Is this the Catholic Church’s Braveheart Moment?

I received a text yesterday from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) regarding an upcoming legislative bill being proposed which would make questions about religious beliefs to potential judicial nominees illegal.  I was quickly struck by how weak our bishops’ messages have become.  If an issue is not directly and unambiguously attacking the Church, the bishops are usually silent.  Sure they’ll speak out about judicial nominees being disqualified simply because they live their Catholic faith, but what about the less direct or more controversial attacks on our faith?  How about challenging Catholics to step up and turn away from a culture that has become completely hostile to a Christian way of life?

For some reason the story of Braveheart popped into my mind, and I was struck by how similar our current situation is to the one in that movie.  In this analogy, the current culture is the English troops who are acting as an occupying and oppressing force in Scotland.  The English troops surround the Scots at all times – they’re in the Scottish towns and villages, constantly keeping them underfoot.  Similarly our culture is constantly opposing our Catholic values.  It surrounds us at all times – it’s on our TVs, it’s in our schools, it’s in our books, it’s in our stores.  It relentlessly tells us that life is about pleasure, money, and making ourselves happy, whatever the cost.  Its effectiveness is easy to see: contraception, divorce, materialism necessitating daycare, ambiguous definitions of marriage, and rampant violence caused by a lack of respect for life.  Our culture has completely oppressed the values that Catholics should hold dear.

The English troops aren’t hanging around in Scotland for fun.  They have been ordered there by the English crown, King Edward Longshanks.  In the beginning of the movie he institutes Prima Nocta when he realizes that English blood must infiltrate the Scottish families in order to stop the constant Scottish rebellions.  In our analogy the English crown is our cultural elites and political leaders.  They willfully impose their amoral values on the rest of the country.  Whether by forcing schools to promote homosexual culture, enacting horrifying infanticide laws, or silencing the voices of those who disagree with them, these elites trying to choke out existing Catholic values.  And they do it everywhere possible.  In libraries, in schools, on TV, in books.  They have realized that they can’t erase the Catholic culture until they infiltrate our lives and homes.

Of course, the ones who should be protecting the Scottish people are the Scottish nobles.  These men have lordship over the Scottish peasants, and in return it is their duty to protect them.  In the movie such protection is seemingly absent.  As Robert the Bruce, the rightful heir to the Scottish throne tells William Wallace “From top to bottom, this country has got no sense of itself, its Nobles share allegiance with England.”  In one of the pivotal moments of the film, we see two nobles pull their troops off the battlefield rather than fight with the Scottish peasants against the English.  We hear Longshanks tell Robert the Bruce, who has also sold out to the English: “I gave Mornay double his lands in Scotland and matching estates in England.  Lochlan turned for much less.” In our analogy, the Nobles are the Catholic Bishops who do so very little to lead our Catholic laity against the crushing pressure of our anti-Christian culture.  The bishops seem satisfied with banal messages about love (charity) for all, acceptance, and a welcoming atmosphere.  These messages are about coexisting with our oppressive culture; they are about remaining in peace even if it means living in bondage.  These aren’t the messages of a leader liberating his people from slavery.

Still other bishops have completely betrayed the faithful and dissent from Catholic beliefs.  They’ve sold out the impoverished laity for the prestige and esteem given by the anti-Christian media to dissenting clergy.

Lochlan, Cupich, Mornay, McElroy

Devout Catholics are thirsty for truth – we crave it.  We want to know that our bishops and priests will stand up with us if we dare to loudly reject the lies our culture is selling us.  The recent controversy between Nick Sandmann and Nathan Phillips pointed out just how true it is.  Before having almost any of the facts, more than one Catholic bishop spoke out against the pro-life students.  Just like Mornay and Lochlan, they sided with the culture instead of their flock.  It’s clear the US Catholic clergy have gotten too used to being influential among those same cultural elites and politicians who oppress Christianity.  Where are the public rebukes of politicians who forcefully oppose Christianity?  When will bishops speak out against the real ways our culture is attacking our Catholic ideals (TV, contraception, public schools, internet etc.)?

The last character to be identified in our analogy is William Wallace.  Through his bravery, huge armies of peasants rise up to fight the tyranny of the English crown.  Eventually, the Scots do win their freedom, though Wallace must give up everything, including his life, to accomplish it, and doesn’t even live to see it.  He isn’t a noble, but he has courage, conviction, and loyalty.  That is what is needed to inspire others to fight and win their freedom.

“What does that mean to be a noble [bishop]?  Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country [diocese].  But men don’t follow titles – they follow courage [to speak truth].

So who in our day is William Wallace?  Who will step up from among the Catholic laity (because we cannot wait for our nobles, the bishops) and say to our culture “Enough is enough!  You can take my property, you can take my reputation, you can take my comforts, but you’ll never take my freedom to practice orthodox Catholicism!”  Who is willing to die rather than float along with our culture?  Let’s pray that God will give us saints to unite Catholic laity against our culture, much the same way William Wallace was able to unite the Scots against the English.

Book Review: A Landscape With Dragons

Subtitled The Battle for Your Child’s Mind, this book speaks to the importance in forming your children through literature that teaches morality and virtue.  The book was written twenty years ago in 1998 and some of the info is a bit dated, but there is still enough great information in the book to make it worth reading.  Author Michael D. O’Brien had some keen insights that proved to be prophetic at the time of the writing; many of the dangers he warned our culture is headed toward have already come to pass.

The book begins with a description of how dragons have traditionally always been a symbol of evil.  The Bible identifies Adam and Eve’s tempter as a serpent or snake.  Saint George converts an English town by defeating a great dragon.  Several other cultures have dragons, and whether they be Gorgons or Apophis or Tiamat, they are usually malicious or sly.

Next O’Brien spends some time showing how our culture that has been Christian for so long is now slipping back into paganism.  Instead of cherishing the great gift that our knowledge of God is, our culture has decided it no longer needs such knowledge.  He shows that we’ve found many ways to worship creation instead of the Creator as our God.  This part of the book gets relatively theological, and I wouldn’t expect those who don’t already agree with the Catholic position to find it very convincing.

This leads us to the fourth chapter, which is where the book really starts to shine.  Now that O’Brien has laid the groundwork, he can begin to relay the real message of the book.  He laments the replacement of storytelling by electronic entertainment.  If this was bad in 1998, it has to be an order of magnitude worse now in 2018 when we carry tablets and smartphones and laptops around with us wherever we go.  He makes some very convincing arguments against the regular use of electronic entertainment that, even by themselves, make the book worth reading.  Next he shows how modern entertainment, both literature and tv/movies, are sending our children either mixed or outright harmful messages that subvert Christianity and praise paganism.  He demonstrates this with some great examples, including Star Wars, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and Jurassic Park.

Lastly, O’Brien purposes a system by which parents can evaluate the entertainment that their children will be consuming.

The last two chapters demonstrate how to use this system to evaluate popular fantasy books for older children.  First he takes on the decidedly pagan ones, even the ones that may have some Christian themes in them.  Next he moves on to the Christian ones by looking at the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and George MacDonald.  Although the works of these authors are all Christian and lead children in a positive direction, there are some themes in the later two’s works that we as parents are able to discern that don’t quite fit the Catholic understanding of our world.

Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is a phenomenal work of Catholic fantasy.

O’Brien’s Conclusion really brought the message home for me.  He points out that we, the parents, are the ones who create the culture our children are raised in.  We do that by providing them with the entertainment to inspire them to recognize and avoid evil while cultivating goodness and virtue.  We can’t afford to let ourselves be influenced by Satan, who is craftily weaving his destructive messages into 99% of the entertainment that we allow into our homes, our minds, and our hearts.  Satan is real, and he is out there trying to deceive us.  The readings from this weekend’s Mass speak to our responsibility as parents: “‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ says the Lord.  Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: ‘You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and you have not attended to them.  Behold, I will attend o you for your evil doings’, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 23:1-3).  It is our responsibility as parents to shepherd our children, to provide for them a environment that bring them to Jesus.

Lastly, the book includes an appendix with 90 pages of family reading suggestions.  They range from picture books for kids to books for adults.  I haven’t chosen any yet, but I’m very happy to have the resource as I begin to try to transform my family’s entertainment consumption to be more in line with what O’Brien is proposing in this book.

A Catholic Perspective on Why Star Wars Fans Hated The Last Jedi

Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm for $4.1 Billion in 2012 generated a lot of excitement from Lucasfilm fans.  At the time I was a moderate Star Wars fan, but I was and still am a big Indiana Jones fan.  I, and so many other fans of these two franchises, were excited about the possibility of more chapters being added on, of more stories being told.

Although the next chapter in the Indiana Jones saga is still a few years off, Disney immediately began producing a new set of Star Wars movies.  Even more exciting to fans was the fact that a new trilogy would be produced and would include the characters from the original trilogy produced back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.  How exciting to see the heroes of our childhoods back for more adventures!

Luke fights Vader in an epic battle between good and evil

The first new film opened to near universal acclaim.  Movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes showed the movie was given positive reviews by 93% of movie critics and 87% of audiences.  Although many themes and plot elements were very similar to the original Star Wars trilogy, there was enough new material to keep both hardcore Star Wars fans, as well as the general media, happy and entertained.  After more than 30 years, fans finally got to see Chewbacca, Princess Leia, C3PO, and R2-D2 back on the screen.  We witnessed the death of Han Solo (who was the best character in a franchise driven mostly on the strength of its characters), but had to wait until the closing seconds to finally get a glimpse of the elderly Luke Skywalker.  The Force Awakens ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, with Rey finally finding the planet of Luke’s exile.  The movie ends with Rey handing Luke the lightsaber he lost at the end of The Empire Strikes Back and symbolically telling him the universe was once again in need of the hero Luke Skywalker.  The film created many questions that left the audience excited and anxious for the next sequel.

The Force Awakens was liked by almost everyone.

After two long years of waiting, the next chapter titled The Last Jedi was released, and the reaction was much different.  While Rotten Tomatoes showed that a very strong 91% of critics approved of the movie, only 46% of audiences reported liking it.

The Last Jedi was controversial among Star Wars fans.

There were various suggestions thrown out as to why fans were so critical of the latest chapter.  Perhaps it was because very few of the questions raised in The Force Awakens were answered in a meaningful way.  Or maybe it was because of the many plot contrivances that used concepts not seen in any of the previous eight Star Wars movies.  Conceivably it was because the characters were mostly dull and underdeveloped.  Some even suggested it was because Disney focused too much energy on advancing the female characters at the expense of the male characters – most the male characters were weak, ineffectual, or foolish while the female characters were smart, graceful, and determined.

I believe it was so despised by Star Wars fans because the producers of the movie made a concerted effort to subvert the characters – especially Luke Skywalker.  In one of the trailers, the villain Kylo Ren is heard saying “Let the past die.  Kill it if you have to.”  The producers chose to make this the major theme of the movie.  But what they set out to kill was the feelings of admiration for the heroic character that we’d appreciated since childhood.  Throughout the movie Luke is made to look like a grumpy, miserable failure.  He stubbornly and selfishly refuses to leave his self-imposed exile, even it it means letting the entire universe fall into evil.  Instead of looking at the priest-like Jedi order as the keepers of peace and justice in the galaxy, he now sees them as hypocritical, vain failures.

This is all so very different from the Luke Skywalker of the original trilogy.  In the OT Luke had to struggle against evil, both evil that assailed him by being his direct enemy (the Empire), and the evil that tried to seduce him from within (his father being Vader).  He is repeatedly warned by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda not to give in to the dark side of the force.  Though it would give him great power, it would corrupt him.  He is warned against anger and the desire for vengeance, and exhorted to overcome them.  In the end, the only way to defeat the Emperor, who is the personification of evil, is to abandon all power, the light and dark sides of the force, and depend on his father’s conversion back to good to save him. The final message of the original trilogy is that mercy and love are more powerful than hate and sin, and Luke is the personification of that message.

The Luke of the original trilogy is a completely different character than the Luke of the new trilogy.

How does this tie into our Catholic faith?  The Last Jedi is taking the virtue that the original Star Wars movies inspired in us and throwing it into the trash.  Star Wars isn’t, and never was, a set of Catholic movies.  It has some concepts in it that are decidedly un-Catholic.  But one does not have to look hard to find many Catholic messages in it.  Messages about self sacrifice, about caring for others more than yourself, about struggling against evil, even when all hope seems lost.  “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21)”  Messages that good wins out over evil in the end if we have courage and perseverance, and that their is no gray line between good and evil.  “God is not the author of confusion. (1 Corinthians 14:33)”  The Last Jedi is here to tell us we’re stupid for finding these messages in the original trilogy.  And that is why so many Star Wars fans hated it.

Lisa Simpson speaks to the Catholic understanding of sex

The majority of political disagreements between Catholics and everyone else in some way comes down to sex.  You won’t hear many arguments on whether we should feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, or visit the sick.  Those are issues everyone agrees on, no matter their religious beliefs.  However, when it comes to sex, Catholics and non-Catholics agree about as well as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  The Catholic understanding of the purpose and nature of sex touches on abortion, contraception, Planned Parenthood, same-sex unions, gender confusion, and many other hot-button topics in our modern news cycle.

The Catholic understanding of sex starts by observing its purpose.  We can study our digestive system – mouth, throat, stomach, intestines – and observe that its purpose is supplying food for our bodies.  While eating is often pleasurable (especially Taco Bell for me!), it’s actual function is fuel for us.  Likewise we can study our reproductive system and observe its purpose.  The first and most obvious purpose is for making babies.  The second purpose is related to the first, but not quite as obvious.  Humans take a long time to mature.  In the US we consider someone an adult once they reach the age of 18 years.  Children have the best chance of success when raised in stable families.  So the second purpose is the strengthening of the union between the Mother and Father.  Although sex is pleasurable, it’s real purposes are babies and bonding.

It is possible to abuse our bodily systems.  If we eat nothing but ice cream and candy, it will be pleasurable, but our bodies will quickly break down.  This is because we’re not using the digestive system for its proper purpose.  Rather we are exploiting it to increase our pleasure.  Similarly, we can suppress one or both purposes of our reproductive system, through contraception or fornication, but this will also cause harm to ourselves.  It is because of this that Catholics believe that sex only belongs in a marriage and must be open to life every time.  This isn’t easy, but by the grace of Jesus Christ it is possible.

To our modern society, sex is meaningless – it’s just a way to have fun.  But from the Catholic perspective, sex is a message you tell with your body.  The message says that I love you so much that I give myself to you completely – fertility and all.  Likewise, I receive your gift of yourself completely – including your fertility.  Even if you don’t intend it, that is the message your body is communicating during the sexual act.  When a mental health professional finds out a teenage girl is sexually active, the psychologist/psychologist automatically screens her for depression.  This is because teenager girls who are sexually active are much more likely to be depressed than their non-sexual counterparts.  From the Catholic perspective, this makes a lot of sense.  If sex has such an inherent message of selfless love built right into it then who wouldn’t feel depressed when it treated as an empty method for fun or pleasure?

I love watching the Simpsons, and I noticed the other day that this message of meaning behind an affectionate action is taken for granted by our society.  In one episode, Lisa had discovered she had a crush on Nelson, the school bully.  He won’t change his bad behavior for her, but does enjoy the affection that the relationship brings.  The clip below shows what happens when Lisa realizes that Nelson’s feelings for her are mostly selfish.

Nelson: Alright, alright, I lied, I’m sorry, let’s kiss.

Lisa: No.  You don’t understand Nelson.  A kiss doesn’t mean anything if it’s dishonest.

Nelson: Uh, there’s a niceness to it.

As Lisa points out, even in something as innocent as a kiss, there is a message being communicated.  When we try to ignore sex’s message or pretend it doesn’t exist, we harm ourselves and our society.

Book Review: The Apostasy That Wasn’t by Rod Bennett

A while ago I read Rod Bennett’s Four Witnesses book, which told the story of the Catholic Church from about 50 AD through about 200 AD.  The story was told through the eyes of four early Christian figures – Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Iranaeus of Lyons.  Rod Bennett writes non-fiction in a very unique style, by creating vignettes interspersed with actual letters from historical figures to present history in an interesting, very readable format.  I absolutely loved Four Witnesses!  Anyone who reads that book would get a very relatable vision of the Church from right after Jesus ascended to heaven up to the beginning of the third century.

So it was with great enthusiasm that I began his second book, The Apostasy That Wasn’t.  The main premise of the book is to demonstrate that the Roman emperor Constantine didn’t corrupt pure Christianity as so many people today believe he did.  You see, much of Protestantism believes that the Church created by Jesus and the twelve apostles was corrupted beyond repair some time between Jesus’ Ascension into heaven and Martin Luther’s rebellion in the 1500s.  This belief is fundamental to Protestantism; if the Church had not been corrupted then the Reformation was simply a rebellion against the one true Church.  Since Constantine’s endorsement of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire in the 300s was the first time that Christianity was made an official governmental religion, it is a popular target for those seeking a source of corruption.  In the end, Bennett proves the opposite to be true.  Despite a focused and deliberate campaign to change Christianity for political purposes, in the end orthodoxy prevails and the true faith handed down from Jesus to the Apostles and their successors is preserved.

Bennett begins by plunging us into the environment of the times.  It has been a while since Christianity has suffered from the infamous Roman persecutions.  Much of the Church has grown comfortable and weak.  Then a new persecution breaks out, far more vicious than any of the previous.  Many lukewarm Christians quickly apostatize rather than face torture or death, leaving only the most zealous Christians in the Church.  Finally, after the persecution ends, Constantine not only legalizes Christianity but makes it the official religion of the empire, ending centuries of paganism.

Bennett does a good job of showing how this new political environment was used to try to advance the Arian heresy.  It was decided against decisively at the Nicean Council, but again politics forced almost the entire Church to turn toward Arianism.  Constantine’s successor, Constantius, used the disagreement as a political tool to root out dissension to his rule.  He appointed his own Arian bishops to most of the empire, and suddenly the Christian world found itself to be mostly Arian.

Enter Saint Athanasius, the heroic defender of orthodoxy.  Through his perseverance and stubbornness, the truth as taught by the Apostles and handed down by the bishops was preserved against the political meddling.  He passed on his mission to Saints Basil, Gregory Nanzianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa, and eventually to Saint Jerome himself.  Through these great men the truth of the gospel was preserved during a rather difficult and overly political age.

So what is Arianism?  It’s the belief that Jesus – God the Son, was not really God, but another created being who was made of the same substance as God.  To be sure, it’s a rather fine theological point, but the ramifications are enormous.  If Jesus were just another creature, then God didn’t really die on the cross for all of us – rather, one of his creatures did.  If Jesus isn’t part of the Trinity, then God can’t be love because love requires a lover and a beloved.  Arianism was really just an attempt to introduce a Christianized version of paganism, where we continue to worship a creature instead of the Creator.

To be sure, no Protestant today would deny the Trinity, yet they blame the era of Constantine for the introduction of paganism into the Church.  In fact, the opposite was true, despite many persecutions in its defense of orthodoxy.

One thing that struck me while reading the book was how similar today’s Church is compared to the one back then.  In both cases there are members of the Church hierarchy who are more concerned with worldly comforts than with being disciples of Jesus.  In both cases their are heresies that are being promulgated by priests and bishops, much to the detriment of the faithful.  The main difference is that today’s heresies surround anthropology, family, and marriage, while those in Athansius’ time surrounded the identity of God.  It’s disappointing the Church isn’t perfect, but it’s somewhat reassuring to know it’s been this way since the beginning, all the way back to Judas and Peter.  It’s also great to know that despite any bad Christians, even Christians in powerful positions, we have a deposit of faith that comes straight from the Jesus through the Apostles and Bishops.  We can be confident that we know the truth about God and humanity as long as we cling to the teachings of Jesus’ bride, the Church.

I rate the book as 3.5/5.  I didn’t find Bennett’s storytelling quite as effective as Four Witnesses.  He did still provide a great landscape of the Church during the fourth century.  The message was repeated and over-described at times.  This book was not nearly as heavy with quotes as his previous book, but instead relied on footnotes (215 of them!).  Yet it still decisively makes the point that those looking for a Great Apostasy, when the Church falls away from the truth present by Jesus to the Apostles, won’t find it in the fourth century.  And as Bennett describes at length in his Journey Home video here, you really can’t find it ever.

Mourning Our Abandonment of Beauty

I love Wisconsin, but living here can be a real pain sometimes.  Winter is bleak and frigid; we can often go a week or more without seeing the sun and without temperatures above 0.  Spring isn’t much better.  After a long winter we wait eagerly for warm, dry days that are teased in extended forecasts but often don’t arrive.  As if someone flipped a light switch, summer will make its presence known by ushering in weather so hot and humid that it’s unpleasant to be outside.  But as the long, stifling days of summer finally roll to a close, the weather turns as close to perfect as we’ll get on this side of heaven.

I especially enjoy hunting and fishing in the fall.  I no longer have to worry about being cooked in a boat where there is no shade, or constantly harassed by mosquitos who managed to all hone in on my secret tree stand location.  In Wisconsin, fall is the best time for taking in the beauty of nature.  The leaves slowly change from green to yellow to brilliant reds and oranges.  Big fish and deer are on the move and can be seen more easily than any other time of year.  The air even smells better, as if the fragrance of life is somehow being carried on the crisp, cool breeze.  The pleasure boaters whose only goal seems to be sloshing up as many artificial waves as possible have left the cooling water for the comfort of their homes.

Sitting in a tree stand and watching nature around me, or standing in a boat and looking around a mostly vacant lake gives me such a great appreciation for God our creator.  What an awesome God we have who has created such refreshing beauty for us to enjoy!  I believe the beauty of nature pushes us into a reflective state of mind, where we can immerse ourselves in gratitude and humility before our Lord.  It’s free of distractions; it’s free of mindless and inane political arguments; it’s free of malice; its free of people-using.  Like seeing a shimmering landscape reflected in the surface of a not-quite-still lake, the beauty of nature is a fuzzy reflection of the beauty of God.

Nature isn’t the only thing of beauty that reflects God’s grandeur.  Everyone has experienced amazing music that lifts their minds and hearts.  Or maybe instead of music it is a breathtaking painting or sculpture that they could stare at for hours.  Maybe it’s the beautiful simplicity of a complex mathematical proof.  Or maybe it’s the performance of an amazing athlete who has spent hundreds or thousands of hours training and practicing to make a play just like that.  I think another great place to find beauty is in the joyful life of someone who really knows and loves Jesus.  I’ve found I can notice that in people, even if weren’t to speak of Him.  The love they have is bursting forth in their smile and demeanor, in the way they care for those around them and the way they make everyone around them feel happy.

This beauty is the reason we decorate our churches with gold and great works of art.  Many complain that these riches could be sold and the money given to the poor.  While taking care of the poor is very important, we need beauty to remind us of the greatness of our God.  I’m reminded of John 8:1 – 8, the story where Mary took expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus.  Judas was indignant that the perfume hadn’t been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.  Jesus rebuked Judas, telling him that Mary’s love for Him was just as important as her love for the poor.

A beautiful Church draws us closer to God.

As I consider this, I look with regret upon how our culture has seemed to lose its sense of objective beauty.  I look at the movies coming out and I see very little that draws us up to God.  So many of the new movies and TV shows are profane and depressing.  I can remember finishing movies and feeling icky afterward.  I see sculptures around our city parks that look like nothing more than bizarrely shaped hunks of metal.  Most of the new music being created is full of sexual graphic language, profanity, and cursing.  Even music that has traditionally been more “family friendly”, like country music, has grown increasingly irreverent.  I often remember something I heard Fr Rocky, head of Relevant Radio, say one time – find entertainment that will inspire you.  Inspire you to become a better version of yourself, or inspire you to love God more.  We have very few entertainment choices that give us that option.

The last thing I want to touch on is our children.  As a father, raising children is one of my primary vocations.  Raising virtuous, well-mannered children in an increasingly hedonistic and materialistic world is difficult.  I often lament the lack of inspirational entertainment available to kids these days.  Instead, we’re given things like these:

 

Although these children’s games aren’t immoral, they certainly are vulgar and tasteless. They certainly don’t encourage children to think about God’s transcendent beauty.  We need to push our children to discover objective beauty and use that experience to help them see God in a world that shouts ever louder “God’s not relevant”.

Misplaced Nostalgia for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass

There is a debate among some of the more liturgy-minded Catholics about which form of the Mass is better.  The pre-Vatican II form of the Mass, now called the Extraordinary Form, has some very distinct differences between the post-Vactican II form of the Mass, called the Novus Ordo.  Below is a table showing some of the differences:

Extraordinary Form
Said in Latin
Priest faces alter
Priest alone distributes Communion
Communion received kneeling at rail on tongue
16 genuflections during Mass

Novus Ordo
Said in vernacular
Priest faces congregation
Priest and Lay Ministers distribute Communion
Communion received standing in line on tongue or in hand
3 genuflections during Mass

Although it had been 10 years since I attended an Extraordinary Form Mass, I had always thought it was a great mistake to switch to the Novus Ordo.  I believed, and still do believe, that many of the changes that were made were well intentioned, but have had negative unanticipated side affects.  So even though I’d only attended one Extraordinary Form Mass in my life (about 10 years ago), I found I had great nostalgia for it.

Last weekend, the feast of the Holy Trinity, my family finally took the half hour trip to downtown Milwaukee to attend the Extraordinary form of the Mass.  In the Milwaukee area, the only church that I am aware of that does the Mass in its Extraordinary form is Saint Stanislaus.

I noticed some things immediately:

• The Mass showed far more reverence for the Eucharist than any Novus Ordo Mass I’d ever attended.
• The music was amazing.  Obviously this isn’t dependent upon the Mass form used, but I do believe that the Extraordinary Form prioritizes Gregorian Chant.  I can’t imagine how many hours the choir must practice each week.
• Receiving the Blessed Sacrament kneeling at the Communion Rail felt far more appropriate.
• I often didn’t know what was occurring.  I saw many people following along in their Missals, but I didn’t have one.  Even if I did, it would take some practice to follow along.
• The priest prayed very quietly, almost as if he was mumbling.  Again, this made it hard to follow.
• The alter servers really seemed to understand that they were part of something miraculous.  Even though they were young boys they treated the liturgy with the utmost respect.
• Lastly, the church itself was incredibly beautiful.  I realize this isn’t specific to the Extraordinary Form itself, but I believe it conveys the beliefs of the congregation.  With the Extraordinary Form they see God in a majestic manner, and they make sure the Church is a fitting place for the Sacrament of the Eucharist to take place.

In terms of the experience, I did come away a bit disappointed.  I expected the Extraordinary Form of the Mass to be the solution to many of the liturgical abuses going on in many Catholic Churches today.  However, I can now see why the Vatican Council decided the liturgy was in need of reform.  The presentation of the Mass is very hard to follow and I don’t think that is necessary or good.  I can see why they would want the congregation to be more involved.  However, as I stated above, I believe they went too far.

I would love to see a hybrid of these two Mass types become the norm for our Eucharistic Liturgy.  We are clearly in need of more reverence for the Eucharist, so I would bring back the Communion Rail and do away with Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers.  The Eucharist is precious and there is no reason for us laity to touch it, except during reception.  I would also prefer the priest to face the alter instead of the congregation, at least for the majority of the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  I see far too many priests who appear to be praying at the congregation, or even worse, trying to entertain them during the prayers in the Novus Ordo.  I’m sure many of the prayers have changed too.  I would bring back as much as possible that would allow for genuflections during the liturgy.  We need to treat God as God, and that means frequent kneeling.

However, I do like that most of the Mass is now in the vernacular, English for us.  I wouldn’t mind a bit more Latin than we have now, just to remind us of the ancient sources of the Mass.  But we should be able to understand the majority of it in our native tongue.  I don’t mind having the laity assist with the first and second readings, though they should be dressed like they’re meeting a king.  I like that the laity is able to understand and participate in more of the prayers, such as the entrance antiphon and the creed.

I believe as the liturgy goes, so goes our faith.  I hope the Church will start to realize that many of our current challenges can be solved by renewing our liturgy so it focuses more on God and less on us.

The 2nd amendment doesn’t work in a post-Christian society

The rash of recent mass shootings, and especially school shootings, had me pondering the second amendment. Guns are tools – they are morally neutral. They can be used for good, such as for hunting and sport. They can be used for evil, as we’ve seen in the news way too many times in the past year. The popular expression “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is true. However, does that mean guns should be widely available to the majority of the US population?

From CNN, a map of school shootings as of May 18th, 2018.

Laws that favor making guns ubiquitous to the general population have tended to fall to the conservative side of the political spectrum. Because they align with Christian values more often than their liberal counterparts, I find myself siding with conservative ideals most of the time. I inherited an appreciation and respect for the second amendment as I became more politically aware. I adopted the perspective that guns can be an effective crime deterant when given to responsible and properly trained citizens. I believed that the positive effects of our “gun culture” far outweighed the negative effects. Keep in mind that I live in Wisconsin, where hunting is a big part of our culture. Many of the people I know hunt, and I recently started deer hunting (with a bow) myself. What I’m about to suggest is almost unthinkable to many people in my town, state, and even across our entire nation.

The second amendment doesn’t work now that we’re living in a post-Christian culture. This statement may seem like a tantrum being thrown by a Christian who is distraught that the culture has decided it no longer needs Christianity. However, I believe the founders of the country and authors of the second amendment would agree with me. The second amendment, which was written in 1789, guarantees citizens the right to keep and bear arms. I mention the date as a reminder of how close to the establishment of our country that the amendment was created. The government established by the founding fathers of our country is unique, and many of them knew that it wouldn’t work unless religion played a big role. John Adams wrote “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Noah Webster said “The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.” Our first president, George Washington, said “Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.” It’s clear many of the country’s founders expected the citizens of the nation they were creating would be good and moral people.

Is our country still full of good and moral people? There certainly are many, across all religions and demographics. But I would argue that the majority of us don’t really know how to be good and moral. There are many ways to demonstrate this argument. However, I’d like to go straight to what I see is the root of the problem, and that is a lack of respect for life. Our society likes to give us labels and tell us that fitting these labels is what give us our worth. Organizations that push rights for specific groups of people (usually genders, sexual orientations, or ethnicities) are trying to link a person’s identity to these individual traits. Our identity and our real worth comes from being God’s children. For example, accepting a (homosexual/transgender/other trait) person for who they are makes that trait the most defining part of their identity. This hugely under-emphasizes or even ignores the main thing that gives the person value – being made in the image and likeness of God.

So if we are sons and daughters of God, then each life is a share in His divinity and is worth more than all the money, power, and pleasure our world can offer. Sadly, we have been teaching our children and ourselves that the opposite is true for a long time. I believe one of the most obvious ways is the widespread use of contraception. While contraception can, from a certain perspective, seem like a good idea in a few theoretical situations, its actual use ends up being morally harmful. Our fertility is the one way that God gives us to work with Him in the creation of new life. But we reject that gift because we want the pleasure of sex without the children, or we have decided that having more children is too expensive or too much work. Contraception allows us to place these other things (money, pleasure) over the gift of life in a real, direct, and obvious way.

Contraception also leads directly to abortion, because if you decide you can’t have children but end up getting pregnant by mistake, then you need a way out. That abortion devalues life is apparent to everyone, even those who vociferously deny it. Abortion is the decision to end the life of the one who is most vulnerable and most dependent upon you because you decide it would be too much work to support that life. Abortion creates the idea, spread thickly across our society, that life is disposable.

Divorce gives one of the spouses the ability to decide that his or her happiness is more important than the lives of his/her children and the happiness of his/her spouse. Divorce is devastating to children; so many studies have confirmed this. Yet spouses still delude themselves into thinking they can still be a good parent after divorce. Divorce treats the life of husbands and wives and most importantly of children below the value of one spouse’s preconceived notion of happiness.

The list of examples can go on and on. Businesses place profit over people, both customers and employees. Politicians use people for political gain. Men use women through pornography, which has infected many of the films that Hollywood makes and that we bring into our homes. Drug addiction makes the pleasure of a high more important than the life of the user. A lack of purpose has led to a suicide epidemic among our youth. Rich people have many homes, cars, and possessions while poor people don’t have enough to eat.  All these things fail to see life as the precious gift that Christianity tells us it is.

In light of all the ways our society has decided that life is not as important, is it any surprise that we are facing unprecedented gun violence? If we are going to treat other people as objects or obstacles to our freedom and happiness, then mass shootings are inevitable. Because of this, I am in favor of placing substantial limits on gun ownership, at least until our society starts to turn back toward Christianity and God our Father.

A Call to Christian Unity On Pentecost

This Sunday the Christian world celebrates the feast of Pentecost.  Part of my pastor’s message for the feast is a contrast of the events of the building of the tower of Babel in the Old Testament with the events of the creation of the Church on Pentecost in the New Testament.  At the tower of Babel, mankind decided it could do anything without the help of God.  At Pentecost, the early Church learned it could do anything with the help of the Holy Spirit.  At the tower of Babel, God gave the people different languages so they could no longer understand each other.  At Pentecost, God gave the early Church the gift of tongues so that, although those listening were all from different lands with different languages, they could all understand the Apostle’s message.

Despite the differences in race and language, the early Church was united.  In reading the Gospels, the rest of the New Testament, and other works of the early Church it becomes apparent that unity was of vital importance to its leaders.  During Jesus’ passion, he prays “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity (John 17:22-23).”  St Paul says “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought (1 Corinthians 1:10).”

We don’t have to look to far past Pentecost to see why this theme is so important.  Acts 8:9-11 describes a magician named Simon who was teaching errors about Jesus.  Writing in circa 153 AD, Justin Martyr describes Simon and his followers, Helena, Menander, and Marcion, as the founders of Gnosticism.  Gnosticism is the belief that there is a good spiritual world that is constantly in conflict with a bad material world.  One brand of this belief that flourished at that time was called Docetism, which held that Jesus didn’t really become man, but rather just appeared to.  John 1:14 refutes this soundly, but the problem at the time was that there was no established Bible.  There were many books, including the books of our current Bible, but also including books created and used by false teachers to reinforce their positions.  These false teachers often claimed to have received a secret teaching from the Apostles, and thus claimed to be the teachers of the true faith.  So how would an early Christian have figured out who the real teachers of Christianity were?  And with their commission to “make disciples of all nations” under dire threat, what were the Apostles and their followers to do?

The answer lies in the concept of Apostolic Succession.  The concept is first seen in Acts 1:20 with the election of Judas’ successor.  It is later seen as the Apostles found churches throughout the known world and later either leave that church to found one in another region or die.  To prove you carry the teachings that the original twelve Apostles carried on from Jesus, you trace who you learned from back to the Apostles.  Saint Peter, before moving on from Antioch to become the first Bishop of Rome, appointed his successor, who then was succeeded by a disciple of John named Ignatius, who became the third Bishop of Antioch.  There are several examples of Ignatius exhorting Christian unity through the authority of the successors of the Apostles, such as this one written during his march to Rome to be martyred: “Let there be nothing among you tending to divide you, but be united with the bishop and those who preside.”  Clement was the third successor to Peter in Rome, and wrote an epistle to the church in Corinth (chapters 42 – 44).  This epistle, which was written about the same time as the last few books of the Bible, explained the concept of Apostolic Succession exactly as it is still used today.

Without Apostolic Succession, we could not know whether the teachings we receive today are the authentic message Jesus and his Apostles were preaching almost 2,000 year ago.  Many will ask why this is important.  Why can’t we have a relationship without a Church, just me and Jesus?  First, our lack of unity is a terrible scandal to non-Christians.  How can we claim to know Jesus, who is Truth, if our disagreements have shattered us into tens of thousands of different denominations?  Second, a relationship with Jesus should challenge and transform us.  But our wide array of denominations allows us to find a church whose doctrine fits us, instead of conforming our will to that of Jesus’ bride, the Church.  If we want the joy that a life in Christ provides, we need to receive His true message preserved by His church.

So what is to be done with our many denominations?  Should they all be abandoned?  Certainly not!  Each unique denomination has something in it that has made it successful.  Those gifts, talents, and charisms need to be brought home to enrich the Church that Jesus left us.  There is so much we can learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ.  The devil succeeded in dividing Jesus’ Church, but will be robbed of any satisfaction if we can overcome our pride and bring all our unique flavors back into union with the bishop of Rome.  As was especially felt 500 year ago, the Church is always in need of reform, because she is made up of fallen humans.  But it must be a reform that keeps us together.  We face many challenges in our current world – pollution, addiction, lack of respect for life, depression, and meaninglessness.  Together, a universal Christian church can overcome these challenges and bring the joy of Christ to the whole world.

The time for action has arrived.  Pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Only through prayer can we be moved to Truth.  Don’t accept my description of the early Church – study it yourself!  Read the works of the early Christians that we still have today.  There is a general assumption that much of the Church’s history has been lost to the sands of time, but it simply isn’t true.  We have great descriptions and histories of life back then, both from within and outside of the church.  Talk to your local church leaders about bringing your congregation home.  Visit the Coming Home Network for support in considering this difficult decision.  Browse the Catholic Answers website for explanations on why Catholics do many things differently.  We need a unified Church – Jesus knew it, the Apostles and early Christians knew it, and we need to know it too.

A Reflection on Mark 8:36 and public schools

I saw a story yesterday that caused me to reflect again on the public education system in the United States.  Growing up, I had always assumed that a free, public education was good for our society.  How could anyone questions such an assumption?  Education allows people to climb the economic ladder.  With a good education and hard work, anyone can get a well-paying job and fulfill the American dream of getting an abundance of stuff.  With an education we can finally be happy, or so the story goes.

I subconsciously began to wonder about this premise around my college years.  I went to a state sponsored community college for my first two years.  I observed in at least two of my classes (a philosophy class and a biology class) professors/lessons that were overtly hostile to Christianity.  It occurred to me that the college experience could weaken ones’ faith, but my own faith was not too important to me at the time, and I paid it very little attention to the hostility.

Later after starting a family, I again began to reflect on the university system.  The thought of my own children eventually attending an institution that praised a hedonistic lifestyle while openly mocking the traditions of our Western Christian culture was troubling.  Unfortunately, this problem isn’t even limited to the public university system.  Many universities which claim to be Catholic seem to want nothing more than to ridicule and mock the Church.  A couple of examples from Milwaukee’s own Marquette University jump to mind.  The first involves a philosophy professor refusing to allow discussion on the topic of same-sex marriage because such discussion could be construed as homophobic.  When a student brought up his differing opinion after class, the professor basically told him to drop the class.  Another professor blogged about the situation and was subsequently fired.  The second example is the hiring of those who openly and vociferously oppose the Church.  Why would a proponent of abortion be teaching moral theology at a Catholic university?  The university has had other issues related to questionable faculty hires.

Leaving those specifics aside, my premise is this: if sending my children to college will fill their heads with anti-Catholic rhetoric and thus increase the chances of them losing their faith, why do it?  In our current dysfunctional labor market, a college degree is required for a vast majority of good paying jobs.  Choosing not to go to college can be a major handicap in trying to get a good paying job and support a family.  But is the danger of losing salvation worth it?

Mark 8:36 says “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their soul?”  I am still young; my oldest child is in first grade, so college is a very long way off.  But I still shake my head in wonder when I see good Catholic parents paying to send their children to the anti-Christian swamp that is our university system.  I believe most of us never seriously consider the situation.  America is built on opportunity for all.  In order to take advantage of that opportunity, you need to have a good education.  However, there is a difference between what our society considers to be successful and what our faith considers to be successful.  If my son becomes a prominent businessman but a nominal Catholic, is he a success?  If my daughter were to become a great politician but had to adopt pro-abortion policies, would she be successful?  I am not saying that no Catholic child should attend a university.  The hope is that as a parent you have successfully prepared your children for the lies and seduction of the world.  But if you haven’t (and some children are harder to prepare than others – everyone’s different!), then I would think twice about insisting on the importance of college for your kids.

Unfortunately, this takes a more sinister turn as we consider public grade schools.  Recently I was reading about noted Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton, and I was surprised to find that he considered public schools to be one of the five biggest threats to our Christian culture.  Chesterton wrote “The bias of the modern world is so enormous that it will allow a thing to be inefficient as long as it is also irreligious.”  Our grade schools have become the means for the progressive culture to indoctrinate our children with their anti-Christian perspectives.  At this young age, our children don’t have the mental capacity to evaluate the implications of these hostile teachings.  The children trust their teachers are giving them the truth.  But without a holistic perspective that includes the way that Math, History, and Philosophy relate to religion and God, there is no truth.

In previous times, the public school curriculum may have been devoid of God, but it is now often hostile.  Examples are easy to find: In Florida an 11th grader’s homework makes casual reference to fornication and ‘revenge sex’.  In my own hometown a survey was circulated to middle school students in an attempt to get them to question their beliefs on sexuality.  The state of California is mandating pro-homosexual and pro-abortion sex ed and not allowing parents to pull their children out of the class.  The progressive culture has realized that the public schools are a perfect instrument for promoting their anti-Christian agenda, and are ramping up its use for that purpose.

So again I bring this back to Mark 8:36.  It may be the time for us to choose which path to start our children – success in this world, or happiness in the next.  Choosing a private school (and not all are good) is expensive.  Homeschooling a a big commitment.  But our children’s souls are worth it.