What Books Do You Own?

JivinJ links to a WaPo profile of Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List in which Jason Horowitz writes:

Dannenfelser, wearing a striped beige jacket and a necklace of silver spheres, came out of her small office, where books about the importance of women in the life of Pope John Paul II ("Wojtyla's Women") and an anti-Democratic screed ("The Party of Death") sat in a short bookcase.

I do not wish to discuss here the merits of either book mentioned (in part because I haven't read them).

But it seems odd that this detail even warrants a mention. What's the implication? Is it that if someone has a book in her bookcase, that she therefore presumably agrees with all (or at least most) of the arguments its author makes therein?

Personally, I think that when someone owns a book, it means that person owns a book, and any further extrapolation by someone else is made at his own peril.

It's Funny Because It's True

Today, on the eve of Lent, I'm reposting this entry, which I first posted around this time last year:



Of course, the temptation when watching something like this is to think, "I hate it when people complain like that."

But who among us doesn't complain—yea, like that?

Tomorrow, we'll have ashes placed on our foreheads and hear the words, "Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return."

As we prepare for this ever-so-necessary reminder of our mortality, now is as good a time as any to take stock of the amount of breath we waste when we complain.

A priest of Opus Dei, quoting St. Josemaria Escriva, once told me during confession, "Don’t say, 'That person bothers me.' Think: 'That person sanctifies me.'"

(Would that I actually put this counsel into practice in my daily life, then I'd really be getting somewhere.)

Griping and moaning about anyone or anything we find less than agreeable is so facile; any schmuck can do it without exerting the scantest effort.

But refusing to complain—now that takes fortitude. And think of the model we offer others when we show patience instead of descending all too easily into pointless bellyaching.

Tortured Arguments for Torture

Several months ago, I posted a comment on an entry on Subvet's blog in which he asked the question, "What is torture and why is it not justified?"

I had intended to post what I had written here as well, but a few days later, Anthony was born, and then it must have slipped my mind until I noticed recently that I still had a draft for a post with the title "torture".

Anyway, I began by saying:

The short answer is that torture is wrong because it's intrinsically immoral.

(I realized afterward this sounded a bit tautological. Instead of saying "wrong", I should have said "not justified". *)

The next commenter, one Abnpoppa, began with this:

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn if it is immoral.

Well then!

Gee, I can't see how that way of thinking could lead to any problems.

He then said:

I'll water board your mother until the oceans run dry if it will save one American or one soldiers life.

Mmmm-kay.

Now, because Comic Book Guy destroyed Professor Frink's prototype for a sarcasm detector, it's never made its way onto the market. But at times like this, one could really come in handy.

I'm assuming Abnpoppa is engaging in hyperbole — not the part about the oceans running dry, which is obviously is hyperbole, but about waterboarding my mother — and that if push came to shove, he wouldn't actually waterboard my mother if he believed that by doing so it might save one American or one soldier's life.

On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe he really would have no qualms about waterboarding my mother.

(As an aside: note that Abnpoppa implicitly admits that waterboarding is, in fact, a form of torture — a point that many defenders of waterboarding are, to say the least, reluctant to acknowledge. **)

But let's just assume it is hyperbole.

Well, in that case, if Doing Whatever It Takes to save the lives of the good guys is the justification for torturing terrorists in order to extract information, why stop at torturing only terrorists themselves?

If the first attempts don't get them to tell us what we need to know, why *not* bring in their mothers — or wives, or daughters — and make the terrorists watch while we torture them too?

After all, if the debate about torture is not a debate about morality but rather a debate about utility, then why impose limits on ourselves? If, by torturing terrorists' relatives, we could conceivably have more success extracting information from them than by merely torturing the terrorists themselves, why not do it?

But of course, the debate about torture must be a debate about morality. And that's why hearing a defense of torture that begins with, "I don't give a damn if it is immoral" ought to raise a red flag.

* I'm aware that some Catholic thinkers have attempted to argue that torture is morally permissible under certain circumstances. I can't say I've done an exhaustive study of such arguments, but what I have read I have found lacking, not to mention troubling, especially in light of the fact that in Veritatis Splendor 80, Pope John Paul II writes that "physical and mental torture" are among the acts that are "intrinsically evil".

That doesn't leave much wiggle room for torture apologists, does it?

** On this topic, a couple items are worth a look: "This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like", an account of waterboarding as it was used by the Khmer Rouge, and "Believe Me, It's Torture", Christopher Hitchens' account of being waterboarded.

Parish Websites

Fellow Catholic Dads blogger Rob Kaiser writes:

Let’s face it, most parish websites are pretty awful – and I don’t mean full of awe. A lot of it has to do with throwing up an online billboard or having created a site 5 to 10 years ago and not having updated it. Whatever the reason, a lot of our parish websites are in need of help.

So here are questions for you to help change the situation. Answer as many or few as you are able.

1. What are some parish websites that did it right?
2. How is your parish website? What does it do well? How could it be improved?
3. What is required for a parish website to be considered “good”?
4. What should a parish site definitely avoid?
5. What has a parish site done that really made you say “Wow!” – good or bad?

Please don’t be shy – your answers could help parish website developers as they search the web for answers.

I commented thusly:

When I visit a parish website -- either my own or one I've never visited before -- there is usually one of two reasons (or both, I suppose) why I do so:

1. To find out Mass and confession times
2. To find out about upcoming events

I'd be willing to bet that a not insignificant percentage of people who visit parish websites do so for the same primary reasons.

In my opinion, then, a parish website should display these things on their home page in such a way that they're impossible to miss.

Now, on the other hand, I have numerous pet peeves about certain website features generally, which I think should be avoided. Here's a partial list:

1. Intro pages -- useability studies consistently show people don't like them.

2. Pages/features that don't load properly in Firefox (due to the webmaster only testing them in IE). Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer.

3. Flash animation -- it's annoying. Plus, for users who have Flash Block (a Firefox add-on), it doesn't show up.

4. Playing music (even if it's good music) immediately upon opening a page -- far more annoying than Flash animation.

5. Dead links due to the webmaster moving a page and failing to include redirect code on the old page -- I'm told this is one of the cardinal sins of web design. This has happened to me twice recently whilst looking for articles on Catholic Exchange, and I find it maddening. (After that I tried the Wayback Machine, but struck out there too.)

Law & Order: "Anti-Choice Propaganda"?

Last week I found out via my friend Jill Stanek (you know, Jill "Worst Person in the World" Stanek) that Friday's "ripped from the headlines" episode of Law & Order was to deal with the murder of a late-term abortionist in his church.

For several years, I used to watch Law & Order quite a bit, until I realized that there are Much Better Things To Do than watch TV with any frequency. But since this episode dealt with work, I decided to watch it.

Now, bearing in mind the Gomer Pyle Axiom of High and Low Expectations, I'm of the opinion that whenever the MSM deals with abortion, we have to set the bar very low.

That said, going into it, I feared Jill would be right—i.e., that "the show will throw ideological bones to both sides but ultimately come down favoring pro-aborts".

Yet after watching it, I don't think pro-lifers could have expected to have as many bones thrown to us as there were. I posted a comment on Jill's blog indicating as much, and noted that I'd also be curious to see what strident pro-aborts have to say about it—suspecting that the episode may cause not a few of them to work themselves into a lather about how Law & Order is "selling out" or something.

Sure enough, today, in a post titled "Is Pro-Life the New Gay?" (which includes the episode itself) Jill notes that indeed, some pro-choicers aren't happy.

Quoth Kate Harding at Salon:

"Law & Order's" anti-choice propaganda

On Friday night's "Law & Order," the abortion debate was represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: The anti-choicers, who believe fetuses' rights trump women's, and the pseudo-pro-choicers, who are conveniently persuaded to agree with them by the end of the episode.

That sound? It's my head exploding.

To which Jill responds:

Kind of like a late-term baby being aborted, Kate? Not quite. Read Kate's review for descriptions of more surprising pro-life apologetics in the show, even on minor rape.

What's up? In a town bent on stirring controversy, does Hollywood now think the pro-life view is in, hot - the new gay?

Or perhaps NBC is trying to recoup lost mainstream viewers?

Or most likely, since L&O's previous 2 episodes dealing with abortion slanted way left, this was its attempt at balance?

Whatever, I'll take it.

Me too.

"Even Jesus Hates You"

There has been much written in the pro-life blogosphere of late about the diabolical character of the Northern Illinois Women's Center abortion facility in Rockford, Illinois.

Just last week, the Catholic League sent a letter to the city's legal director asking that he take "appropriate action against the Center to put an end to such needless provocation" regarding a poster displayed in the center's window depicting Jesus showing His middle finger, and with the inscription "Even Jesus Hates You" below it. (The next day, the office ordered that the poster be removed.)

I know one of the pro-lifers who regularly prays outside this abortion clinic, and I happened to talk to him a few months ago. Almost anticipating what I was thinking, he told me that a lot of people tell him they would never want to pray outside an abortion clinic like this, where the evil is so palpable.

On the contrary, he said he'd rather pray outside a place like this rather than, say, the $7 million "Abortion Fortress" of Aurora — some 70 miles away — whose outside appearance completely masks the evil within (not unlike a "whitewashed tomb").

He told me, "When you see a rubber chicken on a crucifix, it makes you want to pray harder."

I hadn't thought of it that way.

Oh, the Hubris!

Sean Dailey wrote yesterday about what he called — quite rightly, in all possibility — "the most clueless sentence of the last decade", which appeared in an article in the current issue of Newsweek, titled "Sexual Masters of the Universe":

The article, by a fellow named Andrew Romano, is about Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Masters & Johnson of Sexual Revolution fame, using a new biography of the pair, Masters of Sex by Thomas Maier, as a springboard.

Anyway, early in the article, Romano drops this bomb, "As the story of Masters and Johnson makes clear, rescuing sex from the ancient mists of myth, mystery and religiosity left America a happier and healthier place."

Oh, the hubris!

Contrast that last sentence with this excerpt from an article that appeared in an article in First Things last year:

When I’ve taken retreats to Catholic monasteries, I’ve been aware of how surprisingly, and even frighteningly, erotic they seem. The Trappists of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, worship in an exquisitely beautiful place: high white walls, cold stone floors, a slit in the side of the main sanctuary like a split in the universe through which the reserved sacrament is always visible. The great stone altar is big enough to sacrifice Isaac on. Candles flicker on the bronze face of Our Lady during Compline, and dozens of men chant the Salve Regina before the abbot dismisses with a flick of his wrist and a sprinkling of holy water. Pure desire for God could be wrung from the place like a wet towel. And one can begin to see how sex with another person could be given up for desire for God or made better by mutual longing for God.

There are treasures here with which we can become reacquainted to combat pornography, if we dare. And we may not: Moderns flinch when St. Bernard of Clairveaux seeks to progress up Jesus’ body, kissing his way up to his lips; when Bernini sculpts St. Theresa in the posture of orgasm; when ancient Christians stripped and spit and had their faces hissed at in exorcism before submerging, nude, to be born again.

One commenter, the sui generis Blog Nerd, noted:

Eros, demasked, has once again fled. And now we are left with a religion slowly divested of its blood and guts.

It is no coincidence that the sensual opulence of our Churches started to disappear at the same time as the sexual revolution gathered its strength. The advent of casual contraceptive sex dissipated us. And we lost that longing ache for union in proper order.

When the uninitiated glimpse the erotics of religious ardor in traditional Catholicism they mistake it for "repressed sexuality" -- they couldn't be more wrong if they tried.

Quite so.

I remember hearing Scott Hahn give a talk a few years ago on the Church's teachings about sex. He pointed out that it's not enough to speak of sex as "good"; after all, that puts it at merely the same level as Campbell's soup. Neither is it enough to speak of sex as "great", for that puts it at merely the same level as Frosted Flakes.

Nay, so much more than "good" or "great", sex is holy, because by it and it alone, husband and wife express complete and total self-sacrificing, self-donating mutual love in a way that uniquely allows human beings to reflect the inner life of God.

If one believes sex to be anything less, he gets it hopelessly wrong.

Maureen Wittmann Has a Brilliant Idear

If you're getting short on pens and pencils don't go out to the store to buy new ones. Just do what I do -- put your hand in between the cushions of your sofa and you'll be sure to find anywhere from 5 to 10 pens and pencils. You'll save a ton of money doing this.

And how.

I don't think I've bought a pen since at least 1996, my freshman year at Loyola, when I started finding and keeping left-behind pens at Cudahy Library, which were there in spades (as they surely are in most any other library).

Then, when I started teaching, I was forever finding pens on the floor at the end of the day, which I gladly made my own.

Now, I find, free pens seem to be everywhere.

The Episcopal Church Drifts Further Into Outer Space

This reminds me of this.

And, on a not entirely unrelated matter:

Do thou make thy voice heard in support of the conscience rights of health care providers before 9 April, the deadline for submitting comments to HHS.

Obama, Camille Paglia, and Groupthink

My fellow Catholic Dads blogger Nod has a great post regarding some comments made recently by Camille Paglia about the Obama administration.

I would have loved to have written more in the comments section thereof, but hadn't the time, so I focused very briefly on one question he raised, which, it seems to me, is a terribly important one:

Why do so many fall into the trap of groupthink and blithe rationalizations?

To which I wrote:

The short answer, it seems to me, is:

Because it's easy. Resisting groupthink, on the other hand, is hard.

And most of us are lazy.

Heh

It's funny because it's true.

Of course, the temptation when watching something like this is to think, "I hate it when people complain like that."

But who among us doesn't complain—yea, like that?

In six days, we'll have ashes placed on our foreheads and hear the words, "Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return."

As we prepare for this ever so necessary reminder of our mortality, now is as good a time as any to take stock of the amount of breath we waste when we complain.

I've written previously on this here weblog that a priest of Opus Dei, quoting St. Josemaria Escriva, once told me during confession, "Don’t say, 'That person bothers me.' Think: 'That person sanctifies me.'" (Would that I actually put this into practice in my daily life, then I'd really be getting somewhere.)

Griping and moaning about anyone or anything we find less than agreeable is so facile; any schmuck can do it without exerting the scantest effort.

But refusing to complain—now that takes fortitude. And think of the model we offer others when we show patience instead of descending all too easily into bitter, angry bellyaching.

[HT: Sean Dailey at The Blue Boar]

What's Wrong with the World

The Dutchman has a good Confession-related post in which he says:

The problem with most explanations is that they are self-serving. (Surely I'm not the problem!) If we could be really honest with ourselves, then we could formulate explanations that closely approximate the truth.

This, in turn, reminded me of the time when Chesterton—along with a myriad of other prominent writers of his day—was asked by the London Times to write an essay on the theme, "What's Wrong with the World?"

In response, Chesterton wrote a letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton

"Schools in the Jesuit Tradition" Is, for All Intents and Purposes, a Vacuous Euphemism

Alas, the hanged, drawn, and quartered body of St. Edmund Campion must be turning over in his grave at the state of Jesuit higher education these days.

This latest instance, via Mark Shea, reminds me of the time some ten years ago when, during Joe Scheidler's (my now-boss's) RICO trial in federal court, Loyola University Chicago's law school allowed NOW to solicit students to help them in their case against him. His daughter, my friend and current co-worker Annie Casselman, was a Loyola undergrad at the time (as was I).

I like Shea's idea, though: Don't give 'em a dime. Not one dime. Ever.

That's why Jocelyn and I have donated exactly nothing to our alma mater.

To be sure, I say this with no joy. Both of us received an excellent education at Loyola, and we were privileged to encounter many Jesuits there who have an undying love for the Faith.

Sadly, however, the increasing sense of disloyalty that has crept its way into the Society of Jesus has made for an environment in many (all?) of their universities in which Catholic identity is largely shelved and certain viewpoints diametrically opposed to Church teaching are tolerated out of a horribly misguided understanding of “academic freedom”.

Fans Behaving Badly

One of my co-bloggers at Catholic Dads posted a story today that appears in the current version of The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the diocese I grew up in, the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis:

Last weekend, my 10-year-old son and I attended the Vikings-Packers game. He’s an avid sports fan and had never been to a professional football game. So I bought two tickets to this classic rivalry, thinking it would leave a lasting memory with my son. It did — but not because the Vikings won the game.

Here’s what my son said to me in the closing seconds of the third quarter: “I think maybe we should wait until I’m older to come to another game. I’ve never heard so much swearing in one building in my life.”

I agree.

From the opening kickoff to the closing seconds of the fourth quarter, a few fans around us — about six or seven — frequently directed obscenities at players, at the game’s officials and, even more frequently, at other fans sitting around them...

Alcohol at root of problem

I understand that emotions can be high when historic rivals meet. But these actions were inexcusable. In almost every case, the boorish behavior was the result of excessive alcohol consumption.

Read the rest here.

Reading this reminded me of what is possibly the most famous instance of boorish fan behavior in the history of American sports—which, incidentally, also occurred at a Vikings home game (albeit at the old Met Stadium, not the apology for a stadium that is the Metrodome)—to wit, the 1975 divisional playoff game when a fan threw a whiskey bottle and hit referee Armen Terzian in the head, rendering him unconscious. (Minutes earlier, Terzian didn't call pass interference on Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson—although Vikings fans thought he should have—and his touchdown catch put Dallas ahead for good.)

Ironically, the pass, thrown by Roger Staubach, was the original "Hail Mary".

Doh!

I've been outed.

If I ever encounter an overzealous neo-HUAC enthusiast who will stop at nothing to get an answer to, "Are you now, or have you ever been in conversation with a former member of the Communist Party?" I'll know who to blame.

Devout What?

Since the term "devout Catholic" is all but devoid of any real meaning anymore thanks to the Herd of Independent Thinkers in the mainstream media, perhaps we would do well to give over the term entirely to ironic usage.

E.g., "John Doe, a devout Catholic, was convicted on nine charges of embezzlement in federal court yesterday."

Or, "Jane Doe, a devout Catholic, was caught on camera desecrating a statue of the Virgin Mary last night."

There's No There There

Along the lines of this entry I posted last week, this morning on Jill Stanek's blog, a commenter named xalisae wrote:

I fully and completely believe [abortion] kills another real human being who should be afforded all the rights and protections every other person in the world has or should have by default. Because of this fact, I want to promote things that will keep abortions from happening. The pill and other contraceptives do this. Why the pro-life movement cannot comprehend this is beyond me.

Notwithstanding xalisae's laudable staunch opposition to abortion, I wrote in response:

We can't comprehend it because there's no there there.

This has been known for years. Heck, even Alfred Kinsey acknowledged (at the April 1955 Conference on Induced Abortion—which, incidentally, was sponsored by Planned Parenthood):

At the risk of being repetitious, I would remind the group that we have found the highest frequency of induced abortions in the group which, in general, most frequently uses contraception.

The Bullwinkle Approach to contraception as some sort of "remedy" for abortion is, and always has been, doomed.

On Forgiveness

Over at FestungArnulfinger, The Dutchman has a smashingly good post on forgiveness.

One of the points he makes is that "[t]he best way to learn about forgiveness is to have a few kids."

Indeed. Aside, of course, from our having to learn to patiently, constantly, and lovingly forgive them, having kids also teaches us how to be better forgivers in another way.

Inevitably, we as parents fly off the handle and get mad at our kids from time to time. Amazingly, though, kids—little kids especially—have an ability to forgive us almost instantly.

A friend of mine recently pointed out that this is one of one of ways in which we must, as Jesus said, "become like little children".

"How Many Children Do You Want?" Part II

As a follow-up to my post last week on the Catholic Dads blog (which was also cross-posted here), wherein I asked my confreres how they respond to the question, "How many children do you want?" one fellow named Paul offered some particularly wise words—especially the last paragraph:

Is it about what I want?

I mean I want many things, such as, for Law & Order to stop doing episodes with character drama and start solving cases again; getting a sitter and seeing Prince Caspian in the theatre. "Want" like air, fills a vacuum. If I think about my family years down the line, I imagine more kids than I currently have and I like the vision that I see. So in a sense I could answer the question (um...one kid every two years or so...until my wife is about so old...so my answer is...).

But honestly, what bearing does that have on anything? More than wanting children, I love children. I love the children that I have and I will love each and every child that God gifts me and my wife with. What else matters.

(Incidentally, I'm with him on the Law & Order comment, too.)

On Prayer

The Dutchman had an excellent post on Catholic Dads blog a couple days ago on prayer. And on his own blog, he included one excerpt from said post, some wise words from Marshal Foch on the rosary.

I commented thusly:

My earliest memories of praying the rosary were on car trips with my parents.

We lived (and they still live) in Minneapolis, and every fall we would drive to La Crosse, WI to visit my dad's aunt, Sister Mileta Ludwig, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration. (She died in 1994 and was buried on what would have been her 99th birthday.)

As a kid, my thoughts on the rosary was that it is Something That Takes a Really Long Time; I didn't like it, but I didn't dislike it either.

In January of 1991, when I was in seventh grade, the first Gulf War had just begun, and my mom decided that we as a family would start praying the rosary every day for peace.

I wasn't thrilled about the idea, and less than enthusiastically went along with it.

To this day, though, I am forever grateful to my mom for instituting this custom in our family. I've now come to love praying the rosary, and our family does it each day now as well.