel to her once I realized what she was all about.

Also, a prayer of thanksgiving for a God who made me able to resist that temptation!
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Sunday, October 01, 2006

Spark

I'd like to call your attention to this inspired testimonial by Fr. Bob Bedard (which I've added to my blogroll), writing on parish renewal - but it's easily a message we can all incorporate into our lives. Specifically, he refers to how God asked him & the parish for permission. A sampling:

I felt that the Lord was giving me different ways to say the same thing as, week in and week out, I tried the best I could to get the point across. I talked practically nothing else. "Let God be God," I would tell them. "He’s good at it. God is very good at being God. Let’s let him do what he wants here."

This is one of the few links I truly pray for all my readers to check out.
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