May, 1520: Great moments of interreligious dialogue

Besides being dedicated to Our Lady, the month of May commemorates the glorious days of May, 1520, when Hernando Cortez, hero of the Catholic faith, put an end to the barbarous Aztec Empire in Mexico and established the reign of Christendom there, paving the way for the apparitions of Guadalupe in 1531 and the conversion of the Mexicans. Here follows the account of Cortes' conquest of the chief pyramid in Mexico, from the monumental History of the Conquest of Mexcio by William H. Prescott (1843), which is linked up under Boniface's List of Books that Will Not Imperil the Soul:

"Cortes, who saw the immediate necessity of taking the pyramid, determined to lead the storming party himself. He was then suffering much from the wound in his left hand, which had disabled it for the present. He made the arm serviceable, however, by fastening his buckler to it, and, thus crippled, sallied out at the head of three hundred chosen cavaliers, and several thousand of his auxiliaries.

In the courtyard of the temple he found a numerous body of Indians prepared to block his passage. He briskly charged them, but the flat, smooth stones of the pavement were so slippery that the horses lost their footing and many of them fell. Hastily dismounting, they sent back the animals to their quarters, and, renewing the assault, the Spaniards succeeded without much difficulty in dispersing the Indian warriors, and opening a free passage for themselves to the teocalli.

Cortes, having cleared a way for the assault, sprang up the lower stairway, followed by Alvarado, Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other gallant cavaliers of his little band, leaving a file of arquebusiers and a strong corps of Indian allies to hold the enemy in check at foot of the monument. On the first landing, as well as on the several galleries above, and on the summit, the Aztec warriors were drawn up to dispute his passage. From their elevated position they showered down volleys of lighter missiles, together with heavy stones, beams, and burning rafters, which, thundering along the stairway, overturned the ascending Spaniards, and carried desolation through their ranks. The more fortunate, eluding or springing over these obstacles, succeeded in gaining the first terrace, where, throwing themselves on their enemies, they compelled them, after a short resistance, to fall back. The assailants pressed on, effectually supported by a brisk fire of the musketeers from below, which so much galled the Mexicans in their exposed situation, that they were glad to take shelter on the broad summit of the teocalli [pyramid].

Cortes and his comrades were close upon their rear, and the two parties soon found themselves face to face on this aerial battle-field, engaged in mortal combat in presence of the whole city, as well as of the troops in the courtyard, who paused, as if by mutual consent, from their own figthing, gazing in silent expectation on the issue of those above. The area, though somewhat smaller than the base of the teocalli, was large enough to afford a fair field of fight for a thousand combatants. It was paved with broad, flat stones. No impediment occurred over its surface, except the huge sacrificial block, and the temples of stone, which rose to the height of forty feet, at the further extremity of the arena. One of these had been consecrated to the Cross; the other was still occupied by the Mexican war-god. The Christian and the Aztec contended for their religions under the very shadow of their respective shrines; while the Indian priests, running to and fro, with their hair wildly streaming over their sable mantles, seemed hovering in mid air, like so many demons of darkness urging on the work of slaughter!

The parties closed with the desperate fury of men who had no hope but in victory. Quarter was neither asked nor given; and to fly was impossible. The edge of the area was unprotected by parapet or battlement. The least slip would be fatal; and the combatants, as they struggled in mortal agony, were sometimes seen to roll over the sheer sides of the precipice together. Many of the Aztecs, seeing the fate of such of their comrades as fell into the hands of the Spaniards, voluntarily threw themselves headlong from the lofty summit and were dashed in pieces on the pavement.

The battle lasted with unremitting fury for three hours. The number of the enemy was double that of the Christians; and it seemed as if it were a contest which must be determined by numbers and brute force, rather than by superior science. But it was not so. The invulnerable armor of the Spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of physical strength and numbers. After doing all that the courage of despair could enable men to do, resistance grew fainter and fainter on the side of the Aztecs. One after another they had fallen. Two or three priests only survived to be led away in triumph by the victors. Every other combatant was stretched a corpse on the bloody arena, or had been hurled from the giddy heights. Yet the loss of the Spaniards was not inconsiderable. It amounted to forty-five of their best men, and nearly all the remainder were more or less injured in the desperate conflict.

The victorious cavaliers now rushed towards the sanctuaries. The lower story was of stone; the two upper were of wood. Penetrating into their recesses, they had the mortification to find the image of the Virgin and the Cross removed. But in the other edifice they still beheld the grim figure of Huitzilopochtli, with the censer of smoking hearts, and the walls of his oratory reeking with gore,- not improbably of their own countrymen!

With shouts of triumph the Christians tore the uncouth monster from his niche, and tumbled him, in the presence of the horror-struck Aztecs, down the steps of the teocalli. They then set fire to the accursed building. The flame speedily ran up the slender towers, sending forth an ominous light over city, lake, and valley, to the remotest hut among the mountains. It was the funeral pyre of paganism, and proclaimed the fall of that sanguinary religion which had so long hung like a dark cloud over the fair regions of Anahuac! No achievement in the war struck more awe into the Mexicans than this storming of the great temple, in which the white men seemed to bid defiance equally to the powers of God and man."

Catholic Ecumenism Bears Fruit!

Catholics interested in ecumenism will be delighted to hear some great news from the good folks over at Rorate Caeli: 3,000 Assyrians Received into the Catholic Church! A bishop (Mar Bawai Soro, pictured at left), six priests, 30 + seminarians, and about three thousand faithful of the Assyrian Catholic Apostolic Diocese were welcomed back into the fold on the great feast of Pentecost. The number is perhaps not insignificant: "And there were added that day about three thousand souls" (Acts 2:41).

This is a wonderful example of Catholic ecumenism as it is so clearly enunciated by Pope Pius XI in his 1928 Encyclical Letter Mortalium animos (On Religious Unity), in which he teaches that "the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it..." (paragraph 10).

Mr. Potato Head liturgy

Well, I'm back after a hiatus of a couple of days...I had to prepare 12 kids from our parish religious education class for the First Holy Communion, which we celebrated with great solemnity and joy today.

Here's something amusing from that dissident-heretical anti-ecclesiatical group Call to Action: a liturgy from their 2008 West Coast conference that is being called a "Mr. Potato Head" Mass and a "Master of Puppets" liturgy. The closing Liturgy of the 2008 West Coast Call To Action Conference, held in San Jose, California, last week demonstrates why faithful Catholics must move to convince U.S. Bishops that the time has come for the full dissolution of all false renewal (see: dissent) groups within the Church such as Call To Action.

A syncretic Buddhist meditation opening the Mass… Liturgical dancers bodies gyrating with one another and toward the Word… Life-sized Mr. Potato Head Jesus Puppets (complete with stoles) appear concelebrating the Mass… Use of leavened instead unleavened bread…Denial of the spiritual reality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit within prayer… Homily given by layperson, and other abuses I’ll leave for competent liturgical experts to define, explain and mourn. Liturgical abuse notwithstanding, all this spawn of the Devil only amplifies the reality of the endangerment of souls, whom after having allowed themselves to be led into association with formal, organized, and long-standing ecclessial disobedience to the Church, now find themselves separated from the right ordering of their Catholic faith and its practice, as conference workshops and presentations confirm.

Here is a clip of their "liturgy." Dare you watch the entire 5 minutes and 23 seconds of it?

*Sigh.* What a disaster! In the Old Testament, God only put up with so much idolatry and abuse within the Jerusalem Temple before He sent forth His immutable decree for the destruction of that disobedient people and their slavery in Babylon. Even the reforms of righteous King Josiah were not enough to assuage God's wrath after the abuses perpetrated by the wicked Manessah. Will God turn back again to us or have we offended Him so that there is nothing left but to pray for a swift end?

Seminary in the 1940's

I was just perusing through the autobiography of Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, former president of Notre Dame University for 35 years, entitled "God, Country, Notre Dame." It is an interesting book, full of Fr. Hesburgh's anecdotal stories about Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI (whom he says was his favorite pope). The book is also full of somewhat disparaging comments about different aspects of the pre-Vatican II Church, like Fr. Hesburgh's disdain for the pre-V2 fasting requirements.

One passage I found very interesting was his description of his rigorous seminary training in Hebrew during the 1940's at the Gregorian in Rome. Here's what he says:

"We had less than one week to prepare for our final exams, pack and get ready to leave [for the end of the semester]. Fortunately, I had kept up in all my subjects and did very well in them-except for Hebrew. Because that ancient language was too difficult to retain from week to week, student traditionally crammed for that final examination during the final two weeks. Anyway, Hebrew was my last exam the day before I was to leave and I had exactly twenty-four hours to get ready for the dreaded moment.

"...The first question was: "Quomodo dicitur occidet hebraece?" ("How do you say in Hebrew, 'He kills'?")

"Katal," I answered. He continued with "She kills" and "He will kill," and I was doing just fine until he got to "He was killed," and I had to say "Nescio," which in Latin means "I don't know." My Hebrew teacher, a Basque Jesuit by the name of Galdos, gave me a rather disgusted look and said, "Videamus si possis legere?" ("Let's see if you know how to read"). He then spun a Hebrew Bible that he had in front of him so that it was facing me. Luckily it was open to the first chapter of Genesis, and he put his finger on the text of the first twenty or so lines, which I had memorized. "Legas," he commanded, and I read the Hebrew text. He then asked me to translate, and I said, "Et dixit Deus, fiat lux et facta est lux," which means, of course, "And God said let there be light and there was light." The little I knew of Hebrew had not fooled Galdos, but he gave me a 6, which was the lowest passing grade for the course."

Imagine having to learn Hebrew in a class that was taught in Latin! Hebrew was then a required language, and it was just taken for granted that this class (like all classes) would be taught in Latin. In the seminary in Detroit, Latin is a one semester elective. I don't know about Hebrew, but I suspect it is not even offered. Can anyone deny that the expectations of our what our seminarians ought to know has declined in the post-V2 generation.

Conservatives denigrate TLM

I want to encourage all of you to go check out this article over at Athanasius Contra Mundum, entitled "The Glory of small 't' Tradition." This article exposes the conservative Catholic view on the disposability of small-t Tradition as flawed and explains very excellently why many Trads distrust EWTN and its cohort of mainline lay apologists. I'm sure most of you have been over and read it already, but I thought I'd give ole' Athanasius a plug anyway.

Adding to this line of thought, I recently went onto the Catholic Answers radio archives and looked up the airing of Catholic Answers Live from July 9th, 2007, the Monday after the Motu Proprio was released. The show was on questions and answers about the Traditional Latin Mass with Jerry Usher and guest Jimmy Akin. I encourage you all to go here and listen to this show yourself to get a good understanding of how conservative Catholics view the Traditional Mass (just put in July 2007 at the top and then click on the show "Pope Benedict and the Mass" for July 9th).

In this show, you will here the following:

• Host Jerry Usher and guest Jimmy Akin (JA) mispronouncing the word "Tridentine" on more than one occasion.
• JA referring to an "Anglican rite" within the Catholic Church (?)
• JA asserting that John Paul II "firmed up" the liturgy with his issuing of the 2000 Missal.
• JA doubting that a TLM fulfills a Sunday obligation.
• JA wistfully longing for an English translation of the 1962 Missal to be promulgated.

I urge you to check it out, and to contrast the view of the TLM presented on the Catholic Answers program with that expressed in Athanasius' post.

Holy Father's Visit

One of the comments I accidentally deleted today made the remark that I seem to have "lost interest" in the Holy Father's visit to the United States because I have failed to comment on it. He specifically asked whether or not I would be willing to criticize the "kumbaya fests" that happen on papal trips since I was so quick to criticize NCYC's kumbaya fests.

For the record, I did not do much commentary on the Pope's visit because so many other blogs were already doing it, and doing a much better job than I would have.

While I disagree with the point of view this commentator took, he brought up a good point: are we as equally likely to criticize the same things we dislike about NCYC when they happen to appear at a papal Mass? I love Pope Benedict XVI, but I would have to say that the answer is "yes." I am equally shocked and scandalized, perhaps even more so, when these type of song and dance events go on at papal Masses. Whatever else could be said about NCYC, I must point out that none of that dancing or drama stuff was during a Mass. The NCYC Mass was relatively free of liturgical abuse (I say relatively), aside for the poor choice of music.

The fact that Pope Benedict XVI is immersed in the Traditions of the Church makes it even worse when these types of things show up at papal Masses, and I am speaking in general here, not about any one Mass in particular. The commentator who challenged me to criticize the papal Mass seemed to be taking the papalatry stance: "Well, you shouldn't criticize NCYC's excesses because the Pope allows the same thing at his" (implying, of course, that the Pope's decision is automatically correct and therefore ought to be praised).

This line of thinking demonstrates two things: first, the unreasonable degree to whch certain Catholics extend the prerogatives of papal infallibility (i.e., that the Pope ought to be implicitly trusted and praised even in something like the music he allows at a liturgy). But we all already know about this trend. More importantly, I would point out the way in which the things that the Popes allow in their liturgies really do set an example that is followed quite consciously by others around the world. Perhaps the Pope is thinking, "Well, I don't intend this to be a norm. I just permitted it for this unique occasion." But the exceptions that he permits soon become regular praxis in the Church Universal, as every deviation and experimentation is justified with "well, the Pope allows it." Whatever the Pope's intentions are at allowing such things, this is the inevitable result.

So, am I less of a Catholic for thinking the Pope (any pope) ought not to permit the NCYC style hoopla at papal Masses? I don't think so. If you think so, then you have a very skewered idea of how far the prerogatives of obedience to the Pope go. I can be a loyal Catholic and still say the Pope's vestments at his Mariazell Mass were ugly and not in keeping with any liturgical color:

Similarly, I am free to criticize the choice of music, decora, etc., though we all have to remember that this criticism is leveled in a spirit of charity and filial devotion, not one of divisiveness and anger. We criticize the Church not in order to bring it down, but because we want it to rise. There is a world of difference.

I think the Holy Father knows what he is doing, and I am aware that he does not always make the decisions in these matters, that he has people who arrange these things for him. To be fair, his ex-Master of Ceremonies Marini was fired right after the above pictured Mass in Mariazell. But if Benedict is sincere about wanting to restore the liturgy, then he needs to speak out on these things a lot more frequently and with much more conviction, especially if they occur at one of his own Masses.

What I meant to say...

Sometimes, I run across another post on a better blog that says more clearly and concisely what I was poorly trying to say on mine. Please head over to the Cornell Society for a Good Time and look at this write up of Ben Stein's Expelled by blogger Clara for an evaluation that is much more in depth and succint than mine was. If you don't feel like reading the entire article, here is a brief quote from it, echoing my sentiments on the film:

Having seen it, I would neither advise others to see it nor discourage them. If you want to enjoy cheap laughs at the expense of the minions of scientism (a perfectly respectable form of entertainment in my view), you should see it. If you mainly want to get some clarity on the crazy debate surrounding Darwinism, don’t.

I intend to begin looking into some of the specifics of Darwinian evolution, along with the traditional Catholic view of the matter, this summer when I have some more time. In the meantime, check out Clara's post for a good analysis of this controversial film. The Cornell Society for a Good Time can always be found linked up on the sidebar.

More on NCYC

As many of you recall, my report on the National Catholic Youth Conference in November, 2007 created quite a stir on the Net and got this blog about 10,000 hits in a week. At that time, I tried desperately to find some video of this event (known as NCYC) to put up on the blog, but it was so soon after the fact that none was available. But, I knew that if I waited a few months, stuff would start to trickle out, and so it has.

Here is a video of several snippits of NCYC 2007 in Columbus, Ohio, brought to my attention by blogger Zach (thanks!); I will not make any comment on this because there is so much that could be said. Just watch and leave your comments in the comment box if you want.

Here are two videos of two different songs performed at NCYC, which emcee Steve Angrisano ignorantly described as being sung in the "African language," as if there were only one in Africa! The first was from day two, the second is "Nza mu ran za" which was a kind of theme song that was played every time the kids were supposed to pray.

Last but not least, here is a video of Fr. Tony Ricard of the New Orleans Diocese dancing:

Click here for the original post on NCYC from November, 2007

Ways of seeing Vatican II

In some sense, the essence of Traditionalism in the Catholic Church today completely hinges on the position one takes towards the Second Vatican Council. If there had not been a Second Vatican Council, the label "Traditionalist Catholic" would be redundant, because (presumably) we would still be continuing on the course charted by centuries of saints and doctors and simply to be Catholic at all would be to be a Traditionalist. After Vatican II, this heritage disappears, and exactly what role the Council played in this disappearance defines where one falls on the spectrum of traditionalism.

There are several positions Catholics take on the Council; I can think of four, which I will enumerate here:

1) Spirit of the Council: The Council was inspired by the Holy Spirit to usher in a new age of freedom from old contraints, out-moded moralities and dusty scholastic doctrines. The Council allowed us to rethink who we are as Catholics and create our Church anew, unencumbered by the reactionary baggage of past centuries. Everything is open to revision: liturgy, doctrine, morals. After all, man and culture evolve, and so must the Church. Anything is permissible if done in this spirit.

2) True Implementation: The Council was a good idea, and the Church was in dire need of reform in the 1960's. The documents and decisions of Vatican II themselves are sound and good, some of the most profound things ever to come out of ther Magisterium. However, after the Council was over, unscrupulous persons hijacked the implementation of the Council and twisted the documents to their own end, winding up with a reform quite different from the one envisioned by the Council Fathers and one detrimental to the Church. What is needed is a true implementation of the Council, going back to the documents themselves.

3) Bad Idea: The Council, while being a validly convoked ecumenical council, was a bad idea and was unneccesary. The Church was doing fine until the Council came along. Not only were the documents and decrees of the Council hijacked in their implementation after the Council ended, but the Council itself, in its convocation, deliberations, statements and decrees, was run by liberals and heretics through and through. Thus, not just the effects of the Council, but the documents and decisions of the Council itself are flawed, ambiguous or just plain stupid. Therefore, it will not help us to "go back to the documents." What is needed is not a true implementation of the Council, but a return to Catholic Tradition as it stood before the Council, and an interpretation of all Council documents in light of that Tradition.

4) No True Council: The Council was not a true Council. It was convoked illicitly by a pope who was a heretic and who thus could not convene a council. Its decrees are not binding; in fact, they are filled with heresy and contradict the Church's perennial Tradition.

Now, we can easily recognize in position 1 ("Spirit of the Council") the modernist, liberal interpretation of Vatican II that we all despise so much and that for many of us is the actual cause of our Traditionalism.

Position 2 ("True Implementation") is the position taken by our conservative friends in the Church. This position appears strong because it upholds orthodoxy and acknowledges the torrent of abuses that occurred after the Council. However, it puts itself between a rock and a hard place by attempting to divorce these abuses from the Council itself. This position commits the conservative to strike out at abuse but to stalwartly defend the Council which makes those abuses possible. This is the position I held for many years. What are some things that go along with this position?

For one, I committed myself to defending every aspect of every document the Church issued out of the Council. I had to force myself to believe that Gaudium et Spes was a profound and enlightening document, that Dignitatis Humanae was perfectly keeping with the evangelical spirit and that Sacrosanctum Concilium was a great idea. These documents were sacred and inviolable: only their implementation was faulty. But why was the implementation so universally faulty? In the education courses I take at my University, they teach us that if a student gets a question wrong on his test, he may not have understood the material. But if your entire class gets the same question wrong, then there is probably something wrong with the question itself. If it is only a problem of implementation, how is it that everybody gets it wrong? Could it be because the documents themselves are ambiguous and lend themselves to misinterpretation? If so, could it be that they are this way on purpose?

This also commits one to the notion that the Council itself was a good idea or even that it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Maintaining everything the Church believes about ecumenical councils, nowhere are we constrained to believe that the calling of any given council was prudent, or that God wanted it at that time and in that way. Whether or not the Holy Spirit wanted the Council, we cannot say, but we can say that the Church most emphatically did not need an ecumenical council in 1962. When a conservative says that the Church was in need of reform and you ask, "Why? What was wrong?", they will inevitably say some vague jargon about the pre-V2 Church being too "impersonal"; perhaps they will repeat the same things about old ladies mumbling rosaries and all that. These are not real critiques, just misunderstandings or matters of taste: hardly material that needed a Council to deal with!

I take position 3 ("Bad Idea"), that the Council, while being a true Council whose documents are legitimate decrees of the Church Universal, was nevertheless a bad idea, and that these documents themselves are ambiguous, confusing, often shallow (but not errant or heretical); furthermore, I maintain that they were rendered this way on purpose by theological liberals for the exact purpose of hijacking the Church.

The difference between a conservative and a Traditionalist is simply this: for the former, the hijcaking after the Council is the cause of our current woes; for the Trad, the post-Conciliar hijacking is merely a consequent of the Council itself, which is the source of these troubles.

If the difference between the True Implementation position and the Bad Idea position is the difference between a conservative and a Traditionalist, then the difference between the Bad Idea position and position 4 ("No True Council") is the difference between a Traditionalist and a Sedevecantist or schismatic-Traditionalist.

I once defended the Council and tried hard to persuade my mind that the Church was really better off now than in 1962. I tried to convince myself that the emperor was wearning glorious clothes, that I was basking in the new springtime of the Church and reaping the rich fruits of the Council.

I firmly maintain that Vatican II was a true Council, and that whatever the Council declared must in some way be the truth. But that doesn't mean the truth is spoken clearly, or in the right way, or in the right time, or by the right mouths, or that it is interpreted correctly after the fact, or that it is seen in context of a larger tradition. And this is the source of so much criticism.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Yesterday I went and saw Ben Stein's documentary on Intelligent Design in academia, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." I know many Catholics have shown interest in this film (it has been advertised on New Advent for the past several weeks) and it is especially pertinent because evolution is something Catholics are horridly confused on.

This movie is quite excellent and I can highly recommend it. It's only short coming is that it does not go far enough in debunking Darwin. The first half of the film consists of interviews with professors who were dismissed from their jobs for mentioning Intelligent Design. These were all high ranking and prominent doctors with excellent credentials; one who was interviewed, a Dr. Berlinski, had taught at Princeton, Stanford and many other of the most prestigous schools in the country. Many of them themselves had doctorates from Princeton, Oxford or Cambridge. All of the persons interviewed were fired for inquiring into ID. It is important to point out that they did not teach ID or expound it, but merely mentioned it as an existing hypothesis. The first doctor interviewd, Dr. Richard Sternberg, was fired simply because he reprinted an article from somebody else who mentioned Intelligent Design. These interviews revealed that a considerable degree of academic censorship exists within academia, something anybody on my blog should already know. But it is nice to see third party evidence confirming your views!

Ben Stein next examines the ethical implications of Darwinism in the second half of the movie, drawing an excellent and relevant connection between Natural Selection and Nazism, and demonstrating that Hitler and the Nazis were very much influenced by Darwin. Nazism is Darwinism followed to its logical conclusion, so the film says. Here Stein does an excellent service to all Americans when the film goes from Nazism right to a shot of a Planned Parenthood magazine. The whole sordid history of Margaret Sanger is exposed, with its eugenic and racist program, as well as its Darwinist origins, something Americans desperately need to know about.

Interspersed throughout the movie are interviews with several prominent atheists, like Richard Dawkins. It is amusing to see the other hypotheses they put forward to Ben Stein's simple question of how nature could, on its own, make the ontological leap from non-life to life. More than one said they thought that aliens could have "planted" life on earth. Another evolutionist thought that life originated on the backs of crystals; these are the alternate explanations offered by the most prominent Darwinists on how life began. To these absurd theories, Stein comments, "I thought I would get science by talking to these people, not science fiction." He also successfully exposes the anti-religious agenda of many of these atheist-scientists. One even calls religion "evil."

The only shortcoming of the film is that it lacks any criticism of Darwinism itself. Stein interviews tons of people who were fired for questioning Darwin, but does not himself demonstrate why Darwin should be questioned. He doesn't bring up the lack of transitionary fossils, or the fact that a textbook geologic column does not exist. We are left feeling that Intelligent Design should be more thoroughly investigated, but are not told what is so false or wrong about Darwin's views. If you are looking for a film to debunk evolution, this is not it.

But, I think that it was not Ben Stein's point to debunk Darwin. He was essentially trying to show two premises (1) there is an active academic persecution of those who question Darwin, and (2) Darwinism has agendas that go beyond simple science. As far as demonstrating these two points, this film is excellent.

Throughout the film, the image of the Berlin Wall is evoked as a metaphor: the wall is there to keep out threatening ideas, in this case, the idea that Darwin could have been wrong. The task this film attempts is to make people know that the wall exists, and warn us all where this type of censorship can lead us. I encourage everybody to go see this film.

I give it two out of three papal tiaras.

Tell me what's wrong

Hey everybody! I am sorry I am so busy this week and have not hand much time to post. I have kids to prepare for First Holy Communion and am quite preoccupied. By the middle of May I should be back to posting daily (hopefully), and we will see much more from Anselm as he wraps up his first year at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria.

In the meantime, I thought I'd like to put your theological skills to the test. Please watch this three minute video (courtesy of Mr. S) and then comment on why the view of salvation presented here is faulty (or, if there is anything positive in the video, point that out as well).

Too much humility or too little?

I have often wondered to myself, is the problem with people's spiritual lives (including my own) that we think too highly or that we think too lowly of ourselves? Everybody has an interior voice, a voice which consists of a continual commentary of everything we do and say. For some people, the voice is saying, "You are no good, you are a failure, you'll just screw up again." To others, the voice says, "You're the best, better than that other guy. You deserve all the credit." I wonder, which of the two is more common? More importantly, which of the two is more dangerous?

These days, it seems to me that modernist-conventional wisdom is saying that having too low and opinion of yourself is the more dangerous thing. There is a great solicitude, both in the world and in the Church, to make sure that everybody has positive self-esteem, is at peace with themselves and doesn't feel bad about the things they have done. Even if Confession is encouraged, we are admonished to forget all about our sins afterwards and be at peace with ourselves. Has any body noticed anything like this? This falls a little short of the secular-psychological insistence that we "forgive ourselves," but it is in thr same vein as far as promoting self-esteem as an unconditional positive good.

I tend to think that most people's problem is that they think too highly of themselves, at least that is the temptation for me. Furthermore, I think this is a bigger danger than the opposite defect (thinking too lowly of oneself), for several reasons:

Scripture: The Scriptures contain innumerable admonitions to be humble and abase oneself, but I cannot think of one place where they dissapprove of someone being too humble.

Spiritually: It is safer to be too low and have to be raised up than to be too high with pride and have to come down. As the Gospel says, "He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, 'Give your place to this man,' and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, 'My friend, move up to a higher position.' Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 14:7-11).

Tradition: Let's look at what some Catholic authorities have to say about humility:

Catholic Encyclopedia: Defines humility as"A quality by which a person considering his own defects has a lowly opinion of himself."

St. Francis of Assisi: "Who are You, O blessed Lord, and who am I—Your servant and a worm of earth."

Pope Clement XI: "Give me, good Lord, a love of You, hatred of myself, zeal for my neighbor, contempt of the world."

St. Bernard: Defines humility as "A virtue by which a man knowing himself as he truly is, abases himself."

St. Jose-Maria Escriva: This saint's seventh sign of a prideful heart is "Not to recognize that you are unworthy of all honors and esteem, not even of the earth you walk on and the things you possess." St. Jose Maria Escriva

St. John Climacus: Referred to himself as "so miserable a sinner, destitute of every sort of virtue."

If these are the sort of things the saints said about themselves and about humility, who are we to water down their definitions, gained by spiritual insight after much penance, for the sake of appeasing modern pop-psychobabble?

There are many more examples than this, so many so in our Tradition that it is tedious to list them all. But, the Scriptures, principles of spirituality and the writings of the saints speak clearly: the ideal in Christian life is to have a lowly opinion of oneself, even to the point of contempt and disgust for our sinfulness, so that in this humility, Christ can tell us to "come up higher." Nowhere are we exhorted to forgive ourselves, worry about positive self-esteem, or be afraid of having a too lowly opinion of ourselves. Those opinions are novelties.

Boyea's Apostolic Succession

One week from tomorrow, on the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, my diocese will have a new bishop installed, Bishop Earl Boyea, formerly Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit. I'm sure many of you know about this site already, but at Catholic Hierarchy you can look up every member of the hierarchy, see their biographical information, follow up on what bishops died and are appointed every single day and get many other interesting tidbits of episcopal minutae.

Most interesting to me is that this site gives each bishop's "episcopal lineage," or their geneaology of apostolic succession. I looked up Bishop Boyea and was surprised to find that his succession comes through Pope St. Pius X. Have a look (dates are of ordination) :

Earl Boyea ordained by Cardinal Maida (2002)
Cardinal Maida ordained by Pio Cardinal Laghi (1984)
Cardinal Laghi ordained by Cardinal Cicognani (1969)
Cardinal Cicognani ordained by Cardinal Rossi (1933)
Cardinal Rossi ordained by Cardinal De Lai (1920)
Cardinal De Lai ordained by Pope St. Pius X (1911)
Pope St. Pius X (Giuseppe Sarto) ordained by Cardinal Parocchi (1884)
Cardinal Parocchi ordained by Cardinal Patrizi Naro (1871)
Cardinal Patrizi Naro ordained by Cardinal Odescalchi (1828)
Cardinal Odescalchi ordained by Cardinal della Somaglia (1823)
Cardinal della Somaglia ordained by Bl. Hyacinthe-Sigismond Cardinal Gerdil (1788)
Bl. Cardinal Gerdil ordained by Cardinal Colonna (1777)
Cardinal Colonna ordained by Pope Clement XIII (1762)
Pope Clement XIII (Carlo della Torre Rezzonico) ordained by Pope Benedict XIV (1743)
Pope Benedict XIV (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini) ordained by Pope Benedict XIII (1724)
Pope Benedict XIII (Orsini de Gravina) ordained by Cardinal Albertoni (1675)
Cardinal Albertoni ordained by Cardinal Carpegna (1666)
Cardinal Carpegna ordained by Cardinal Caetani (1630)
Cardinal Caetani ordained by Cardinal Ludovisi (1622)
Cardinal Ludovisi ordained by Archbishop Sanvitale (1621)
Cardinal Sanvitale ordained by Cardinal Bernerio (1604)
Cardinal Bernerio ordained by Cardinal Santorio (1586)
Cardinal Santorio ordained by Cardinal Rebiba (1566)

The list ends at Cardinal Rebiba. Try looking up your bishop!

St. Anselm, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church

Today is the III Class Feast of St. Anselm, and it is also the 99th anniversary of Pope St. Pius X’s Encyclical Letter Communium Rerum (On St. Anselm of Aosta), itself issued on the 8th Centenary of St. Anselm’s death in 1109.

I lieu of writing any meagre words of my own in honor of this great saint, whom I have chosen as a theological patron, I offer to you some selections from the saintly pontiff Pius X (do follow the link and read the whole encyclical though).

The pope highlights two things in particular about St. Anselm: his tireless fight for the liberty of the Church (he lived in the era of the investiture controversy), and against false philosophy. The pope sees in Anselm a man for our own times, in which also the Church is besieged by those within and those without. The enemies of the Church without (especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) set the rights of the Church at naught and the enemies of the Crhuch within spread the pernicious heresy of modernism everywhere they go.

5. ...We have examples of this in the Saints of other centuries, whom God raised up to resist by their virtue and wisdom the fury of persecution against the Church and the diffusion of iniquity in the world. One of these We wish especially in these Letters to commemorate, now that the eighth centenary of his death is being solemnly celebrated. We mean the Doctor Anselm of Aosta, most vigorous exponent of Catholic truth and defender of the rights of the Church, first as Monk and Abbot in France. and later as Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate in England...

12. Recalling all these things, venerable brethren, with special interest during the solemn commemoration of the great Doctor, we shall find in them splendid examples for our admiration and imitation; nay, reflection on them will also furnish Us with strength and consolation amid the pressing cares of the government of the Church and of the salvation of souls, helping Us never to fail in our duty of co-operating with all our strength in order that all things may be restored in Christ, that "Christ may be formed" in all souls (Galat. iv. 19), and especially in those which are the hope of the priesthood, of maintaining unswervingly the doctrine of the Church, of defending strenuously the liberty of the Spouse of Christ, the inviolability of her divine rights, and the plenitude of those safeguards which the protection of the Sacred Pontificate requires.

[regarding the threat to the Church from without]

13. For you are aware, venerable brethren, and you have often lamented it with Us, how evil are the days on which we have fallen, and how iniquitous the conditions which have been forced upon Us... For what more unnatural sight could be witnessed than that of some of those children whom the Church has nourished and cherished as her first-born, her flower and her strength, in their rage turning their weapons against the very bosom of the Mother that has loved them so much! And there are other countries which give us but little cause for consolation, in which the same war, under a different form, has either broken out already or is being prepared by dark machinations. For there is a movement in those nations which have benefited most from Christian civilization to deprive the Church of her rights, to treat her as though she were not by nature and by right the perfect society that she is, instituted by Christ Himself, the Redeemer of our nature, and to destroy her reign, which, although primarily and directly affecting souls, is not less helpful for their eternal salvation than for the welfare of human society; efforts of all kinds are being made to supplant the kingdom of God by a reign of license under the lying name of liberty...

[regarding the threat to the Church from within]

15. But with no less severity and sorrow have We been obliged to denounce and to put down another species of war, intestine and domestic, and all the more disastrous the more hidden it is. Waged by unnatural children, nestling in the very bosom of the Church in order to rend it in silence, this war aims more directly at the very root and the soul of the Church. They are trying to corrupt the springs of Christian life and teaching, to scatter the sacred deposit of the faith, to overthrow the foundations of the divine constitution by their contempt for all authority, pontifical as well as episcopal, to put a new form on the Church, new laws, new principles, according to the tenets of monstrous systems, in short to deface all the beauty of the Spouse of Christ for the empty glamour of a new culture, falsely called science, against which the Apostle frequently puts us on our guard: "Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy and vain deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ (Colos. ii. 8).

16. By this figment of false philosophy and this shallow and fallacious erudition, joined with a most audacious system of criticism, some have been seduced and "become vain in their thoughts" (Rom. i. 1), "having rejected good conscience they have made shipwreck concerning the faith" (I Tim. i. 19), they are being tossed about miserably on the waves of doubt, knowing not themselves at what port they must land; others, wasting both time and study, lose themselves in the investigation of abstruse trifling, and thus grow estranged from the study of divine things and of the real springs of doctrine. This hot-bed of error and perdition (which has come to be known commonly as modernism from its craving for unhealthy novelty) although denounced several times and unmasked by the very excesses of its adepts, continues to be a most grave and deep evil. It lurks like poison in the vitals of modern society, estranged as this is from God and His Church, and it is especially eating its way like a cancer among the young generations which are naturally the most inexperienced and heedless. It is not the result of solid study and true knowledge, for there can be no real conflict between reason and faith (Concil. Vatic., Constit. Dei filius, cap. 4). But it is the result of intellectual pride and of the pestiferous atmosphere that prevails of ignorance or confused knowledge of the things of religion, united with the stupid presumption of speaking about and discussing them. And this deadly infection is further fomented by a spirit of incredulity and of rebellion against God, so that those who are seized by the blind frenzy for novelty consider that they are all sufficient for themselves, and that they are at liberty to throw off either openly or by subterfuge the entire yoke of divine authority, fashioning for themselves according to their own caprice a vague, naturalistic individual religiosity, borrowing the name and some semblance of Christianity but with none of its life and truth.

[regarding Anselm's intellectual contribution to the preservation of Doctrine]

45. Without entering here in detail into the intellectual state of the clergy and people in that distant age, there was a notable danger in a twofold excess to which the intellects of the time were prone.

46. There was at the time a class of lightminded and vain men, fed on a superficial erudition, who became incredibly puffed up with their undigested culture, and allowed themselves to be led away by a simulacrum of philosophy and dialectics. In their inane fallacy, which they called by the name of science, "they despised the sacred authority, dared with impious temerity to dispute one or other of the dogmas professed by Catholic faith . . . and in their foolish pride considered anything they could not understand as impossible, instead of confessing with humble wisdom that there might be many things beyond the reach of their comprehension. . . For there are some who immediately they have begun to grow the horns of an overweening knowledge - not knowing that when a person thinks he knows something, he does not yet know in what manner he should know it - before they have grown spiritual wings through firmness in the faith, are wont to rise presumptuously to the highest questions of the faith. Thus it happens that while against all right rules they endeavor to rise prematurely by their intelligence, their lack of intelligence brings them down to manifold errors" (S. Anselm., De Fide Trinitatis, cap. 2). And of such as these we have many painful examples under our eyes!

47. Others, again, there were of a more timid nature, who in their terror at the many cases of those who had made shipwreck of the faith, and fearing the danger of the science that puffeth up, went so far as to exclude altogether the use of philosophy, if not of all rational discussion of the sacred doctrines.

55. ...Anselm laid the foundations of the true principles of philosophical and theological studies which other most learned men, the princes of scholasticism, and chief among them the Doctor of Aquin, followed, developed, illustrated and perfected to the great honor and protection of the Church. If We have insisted so willingly on this distinction of Anselm, it is in order to have a new and much-desired occasion, venerable brethren, to inculcate upon you to see to it that you bring back youth, especially among the clergy, to the most wholesome springs of Christian wisdom, first opened by the Doctor of Aosta and abundantly enriched by Aquinas.

Dalai Lama in Ann Arbor, MI

While Pope Benedict has been visiting the United States, the Dalai Lama has been visiting Ann Arbor, MI., very close to my home. I have largely ignored his visit, but the local papers have done quite a bit of reporting on it. I wanted to relate a story I heard:

I saw a Catholic woman today who told me she had just come back from seeing the Dalai Lama. I jokingly asked her if she had thrown some water on him when he wasn't looking and said the words of baptism. She laughed, but told me that in his talk today (4/20), he related to the crowd how he had visited to shrine at Fatima to venerate Mary. There, he claims that the statue of the Blessed Virgin turned her head and smiled at him (!). Then, he followed that story up with these astonishing words: "I am a Christian!"

Obviously, he does not understand what being a Christian means if he says that yet simultaneously maintains to be the 14th reincarnation of the enlightened "Tulku" Buddhist Masters. It is not surprising to me, either, that given the modern state of the Church, he felt welcome at Fatima and claimed that the Blessed Virgin smiled at him. I have no corroboration for this story other that the words of this woman who heard them from his mouth today. Any thoughts on it? UPDATE: PLEASE SEE COMMENTS FOR CLARIFICATION AND CORROBORATION OF THIS STORY