And in a few short months, no doubt our leaders will once more pronounce those meaningless words: "Never again"

Pray for those in Darfur.

Bush and Torture

Hey all. Once again, sorry for the prolonged absence--another busy week. I actually should be writing (well, figuring out what I'm going to write and then writing) a paper now, but I thought I should pass this along. The amount of lying that the President has done this week is unbelievable. dotCommonweal gives a pretty good round-up of the more pertinent discussion, though I'd check out Andrew Sullivan's whole blog since he's written several interesting things since the dotCommonweal was posted. Oh, and the Pope's back home in Bavaria. We'll see if anything too interesting comes of that. I'm much more intrigued by his planned trip to Istanbul for the Feast of My Patron at the end of November.

Mark Jordan, etc.

So I finally finished Mark Jordan's The Silence of Sodom. I must confess, the last few chapters were challenging. Essentially they dealt with whether a gay man (this is the primary audience the text is written for) should stay in the Catholic Church. Jordan seems to lean heavily towards the "No" side, though he does nuance this. Unfortunately, the rationale is based entirely upon sociological evidence (and quite a bit of conjecture) that totally ignores ecclesiology or theology in general.

He speaks about gay Catholics needing to go to "another Eucharistic table." There is, however, a problem with this. There is only ONE Eucharistic table, and it is Christ's. The fellowship and communion that is there enacted is with all the faithful, whether they have any particular affection for us or not. This cannot be gotten around. Simply absenting oneself from the assembly to create one that is more gay-friendly is insufficient, for it either ceases to be the table of Christ; is another way of being in-communion, but with less visibility; or is a partial communion. I, for one, would much rather stay in full communion and struggle with these matters than simply give up on the Church I love. For Jordan, this seems to be masochism. I see it as love, which always entails a degree of suffering. Sadly, love (not merely eroticism) is a category which Jordan does not discuss all that often in this text.

Another problem I have is that Jordan seems a bit utopian. He criticizes the gay churches for creating too much of a hierarchy along Catholic lines. The problem is that it is impossible not to have a hierarchy and bureaucracy for any organization that wants to exist in a community larger than the merely local. Organization becomes a factor here, and that organization will always have the weaknesses of sin and human failing within it. Likewise, a key point that he fails to discuss is the fact that a constitutive aspect of Catholicism is the belief in the divine establishment of the episcopacy as a means of unity among the people. This is obviously not perfect--the scandal of Christian division illustrates it--but it is still the best model there is, in my opinion, if a community wishes to remain united to anyone outside of its walls.

This being said, Jordan's critiques earlier in the work are quite compelling, and simply acknowledging the necessity of an episcopacy in no way defends the mendacity and scandal which that body may cause. Jordan feels that this is an irredeemable element to any bueracracy, and perhaps he's right, but I am not yet to that point.

I wonder how many of our differences have to do with generational issues. He's of my parents generation (born, I believe, in the early 50s) and thus has both struggled with these matters for longer and lived through the entirety of the modern gay movement since Stonewall. An interesting piece on the end of gay culture as was once understood can be found here. I wonder if our differences lie in the fact that he still seems to see a community that can be unifyingly labeled "queer," while I see a multiplicity of groups and people (particularly since I fit within so few of them).

Also raised is the question of how far charity can go. Does it have a limit? Does my desire to give any interlocutor--including the Vatican--the benefit of the doubt infringe upon justice owed to other gays who, like me, suffer greatly by these pronouncements? Can justice trump love, and if not, how do we bring them both together with such diverse interests? It seems to me that James Alison tries (see his reflection on the recent Vatican ban on gay priests), but is it effective? These are questions I need to ponder, but I fear they shall have to wait awhile. Back to homework.

P.S. I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" kicking off Al Gore's presidential campaign and "Little Miss Sunshine" this past weekend. Both get enthusiastic thumbs up and deserve more comment than I have time to give. So go see 'em. Peace.

St. Gregory

Wow, ok, so it's been a week since I posted and for the few of you who actually find my blathering interesting, apologies. Just been a pretty hectic week trying to get things done, but I do have some ammo for a few more posts, hopefully they'll get done this afternoon. Anyway, though yesterday was a Sunday, I couldn't let the feast of Gregorius Magnus pass without mention. St. Gregory the Great died in the early 7th century and is often considered the last Western Father of the Church. He was also a pope who did a great deal of service for the poor and did not believe that there should be a "universal patriarchate" over the rest of the Church (pay attention Curia members!), but that the papal primacy must be exercised with humility. His favorite title for the pope was Servus servorum Dei (Servant of the Servants of God), and he meant it. Anyway, he's also a great role model for current politicians, since he had to be both the ecclesiastical and civil head of Rome and he also had renounced his wealth and birthright as the son of a Roman Senator. Anyway, since yesterday was Sunday, say a prayer to good pope Gregory today!

One of the first

Today is the feast of one of the first martyrs for the truth about who Christ is: John the Baptist. Thus, have a wonderful memorial of St. John's arrival in paradise on this feast of his Beheading.

Marriage and Principle

An interesting reply to some of Robert George's statements which I referenced below. I was persuaded by them, but I have to admit, on further reflection, they don't seem to fit too well with what I believe to be intrinsic morality. Things are not really right or wrong based upon their nature, I think, but based upon whether they harm or build up the human person and human community. Thus, perhaps the best arguments against polygamy are the practical ones of the harm it would do rather than trying to find them in the nature of marriage itself. After all, polygamy was practiced by many of the saints of the Old Testament. Were these not marriages? So hard to figure out, considering the way marriage has changed and developed. But unfortunately, I haven't much time to ponder, since I still have a ton of Troeltsch to read for class at 12:30.

Ok, one more

Alright, so I already talked about St. Augustine, but then I turned to today's Office of Compline in the Divine Hours, which has the following passage from the good Doctor. I've read this paragraph many times, but it never fails to touch me deeply with its real passion and manifold affection:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved
you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I
searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things
which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created
things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have
been at all. You called, you shouted, and you shattered my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your
fragrance on me; I drew breath and now I pant for you [PANT!]. I have
tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned
for you peace.

How well today's reading from the First Letter of St. John captures this:
"Love, then, consists of this:
not that we have loved God,
but that he has loved us
and has sent his Son as an offering for our sins."

Update

Well, as I mentioned below, classes re-commenced last week and because of that, I have a crap-load of reading to be doing. Ergo, many of the blogs that I try more religiously to look at may have several day interludes. So if there's something interesting, and you rely on me to show it to you, it may take awhile. But there you are.

Oh, but to tide you over, I was given this chart by the prof. I'm TAing for on poverty in the world, and some of the stats are just jaw-dropping. Have a look see.

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord...."

Well, happy feast of St. Augustine to all you happy western Christians out there. And all you easterns who just don't get our thing for this guy.........happy Monday. I'll also give a shout out to his rather persistent mama since she kinda got screwed this year, her feast falling on a Sunday. Still, I doubt St. Monica minded being overshadowed by the Resurrection too much.

It seems, depending on how you think of him, that Augustine is either responsible for everything that's right in the Church, or he's the one who started it on its long, downward path. I personally do not subscribe to either of these, finding his writings on sin and grace (the anti-Pelagian stuff) particularly helpful and his stuff on sex much less so, not to mention the volumes of stuff he did on neither of these subjects (if you're in the mood for a wonderful headache, read some of De Trinitate but only this linked translation if you don't have the "Augustine for the 21st Century" series translation. And shame on you for that!).

Anyway, happy Auggie day to all!

(NB: I've started linking to the Wikipedia sites for the saints because they tend to avoid some of the more excessive kinds of hagiography and also because they oft give really good bibliography if you want to read more. Enjoy!)

"Evening," by G.K. Chesterton

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?

The Great G.K.

As classes start up, I'm quite blessed to be in one that focuses on the theological work of one Gilbert Keith Chesterton. He is a wonderful writer and one who takes a joyous delight in simple being, as he says, "in the sheer wetness of water and muddiness of mud." He is a great counter-weight to much that I've been reading that is critical of Catholicism and, instead, he reminds me once again of what I love about it--those core, essential truths that I so often lose sight of. So there's a good chance that various passages by him will start appearing on this page, with or without my rather bland commentary and thoughts. So just a head's up!

Santa Rosa

Happy St. Rose of Lima day! She's particularly significant because she's the first canonized saint of the Americas. She is not too sympathetic to modern eyes, having engaged in some VERY serious mortifications (including sleeping on a bed of broken tiles and wearing a crown of thorns). Very likely she had some pretty serious mental issues, including probably being bulemic. Nonetheless, she did a great deal of loving service for the poor and sick, and frankly, being crazy, I like the idea that being off your rocker doesn't disqualify one from sanctity.

Mozart and Catholicism

There's a fascinating section in John Allen's All Things Catholic column over at NCR about Mozart, his Catholicism, and his membership in the Masons. Particularly pertinent is this section:

How to reconcile this Catholic piety with Masonry?
One way is to recall that down the centuries, criticism of individual churchmen or of ecclesiastical systems by Catholics often had little to do with one's faith. Moderns may reject Catholicism if they become frustrated with the church, but that's not how
someone like Mozart thought.
Perhaps the best glimpse of this comes in a 1771 letter to his father, after Mozart had a falling out with the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Hieronymus Colloredo, who among other indignities insisted on lodging him with household servants.
Noting that "I hate the archbishop to insanity," Mozart wrote:
"Always remember, as we do, that our Mufti [Colloredo] is an idiot, but that God is compassionate, merciful and loving."

Something I well hope to remember and wish more lesbigays could see too. Check out the whole piece.