"THE PASSION" AS RORSCHACH TEST:
Why Most of the Opposition Comes from Liberals
Well, the screeching in the Establishment media continues.
Even before the general public began to view The Passion of the Christ for themselves, liberal commentators have been attacking it as "pornographic" and "obscene" in part or in whole because of Mel Gibson's hard-to-take but thoroughly accurate depiction of the sadistic torture and death Christ suffered at the hands of the ancient Romans, surely the Nazis of their day. When they look at The Passion, instead of seeing a message of redemption, love, and forgiveness they see "racism," or "anti-Semitism, or a "dangerous" philosophy of "divisiveness."
For liberals, religion should be about niceness, feeling good about oneself, and preaching sweetness and light from the back of the cultural bus. It ought not move up to the front to challenge the status quo, especially with in-your-face images of a suffering Savior who makes demands and wants you to make a decision ("who do you say that I am?," He asked His disciples).
For liberals, including those who think of themselves as "Christians," The Passion of the Christ is a Rorschach Test in which they see the cross as "foolishness," as the Apostle Paul observed about the Roman pagans of his day. He could just as easily have penned the same thing about modern-day liberals, including modern-day liberal Christians. 60 years ago, someone else did:
While the Nazis were plunging Europe into world war, partly due to apathy on the part of mainline Christians here and in the Reich, noted German Protestant theologian and anti-Nazi activist H. Reinhold Neibuhr summarized modern-day mainstream Christianity, especially in Germany and America, as a religion in which "a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment though the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."
As Presbyterian minister William Sloane Coffin once said about Fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible, Mel Gibson's film "is something like a mirror: if an ass peers in, you can't expect an apostle to peer out.''
"Any questioning of the moral ideas that prevail ...is received with the utmost hostility.
To attempt such an enterprise is to disturb the peace"
--H. L. Mencken
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Friday, February 20, 2004
FOR MEL GIBSON, HIS FILM IS A MASS:
ZENIT on The Passion, Catholic Liturgy, and Anti-Semitism
The Italian news agency ZENIT, the only secular media outlet which specializes in covering the Vatican, released the following remarkable article this week.
==================================================
ZENIT News Agency, The World Seen from Rome
==================================================
"'The Passion' … for Its Author, Is a Mass"
Vittorio Messori on Mel Gibson's Work
ROME, FEB. 18, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Vittorio Messori is the first journalist in history to publish a book-length interview with a pope, the multimillion-selling "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" (1994), as well as numerous other works such as "The Ratzinger Report" (1987) and his best-selling "Ipotesi su Gesù" (The Jesus Hypothesis, 1976).
After seeing Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," he wrote the following article for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera and offered the piece to ZENIT for publication in other languages.
* * *
A Passion of Violence and Love
By Vittorio Messori
After two hours and six minutes, the lights flick on again in the little soundproof room. There are only about a dozen of us (I the sole journalist), and we are aware of a privilege. By invitation of Mel Gibson and producer Steve McEveety of Icon Films, we are the first in Europe to see the final copy of this film which just arrived from Los Angeles. The same version that next Wednesday will be in 2,000 American cinemas, 500 English ones, and as many Australian, the version whose expectation has caused a short circuit on Internet sites and which in the first week will recover (the bookmakers say it is certain) the $30 million of production costs.
The Pope himself has only seen a provisional version, lacking among other things the final soundtrack. But, if this evening we are the first, the Italians will have to wait until the 7th of April, the French and the Spanish until June.
When the long list of credits ends, where American names alternate with Italian, where recognition of the municipality of Matera is side by side with that of theologians and experts in ancient languages, where Rosalinda, the daughter of Celentano (the devil) is next to a Romanian Jew, Maia Morgenstern (the Virgin Mary), and the technician presses the light switch, silence continues in the little room.
Two women weep quietly, without sobbing; the monsignor in clergyman's dress who is next to me is very pale, his eyes closed; the young ecclesiastical secretary nervously fingers a rosary; a tentative, solitary start of applause quickly dies out in embarrassment.
For many, very long minutes, no one stands up, no one moves, no one speaks. So, what we were being told was true: "The Passion of The Christ" has struck us, it has worked in us, the first guinea pigs, the effect that Gibson wanted.
For what it's worth, I myself was disconcerted and speechless: For years I have examined one by one the Greek words with which the Evangelists recount those events; not one historical minutia of those 12 hours in Jerusalem is unknown to me. I have addressed it in a 400-page book that Gibson himself has taken into account. I know everything, or rather, I now discover that I thought I knew: everything changes if those words are translated into images of such power to transform in flesh and blood, striking signs of love and hatred.
The Gamble
Mel has said it with pride tempered by humility, with pragmatism kneaded with mysticism which becomes in him a singular mixture: "If this work was to fail, for 50 years there will be no future for religious films. We threw the best in here: as much money as we wished, prestige, time, rigor, the charism of great actors, the science of the learned, inspirations of the mystics, experience, advanced technology. Above all, we threw in our conviction that it was worthwhile, that what takes place in those hours concerns every man. Our eternity is bound up forever with this Jew. If we don't point this out, who will be able to do so? But we will point it out, I am sure of it: Our work was accompanied by too many signs that confirm it."
In fact, on the set much more happened than what is known; much will remain in the secret of consciences: conversions, release from drugs, reconciliation between enemies, giving up of adulterous ties, apparitions of mysterious personages, extraordinary explosions of energy, enigmatic figures who knelt down as the extraordinary Caviezel-Jesus passed by, even two flashes of lightning, one of which struck the cross, but did not hurt anyone. And, then, coincidences read like signs: the Madonna with the face of the Jewish actress with the name Morgenstern which, it was only noticed later, is, in German, the "Morning Star" of the litanies of the Rosary.
Gibson remembered Blessed [early Renaissance artist-monk Fra] Angelico's warning: "To depict Christ, it is necessary to live with Christ." The atmosphere, between the Sassi di Matera and the Cinecittà Studios seems to have been that of the sacred medieval representations, of processions of scourged pilgrims before the relics of martyrs. A 14th-century Thespis' cart, with which every evening, a priest in black cassock, of the type with the long line of buttons, celebrated an open-air Mass, in Latin, according to the rite of St. Pius V. Precisely here, in fact, is the real reason for the decision to make the Jews speak in their popular language, Aramaic, and the Romans in a low Latin, of the military, which wounds our schoolboy ears, used to Ciceronian refinements.
Gibson, a Catholic who loves the Tradition, is a strong champion of the doctrine confirmed by the Council of Trent: the Mass is "also" a fraternal meal but it is "above all" Jesus' sacrifice, the bloodless renewal of the Passion. This is what matters, not the "understanding of the words," as the new liturgists wish, whose superficiality Mel mocks as it seems like blasphemy to him. The redemptive value of the actions and gestures that have their culmination on Calvary has no need of expressions that anyone can understand.
This film, for its author, is a Mass: Let it be, then, in an obscure language, as it was for so many centuries. If the mind does not understand, so much the better. What matters is that the heart understands that all that happened redeems us from sin and opens to us the doors of salvation. Precisely as the prophecy of Isaiah reminds us on the "Servant of Yahweh" which, taking up the whole screen, is the prologue of the entire film. The wonder, however, seems to me to be verified: After a while, one stops reading the subtitles to enter, without distractions, in the terrible and marvelous scenes -- that are sufficient in themselves.
The Quality
On the technical plane, the work is of a very high quality, so much so that previous films on Jesus might seem reduced to poor and archaic relatives: in Gibson, strategic lighting, skillful photography, extraordinary costumes, rugged and sometimes sumptuous set designs, incredibly convincing makeup, recitations of great professionals supervised by a director who is also one of their illustrious colleagues. Above all, such amazing special effects which, as Enzo Sisti, the executive producer, said to us, will remain secret, to confirm the enigma of the work, where the technique is intended to be at the service of faith. A faith in the most Catholic version -- no accident that it was pleasing to the Pope and to so many cardinals, not excluding Ratzinger, for whom "The Passion" is a manifesto that abounds in symbols that only a competent eye can fully discern. There will be a book (two, in fact, are in preparation) to help the spectator understand.
Very briefly, the radical "Catholicity" of the film lies first of all in the refusal of every demythicization, in taking the Gospels as precise chronicles: The things, we are told, happened like this, precisely as the Scriptures describe it. Catholicism is present, then, in the recognition of the divinity of Jesus which exists together with his full humanity. A divinity that bursts forth, dramatically, in the superhuman capacity of that body to suffer a level of pain as no one before or after ever has, in expiation of all the sin of the world.
But the radical "Catholicity" is also in the Eucharistic aspect, reaffirmed in its materiality: The blood of the Passion is continuously intermingled with the wine of the Mass, the tortured flesh of the "corpus Christi" with the consecrated bread. It is, also, in the strongly Marian tone: the Mother and the devil (who is feminine or, perhaps, androgynous) are omnipresent, the one with her silent pain, the other with his/her malicious satisfaction.
From Anne Catherine Emmerich, the stigmatized visionary, Gibson has taken extraordinary intuitions: Claudia Procula, Pilate's wife, who offers, weeping, to Mary the cloths to soak up the blood of the Son is among the scenes of greatest delicacy in a film that, more than violent, is brutal. Brutal as, in fact, the Passion was. The desperate Peter after the denial, falls at the feet of the Blessed Virgin to obtain pardon. I believe, however, that the theological importance attributed to the Madonna, as well as to the Eucharist -- an importance not spiritualized, not reduced to a "memorial" but seen in the most material, and therefore Catholic, way (the Transubstantiation) -- will create some uneasiness in American Protestant churches which, without having seen the film, have already organized themselves to support its distribution.
If two hours are dedicated to the martyrdom, two minutes suffice to recall that that was not the last word. From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, to the Resurrection, which Gibson has resolved by making a particular reading of John's words: an "emptying" of the funeral shroud, leaving a sufficient sign to "see and believe" that the tortured one has triumphed over death.
Anti-Semitism or, at least, anti-Judaism? Let's not play around with words that are much too serious. From my viewing, I agree with the many and authoritative American Jews who admonish their co-religionists not to condemn before seeing. It comes across very clearly in the film that what weighs Christ down and reduces him to that state is not this one's or that one's fault, but rather the sin of all men, no one excluded.
To Caiaphas' obstinacy in calling for the crucifixion (that collaborator Sadducee who did not in fact represent the Jewish people, but, rather was detested by them; the Talmud reserves terrible words for him and for his father-in-law Annas), more than abundant counterbalance is made by the unheard-of sadism of the Roman executioners. The political cowardice of Pilate that leads him to violate his conscience stands counter to the courage of the member of the Sanhedrin -- an episode added by the director -- who confronts the High Priest crying out that that trial is illegal. And is it not John, a Jew, who supports the Mother? Is not the pious Veronica a Jew? Is not the impetuous Simon of Cyrene a Jew? Are not the women of Jerusalem, crying out in despair, all Jews? And is it not Peter -- a Jew -- who, when forgiven, will die for the Master?
At the beginning of the film, before the drama is unleashed, an anguished Magdalene asks the Virgin: "Why is this night so different from any other?" "Because," Mary answers, "we were all slaves and now we will no longer be so." All, but absolutely all: whether they are "Jews or Gentiles." This work, Mel Gibson says, saddened by aggressions to prevent it, intends to propose again the message of a God who is Love. And what Love would it be if he excluded any one?
ZE04021821
===================================================
ZENIT is an International News Agency.
To receive ZENIT News Services by e-mail, FREE Subscription at:
http://www.zenit.org/english/subscribe.html
ZENIT on The Passion, Catholic Liturgy, and Anti-Semitism
The Italian news agency ZENIT, the only secular media outlet which specializes in covering the Vatican, released the following remarkable article this week.
==================================================
ZENIT News Agency, The World Seen from Rome
==================================================
"'The Passion' … for Its Author, Is a Mass"
Vittorio Messori on Mel Gibson's Work
ROME, FEB. 18, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Vittorio Messori is the first journalist in history to publish a book-length interview with a pope, the multimillion-selling "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" (1994), as well as numerous other works such as "The Ratzinger Report" (1987) and his best-selling "Ipotesi su Gesù" (The Jesus Hypothesis, 1976).
After seeing Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," he wrote the following article for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera and offered the piece to ZENIT for publication in other languages.
* * *
A Passion of Violence and Love
By Vittorio Messori
After two hours and six minutes, the lights flick on again in the little soundproof room. There are only about a dozen of us (I the sole journalist), and we are aware of a privilege. By invitation of Mel Gibson and producer Steve McEveety of Icon Films, we are the first in Europe to see the final copy of this film which just arrived from Los Angeles. The same version that next Wednesday will be in 2,000 American cinemas, 500 English ones, and as many Australian, the version whose expectation has caused a short circuit on Internet sites and which in the first week will recover (the bookmakers say it is certain) the $30 million of production costs.
The Pope himself has only seen a provisional version, lacking among other things the final soundtrack. But, if this evening we are the first, the Italians will have to wait until the 7th of April, the French and the Spanish until June.
When the long list of credits ends, where American names alternate with Italian, where recognition of the municipality of Matera is side by side with that of theologians and experts in ancient languages, where Rosalinda, the daughter of Celentano (the devil) is next to a Romanian Jew, Maia Morgenstern (the Virgin Mary), and the technician presses the light switch, silence continues in the little room.
Two women weep quietly, without sobbing; the monsignor in clergyman's dress who is next to me is very pale, his eyes closed; the young ecclesiastical secretary nervously fingers a rosary; a tentative, solitary start of applause quickly dies out in embarrassment.
For many, very long minutes, no one stands up, no one moves, no one speaks. So, what we were being told was true: "The Passion of The Christ" has struck us, it has worked in us, the first guinea pigs, the effect that Gibson wanted.
For what it's worth, I myself was disconcerted and speechless: For years I have examined one by one the Greek words with which the Evangelists recount those events; not one historical minutia of those 12 hours in Jerusalem is unknown to me. I have addressed it in a 400-page book that Gibson himself has taken into account. I know everything, or rather, I now discover that I thought I knew: everything changes if those words are translated into images of such power to transform in flesh and blood, striking signs of love and hatred.
The Gamble
Mel has said it with pride tempered by humility, with pragmatism kneaded with mysticism which becomes in him a singular mixture: "If this work was to fail, for 50 years there will be no future for religious films. We threw the best in here: as much money as we wished, prestige, time, rigor, the charism of great actors, the science of the learned, inspirations of the mystics, experience, advanced technology. Above all, we threw in our conviction that it was worthwhile, that what takes place in those hours concerns every man. Our eternity is bound up forever with this Jew. If we don't point this out, who will be able to do so? But we will point it out, I am sure of it: Our work was accompanied by too many signs that confirm it."
In fact, on the set much more happened than what is known; much will remain in the secret of consciences: conversions, release from drugs, reconciliation between enemies, giving up of adulterous ties, apparitions of mysterious personages, extraordinary explosions of energy, enigmatic figures who knelt down as the extraordinary Caviezel-Jesus passed by, even two flashes of lightning, one of which struck the cross, but did not hurt anyone. And, then, coincidences read like signs: the Madonna with the face of the Jewish actress with the name Morgenstern which, it was only noticed later, is, in German, the "Morning Star" of the litanies of the Rosary.
Gibson remembered Blessed [early Renaissance artist-monk Fra] Angelico's warning: "To depict Christ, it is necessary to live with Christ." The atmosphere, between the Sassi di Matera and the Cinecittà Studios seems to have been that of the sacred medieval representations, of processions of scourged pilgrims before the relics of martyrs. A 14th-century Thespis' cart, with which every evening, a priest in black cassock, of the type with the long line of buttons, celebrated an open-air Mass, in Latin, according to the rite of St. Pius V. Precisely here, in fact, is the real reason for the decision to make the Jews speak in their popular language, Aramaic, and the Romans in a low Latin, of the military, which wounds our schoolboy ears, used to Ciceronian refinements.
Gibson, a Catholic who loves the Tradition, is a strong champion of the doctrine confirmed by the Council of Trent: the Mass is "also" a fraternal meal but it is "above all" Jesus' sacrifice, the bloodless renewal of the Passion. This is what matters, not the "understanding of the words," as the new liturgists wish, whose superficiality Mel mocks as it seems like blasphemy to him. The redemptive value of the actions and gestures that have their culmination on Calvary has no need of expressions that anyone can understand.
This film, for its author, is a Mass: Let it be, then, in an obscure language, as it was for so many centuries. If the mind does not understand, so much the better. What matters is that the heart understands that all that happened redeems us from sin and opens to us the doors of salvation. Precisely as the prophecy of Isaiah reminds us on the "Servant of Yahweh" which, taking up the whole screen, is the prologue of the entire film. The wonder, however, seems to me to be verified: After a while, one stops reading the subtitles to enter, without distractions, in the terrible and marvelous scenes -- that are sufficient in themselves.
The Quality
On the technical plane, the work is of a very high quality, so much so that previous films on Jesus might seem reduced to poor and archaic relatives: in Gibson, strategic lighting, skillful photography, extraordinary costumes, rugged and sometimes sumptuous set designs, incredibly convincing makeup, recitations of great professionals supervised by a director who is also one of their illustrious colleagues. Above all, such amazing special effects which, as Enzo Sisti, the executive producer, said to us, will remain secret, to confirm the enigma of the work, where the technique is intended to be at the service of faith. A faith in the most Catholic version -- no accident that it was pleasing to the Pope and to so many cardinals, not excluding Ratzinger, for whom "The Passion" is a manifesto that abounds in symbols that only a competent eye can fully discern. There will be a book (two, in fact, are in preparation) to help the spectator understand.
Very briefly, the radical "Catholicity" of the film lies first of all in the refusal of every demythicization, in taking the Gospels as precise chronicles: The things, we are told, happened like this, precisely as the Scriptures describe it. Catholicism is present, then, in the recognition of the divinity of Jesus which exists together with his full humanity. A divinity that bursts forth, dramatically, in the superhuman capacity of that body to suffer a level of pain as no one before or after ever has, in expiation of all the sin of the world.
But the radical "Catholicity" is also in the Eucharistic aspect, reaffirmed in its materiality: The blood of the Passion is continuously intermingled with the wine of the Mass, the tortured flesh of the "corpus Christi" with the consecrated bread. It is, also, in the strongly Marian tone: the Mother and the devil (who is feminine or, perhaps, androgynous) are omnipresent, the one with her silent pain, the other with his/her malicious satisfaction.
From Anne Catherine Emmerich, the stigmatized visionary, Gibson has taken extraordinary intuitions: Claudia Procula, Pilate's wife, who offers, weeping, to Mary the cloths to soak up the blood of the Son is among the scenes of greatest delicacy in a film that, more than violent, is brutal. Brutal as, in fact, the Passion was. The desperate Peter after the denial, falls at the feet of the Blessed Virgin to obtain pardon. I believe, however, that the theological importance attributed to the Madonna, as well as to the Eucharist -- an importance not spiritualized, not reduced to a "memorial" but seen in the most material, and therefore Catholic, way (the Transubstantiation) -- will create some uneasiness in American Protestant churches which, without having seen the film, have already organized themselves to support its distribution.
If two hours are dedicated to the martyrdom, two minutes suffice to recall that that was not the last word. From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, to the Resurrection, which Gibson has resolved by making a particular reading of John's words: an "emptying" of the funeral shroud, leaving a sufficient sign to "see and believe" that the tortured one has triumphed over death.
Anti-Semitism or, at least, anti-Judaism? Let's not play around with words that are much too serious. From my viewing, I agree with the many and authoritative American Jews who admonish their co-religionists not to condemn before seeing. It comes across very clearly in the film that what weighs Christ down and reduces him to that state is not this one's or that one's fault, but rather the sin of all men, no one excluded.
To Caiaphas' obstinacy in calling for the crucifixion (that collaborator Sadducee who did not in fact represent the Jewish people, but, rather was detested by them; the Talmud reserves terrible words for him and for his father-in-law Annas), more than abundant counterbalance is made by the unheard-of sadism of the Roman executioners. The political cowardice of Pilate that leads him to violate his conscience stands counter to the courage of the member of the Sanhedrin -- an episode added by the director -- who confronts the High Priest crying out that that trial is illegal. And is it not John, a Jew, who supports the Mother? Is not the pious Veronica a Jew? Is not the impetuous Simon of Cyrene a Jew? Are not the women of Jerusalem, crying out in despair, all Jews? And is it not Peter -- a Jew -- who, when forgiven, will die for the Master?
At the beginning of the film, before the drama is unleashed, an anguished Magdalene asks the Virgin: "Why is this night so different from any other?" "Because," Mary answers, "we were all slaves and now we will no longer be so." All, but absolutely all: whether they are "Jews or Gentiles." This work, Mel Gibson says, saddened by aggressions to prevent it, intends to propose again the message of a God who is Love. And what Love would it be if he excluded any one?
ZE04021821
===================================================
ZENIT is an International News Agency.
To receive ZENIT News Services by e-mail, FREE Subscription at:
http://www.zenit.org/english/subscribe.html
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
ON PREVENTING POGROMS IN PITTSBURGH:
An Orthodox Rabbi Responds to The Passion's Jewish Critics
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an Orthodox Rabbi, is president of Toward Tradition, an ecumenical "bridge-building" organization "providing a voice for all Americans who defend the Judeo-Christian values." On February 12, Rabbi Lapin had the following to say on his web site about Mel Gibson's new film, The Passion of the Christ, and the high-profile Jewish groups and "leaders" attempting to ostracize it:
Why Mel Owes One to the Jews
by Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Two weeks before Mel Gibson's Passion flashes onto two thousand screens, online ticket merchants are reporting that up to half their total sales are for advance purchases for Passion. One Dallas multiplex has reserved all twenty of its screens for The Passion. I am neither a prophet nor a movie critic. I am merely an Orthodox rabbi using ancient Jewish wisdom to make three predictions about The Passion.
One, Mel Gibson and Icon Productions will make a great deal of money. Those distributors who surrendered to pressure from Jewish organizations and passed on Passion will be kicking themselves, while Newmarket Films will
laugh all the way to the bank. Theater owners are going to love this film.
Two, Passion will become famous as the most serious and substantive Biblical movie ever made. It will be one of the most talked-about entertainment events in history; it is currently on the cover of Newsweek and Vanity Fair.
My third prediction is that the faith of millions of Christians will become more fervent as Passion uplifts and inspires them. Passion will propel vast numbers of unreligious Americans to embrace Christianity. The movie will one day be seen as a harbinger of America's third great religious reawakening.
Those Jewish organizations that have squandered both time and money futilely protesting Passion, ostensibly in order to prevent pogroms in Pittsburgh, can hardly be proud of their performance. They failed at everything they
attempted. They were hoping to ruin Gibson rather than enrich him. They were hoping to suppress Passion rather than promote it. Finally, they were hoping to help Jews rather than harm them.
Here I digress slightly to exercise the Jewish value of "giving the benefit of the doubt" by discounting cynical suggestions growing in popularity, that the very public nature of their attack on Gibson exposed their real purpose ? fundraising. Apparently, frightening wealthy widows in Florida about anti-Semitic thugs prowling the streets of America causes them to open their pocketbooks and refill the coffers of groups with little other raison d'?tre. But let's assume they were hoping to help Jews.
However, instead of helping the Jewish community, they have inflicted lasting harm. By selectively unleashing their fury only on wholesome entertainment that depicts Christianity in a positive light, they have triggered anger, hurt, and resentment. Hosting the Toward Tradition Radio Show and speaking before many audiences nationwide, I enjoy extensive communication with Christian America and what I hear is troubling. Fearful of attracting the ire of Jewish groups that are so quick to hurl the "anti-Semite" epithet, some Christians are reluctant to speak out. Although
one can bludgeon resentful people into silence, behind closed doors emotions continue to simmer.
I consider it crucially important for Christians to know that not all Jews are in agreement with their self-appointed spokesmen. Most American Jews, experiencing warm and gracious interactions each day with their Christian fellow-citizens, would feel awkward trying to explain why so many Jewish organizations seem focused on an agenda hostile to Judeo-Christian values. Many individual Jews have shared with me their embarrassment that groups,
ostensibly representing them, attack Passion but are silent about depraved entertainment that encourages killing cops and brutalizing women. Citing artistic freedom, Jewish groups helped protect sacrilegious exhibits such as
the anti-Christian feces extravaganza presented by the Brooklyn Museum four years ago. One can hardly blame Christians for assuming that Jews feel artistic freedom is important only when exercised by those hostile toward
Christianity. However, this is not how all Jews feel.
From audiences around America, I am encountering bitterness at Jewish organizations insisting that belief in the New Testament is de facto evidence of anti-Semitism. Christians heard Jewish leaders denouncing Gibson for making a movie that follows Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion long before any of them had even seen the movie. Furthermore, Christians are hurt that Jewish groups are presuming to teach them what Christian Scripture "really means." Listen to a rabbi whom I debated on the Fox television show hosted by Bill O'Reilly last September. This is what he said, "We have a responsibility as Jews, as thinking Jews, as people of theology, to respond to our Christian brothers and to engage them, be it Protestants, be it Catholics, and say, look, this is not your history, this is not your theology, this does not represent what you believe in."
He happens to be a respected rabbi and a good one, but he too has bought into the preposterous proposition that Jews will reeducate Christians about Christian theology and history. Is it any wonder that this breathtaking arrogance spurs bitterness?
Many Christians who, with good reason, have considered themselves to be Jews' best (and perhaps, only) friends also feel bitter at Jews believing that Passion is revealing startling new information about the Crucifixion. They are incredulous at Jews thinking that exposure to the Gospels in visual form will instantly transform the most philo-Semitic gentiles of history into snarling, Jew-hating predators.
Christians are baffled by Jews who don't understand that President George Washington, who knew and revered every word of the Gospels, was still able to write that oft-quoted beautiful letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, offering friendship and full participation in America to the Jewish community.
One of the directors of the AJC recently warned that Passion "could undermine the sense of community between Christians and Jews that's going on in this country. We're not allowing the film to do that." No sir, it isn't the film that threatens the sense of community; it is the arrogant and intemperate response of Jewish organizations that does so.
Jewish organizations, hoping to help but failing so spectacularly, refutes all myths of Jewish intelligence. How could their plans have been so misguided and the execution so inept?
Ancient Jewish wisdom teaches that nothing confuses one's thinking more than being in the grip of the two powerful emotions, love and hate. The actions of these Jewish organizations sadly suggest that they are in the grip of a hatred for Christianity that is only harming Jews.
Today, peril threatens all Americans, both Jews and Christians. Many of the men and women in the front lines find great support in their Christian faith. It is strange that Jewish organizations, purporting to protect Jews, think that insulting allies is the preferred way to carry out that mandate.
A ferocious Rottweiler dog in your suburban home will quickly estrange your family from the neighborhood. For those of us in the Jewish community who cherish friendship with our neighbors, some Jewish organizations have become our Rottweilers.
God help us.
An Orthodox Rabbi Responds to The Passion's Jewish Critics
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an Orthodox Rabbi, is president of Toward Tradition, an ecumenical "bridge-building" organization "providing a voice for all Americans who defend the Judeo-Christian values." On February 12, Rabbi Lapin had the following to say on his web site about Mel Gibson's new film, The Passion of the Christ, and the high-profile Jewish groups and "leaders" attempting to ostracize it:
Why Mel Owes One to the Jews
by Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Two weeks before Mel Gibson's Passion flashes onto two thousand screens, online ticket merchants are reporting that up to half their total sales are for advance purchases for Passion. One Dallas multiplex has reserved all twenty of its screens for The Passion. I am neither a prophet nor a movie critic. I am merely an Orthodox rabbi using ancient Jewish wisdom to make three predictions about The Passion.
One, Mel Gibson and Icon Productions will make a great deal of money. Those distributors who surrendered to pressure from Jewish organizations and passed on Passion will be kicking themselves, while Newmarket Films will
laugh all the way to the bank. Theater owners are going to love this film.
Two, Passion will become famous as the most serious and substantive Biblical movie ever made. It will be one of the most talked-about entertainment events in history; it is currently on the cover of Newsweek and Vanity Fair.
My third prediction is that the faith of millions of Christians will become more fervent as Passion uplifts and inspires them. Passion will propel vast numbers of unreligious Americans to embrace Christianity. The movie will one day be seen as a harbinger of America's third great religious reawakening.
Those Jewish organizations that have squandered both time and money futilely protesting Passion, ostensibly in order to prevent pogroms in Pittsburgh, can hardly be proud of their performance. They failed at everything they
attempted. They were hoping to ruin Gibson rather than enrich him. They were hoping to suppress Passion rather than promote it. Finally, they were hoping to help Jews rather than harm them.
Here I digress slightly to exercise the Jewish value of "giving the benefit of the doubt" by discounting cynical suggestions growing in popularity, that the very public nature of their attack on Gibson exposed their real purpose ? fundraising. Apparently, frightening wealthy widows in Florida about anti-Semitic thugs prowling the streets of America causes them to open their pocketbooks and refill the coffers of groups with little other raison d'?tre. But let's assume they were hoping to help Jews.
However, instead of helping the Jewish community, they have inflicted lasting harm. By selectively unleashing their fury only on wholesome entertainment that depicts Christianity in a positive light, they have triggered anger, hurt, and resentment. Hosting the Toward Tradition Radio Show and speaking before many audiences nationwide, I enjoy extensive communication with Christian America and what I hear is troubling. Fearful of attracting the ire of Jewish groups that are so quick to hurl the "anti-Semite" epithet, some Christians are reluctant to speak out. Although
one can bludgeon resentful people into silence, behind closed doors emotions continue to simmer.
I consider it crucially important for Christians to know that not all Jews are in agreement with their self-appointed spokesmen. Most American Jews, experiencing warm and gracious interactions each day with their Christian fellow-citizens, would feel awkward trying to explain why so many Jewish organizations seem focused on an agenda hostile to Judeo-Christian values. Many individual Jews have shared with me their embarrassment that groups,
ostensibly representing them, attack Passion but are silent about depraved entertainment that encourages killing cops and brutalizing women. Citing artistic freedom, Jewish groups helped protect sacrilegious exhibits such as
the anti-Christian feces extravaganza presented by the Brooklyn Museum four years ago. One can hardly blame Christians for assuming that Jews feel artistic freedom is important only when exercised by those hostile toward
Christianity. However, this is not how all Jews feel.
From audiences around America, I am encountering bitterness at Jewish organizations insisting that belief in the New Testament is de facto evidence of anti-Semitism. Christians heard Jewish leaders denouncing Gibson for making a movie that follows Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion long before any of them had even seen the movie. Furthermore, Christians are hurt that Jewish groups are presuming to teach them what Christian Scripture "really means." Listen to a rabbi whom I debated on the Fox television show hosted by Bill O'Reilly last September. This is what he said, "We have a responsibility as Jews, as thinking Jews, as people of theology, to respond to our Christian brothers and to engage them, be it Protestants, be it Catholics, and say, look, this is not your history, this is not your theology, this does not represent what you believe in."
He happens to be a respected rabbi and a good one, but he too has bought into the preposterous proposition that Jews will reeducate Christians about Christian theology and history. Is it any wonder that this breathtaking arrogance spurs bitterness?
Many Christians who, with good reason, have considered themselves to be Jews' best (and perhaps, only) friends also feel bitter at Jews believing that Passion is revealing startling new information about the Crucifixion. They are incredulous at Jews thinking that exposure to the Gospels in visual form will instantly transform the most philo-Semitic gentiles of history into snarling, Jew-hating predators.
Christians are baffled by Jews who don't understand that President George Washington, who knew and revered every word of the Gospels, was still able to write that oft-quoted beautiful letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, offering friendship and full participation in America to the Jewish community.
One of the directors of the AJC recently warned that Passion "could undermine the sense of community between Christians and Jews that's going on in this country. We're not allowing the film to do that." No sir, it isn't the film that threatens the sense of community; it is the arrogant and intemperate response of Jewish organizations that does so.
Jewish organizations, hoping to help but failing so spectacularly, refutes all myths of Jewish intelligence. How could their plans have been so misguided and the execution so inept?
Ancient Jewish wisdom teaches that nothing confuses one's thinking more than being in the grip of the two powerful emotions, love and hate. The actions of these Jewish organizations sadly suggest that they are in the grip of a hatred for Christianity that is only harming Jews.
Today, peril threatens all Americans, both Jews and Christians. Many of the men and women in the front lines find great support in their Christian faith. It is strange that Jewish organizations, purporting to protect Jews, think that insulting allies is the preferred way to carry out that mandate.
A ferocious Rottweiler dog in your suburban home will quickly estrange your family from the neighborhood. For those of us in the Jewish community who cherish friendship with our neighbors, some Jewish organizations have become our Rottweilers.
God help us.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH'S REVOLVING DOOR:
For Many Parishioners, Gay Bishops and Gay "Marriage" Were the Last Straws
The New York Times reported this week that once again the membership of the Episcopal Church USA is undergoing migrations in and out the church's doors, this time in response to the ECUSA's ordination of an openly active gay bishop and it's increasingly liberal stance on gay "marriage" or "unions":
...Some lifelong Episcopalians have left their churches, saying the vote to affirm a gay bishop was the last straw in what they saw as the church's long slide away from orthodoxy. Many of these people have started attending Roman Catholic churches.
"It breaks my heart," said Shari de Silva, a neurologist in Fort Wayne, Ind., who converted from Episcopalian to Catholic this year. "I think the Episcopal Church is headed down the path to secular humanism."
Some Episcopal parishes, meanwhile, are welcoming clusters of new members, many from Roman Catholic churches, who say they want to belong to a church that regards inclusivity as a Christian virtue. The newcomers include singles and families, gay people and straight people...
The main church of choice amongst Exiting Episcopalians seems to be the one across the Tiber River in Rome, primarily because...
"...[t]he Catholic Church has reiterated its position on homosexuality, one that is a stark contrast to the Episcopal Church's. In July, the Vatican denounced homosexual acts as 'deviant behavior' and said the church could not condone gay marriage or adoptions by gay couples. In September, the American Catholic bishops said they would support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage."
It seems that in its new gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the clueless upper echelon of the ECUSA has found its very own Howard Dean: Robinson is likely to doom the ECUSA to irrelevance, if not extinction, the same way Dr. Dean will ensure the Democratic Party's slow demise, especially after the Presidential election next Fall.
In related news: Today's Washington Times reports that in Canada the liberal Anglican bishop of Vancouver, B.C. has shut down Holy Cross parish for protesting his policy of blessing same-sex "unions." However, the parish's conservative rector, Rev. James Wagner, continues to hold services at his home.
For Many Parishioners, Gay Bishops and Gay "Marriage" Were the Last Straws
The New York Times reported this week that once again the membership of the Episcopal Church USA is undergoing migrations in and out the church's doors, this time in response to the ECUSA's ordination of an openly active gay bishop and it's increasingly liberal stance on gay "marriage" or "unions":
...Some lifelong Episcopalians have left their churches, saying the vote to affirm a gay bishop was the last straw in what they saw as the church's long slide away from orthodoxy. Many of these people have started attending Roman Catholic churches.
"It breaks my heart," said Shari de Silva, a neurologist in Fort Wayne, Ind., who converted from Episcopalian to Catholic this year. "I think the Episcopal Church is headed down the path to secular humanism."
Some Episcopal parishes, meanwhile, are welcoming clusters of new members, many from Roman Catholic churches, who say they want to belong to a church that regards inclusivity as a Christian virtue. The newcomers include singles and families, gay people and straight people...
The main church of choice amongst Exiting Episcopalians seems to be the one across the Tiber River in Rome, primarily because...
"...[t]he Catholic Church has reiterated its position on homosexuality, one that is a stark contrast to the Episcopal Church's. In July, the Vatican denounced homosexual acts as 'deviant behavior' and said the church could not condone gay marriage or adoptions by gay couples. In September, the American Catholic bishops said they would support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage."
It seems that in its new gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the clueless upper echelon of the ECUSA has found its very own Howard Dean: Robinson is likely to doom the ECUSA to irrelevance, if not extinction, the same way Dr. Dean will ensure the Democratic Party's slow demise, especially after the Presidential election next Fall.
In related news: Today's Washington Times reports that in Canada the liberal Anglican bishop of Vancouver, B.C. has shut down Holy Cross parish for protesting his policy of blessing same-sex "unions." However, the parish's conservative rector, Rev. James Wagner, continues to hold services at his home.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
H. L. MENCKEN AND RELIGION:
An "Atheist" Reader Takes Exception
Early last week --barely three days before Christmas Day, of all times!-- a self-styled "atheist" sent us an e-mail to let us "know" something he had apparently already determined we did not know, namely that our "patron saint," early 20th century pundit and skeptic H. L. Mencken, was "agin" religion (as we Virginia gentlemen would put it).
Of course, anyone with more than two brain cells working can tell just by reading a good cross-section of Mencken's writings, the Bard of Baltimore was no friend to the "established" religions of his time --Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish-- and disdained religious belief and theology in general.
No argument there.
The problem, and point of departure with our "atheist" interlocutor, comes when some folks with ideological axes to grind hijack Mencken to make him appear to be one of their crowd. Just do a Google search with "Mencken" and "atheism," and up will pop more "atheists" on the internet than Hosts in Heaven selectively quoting Mencken's most bombastic and less mature statements about religion and religious persons as "proof" that Mencken was an extremist unto their own image and likeness.
Never mind that Mencken at times had some complimentary things to say about some religious persons (cf., his obituary of the scholarly Presbyterian theologian J.Gresham Machen), and even some religious institutions (cf., his comparison of the Catholic and Protestant churches of his time).
And never mind that Mencken never once called himself an atheist, preferring instead to be seen as a "doubter" or a "skeptic," and only because "sound thought," he wrote in 1921 to his then-girlfriend Marion Bloom, cannot take us further than that:
...No sane man denies that the universe presents phenomena quite beyond human understanding, and so it is a fair assumption that they are directed by some understanding that is superhuman. But that is as far as sound thought can go. All religions pretend to go further. That is, they pretend to explain the unknowable...
In other words, to Mencken, both theism and, by implication, atheism (which also "pretends to go further ...[and] explain the unknowable," namely by denying that category en toto) were presumptuous, so he embraced neither camp although he was more sympathetic to the latter. Catholic journalist and Mencken scholar George Weigel puts it this way in his thoughtful First Things article, "God, Man, and H. L. Mencken":
Throughout his mature life, Mencken insisted that he was not an atheist (for such a judgment would require a knowledge that was beyond "sound thought") but rather an agnostic. Asked once what he would do if on his death he found himself facing the twelve apostles, he answered (and in this instance we may be sure that beneath the humor lay deep convictions about intellectual honesty), "I would simply say, 'Gentlemen, I was mistaken.'" Imagine Carl Sagan saying such a thing about the possibility of his encounter with a postmortem minyan, and you begin to understand the difference between the agnostic Mencken and the true village atheist.
Noted essayist and Mencken scholar Joseph Epstein, as cited by Weigel, presents a more nuanced interpretation of Mencken's relationship to religion than the simplistic militant atheist P-R image both Protestant Fundamentalists and Atheist Fundamentalists like to promote:
...[Mencken's] objection to religion is that it represents an effort by ignorance to account for a mystery that knowledge simply puts aside as intrinsically impenetrable...
None of this is to deny that Mencken regularly made mock of religious convictions and practices. But he did it with a deftness and, in most cases, a good humor in which was rarely found the arrogance of sheer contempt. Moreover, Mencken was not insensible to the allure of religion or to religious contributions to what he regarded as the world's meager stock of decency. Thus Mencken on Roman Catholicism in 1923 (and in what some will regard as virtually a prophetic mode):
"The Latin Church, which I constantly find myself admiring, despite its frequent astonishing imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that religion is not a syllogism, but a poem. . . . Rome, indeed, has not only preserved the original poetry in Christianity; it has made capital additions to that poetry-for example, the poetry of the saints, of Mary, and of the liturgy itself. A solemn high mass must be a thousand times as impressive, to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermons ever roared under the big-top by a Presbyterian auctioneer of God. In the face of such overwhelming beauty it is not necessary to belabor the faithful with logic; they are better convinced by letting them alone. . . .
"[But the Roman] clergy begin to grow argumentative, doctrinaire, ridiculous. It is a pity. . . . If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that the faithful may be convinced by it."
In summary, as in the areas of politics, economics, social criticism, journalism, and culture Mencken was "a party of [his] own" when it came to religion. Neither atheist nor theist can squeeze him into their prefabricated pigeonholes. He was simply too big for them.
Of course, such "inconvenient" facts serve only to irritate those who prefer caricatures and fantasies over reality, and who --like our "atheist" interlocutor-- prefer to call those who present them "liars" and "sophists" for having the temerity to cast doubt upon those caricatures and fantasies.
An "Atheist" Reader Takes Exception
Early last week --barely three days before Christmas Day, of all times!-- a self-styled "atheist" sent us an e-mail to let us "know" something he had apparently already determined we did not know, namely that our "patron saint," early 20th century pundit and skeptic H. L. Mencken, was "agin" religion (as we Virginia gentlemen would put it).
Of course, anyone with more than two brain cells working can tell just by reading a good cross-section of Mencken's writings, the Bard of Baltimore was no friend to the "established" religions of his time --Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish-- and disdained religious belief and theology in general.
No argument there.
The problem, and point of departure with our "atheist" interlocutor, comes when some folks with ideological axes to grind hijack Mencken to make him appear to be one of their crowd. Just do a Google search with "Mencken" and "atheism," and up will pop more "atheists" on the internet than Hosts in Heaven selectively quoting Mencken's most bombastic and less mature statements about religion and religious persons as "proof" that Mencken was an extremist unto their own image and likeness.
Never mind that Mencken at times had some complimentary things to say about some religious persons (cf., his obituary of the scholarly Presbyterian theologian J.Gresham Machen), and even some religious institutions (cf., his comparison of the Catholic and Protestant churches of his time).
And never mind that Mencken never once called himself an atheist, preferring instead to be seen as a "doubter" or a "skeptic," and only because "sound thought," he wrote in 1921 to his then-girlfriend Marion Bloom, cannot take us further than that:
...No sane man denies that the universe presents phenomena quite beyond human understanding, and so it is a fair assumption that they are directed by some understanding that is superhuman. But that is as far as sound thought can go. All religions pretend to go further. That is, they pretend to explain the unknowable...
In other words, to Mencken, both theism and, by implication, atheism (which also "pretends to go further ...[and] explain the unknowable," namely by denying that category en toto) were presumptuous, so he embraced neither camp although he was more sympathetic to the latter. Catholic journalist and Mencken scholar George Weigel puts it this way in his thoughtful First Things article, "God, Man, and H. L. Mencken":
Throughout his mature life, Mencken insisted that he was not an atheist (for such a judgment would require a knowledge that was beyond "sound thought") but rather an agnostic. Asked once what he would do if on his death he found himself facing the twelve apostles, he answered (and in this instance we may be sure that beneath the humor lay deep convictions about intellectual honesty), "I would simply say, 'Gentlemen, I was mistaken.'" Imagine Carl Sagan saying such a thing about the possibility of his encounter with a postmortem minyan, and you begin to understand the difference between the agnostic Mencken and the true village atheist.
Noted essayist and Mencken scholar Joseph Epstein, as cited by Weigel, presents a more nuanced interpretation of Mencken's relationship to religion than the simplistic militant atheist P-R image both Protestant Fundamentalists and Atheist Fundamentalists like to promote:
...[Mencken's] objection to religion is that it represents an effort by ignorance to account for a mystery that knowledge simply puts aside as intrinsically impenetrable...
None of this is to deny that Mencken regularly made mock of religious convictions and practices. But he did it with a deftness and, in most cases, a good humor in which was rarely found the arrogance of sheer contempt. Moreover, Mencken was not insensible to the allure of religion or to religious contributions to what he regarded as the world's meager stock of decency. Thus Mencken on Roman Catholicism in 1923 (and in what some will regard as virtually a prophetic mode):
"The Latin Church, which I constantly find myself admiring, despite its frequent astonishing imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that religion is not a syllogism, but a poem. . . . Rome, indeed, has not only preserved the original poetry in Christianity; it has made capital additions to that poetry-for example, the poetry of the saints, of Mary, and of the liturgy itself. A solemn high mass must be a thousand times as impressive, to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermons ever roared under the big-top by a Presbyterian auctioneer of God. In the face of such overwhelming beauty it is not necessary to belabor the faithful with logic; they are better convinced by letting them alone. . . .
"[But the Roman] clergy begin to grow argumentative, doctrinaire, ridiculous. It is a pity. . . . If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that the faithful may be convinced by it."
In summary, as in the areas of politics, economics, social criticism, journalism, and culture Mencken was "a party of [his] own" when it came to religion. Neither atheist nor theist can squeeze him into their prefabricated pigeonholes. He was simply too big for them.
Of course, such "inconvenient" facts serve only to irritate those who prefer caricatures and fantasies over reality, and who --like our "atheist" interlocutor-- prefer to call those who present them "liars" and "sophists" for having the temerity to cast doubt upon those caricatures and fantasies.
Monday, December 29, 2003
HELP WANTED: NEW ANTI-CHRIST NEEDED!
Saddam's Capture Re-Opens Much Sought-After Position
The Office of the Anti-Christ is vacant once again, according to National Review Online columnist and Veteran Rapture Watcher DeLuxe Carl Olson. It seems that Bible prophecy researchers had regarded ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as the leading candidate for that position.
As End Times expert Timothy LaHaye put it in his 1999 book Are We Living in the End Times? ("a nonfiction companion to the Left Behind series"), "Long before Saddam Hussein became a household name, he was busy fulfilling Bible prophecy" [by rebuilding "Babylon," as Iraq was known in ancient times]. Also said LaHaye, as quoted by Olson,
"As sure as there is a God in heaven who keeps His word, Babylon will live again as ‘the seat of Satan.' . . . Even now, in our lifetime, Babylon is being prepared for its final appearance on the stage of human history. The ancient prophecies about Babylon are unfolding before us — just like so many other prophecies of the end times."
Of course, this scenario went belly-up as soon as U. S. forces found the Anti-Christ and World Dictator hiding in a hole in the Babylonian mud disguised as a Bedford-Styvesant wino --and (in our humble opinion, providentially) only a week before Christmas. Thus ends the satanic career of yet another in a long line of has-beens who have failed to keep the Office of Anti-Christ intact, including Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Henry Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, and whoever invented those flimsy and practically useless plastic grocery bags.
Just goes to show that you can't find good help anymore.
But Old Scratch seems to have had great difficulty for over 100 years recruiting and keeping reliable personnel to carry out his nefarious work. Perhaps he ought to consider contracting the job out to one of the many high-profile Washington, DC head-hunters. We suspect they would have long lists of former Congressmen, retired CEOs, and practicing lawyers who would easily qualify.
Saddam's Capture Re-Opens Much Sought-After Position
The Office of the Anti-Christ is vacant once again, according to National Review Online columnist and Veteran Rapture Watcher DeLuxe Carl Olson. It seems that Bible prophecy researchers had regarded ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as the leading candidate for that position.
As End Times expert Timothy LaHaye put it in his 1999 book Are We Living in the End Times? ("a nonfiction companion to the Left Behind series"), "Long before Saddam Hussein became a household name, he was busy fulfilling Bible prophecy" [by rebuilding "Babylon," as Iraq was known in ancient times]. Also said LaHaye, as quoted by Olson,
"As sure as there is a God in heaven who keeps His word, Babylon will live again as ‘the seat of Satan.' . . . Even now, in our lifetime, Babylon is being prepared for its final appearance on the stage of human history. The ancient prophecies about Babylon are unfolding before us — just like so many other prophecies of the end times."
Of course, this scenario went belly-up as soon as U. S. forces found the Anti-Christ and World Dictator hiding in a hole in the Babylonian mud disguised as a Bedford-Styvesant wino --and (in our humble opinion, providentially) only a week before Christmas. Thus ends the satanic career of yet another in a long line of has-beens who have failed to keep the Office of Anti-Christ intact, including Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Henry Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, and whoever invented those flimsy and practically useless plastic grocery bags.
Just goes to show that you can't find good help anymore.
But Old Scratch seems to have had great difficulty for over 100 years recruiting and keeping reliable personnel to carry out his nefarious work. Perhaps he ought to consider contracting the job out to one of the many high-profile Washington, DC head-hunters. We suspect they would have long lists of former Congressmen, retired CEOs, and practicing lawyers who would easily qualify.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
TAKING CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS...
...and Everything Else Too
Fox News reports that there is an alarming and growing trend afoot to remove all vestiges of our Christian heritage not only from public Yuletide celebrations and displays, but from everything else the public square as well.
It seems militant secularist groups with more time and $$$ than brains on their hands are increasingly Hell-bent upon shoving Christianity, including Christmas itself, and Western religion in general down George Orwell's Memory Hole:
...Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not. The FCC allows the "F-word" on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no. And some schools freely dispense condoms to kids, but pencils that read "Jesus loves little children" were confiscated from a first-grade class in Virginia.
Some, like War on Christianity author David Limbaugh, say the list of examples is long and is evidence of an undeclared cultural war on the religion.
But those on the other side of the battle, like Elliot Minceberg of People for the American Way, point to the Constitutional separation of church and state as the reason behind keeping religion out of public life.
...[But] the Constitution doesn't explicitly discuss separating church and state. Instead, what it does say is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...," which means that, unlike in England, the United States decided not to form an official national religion, nor can the government interfere with the practice of any religion.
In fact, in 1789, in the days after Congress passed the First Amendment, it declared a national day of prayer.
Still, the number of bans on public displays of Christianity continue to grow...
...AND TAKING CHRISTMAS OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE:
The American Public Takes on the Grinches
In his nationally syndicated op-ed column of this past Sunday, pundit John Leo notes that there is a growing popular resistance against efforts by the ACLU and other radical "First Amendment" groups to erase Christmas and traditional seasonal references, as well as Christmas carols and symbols, from all public "holiday" displays and events:
....on the whole, things are not going well for the Grinches. In New Jersey, for example, the Hanover Township school district said it was considering a ban on Christmas carols and other religious songs at school concerts. Parents protested and threatened to sue, so the school board beat a hasty retreat. “If a school wants religious music, they can have it, the way they could before,” said the school board president.
The key phrase here is “threatened to sue.” In the old days, when an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer would show up to hammer some tiny school board into submission, the legal costs of resisting were so high that the boards usually caved in. Now the anti-Grinches have legal muscle of their own. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the Hanover parents, claims to have 700 lawyers ready to fight anti-Christmas assaults around the country. The ADF played a lead role in blocking an attempt by the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League to force a charter school in Elbert County, Colo., to ban religious songs from its holiday concert. The Anti-Defamation League said the school’s program was harming the sense of well-being of Jewish students. But how harmful can it be to sing six Christmas carols, two Hanukkah songs, and a lot of ditties about Rudolph and Frosty?
In Plano, Texas, a school district refused to allow a third grader at a class party to hand out candy canes with a religious message attached. The Liberty Legal Institute and the ADF jumped in last week and demanded that the district back down, arguing that “public schools are not zones of religious censorship.”
The [Catholic] Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., supported a parent’s legal challenge to the New York City public schools’ policy that allows the Islamic star and crescent and the Jewish menorah (which the Anti-Defamation League concedes is a religious symbol) but not Christian religious symbols such as a Nativity display. The schools’ chancellor offered a tortured argument in court: The menorah has a “secular dimension” large enough to qualify as nonreligious. The judge, who was caustic about the school policy during arguments, is expected to rule any day....
...and Everything Else Too
Fox News reports that there is an alarming and growing trend afoot to remove all vestiges of our Christian heritage not only from public Yuletide celebrations and displays, but from everything else the public square as well.
It seems militant secularist groups with more time and $$$ than brains on their hands are increasingly Hell-bent upon shoving Christianity, including Christmas itself, and Western religion in general down George Orwell's Memory Hole:
...Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not. The FCC allows the "F-word" on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no. And some schools freely dispense condoms to kids, but pencils that read "Jesus loves little children" were confiscated from a first-grade class in Virginia.
Some, like War on Christianity author David Limbaugh, say the list of examples is long and is evidence of an undeclared cultural war on the religion.
But those on the other side of the battle, like Elliot Minceberg of People for the American Way, point to the Constitutional separation of church and state as the reason behind keeping religion out of public life.
...[But] the Constitution doesn't explicitly discuss separating church and state. Instead, what it does say is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...," which means that, unlike in England, the United States decided not to form an official national religion, nor can the government interfere with the practice of any religion.
In fact, in 1789, in the days after Congress passed the First Amendment, it declared a national day of prayer.
Still, the number of bans on public displays of Christianity continue to grow...
...AND TAKING CHRISTMAS OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE:
The American Public Takes on the Grinches
In his nationally syndicated op-ed column of this past Sunday, pundit John Leo notes that there is a growing popular resistance against efforts by the ACLU and other radical "First Amendment" groups to erase Christmas and traditional seasonal references, as well as Christmas carols and symbols, from all public "holiday" displays and events:
....on the whole, things are not going well for the Grinches. In New Jersey, for example, the Hanover Township school district said it was considering a ban on Christmas carols and other religious songs at school concerts. Parents protested and threatened to sue, so the school board beat a hasty retreat. “If a school wants religious music, they can have it, the way they could before,” said the school board president.
The key phrase here is “threatened to sue.” In the old days, when an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer would show up to hammer some tiny school board into submission, the legal costs of resisting were so high that the boards usually caved in. Now the anti-Grinches have legal muscle of their own. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the Hanover parents, claims to have 700 lawyers ready to fight anti-Christmas assaults around the country. The ADF played a lead role in blocking an attempt by the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League to force a charter school in Elbert County, Colo., to ban religious songs from its holiday concert. The Anti-Defamation League said the school’s program was harming the sense of well-being of Jewish students. But how harmful can it be to sing six Christmas carols, two Hanukkah songs, and a lot of ditties about Rudolph and Frosty?
In Plano, Texas, a school district refused to allow a third grader at a class party to hand out candy canes with a religious message attached. The Liberty Legal Institute and the ADF jumped in last week and demanded that the district back down, arguing that “public schools are not zones of religious censorship.”
The [Catholic] Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., supported a parent’s legal challenge to the New York City public schools’ policy that allows the Islamic star and crescent and the Jewish menorah (which the Anti-Defamation League concedes is a religious symbol) but not Christian religious symbols such as a Nativity display. The schools’ chancellor offered a tortured argument in court: The menorah has a “secular dimension” large enough to qualify as nonreligious. The judge, who was caustic about the school policy during arguments, is expected to rule any day....
Friday, December 05, 2003
STILL STUPID AFTER ALL THESE YEARS:
PETA "Hires" the Blessed Virgin Mary
Just when we thought there was already too much eye pollution along the nation's highways, along comes the perennially obnoxious "animal rights" group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to add even more, this time in the form of a billboard in Rhode Island and (eventually) five other states seemingly designed to offend Catholics. We say "seemingly" because, it turns out, what PETA really had in mind was appealing to Catholics in its ongoing anti-meateating campaign.
The billboard in question depicts Jesus' Mom holding a dead chicken. Alongside this "icon" in large, bold text is the message "Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception." The "O" in "Go" resembles a Celtic cross.
In response to an avalanche of protesting emails, letters, and phone calls from offended Catholics (including William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights) and other Christians (including the Rev. John E. Holt, head of the Rhode Island Council of Churches, who found the billboard "insulting to any Christian"), PETA "explained" that the ad was designed by "a devout Catholic" on PETA's staff and, according to PETA Director Bruce Friedrich (who says he's "a practicing Catholic"), was intended to "raise awareness" of the "plight of chickens" to Catholics, not mock their faith.
"Mary is the embodiment of selfless love and compassion," Friedrich said. "The most oppressed creatures on the planet are chickens." Friedrich added that "The intention isn't to offend people. The intention is to shock people into thinking about the violence they are supporting."
Instead, what Friedrich really succeeded in doing was make even more people think about what utter dunderheads he and his comrades can be. PETA, which seems consistently run by dumb clucks, continues to be even more clueless than the pea-brained poultry they want the rest of us to help them rescue.
PETA "Hires" the Blessed Virgin Mary
Just when we thought there was already too much eye pollution along the nation's highways, along comes the perennially obnoxious "animal rights" group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to add even more, this time in the form of a billboard in Rhode Island and (eventually) five other states seemingly designed to offend Catholics. We say "seemingly" because, it turns out, what PETA really had in mind was appealing to Catholics in its ongoing anti-meateating campaign.
The billboard in question depicts Jesus' Mom holding a dead chicken. Alongside this "icon" in large, bold text is the message "Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception." The "O" in "Go" resembles a Celtic cross.
In response to an avalanche of protesting emails, letters, and phone calls from offended Catholics (including William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights) and other Christians (including the Rev. John E. Holt, head of the Rhode Island Council of Churches, who found the billboard "insulting to any Christian"), PETA "explained" that the ad was designed by "a devout Catholic" on PETA's staff and, according to PETA Director Bruce Friedrich (who says he's "a practicing Catholic"), was intended to "raise awareness" of the "plight of chickens" to Catholics, not mock their faith.
"Mary is the embodiment of selfless love and compassion," Friedrich said. "The most oppressed creatures on the planet are chickens." Friedrich added that "The intention isn't to offend people. The intention is to shock people into thinking about the violence they are supporting."
Instead, what Friedrich really succeeded in doing was make even more people think about what utter dunderheads he and his comrades can be. PETA, which seems consistently run by dumb clucks, continues to be even more clueless than the pea-brained poultry they want the rest of us to help them rescue.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
ON MUSIC AND SUFFERING:
Within the Darkest of Times Can Lie Beauty and Heroism
Two months ago we noted that Washington DC area singer and recording artist Grace Griffith, a long-time fixture in the DC-MD-VA folk & Celtic music scene, had begun to experience debilitating advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and that she was determined to keep making music in the face of it –and to keep mentoring up-and-coming young artists, such as the late Eva Cassidy, whom Griffith almost single-handedly launched to international stardom despite her awareness of the cost to her own career.
On another note of heroism on the part of another artist, we found in this month’s edition of First Things a particularly moving and thoughtful piece written by theology professor Peter M. Chandler, Jr., a tribute to the late singer Johnny Cash, who died three months ago at age 71 after several years of declining health.
Chandler focuses on how Cash used the suffering in his own life, up to and including his impending death, to grow as an artist and thereby leave behind a body of some of the most remarkable and remarkably original music in modern history. This was only possible, notes Chandler, because in his music Cash both embraced and revealed his own soul, drawing no distinction between himself as a man and himself as an artist:
…Johnny was the kind of person who could simultaneously hold in tension the conflicting parts of his personality and communicate to those who are alienated by a deeply counterfeit culture —particularly a counterfeit Christianity. …We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise.
That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully. There was in him no hint of fraud. At a time when he could have resurrected his career by riding the coattails of others’ popularity (as is the trend today), Johnny did the reverse. On 1994’s American Recordings (on the cover he stands in a field wearing a long black preacher’s coat, alone except for two dogs), he did not simply return to the “old” Johnny Cash and commodify himself for a younger audience. …in a world full of fakes, Cash was authentic.
…[I]n a culture that by and large loves death but does not know what to do with it —a culture simultaneously repulsed and attracted by it— Johnny’s confrontation with his own imminent demise was largely misunderstood. The critics who complained that his voice was not what it used to be missed the point entirely. It is precisely because his voice was not what it used to be that the songs have such power. The beauty of the record lies in that very frailty, the tremolo in his voice that became more pronounced with each album. Even in his younger days, the inimitable strength and fortitude in his voice was mixed with the occasional moment of weakness, the odd quaver and show of vulnerability. In the last few years those moments became more frequent, and his voice became more diaphonous, disclosing more of the effects of illness.
Yet for that very reason, Cash’s voice was all the more beautiful —it had a weakness stronger than others’ strengths….
Within the Darkest of Times Can Lie Beauty and Heroism
Two months ago we noted that Washington DC area singer and recording artist Grace Griffith, a long-time fixture in the DC-MD-VA folk & Celtic music scene, had begun to experience debilitating advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and that she was determined to keep making music in the face of it –and to keep mentoring up-and-coming young artists, such as the late Eva Cassidy, whom Griffith almost single-handedly launched to international stardom despite her awareness of the cost to her own career.
On another note of heroism on the part of another artist, we found in this month’s edition of First Things a particularly moving and thoughtful piece written by theology professor Peter M. Chandler, Jr., a tribute to the late singer Johnny Cash, who died three months ago at age 71 after several years of declining health.
Chandler focuses on how Cash used the suffering in his own life, up to and including his impending death, to grow as an artist and thereby leave behind a body of some of the most remarkable and remarkably original music in modern history. This was only possible, notes Chandler, because in his music Cash both embraced and revealed his own soul, drawing no distinction between himself as a man and himself as an artist:
…Johnny was the kind of person who could simultaneously hold in tension the conflicting parts of his personality and communicate to those who are alienated by a deeply counterfeit culture —particularly a counterfeit Christianity. …We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise.
That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully. There was in him no hint of fraud. At a time when he could have resurrected his career by riding the coattails of others’ popularity (as is the trend today), Johnny did the reverse. On 1994’s American Recordings (on the cover he stands in a field wearing a long black preacher’s coat, alone except for two dogs), he did not simply return to the “old” Johnny Cash and commodify himself for a younger audience. …in a world full of fakes, Cash was authentic.
…[I]n a culture that by and large loves death but does not know what to do with it —a culture simultaneously repulsed and attracted by it— Johnny’s confrontation with his own imminent demise was largely misunderstood. The critics who complained that his voice was not what it used to be missed the point entirely. It is precisely because his voice was not what it used to be that the songs have such power. The beauty of the record lies in that very frailty, the tremolo in his voice that became more pronounced with each album. Even in his younger days, the inimitable strength and fortitude in his voice was mixed with the occasional moment of weakness, the odd quaver and show of vulnerability. In the last few years those moments became more frequent, and his voice became more diaphonous, disclosing more of the effects of illness.
Yet for that very reason, Cash’s voice was all the more beautiful —it had a weakness stronger than others’ strengths….
Saturday, November 29, 2003
ON GIVING THANKS:
It's About So Much More Than the Food
In his wonderful reflection this past Thursday, St. Blog's own inimitable Fr. Rob Johansen (who like yours truly is grateful for "good Scotch whisky, good Bourbon, cigars, and micro-brewed beers," among other things) reminds us what Thanksgiving should be all about. In part, he notes:
Gratitude is an indicator of holiness. If you read the writings of, or the Lives of, the great Saints, you'll see that they were suffused with a spirit of Gratitude. They were always thanking God for all they had, and taking notice of the smallest blessings.
Gratitude is also a remedy against Sin. It's the times when I'm most self-satisfied and taking things for granted that I end up being the most susceptible to temptation, and prone to become self-absorbed. Gratitude takes the attention away from yourself and puts it on the Giver. If you make the effort to practice gratitude, you will be come Holy. It's that simple....
It's About So Much More Than the Food
In his wonderful reflection this past Thursday, St. Blog's own inimitable Fr. Rob Johansen (who like yours truly is grateful for "good Scotch whisky, good Bourbon, cigars, and micro-brewed beers," among other things) reminds us what Thanksgiving should be all about. In part, he notes:
Gratitude is an indicator of holiness. If you read the writings of, or the Lives of, the great Saints, you'll see that they were suffused with a spirit of Gratitude. They were always thanking God for all they had, and taking notice of the smallest blessings.
Gratitude is also a remedy against Sin. It's the times when I'm most self-satisfied and taking things for granted that I end up being the most susceptible to temptation, and prone to become self-absorbed. Gratitude takes the attention away from yourself and puts it on the Giver. If you make the effort to practice gratitude, you will be come Holy. It's that simple....
Friday, November 28, 2003
There's a "CAT IN THE HAT" MOVIE REVIEW
penned in Dr. Seuss style.
We came across it on the Internet,
reading e-mail awhile.
It's funny and clever,
and as you can see,
is written by a Cath'lic fellow
who has one kid and three.
The reviewer loves the Cat books,
which he knows by heart,
but he says the movie version
is not worthy Seuss art.
The alarmed writer warns
there's no more innocence there,
so in his opinion,
"Parents, beware!"
So it seems Hollywood moguls
have screwed the thing up,
making Seuss fans wonder
if there were drugs in their cup.
penned in Dr. Seuss style.
We came across it on the Internet,
reading e-mail awhile.
It's funny and clever,
and as you can see,
is written by a Cath'lic fellow
who has one kid and three.
The reviewer loves the Cat books,
which he knows by heart,
but he says the movie version
is not worthy Seuss art.
The alarmed writer warns
there's no more innocence there,
so in his opinion,
"Parents, beware!"
So it seems Hollywood moguls
have screwed the thing up,
making Seuss fans wonder
if there were drugs in their cup.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
MASSACHUSETTS’ JUDICIAL COUP D’ETAT:
Did Four Judges Turn the Bay State Into a Banana Republic?
In the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay "marriage," Daily Standard columnist Hugh Hewitt thinks so:
"JOHN MARSHALL has made his decision," Andrew Jackson is said to have remarked in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision he disliked, "now let him enforce it."
…It is an interesting time for the Massachusetts Supreme Court to have seized control of the elected branches in its state, given the connection between Thanksgiving and the Bay State. Unlike its neighbor to the north, the Look-at-Me State of Vermont, Massachusetts actually has a place in the collective national consciousness and Americans of all regions are interested in its history. Now, in the aftermath of Tuesday's radical diktat from four justices to Massachusetts' elected representatives, Americans are interested in the state's future as well.
…the people of Massachusetts … didn't sign up for a banana republic run by pretenders in robes, and no one in the state's illustrious history ever sacrificed life or limb --from Boston Harbor to Concord, Antietam or the battlefields of Europe and Asia-- for the proposition that four judges get to change everything when they decide to conjure up a reason for doing so….
Did Four Judges Turn the Bay State Into a Banana Republic?
In the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay "marriage," Daily Standard columnist Hugh Hewitt thinks so:
"JOHN MARSHALL has made his decision," Andrew Jackson is said to have remarked in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision he disliked, "now let him enforce it."
…It is an interesting time for the Massachusetts Supreme Court to have seized control of the elected branches in its state, given the connection between Thanksgiving and the Bay State. Unlike its neighbor to the north, the Look-at-Me State of Vermont, Massachusetts actually has a place in the collective national consciousness and Americans of all regions are interested in its history. Now, in the aftermath of Tuesday's radical diktat from four justices to Massachusetts' elected representatives, Americans are interested in the state's future as well.
…the people of Massachusetts … didn't sign up for a banana republic run by pretenders in robes, and no one in the state's illustrious history ever sacrificed life or limb --from Boston Harbor to Concord, Antietam or the battlefields of Europe and Asia-- for the proposition that four judges get to change everything when they decide to conjure up a reason for doing so….
JACK KENNEDY AND THE CATHOLIC FAITH:
At His Death, JFK’s Catholicism May Have Been More Pivotal Than During His Life
Catholic Exchange writer Michael H. Brown ponders the effect of the Catholic faith on both JFK himself and his wife Jackie, despite JFK's now well-known philandering as well as his indulgence in reckless behavior in other matters, including geopolitics (e.g., the Bay of Pigs debacle and several misguided covert attempts to assassinate Castro).
For example, Brown notes:
Kennedy, despite his roguish ways, had a streak of devotion inspired by his mother Rose — a daily communicant — and so did his wife, who in Dallas had prayed with a priest as he administered the last anointing.
…Did the sacrament count? No one was sure. Extreme Unction — as it was then known — was not valid if the soul had departed. Father Huber sensed that Kennedy's soul was still there. "Through this anointing, may God forgive you whatever sins you may have committed," he had prayed. Through a faculty granted by the Holy See he dispensed remission of sins and a plenary indulgence….
At His Death, JFK’s Catholicism May Have Been More Pivotal Than During His Life
Catholic Exchange writer Michael H. Brown ponders the effect of the Catholic faith on both JFK himself and his wife Jackie, despite JFK's now well-known philandering as well as his indulgence in reckless behavior in other matters, including geopolitics (e.g., the Bay of Pigs debacle and several misguided covert attempts to assassinate Castro).
For example, Brown notes:
Kennedy, despite his roguish ways, had a streak of devotion inspired by his mother Rose — a daily communicant — and so did his wife, who in Dallas had prayed with a priest as he administered the last anointing.
…Did the sacrament count? No one was sure. Extreme Unction — as it was then known — was not valid if the soul had departed. Father Huber sensed that Kennedy's soul was still there. "Through this anointing, may God forgive you whatever sins you may have committed," he had prayed. Through a faculty granted by the Holy See he dispensed remission of sins and a plenary indulgence….
Sunday, November 23, 2003
NOVEMBER 22, 40 YEARS LATER:
Noted Blogger Mark Shea Asks His Readers, "Where Were You...?"
Read some fascinating rememberances of that tragic day in Mark's Comments Box HERE
Noted Blogger Mark Shea Asks His Readers, "Where Were You...?"
Read some fascinating rememberances of that tragic day in Mark's Comments Box HERE
Thursday, November 20, 2003
WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE REST OF US?
On Legislating Same-Sex "Marriage" vs. the Common Good
One of the most fundamental principles upon which civil law is based is the concept of "the Common Good," i.e., what is best for the stability and healthy growth of society as a whole. For example, society as a whole benefits greatly when laws and policies are enacted which give deference and certain advantages to men wed to women and vice versa. Why? Because, among other things, it is from these unions that children --and future citizens-- spring. And the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable the children, the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- are the citizens they become.
Moreover, even without children coming from their unions, the evidence has shown since the beginning of recorded history that married adults tend to be happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- as couples than they are as singles. This in turn makes the whole fabric of society stronger and more resilient, particularly because marriage is as much about, if not more about, shared life goals, shared interests, shared enterprises, and shared values than it is about shared beds.
Hence, the protection and strengthening of this timeless and universal institution of monogamous, one-man-and-one-woman-for-life is for the Common Good. And it's no accident that every human society on every continent on this planet since Homo Sapiens arose on the planet has had laws protecting it as well as giving special deference to it. Contrariwise, none of them --with the possible exceptions of ancient Sparta or a handful of polygamous tribal cultures-- has ever legalized or otherwise given the social stamp of approval to "alternative life-style" "unions." That's because they weren't stupid, even if they may have been "intolerant" and "unenlightened" by presumptuous modern Western secularist standards.
Yet all this seems to have been completely forgotten by the four judges sitting on Massachusetts' highest court this week. In fact, they've completely ignored, if not completely jettisoned, the principle of the Common Good when they decided instead that, in essence, official recognition of unions between two adults should be based solely on the whims and preferences of the two adults in question --i.e., merely because "they love each other." In fact, the judges themselves said as much, and there can be no other explanation for their decision; for in what ways can same-sex "marriages" serve the Common Good, as outlined above? The answer is "none," for --by their very nature-- they cannot.
On Legislating Same-Sex "Marriage" vs. the Common Good
One of the most fundamental principles upon which civil law is based is the concept of "the Common Good," i.e., what is best for the stability and healthy growth of society as a whole. For example, society as a whole benefits greatly when laws and policies are enacted which give deference and certain advantages to men wed to women and vice versa. Why? Because, among other things, it is from these unions that children --and future citizens-- spring. And the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable the children, the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- are the citizens they become.
Moreover, even without children coming from their unions, the evidence has shown since the beginning of recorded history that married adults tend to be happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- as couples than they are as singles. This in turn makes the whole fabric of society stronger and more resilient, particularly because marriage is as much about, if not more about, shared life goals, shared interests, shared enterprises, and shared values than it is about shared beds.
Hence, the protection and strengthening of this timeless and universal institution of monogamous, one-man-and-one-woman-for-life is for the Common Good. And it's no accident that every human society on every continent on this planet since Homo Sapiens arose on the planet has had laws protecting it as well as giving special deference to it. Contrariwise, none of them --with the possible exceptions of ancient Sparta or a handful of polygamous tribal cultures-- has ever legalized or otherwise given the social stamp of approval to "alternative life-style" "unions." That's because they weren't stupid, even if they may have been "intolerant" and "unenlightened" by presumptuous modern Western secularist standards.
Yet all this seems to have been completely forgotten by the four judges sitting on Massachusetts' highest court this week. In fact, they've completely ignored, if not completely jettisoned, the principle of the Common Good when they decided instead that, in essence, official recognition of unions between two adults should be based solely on the whims and preferences of the two adults in question --i.e., merely because "they love each other." In fact, the judges themselves said as much, and there can be no other explanation for their decision; for in what ways can same-sex "marriages" serve the Common Good, as outlined above? The answer is "none," for --by their very nature-- they cannot.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
MASSACHUSETTS' COUNTERFEIT MARRIAGE PROPOSAL:
Devalueing Marriage the Way "Counterfeit Money Devalues the Real Thing"
In yesterday's USA Today, op-ed guest columnist Tony Perkins focuses on the central absurdities and disasterous implications of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's asininely arrogant decision to radically redefine marriage by lifting the state ban on same-sex marriage:
....Marriage is the most fundamental institution of society. The law does not create it, it merely recognizes it. Marriage exists to bridge the gap between the sexes by bringing a man and a woman together in the context that is best for the reproduction of the human race and for raising children to be responsible adults. Healthy families are beneficial to the state.
A large and growing body of social science research has shown that husbands and wives and their children are happier, healthier and more prosperous than adults or children in any other living arrangement. The benefits conferred upon marriage under the law are not an entitlement — they are a recognition of the benefits that marriage confers upon society.
Other research has shown that same-sex relationships lack permanence and fidelity. Therefore, if such unions are recognized as "marriage," those values will be further stripped from the ideal of marriage that is held up to our children.
The deliberate creation of motherless and fatherless families will have the government's highest stamp of approval. Expanding the definition of marriage will weaken the institution, not strengthen it, in the same way that counterfeit money devalues even the real thing.....
Next to come down the pike, as surely as we stand here, is the legalization of polygamy and group "marriage," if not incest as well --the end result being the end of marriage itself.
Far fetched? Paranoid? Absurd? NOT REALLY, as Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, points out.
Devalueing Marriage the Way "Counterfeit Money Devalues the Real Thing"
In yesterday's USA Today, op-ed guest columnist Tony Perkins focuses on the central absurdities and disasterous implications of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's asininely arrogant decision to radically redefine marriage by lifting the state ban on same-sex marriage:
....Marriage is the most fundamental institution of society. The law does not create it, it merely recognizes it. Marriage exists to bridge the gap between the sexes by bringing a man and a woman together in the context that is best for the reproduction of the human race and for raising children to be responsible adults. Healthy families are beneficial to the state.
A large and growing body of social science research has shown that husbands and wives and their children are happier, healthier and more prosperous than adults or children in any other living arrangement. The benefits conferred upon marriage under the law are not an entitlement — they are a recognition of the benefits that marriage confers upon society.
Other research has shown that same-sex relationships lack permanence and fidelity. Therefore, if such unions are recognized as "marriage," those values will be further stripped from the ideal of marriage that is held up to our children.
The deliberate creation of motherless and fatherless families will have the government's highest stamp of approval. Expanding the definition of marriage will weaken the institution, not strengthen it, in the same way that counterfeit money devalues even the real thing.....
Next to come down the pike, as surely as we stand here, is the legalization of polygamy and group "marriage," if not incest as well --the end result being the end of marriage itself.
Far fetched? Paranoid? Absurd? NOT REALLY, as Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, points out.
MARRIAGE: "NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING CHILDREN WHAT THEY NEED":
Columnist Maggie Gallegher's Analysis Cuts Through Massachusetts B.S.
Observes Gallagher in her column today:
Four judges in Massachusetts, ruling in a same-sex marriage case, have decided that children don't need mothers and fathers, that marriage has nothing to do with getting children what they need. Marriage is a passing plaything of the latest fashionable ideology, a toy for adults with graduate degrees to tinker with, at their pleasure.
[These judges] displayed their own massive ignorance about marriage, its history and its public purposes. Four people claim that "the government creates marriage." There is no rational reason, they claim, for the state legislature to require that for a marriage you need a husband and a wife, who can become a mother and a father for their children.
So why have marriage at all?, Gallagher asks. Because [quoting the judges]:
"Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, insures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data."
Translation: "So that the civil government can operate more efficiently" and, as Gallagher points out, in this mindset,
"Marriage is whatever the adults want. People have a right to conduct a great social experiment on children because, well, adults want to do it, and doing your own thing is the new law of the land.
As one philosopher pointed out long ago regarding pantheism, if everything is God then there is no such thing as God, for there is no dictinction between the Creator and the created. Likewise, the bottom line is that if marriage can be any and every sort of "relationship" between any and every sort of couple --i.e., there are no dictinctions to be made between marriage and mere coupling-- then, ultimately, there's no such thing as marriage.
Columnist Maggie Gallegher's Analysis Cuts Through Massachusetts B.S.
Observes Gallagher in her column today:
Four judges in Massachusetts, ruling in a same-sex marriage case, have decided that children don't need mothers and fathers, that marriage has nothing to do with getting children what they need. Marriage is a passing plaything of the latest fashionable ideology, a toy for adults with graduate degrees to tinker with, at their pleasure.
[These judges] displayed their own massive ignorance about marriage, its history and its public purposes. Four people claim that "the government creates marriage." There is no rational reason, they claim, for the state legislature to require that for a marriage you need a husband and a wife, who can become a mother and a father for their children.
So why have marriage at all?, Gallagher asks. Because [quoting the judges]:
"Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, insures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data."
Translation: "So that the civil government can operate more efficiently" and, as Gallagher points out, in this mindset,
"Marriage is whatever the adults want. People have a right to conduct a great social experiment on children because, well, adults want to do it, and doing your own thing is the new law of the land.
As one philosopher pointed out long ago regarding pantheism, if everything is God then there is no such thing as God, for there is no dictinction between the Creator and the created. Likewise, the bottom line is that if marriage can be any and every sort of "relationship" between any and every sort of couple --i.e., there are no dictinctions to be made between marriage and mere coupling-- then, ultimately, there's no such thing as marriage.
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
MASSACHUSETTS COURT LEGALIZES GAY MARRIAGE:
Plans Now Underway to Legalize All Other Unions
In the wake of its decision to lift the ban on same-sex marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Court will soon be hearing cases in support of other non-traditional unions.
Consider, for example, the efforts of the National Association of Narcissists to seek the legalization of same-person marriage. Or the campaign by the animal rights advocacy group, People for Equal Treatment of Animals, promoting the right of their members to marry their pets. Then there are all those guys who are married to their jobs, their golf clubs, their remotes, or their SUVs --but with no legal recognition whatsoever.
How unfair.
But let not your heart be troubled, at least if you live in Massachusetts: It's only a matter of time.
Plans Now Underway to Legalize All Other Unions
In the wake of its decision to lift the ban on same-sex marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Court will soon be hearing cases in support of other non-traditional unions.
Consider, for example, the efforts of the National Association of Narcissists to seek the legalization of same-person marriage. Or the campaign by the animal rights advocacy group, People for Equal Treatment of Animals, promoting the right of their members to marry their pets. Then there are all those guys who are married to their jobs, their golf clubs, their remotes, or their SUVs --but with no legal recognition whatsoever.
How unfair.
But let not your heart be troubled, at least if you live in Massachusetts: It's only a matter of time.
INTRODUCING "THE PERKY PAPIST":
A Promising New Blog Penned by the Irrepressible Meg Quinn...
...a very talented Catholic writer, and a friend of yours truly.
May her tribe --and content-- increase!
A Promising New Blog Penned by the Irrepressible Meg Quinn...
...a very talented Catholic writer, and a friend of yours truly.
May her tribe --and content-- increase!
Monday, November 17, 2003
"WAS TERRI BEATEN IN 1990?"
Nat Hentoff Continues His Inquiry Into the Terri Case
This past Friday, in the latest installment of his columns on the Terri Schindler-Schaivo case, Hentoff notes that a Federal agency, the Advocacy Center for Persons With Disabilities (ACPD),
...has sent Michael Schiavo's lawyer a request that he authorize the release of Terri Schiavo's medical records. There was initial resistance, but the records have been turned over.
The purpose for this request by the ACPD is to be better able to determine if husband and guardian Michael Schiavo was telling the truth about how his wife underwent the heart failure which resulted in her brain damaged and quadraplegic condition.
Nat Hentoff Continues His Inquiry Into the Terri Case
This past Friday, in the latest installment of his columns on the Terri Schindler-Schaivo case, Hentoff notes that a Federal agency, the Advocacy Center for Persons With Disabilities (ACPD),
...has sent Michael Schiavo's lawyer a request that he authorize the release of Terri Schiavo's medical records. There was initial resistance, but the records have been turned over.
The purpose for this request by the ACPD is to be better able to determine if husband and guardian Michael Schiavo was telling the truth about how his wife underwent the heart failure which resulted in her brain damaged and quadraplegic condition.
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