The scandal of Catholic politicians supporting abortion

An editorial by the editors of National Review:

It's a dark scandal in American politics that so many Catholic politicians
promote abortion and same-sex "marriage." Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is
trying to turn the tide by holding Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island
Democrat, accountable for supporting abortion on demand. Dissenting from
Catholic teaching is a Kennedy family tradition. It's about time somebody did
something about it.

Interesting. But the editorial points out there are risks for bishops who take a public stand like that of Bishop Tobin.

There are risks for anyone who manfully defends the Christian faith.

But it needs to be done. Thank God there are men like Bishop Tobin.

From the Book of Revelation 12:10-11(my bolds):

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and
strength, and the kingdom of our God, and hte power of his Christ: for the
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and
night.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the
word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death.

Climatequiddick? Climategate?

Whatever. Here's a gem from Victor Davis Hanson:

While the president is sermonizing on global warming in connection with his Asian tour and the visit of India's head of state, we get the release of hacked emails from the British climate research center that seem to make a mockery of the entire climate-change debate — reducing it to the nasty level of academic infighting, fraud, and con games that we have become accustomed to in the postmodern Western university. At a time when the president is asserting the need for radical changes in our lives, the "science" that he once insisted would be the cornerstone of his new administration, appears shaky at best, and at worst a sort of 19th-century phrenology.

snip

So far, the affability of the president has offset the unpopularity of his agenda and kept his positive ratings between 45 percent and 55 percent in various polls. But when the public gets a whiff of the nasty fraudulence of the global-warming cadre, the Chicago-style villainy of ACORN, and reset-button diplomacy reduced to photogenic groveling, it hurts the president where he needs to be the strongest — if he is to push America hard to the left, where it doesn't seem to wish to go.

This would be a sight to behold

Father Z writes about Bishop Tobin's rude treatment by Chris Matthews on Hardball:

[Hmmm… perhaps a mild mannered bishop shouldn’t have been on it. But should a catholic priest or bishop go on Hardball and be willing and able to throw down, that could be a sight to behold.]

Amen to that.

Altar girls--aka serviettes

Mantilla the Hon writes on Fr. Dwight's blog:

So these girls come marching up and one of them is skinny and little and is wearing a ponytail. She's real cute, but the cassock alb isn't doing her any favors. It's way too big and she's trying not to fall over it. Then a big girl is carrying the cross and she is wearing dangling earrings, and she's maybe too pudgy you know? She's wearing bright green sneakers, and the cassock alb doesn't help. Then the other one is maybe seventeen and she's very good looking and she has her alb hitched up so you can see she has pretty nice legs, and she's wearing some nice high heeled shoes with her toes sticking out and with sparkles on. I can see Bob is leaning over to get a better look, and I don't think he's thinking much about Jesus.

So what is this with the altar girls? I can tell you hon, I think it's a mistake. You know, whatever they look like, you're wondering about their clothes and make up and not thinking about Jesus. I send an email later to Monsignor Quixote, my old professor of Ecclesiastical Haberdashery at Salamanca University.

He says, "Madre de Dios! This is a crime. I know the Holy Father says it's okay, but that makes me question papal infallibility I can tell you." He alway make me laugh, Monsignor. Hon, he say to me, "This should be for the boys because the altar servers, they are like little deacons. They serve at the altar and many, many boys first sense their vocation to the priesthood when they altar serve. How is this going to help us get more vocations if they let the girls do it? You see, boys don't want to do things with girls. They want to do things with their buddies and with the men. Then all they do is think that Mass is for girls."

"That's right! That's what Jimmy said."

So anyway hon. Maybe I'm making you mad, but you know what I mean? I think the girls should find other ways to serve God. What is this crazy thing anyway when everybody think that to do something for God you have to do something at the altar? This is for the priest.

Another example of human rights commissions gone crazy

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has updated its policy on discrimination concerning those dependent on alcohol or drugs and, you guessed it!, the more deeply into the booze or smoke you are, the more your employer can't discriminate against you and must find ways to accommodate you.

Check this out:

Drug and alcohol testing is prima facie discriminatory under Canadian human
rights law. Nevertheless, employers can justify discriminatory practices and
rules if they are a bona fide occupational requirement (BFOR).[the onus of proof rests with the employer. Remember the punishment is the process with these complaints.]
In Entrop v. Imperial Oil9, the Ontario Court of Appeal noted a critical difference between alcohol and drug tests. Alcohol tests such as a Breathalyzer test can determine whether a person is actually impaired at the moment the test is administered. In other words, an alcohol test, if applied to a person while on the job, can tell whether that person is fit to do their job. On the other hand, the Court noted that drug tests such as urinalysis cannot measure whether a person is under the effect of a drug at the time the test is administered. A drug test can only detect past
drug use. An employer who administers a drug test cannot tell whether that
person is impaired at that moment, or is likely to be impaired while on the
job. [Last time I checked use of marijuana is still illegal. Same with cocaine. So if someone tests positively for this drug, it may tell a whole lot of other things about the character of the user beyond impairment. Doesn't an employer have the right to ensure his or her employees are of good character, i.e. they obey the laws of the land?]
If testing is part of a broader program of medical assessment, monitoring and support, employers can test for alcohol in any of the following situations:
on a random basis, for employees who hold safety-sensitive
positions; for "reasonable cause," where an employee reports for work in an
unfit state and there is evidence of substance abuse; after a significant
incident or accident has occurred and there is evidence that an employee’s act
or omission may have contributed to the incident or accident; or
following treatment for alcohol abuse, or disclosure of a current alcohol dependency or abuse.
If testing is part of a broader program of medical assessment, monitoring and support, employers can test for drugs in any of the following situations:
for "reasonable cause," where an employee reports for work in an
unfit state and there is evidence of substance abuse;
after a significant incident or accident has occurred and there is evidence that an employee’s act or omission may have contributed to the incident or accident; or
following treatment for drug abuse, or disclosure of a current drug dependency or abuse.
(Usually, a physician or substance abuse professional will determine whether
follow-up testing is necessary for a particular individual.)
Furthermore, in accordance with a 2003 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision10, commercial bus operators can subject their drivers to pre-employment and random alcohol and drug testing as long as they accommodate employees who are found to be drug or alcohol dependent. [That's reassuring!]The Commission has extended the Tribunal’s decision to trucking operations. [ditto!]

If an employer, other than those in commercial bus and trucking operations, believes that it may be able to justify random and pre-employment testing of its employees in safety-sensitive positions, these are the some of the factors that may be considered by the Commission in determining whether testing is a bona fide occupational
requirement: whether employees are under direct supervision;
whether there are less invasive alternatives to drug and alcohol testing
that may help employers determine whether employees in safety-sensitive
positions are impaired on the job; whether there is evidence of a high
incidence of drug use in the workplace or industry; whether the employer
offers a comprehensive employer-supported rehabilitation program; and
whether the employer is required to comply with legislation or regulations,
such as occupational health and safety legislation, or U.S. Department of
Transportation regulations.
6. Specific Drug and Alcohol
Testing Practices
6.1 Pre-Employment Drug and Alcohol
Testing
Testing for alcohol or drugs is a form of medical examination. Any
employment-related medical examination or inquiry must be limited to determining
an individual’s ability to perform the essential requirements of the job. An
employer must therefore demonstrate that pre-employment drug or alcohol testing
effectively assesses an applicant’s ability to discharge their employment
responsibilities. Since a positive pre-employment drug or alcohol test cannot
predict whether the individual will be impaired at any time while on the job,
pre-employment testing may not be shown to be reasonably necessary to accomplish the legitimate goal of hiring workers who will not be impaired at work11.
Pre-employment drug or alcohol testing is permitted only in limited circumstances, such as when the individual has disclosed an existing or recent history of drug or alcohol abuse, or where a pre-employment medical exam provides the physician with
reasonable cause to believe that an individual may be abusing drugs or alcohol
and therefore may become impaired on the job. In addition, commercial bus and
truck operations can subject their drivers to pre-employment testing12.
However, an employer cannot automatically withdraw offers of employment from prospective employees who fail their drug or alcohol test, without first addressing the issue of accommodation13.
Applicants for employment who have signed a waiver or release agreeing to undergo a pre-employment drug test may still be able to file a human rights complaint if they have been treated unfavourably or are denied employment as a result of testing positively.

More from Fr. Dwight Longenecker

He explains here why he left the Anglican Church for the Catholic Church. What he writes here also helps explain in a much more articulate way the difference between the Archbishop of Canterbury's idea of divine filiation and what I believe the faith as handed down from the eyewitness accounts of the Apostles tells us. He writes:

I'm often asked why I left the Anglican Church to become a Catholic. Was it women's ordination or some other issue? Well, the debate over women's ordination was an influence. It made me re-examine the question of authority in the church. I have written about my conversion several places, and these articles can be found on my website under the 'articles' tab.

However, the more I think about the reasons for my conversion, the more I realize that the real problem was not women's ordination, nor was it, at depth, the question of authority in the church. Women's ordination was a problem and the authority of Rome was the answer, but there was a deeper, underlying problem with the Anglican Church as I experienced it. The problem is modernism -- a philosophical and theological position which is deeply opposed to historic Christianity.

The foundational problem with modernism is that it is anti-supernaturalist. The most foundational difficulty with the anti supernaturalism of the modernist is that he has an anti-Christian conception of God. For the modernist God is either totally immanent. That is He is 'down here' and not transcendent, or he is so totally transcendent as to be a sort of deist God who is 'out there' and does not intervene. What the modernist theologian cannot believe in is a God who is both immanent and transcendent--a God who is 'out there' but who touches this world and ultimately enters this world through the incarnation.

The modernist cannot believe in this kind of God because that would introduce miracles and the supernatural, and for the modernist such things are impossible. The effect of this distorted deity is also an un-Christian view of man. If there is no supernatural, if God is either totally 'out there' or totally 'down here' then man is definitely a creature limited to this world only. His only hope is to find the God who is 'down here' which means he invariably goes on a search for the 'God within each of us' or he decides that religion is about making this world a better place.

From the distorted deity of the modernist and the un-Christian anthropology comes an un-Christian understanding of Christ and the gospels. The modernist cannot accept the old supernaturalist understanding of a Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Atonement and the Resurrection. These events must be 'de mythologized' and re-interpreted. Consequently, the whole understanding of the salvation of souls is totally eviscerated. Jesus Christ's death on the cross is nothing more than the martyrdom of a good man. For the modernist it cannot be a saving sacrifice. Such metaphysical and medieval concepts are impossible given his faulty theology and anthropology. At most the sacrifice of Christ is a symbol of human selflessness and sacrificial love, but even this is a nonsense if all we have is the senseless death of a political prisoner.

But as he points out in a subsequent post, there are a whole of Catholics who have demythologyzed all the dogma, too.

And this:

So when they said they believed in the Incarnation they actually believed that "Jesus Christ was the most fulfilled human who ever lived. He was so self actualized that he achieved a kind of divine status. He, more than anyone else, was one with the god within." When they 'affirmed' the Virgin Birth they really meant that Mary was an especially pure young woman before she had intercourse with Joseph or a Roman soldier. When they proclaimed from their pulpit on Easter Day, "Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!" what they meant was, "In some sort of wonderful way I would want to say that Jesus Christ continued to inspire his followers after his tragic death."

I used to think that his lie was simply being told in the halls of academia, that the rot was really only in the universities, but of course it was not only there. It had been disseminated throughout the Anglican Church through the education of the clergy for the last fifty or sixty years. Of course there were pockets of true belief and there are still. In making this critique of Anglicanism I am not damning all Anglicans.

However, Catholics who are involved in ecumenism should be aware that this is the real nature of the people they are talking to. The Anglican theologians will talk a Catholic language, but they mean something totally opposed to Catholicism when they do. They will talk a Christian language, but they mean something totally opposed to Christianity when they do. We must not imagine that this modernism is held only by radical theologians and heretical bishops. It is the mainstream.

What could possibly go wrong with the KSM trial?

Dr. Sanity asks:

Q: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
A: Oh, just about everything....



[Political Cartoons by Chip Bok ]

A regiment of the Church Militant

Hmmmm. The Anglo-Catholic has lots of good exhortation here.

Clearly we are not being invited by the Holy Father into a haven of rest, but rather, into a boxing ring. Be assured that we fight on the side of the Catholic Faith in all such struggles. We are not mere refugees, but regiments of the Church Militant, at last being fully integrated into the regular army. We may even dare to hope that more will enter in upon what has been called the “Anglican bridge,” and that we will be an example and encouragement to the Orthodox Churches as well, all to the ultimate enrichment of the whole Church.

Of course there are still specific technical questions to be answered. Some of these are quite important, and they cannot be understated or sidestepped. There is also still a good deal of catechesis required, concluding in personal commitments by all who desire union. But — and here I speak especially to any Anglo-Catholic cynics — I think this boils down to a question of trust, specifically, trust that Rome will continue to deal fairly and generously with us. Yes, it is theoretically possible that Anglicanorum Coetibus is a “bait and switch,” and that our Vatican administrators or a future Pope will lord it over us with an iron fist, and either wring our Anglican patrimony out of us or drive us out once again on our own. It seems unlikely that Rome would go to all this trouble to play such a dirty trick on such a small and motley crew as us. More importantly, let us not forget that one of the purposes of our careful prayers and efforts, enjoined upon us by our own tradition, is the unity of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. Those of us who keep the Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer entreat God regularly, even daily, for an end to our unhappy divisions, and unity among all believers in the Body of Christ. Well, my fellow Anglicans, unless we are prepared to resort to calling the Pope the Antichrist and the RCC the Whore of Babylon, it seems to me those prayers are being answered before our eyes. Did we really mean it when we prayed? Are we ready to put our money where our mouth is? If we object, to what are we really objecting? Did we imagine that accomplishing God’s will in this matter would cost us nothing? Do we accept the movement of the Spirit when we see it, or do we serve only our own private and provincial interests? As for me, my life and ministry are not my own to do with as I please, and the unity of the Church — from the parish level, all the way up — is a cause for which I am willing to sacrifice.

Catholic bishops likely to welcome Anglican personal ordinariates

OTTAWA - Two leading Catholic prelates expect Canada’s bishops to respond positively to the new structure to welcome Anglicans into the Catholic Church.

“I think it will be well received,” said Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet of the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus that will establish personal ordinariates for groups of Anglicans wishing to become Catholic.

“It is a new reality, but it is officially affirmed and recognized and so it will be integrated without difficulties in the assembly of bishops at the national level.”

“What struck me about the apostolic constitution and the complementary norms was its subtlety in respecting the Anglican request and its simultaneous need to win over the local Roman Catholic ordinaries, inviting them in effect to collaborate and to be mutually enriched,” said Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., a member of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Permanent Council.

Prendergast used as an example Pope Benedict XVI’s wish that the two forms of the Mass — the Novus Ordo and the Usus antiquior — should enrich each other.

“I see the same approach in this initiative in ecumenical sensitivity,” the archbishop said, adding he believed personal ordinariates will be “received warmly” by his brother bishops in Canada. He said he hopes it meets the same welcome around the world.

The cardinal also remarked on the flexible approach towards priestly celibacy. The apostolic constitution takes into account the Anglican tradition of a married priesthood, he said, without using the integration of Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church as a “way of abandoning the Latin tradition of celibate clergy.”

The rule of celibacy has not changed, he said, though the apostolic constitution allows for possible exceptions.

It's called Christmas!

It's about the birth of Christ.

Wonderful prayer on the Archbishop's blog

From Archbishop Prendergast's enlightening blog:

Today's possible liturgical memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J. offers a
fitting connection with yesterday's Solemnity of Christ the King and devotion to
the Sacred Heart. The memorable line of Pro's is his last, uttered before he was executed for being a Catholic priest and serving his flock:

¡Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King!

Blessed Miguel Pro teaches us to serve Christ the King all that we do
and remain close to the mercy of God. He wrote:

I believe, O Lord, but strengthen my faith... Heart of Jesus, I love Thee; but increase my love. Heart of Jesus, I trust in Thee; but give greater vigor to my confidence. Heart of Jesus, I give my heart to Thee; but so enclose it in Thee that it may never be separated from Thee. Heart of Jesus, I am all Thine; but take care of my promise so that I may be able to put it in practice even unto the complete sacrifice of my life.

Modernism's effects on the Anglican and Catholic Churches

This is an excellent analysis and something that I am coming to see and assent to with greater and greater Yes! and Amen! Father Dwight Longenecker writes:

The moral crisis among Catholic clergy which has caused so much pain and
scandal is the direct effect of mixing clerical celibacy (which modernists
simply cannot understand) with modernism and the moral relativism of
the sexual revolution. The resulting cocktail was disastrously
poisonous.However, there are two distinct differences in the circumstances of
Anglicanism and Catholicism. The first is that, while the Catholics have fallen
into the same moral morass as Anglicanism, what they are doing has not been
condoned and sanctioned by the Church. Yes, there are Catholic homosexual
priests, Catholic bishops and priests and people who support women's ordination,
Catholic people who favor abortion, remarriage after divorce etc. etc. The
Church teaching, however, is clear and uncompromising. So in the Catholic Church
you find Church teaching which is firm and clear and traditional, but some
Catholics dissent and have their own opinion which is liberal. In the Anglican
Church is is virtually the reverse: the Church teaching is either non existent,
open ended or actually sanctions the modernist stance but you have individual
Anglicans who choose to hold to the traditional, historic faith. The second
fact, on which the first is built is that while Catholics are besieged by
modernism, we still have the magisterium of the Church which repudiates
modernism and offers the guide for authentic historic Christianity in the world
today. We have a Catechism which states the church's teaching clearly and
positively. The Popes hold the line, defending, defining and teaching the faith
in the face of modernism, and in opposition to it. The fact of the matter is
that the Catholic Church defends historic Christianity and those of the faithful
who go adrift do so knowingly. They are sheep who have strayed from the fold and
from the Good Shepherd.Individual Anglicans, on the other hand, are sheep
without a shepherd. Without a clear authority structure they must make up
their own minds, and while there is certainly some value in such independence of
mind and action, it must be said that if one is going on a journey it would be
possible to wander to the destination asking directions along the way, but it
would be more sensible to use a map.This brings me to the accusation that
many non-Catholics make about Catholics: that we are unthinking zombie clones
who are drinking the Kool-Aid and marching in lock step behind the Master. To be
sure there are some Catholics who switch off their brains (as do many
modernists) but this is not the expectation or the ideal. What is the proper
relationship to dogma and infallible authority? It must be that the dogma, the
moral code and the infallible authority are means to an end--they are not the
end in themselves.For a Catholic the dogma and the moral code which is given by
the infallible authority of the Church is simply the ladder on which we climb.
They are the map for the journey; the signposts on the way. They are vitally
important, but it is the pilgrimage to heaven which is most important, and the
final goal in this life is to get to the point where we walk on this pilgrimage
so formed and guided by the dogmas and moral code that we no longer rely on
them. We have learned to run on the path of God's perfection with the perfect
delight of love, doing all those things which were once burdensome with the
simplicity of freedom and the beauty of holiness.

Which saint interceded for the TAC?

Interesting:

Yesterday we conveyed the suspicion of former Episcopal and now Kansas City Catholic priest, Father Ernie Davis, that the intercession of St. Therese of Lisieux was behind the Vatican’s move to provide a structure to welcome Anglicans into full
communion. Now, the Anglican Catholic Bishop of Canada strongly confirms that
thought.

Father Davis, who leads St. Therese Little Flower parish in Kansas City
which hosts an Anglican Use community, wrote of the news from the Vatican:

Anglicans and Catholics flocked to visit the relics of Saint Therese of
Lisieux as they made a very recent pilgrimage to England. Her relics rested on
her 2009 feast day at York Minster, the Cathedral of the Anglican Archbishop of
York. When I read about that, I told the people here at St. Therese Little
Flower that she was working on something big. In other words, preparations for
this Apostolic Constitution have been in process for 170 years, and some of the
preparations have been made at levels that are higher than popes.

The Traditional Anglican Communion Bishop of Canada saw the claim and
sent an email today to Father Davis with remarkable details of St. Therese’
intercession. Here’s the email:

Dear Father Davis,
Your story about the Anglican Ordinariate and St
Therese (which came to me via England this morning) is very interesting. And I
can tell you another connexion with her.
I am the Anglican Catholic Bishop
of Canada in the TAC. I was present at the Synod of TAC Bishops in Portsmouth
England in October 2007 which voted unanimously to ask for full communion, and
signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The first full day of the Synod was
October 1st, the 'new' date of St Therese's feast, and the actual vote to ask
for full communion was taken on October 3rd 'old' date of her feast.

I also accompanied the Primate and Bishop Robert Mercer CR to deliver
the Letter to the CDF where we had been directed by the Holy Father. My friend
Mother Teresa of the Carmel in Edmonton had given me some holy cards with a
piece of cloth touched to her relics. Each of us carried one of these cards, and
we asked St Therese's prayers on our venture. We also had similar cards from
Poland of the Servant of God John Paul II.

I have continued 'to bother her' about a favourable response to our
request, and now thanks to the generosity and love of the Holy Father who has
taken a personal interest in us for many years, and the prayers of St Therese,
something wonderful has come about.
God bless you,

+Peter Wilkinson, OSG Bishop Ordinary Anglican Catholic Church of
Canada TAC

What does divine filiation look like?

The ABC, otherwise known as the Archbishop of Canterbury, said the following about divine filiation, according to my journalistic colleague Guardian religion reporter Riazat Butt, with whom I shared some meals in Rome more than a year a ago (my bolds):

In his address at the Gregorian University, Williams said the Anglican communion
was proof that churches could stay together in spite of their differences.

The communion has teetered on the edge of schism for nearly a decade
over the issue of gay clergy but has retained a sliver of fellowship. Williams
urged Roman Catholics to continue their 35-year dialogue with Anglicans in spite
of theological and ideological divisions.

He said: "The various agreed statements of the churches stress that the church is a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God. [The problem though is that Williams sees the end result of being a son or daughter of God very differently. Williams believes, for example, that committed gay marriages are on a par with heterosexual marriages. Sexual activity that is sterile and by definition not open to life is not part of God's plan.]

"When so much agreement has been established in first-order matters about the identity and mission of the church, is it justifiable to treat other issues as equally vital for its health and integrity?" [The second-order matters might be a reflection of the first-order matters]

Those issues included papal primacy, female clergy and the relations between the local and universal church in making decisions. "Is there a level of mutual recognition which allows a shared theological understanding of primacy alongside a diversity of canonical and juridical arrangements?" he wondered

Williams challenged Roman Catholic thinking on female bishops, saying there was no proof that their ordination damaged the church.

Well, here's proof. The mitre alone, which looks like a mustard-colored oven mitt, is damage enough. But Bishopess Jefferts-Schori goes on in this interview in ways that are tremendously damaging for the Christian faith:

Stephen Crittenden: I was almost going to suggest it may actually be far more
significant than the fact that you're a woman, that here you are dealing with
issues of sexuality, a bishop with a background, a serious background in
biology. And what an important breakthrough that in itself is, the kind of
issues that biology opens on to in terms of complexity and sexuality and so on.

Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well if one looks at the rest of creation,
there are lots and lots of instances of same-sex behaviour in other species.
They're generally a small percentage of the whole, but they're clearly evident.
If they exist, an evolutionary theorist would say they have some kind of
evolutionary benefit, or they don't have a massive evolutionary detriment, and
if we can affirm that creation is good, as Genesis would say, then I think we
have to take those instances quite seriously.

-snip-

Stephen
Crittenden: I have to ask you about your recent comment which raised hackles I'm
sure you're aware, all around the world, about Jesus as mother.

Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well anyone who knows the tradition knows
that it's a very popular image in mediaeval mysticism. A former Archbishop of
Canterbury, 11th century Ansolm of Canterbury goes on at great length about
'Jesus, our mother'. It's a favourite image of Julian of Norwich and Bernard of
Clarevaux, and countless others. It's a metaphor, as all language about God is a
metaphor, and I used it in that sermon in intentional ways because it fitted the
text.

Stephen Crittenden: Some people saw it as a deliberate
provocation, that particularly at this moment when events and ideas in the
Anglican Church are so fraught.

Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well perhaps
it's a reminder of the breadth of our tradition, and I certainly didn't intend
it as provocation. I was simply preaching the gospel as I saw it that day.

Stephen Crittenden: I guess we should just dwell on it a little bit more
because it's not an idea we hear very often. What is it a metaphor for, Jesus as
mother?

Katherine Jefferts Schori: It's a metaphor for new creation.
When we insist that the Christ event in the death and resurrection of Jesus
brings a new possibility of life, a new kind of life to humanity, it is
certainly akin to rebirth. When Jesus says to Nicodemus You must be born again
from above, what might he mean? I think it is a way of the gospel is saying that
Jesus is a venue, an event, an experience, and an instance in which life is
renewed, in which every human being as access to new life.

Jesus is just a metaphor for new life, like the newness of flowers in the spring, the birds building their nests, blah blah. This is ghastly. I don't know how people can feel spiritually fed hearing this kind of garbage.

Divine filiation for Schori and for the ABC seems to mean that we come to realize that God loves us as we are and that we merely have to come to accept ourselves and love ourselves as we are. It's a kind of therapeutic gospel, or at least it strikes me that way. Sin is such an old-fashioned word in this paradigm--instead we need to look at systemic social problems. Sin is not paying enough attention to global warming or socialist redistrution of wealth schemes. The nouveau Anglican gospel is to celebrate the will of the flesh and call it divine filiation, while closing off opportunities for their followers to hear about the necessity to die to sin and to live in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything is a metaphor even Christ's rising from the dead.

And it' s also a gospel where science and the latest social science trumps God-revealed Holy Scripture and where instead of the Truth being the same yesterday, today and forever, it is constantly evolving.

No thanks! We may not fully know what we will be when we are revealed as Gods sons and daughters but we know that we shall be like Jesus and we will see him as he is.

And that means we will be holy, chaste and shining like the Son with signs following.

Fascinating developments on the Anglican/ Catholic front

It was most interesting to see video of Cardinal Walter Kasper via Ruth Gledhill's blog.v

Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, spoke to journalists after the Archbishop of Canterbury had finished speaking at the Willebrands Conference at the Gregorian University in Rome yesterday. See also Tom Heneghan's report on Reuters.

He's quite a charmer, that Kasper. Adorable. Why is he so coldhearted towards the TAC? Still?

Before meeting with the Holy Father in Rome, the Archbishop of Canterbury had this to say:

But for many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women, which in their view threatens to undermine the coherence of the ecclesiology in question.

And the challenge to recent Roman Catholic thinking on this would have to be: in what way does the prohibition against ordaining women so 'enhance the life of communion', reinforcing the essential character of filial and communal holiness as set out in Scripture and tradition and ecumenical agreement, that its breach would compromise the purposes of the Church as so defined? And do the arguments advanced about the "essence" of male and female vocations and capacities stand on the same level as a theology derived more directly from scripture and the common theological heritage such as we find in these ecumenical texts?

Let us take this a stage further. All ordained ministers are ordained into the shared richness of the apostolic ministerial order – or perhaps we could say ministerial 'communion' yet again. None ministers as a solitary individual. Thus if the ministerial collective is understood strictly in terms of the ecclesiology we have been considering, as serving the goal of filial and communal holiness as the character of restored humanity, how much is that undermined if individuals within the ministerial communion are of different genders?

Aaaaaaaaack! Genders? My dear ABC, I am NOT a linguistic term. My SEX is FEMALE.
And no, I do not want to be a priestess or a bishopess.

Interesting as well, this report from Ruth:

When the Archbishop of Canterbury first heard that the Apostolic Constitution was pending, he telephoned Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, in the middle of the night to demand what was going on. Edward Pentin and other blogs have covered this, which came from an interview with Kasper in L'Osservatore Romano. As we report in The Times today, Dr Rowan Williams flew into Rome this morning, as did I, and this afternoon I hope to hear him speak at an ecumenical conference at the Gregorian university with Cardinal Kasper. Read the full interview with Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, blaming Anglican bishops and not the Pope for keeping the Archbishop of Canterbury in the dark, in tomorrow's Tablet.

More pictures from Canadian Christian authors event

Here are some more pictures from the Christian authors event at Faith Family Books in Scarborough on Friday night.

For a list of the authors who were there, go here.

The pictures include singer Jassette Haughton, who sang a few rousing Christian songs Friday evening.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Marian den Boer, who is the one person who bought my novel The Defilers. Marian read from her devotional, prayer-journal Blooming and what a funny, perceptive work it seems to be.

Next is Phil Wagler who read from his book on growing the missional church.

Then there's a blurry photo of me reading from The Defilers.

Next is a young customer going through the extensive children's book section. I gotta say, this is an impressive Christian book store, with wifi, a coffee shop, a selection of real Christian Christmas cards, (what a concept!), books and music and gifts.

Then we see Marilyn Meyers reading from From Fire and Sea, true life stories about her participation with Mercy Ships Canada, a ministry that sends shipboard hospitals to minister to the poorest of the earth.

Next is Mags Storey with her contemporary novel If Only You Knew. It sounds like a fun read.


Then we see Monica Leis and Johanne Robertson, the folks behind the excellent Maranatha Christian News, a newspaper I write for sometimes. They do a wonderful service with this newspaper.

Then we have Les Lindquist, who with his wife Nancy aka NJ, helped make The Word Guild the excellent association it is to help mentor, network and promote Canadian Christian authors and editors.

I'm not sure who the other folks are.

Christmas is coming up and you might do well to take a look at what Canadian Christian authors have to offer when you think of your Christmas presents this year.

There's a lot of variety, including some good fiction to curl up with by the fireplace over the holidays.

Consider my novel The Defilers, which comes highly recommended by Kathy Shaidle and others and you know Kathy wouldn't just say she liked it to be nice.

Kathy writes:

"Deborah's debut, The Defilers, is the first fiction book I've read in years. When she sent it to me, she described it as "an airport novel", and indeed, some smart mass market paperback publisher should snap it up. This police procedural has it all: exorcisms and the occult, murder, cultish kiddie p*rn, romance -- but Deborah didn't win this year's Best New Canadian Christian Fiction Award for nothing. Believe it or not, she manages to tell this twisted mystery tale without graphic sex scenes -- or even swearing -- but this isn't "goodie goodie" tacky "Christian" fiction, either.

Each chapter is a cliff-hanger. It was a fun, yet reverent read, with lots of unexpected plot twists (and characters who aren't who you think they are...) to keep you guessing. I think most of my readers would be quite touched by the angry heroine's faltering journey back to the faith.

Deborah's own faith history is harrowing in its own way. She has more about the book, including reviews, at her site."

Poet, author and blogger Kathy Shaidle, of one of the blogosphere's first Catholic bloggers, at Relapsed Catholic. (she's now at Five Feet of Fury and politically correct she is not!)

If you would like to order signed copies of The Defilers, I have some copies on hand. Send me your info via the comments section of this post (I will not publish them) and I'll pop them in the mail for you.

Two of my favorite Christian authors weigh in on The Defilers:

A great read that had me pinned to the book long into the night. Deborah treats this difficult subject matter with realism and grace and with traces of Frank Peretti. I highly recommend this book.

Linda Hall, author of Dark Water and many other award winning mysteries

The Defilers has all the components of a commercial bestseller: strong plot, interesting characters, suspense, surprise, and, at the right times, beautiful ambiguity. Gyapong's characters are multi-dimensional; they don't fit into simple stereotypes. The book tackles a difficult subject matter (the child porn industry) with grace. The Defilers is a good plane read--fast paced and well written--but its story will stay with you long after you disembark.

Mary E. DeMuth, author of Wishing on Dandelions and Watching the Tree Limbs.

It was nice to see Mary's latest books Daisy Chain and A Slow Burn on the shelves at Faith Family Books and Gifts.

For more pictures from Friday's event, go here.

Reaction inside a TAC church to the Apostolic Constitution

This report from Florida resembles what seems to also be happening here in Ottawa. Most interesting.

As for the hand-wringing of the progressive Catholics, I hate to break it to The Tablet, but we’re coming in and you can pry our antiquated prayer books, missals, and rosaries from our cold dead fingers. We’ll continue to naïvely believe in the Real Presence and all those fairy tales in the Bible, we’ll bow when the processional cross passes by, genuflect at the Incarnatus est, use incense, and say ‘and with thy spirit’ — and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it! Rather, it is the concern of the so-called “traditionalist” or “conservative” Catholics that “former Anglicans” will only convert with reservations that I desire presently to address.

I do not presume to speak for Anglicans in other places and in other circumstances. Certainly, the implosion of the Church of England, for example, creates certain pressures. Faithful Anglo-Catholics are being systematically marginalized and forced out of the Established Church and they must look to other arrangements. Does this impel some of them to seek entry into the Roman Catholic Church as a sort of fallback position and without the full acceptance of the significance of this move? Perhaps. But I can only speak to my experience in one corner of the American Continuing Church.

From its foundation, the Traditional Anglican Communion has been dedicated to entering into full sacramental communion with the Roman Catholic Church. In the adoption of this goal, the TAC was not being particularly innovative; it was simply seeking to pick up where the official Canterbury-based Anglican Communion had left off. The general trajectory of the Anglican Communion throughout the twentieth century was towards unity with the Roman Church, and this goal seemed tantalizingly close in the period immediately following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. It was only the radical innovation of women’s ordination (and the concomitant deviations in historic Christian faith and praxis) in some provinces of the Anglican Communion that lead to the breakdown of the ARCIC process and the prevention of that long-desired restoration of communion between Rome and Canterbury. As the Continuing Church had preserved our traditional Anglican faith and practice, so too did the TAC adopt the ecumenical agenda which had been put on hiatus by the troubles in “official” Anglicanism.

While I have have only had the privilege of being a member of the Continuing Church for several years now (though born and raised in the Episcopal Church), it is clear to me that this mission of unity with the Roman Catholic Church had been assimilated — at least in some vague way — into the identity of my parish (the diocesan cathedral) long before my arrival. From its inception thirty years ago, the parish has had, like many others in the largely Anglo-Catholic Continuum, a decidedly “high church” bent and has enjoyed the leadership of solid Anglo-Catholic clergy. The diocesan bishop (and long-time rector) is a strong Catholic and has never been afraid to teach the Faith. The notion that communio in sacris with the Catholic Church was the aspiration of our church was generally understood.

This is not to say that the traditional Anglican fault lines between Catholics and protestants were absent in the parish (and to some small degree they are still present). Our people come from a variety of backgrounds — many were raised Episcopalian (of all varieties of churchmanship), some grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, and not a few come to us from various protestant traditions. All were drawn to our profession of the historic Christian Faith and to the sublime beauty of the Anglican tradition by which we live it out.

Those of our folks that left the Episcopal Church often did so at great personal cost. They left the churches in which they were raised, where their parents are buried, where their children were christened. The pastors that the Episcopal Church had set over them betrayed them to the Enemy and they were forced out into the Wilderness. While they were thankful to have found a parish home, their willingness to meekly follow their bishop and clergy had often been sorely tested by their painful experiences. Those from the various protestant sects were new to the Catholic Faith and obviously had no tradition of forming their consciences in accordance with the teaching of the Church. Our clergy and their collaborators, with pastoral sensitivity and common sense, met each individual where they were. Without ever denying the fundamental truths of the Catholic Faith and working from within the limited framework of the Anglican tradition, they endeavored, by stages, to instill in our people a genuine sensus Catholicus. And this process remains ongoing.

But herein lies the problem: the Anglican tradition is indeed a limited framework and its ultimate shortcoming is a lack of authority. The hierarchy of the Traditional Anglican Communion have long been committed to reunion with Rome. It is well known that in 2007, the bishops of the TAC solemnly signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sending the landmark letter to Rome requesting corporate reunion with the Holy See. Our bishops have proposed the Catechism as “the most perfect expression of the Catholic faith in the world today,” a Faith which they “aspire to hold and teach.” But how effectively can the bishops and their clergy teach the fullness of the Catholic Faith in our communities?

Thankfully in our Continuing Church, we are not officially burdened with the acceptance of certain unfortunate and imperfect formularies from the Anglican tradition such as the XXXIX Articles of Faith. We are bound only by the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer (with the attached Ordinal) and informed by Holy Scriptures, the (first) Seven Ecumenical Councils, and Holy Tradition (though notably professing “that all Anglican statements of faith and liturgical formulae must be interpreted in accordance with them”). Appeal is made to the “ancient catholic bishops and doctors” and presumably thus to the “Undivided Church” of the first millennium. Obviously, on a number of issues, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is at odds both with certain traditional Anglican formulae and, for example, the Orthodox Church’s understanding on a number of key points.

So here we arrive at the Chicken and the Egg. Ours is an episcopal church; our bishops claim the right to teach and govern, it is true, and our people are respectful of that prerogative. But that authority is mitigated — vitiated — by the the lack of an ultimate authority in our ecclesiology. Where the errors or excesses of our past must needs be corrected and brought into conformity with Catholic teaching as expressed in the Catechism, how is this to be accomplished? While any bishop or priest may teach a point of Catholic doctrine, when it is disputed by historic Anglican formularies or otherwise contested in our tradition, the individual layperson often feels that he has justification to resort to private judgment. How can our bishops — and derivatively our other clergy — appeal to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church whilst we are divorced from the unity of that Church?

As for me? I will go towards the unity of the Church, whether with (I hope) my present congregation or without it. I have come to love the Anglican liturgy and hymns and the daily offices from the Book of Common Prayer. At my advanced age, I do not want to have to learn another form of spirituality. Sigh. I pray we will have a critical mass to form an ordinariate in Canada.

Authors event at Faith Family Books in Scarborough

Friday night I joined more than two dozen Canadian Christian authors at Faith Family Books, an amazing ecumenical (in the best sense of the word) Christian book store in Scarborough, Ontario, north just off the 401's McGowan Rd. exit.

Organized in conjunction with The Word Guild, an association of writers and editors who are Christian, the evening featured authors reading from their work, both fiction and non-fiction, book signings and a chance for members of the public to chat with us. Also featured was Hot Apple Cider, a compendium of writing by Canadian Christian writers that the Word Guild and That's Life! Communications edited and published to assist World Vision in its charitable efforts as well as raise awareness of the vibrant writing scene among Christian authors in Canada.

Hot Apple Cider includes my testimony. I also got a chance to read from my novel The Defilers. And at least one person bought my book and asked me to sign it, which is always nice.

The pictures show me with my novel,
author and Christian newspaper pioneer Lloyd Mackey, Angelina Fast-Vlaar author of the inspiring Seven Angels for Seven Days and someone I don't know, Eric Wright, author of several books, two of which I bought Friday night, my friend Keith Clemons, with his latest novel Mohammed's Moon, which I reviewed here, Larry Willard, an owner of Faith Family Books and my publisher (Castle Quay Books), a glimpse of the huge store that features not only evangelical and charismatic material, but also Roman Catholic and Orthodox books and gifts.

There's a blurry picture of me doing my reading in my character's Boston accent, then The Word Guild's executive director Denise Rumble, then The Word Guild's co-founder N.J. Lindquist, who is the author of a fantastic young adult series as well as a couple of good adult mysteries. I especially enjoyed Glitter of Diamonds.

I'm going to post some more pictures in a new blog entry as it seems sometimes a new picture erases an old one. So I will quit while I'm ahead.

Free speech bloggers luncheon in Toronto

Blogging has been light because I traveled to Toronto on Friday. I met up with Denyse O'Leary, then we headed over to the University of Toronto Faculty Club for lunch with several other bloggers and writers, including Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury, Lumpy Grumpy and Frumpy, her husband, Scaramouche, the Sheepcat and his wife and Laura Rosen Cohen.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, and I did not check to see who is comfortable writing under their own name or not, so I'm only putting blog names up for those for whom I'm not sure.

The pictures show me with Teresa and Alan Yoshioka, aka The Sheepcat, which has been relatively inactive since the pair married last August.

Below that is Denyse O'Leary who later went with me to a book event at Faith Family Bookstore in Scarborough where we hooked up with more than a dozen Canadian Christian authors.

I would say a good time was had by all.

I think it is time the Ottawa bloggers had another meet up.

The postmodern president's postmodern rule of law

I was away in Toronto and it's hard to start blogging since so much has happened and where do I begin.

But one thing that has been eating away at me is the civilian trial President Barack Obama is offering 9/11 terrorist attack mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

But a Mark Steyn column that links Obama's bowing and self-referential notion of history to the trial has helped put everything into perspective for me. Mark writes:

Which brings us to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. He'd been brought before a military commission, and last December indicated he was ready to plead guilty and itching for the express lane to the 72 virgins.

But that wasn't good enough for Obama, who, in essence, declined to accept KSM's confession and decided to put him on trial in a New York courthouse. Why? To show "the world" – i.e., European op-ed pages and faculty lounges – that America would fight terror in a way "consistent with our values," and apparently that means turning KSM into O.J. and loosing his dream team on the civilian justice system. But, having buttered up Le Monde and the BBC and many of his own Lefties by announcing that Mohammed would get a fair trial, Obama then assured NBC that he'd be convicted and was gonna fry.

So it's like a fair trial consistent with "our values," except for the one about presumption of innocence? If the head of state declaring you guilty and demanding the death penalty doesn't taint the jury pool, it's hard to see what would. The KSM circus is not, technically, a "show trial": He could well be acquitted. But, even if he is, he's unlikely to be strolling out a free man like Frank Sinatra beating the rap in "Robin And The Seven Hoods" and standing on the courthouse steps to sing "My Kind Of Town (Manhattan Is)" – although I wouldn't entirely rule it out: In a world in which the self-confessed perpetrator of the bloodiest act of war on the American mainland in two centuries is entitled to a civilian trial, all things are possible. The other day, Attorney General Eric Holder promised us that it would be "the trial of the century" – and he said it like it's a good thing. Why would you do that?

Mark also writes about how "Obowma" does not know how to be president.

My radio pal Hugh Hewitt said to me on the air the other day that Barack Obama "doesn't know how to be president." It was a low but effective crack, and I didn't pay it much heed. But, after musing on it over the past week or so, it seems to me frighteningly literally true. I don't just mean social lapses like his latest cringe-making bow, this time to Their Imperial Majesties The Emperor and Empress of Japan – though that in itself is deeply weird: After the world superbower's previous nose-to-toe prostration before the Saudi king, one assumed there'd be someone in the White House to point out tactfully that the citizen-executives of the American republic don't bow to foreign monarchs. Along with his choreographic gaucherie goes his peculiar belief that all of human history is just a bit of colorful back story in the Barack Obama biopic – or as he put it in his video address on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall:

"Few would have foreseen on that day that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent."

Tear down that wall ...so they can get a better look at me!!! Is there no-one in the White House grown-up enough to say, "Er, Mr. President, that's really the kind of line you get someone else to say about you"?

One can see Obama's behavior as colossal incompetence: he doesn't know how to be president and Holder doesn't have a clue how to be AG. One can have nightmares over an unlawful combatant, admitted terrorist mastermind and enemy of humanity being granted all the bells and whistles of a civilian trial, designed to protect accused persons from the untrammeled power of the state. With protections built into our legal tradition such as innocent until proven guilty, the maintenance of a chain of evidence, and our adversarial system, there is a chance KSM could get off on a technicality or be found not guilty the way O.J. Simpson was. But those technicalities are a check against miscarriages of justice through evidence tampering, forced confessions, and other temptations to the misuse of force by the state. They are good things, even if we don't always like the results.

No, I think we're seeing something else here and it is not necessarily incompetence, though the result sure looks like incompetence. And the attitude towards the law and towards the presidency is all of a piece.

Postmodernism is all about narrative--a story--yet at the same time, it is all about dismantling and challenging old meta-narratives, such as the over-arching story of western civilization rooted in Judeo-Christian religious principles and tempered by Greek philosophy. To postmoderns of a certain ilk, the meta-narrative that made Americans like me see the United States as a "City on a Hill" and a beacon of light and freedom to the world, is merely the repressive, colonialist mentality of a bunch of dead white men who were slaveholders and now we have a live black man representing "the people" in power and now, not only is the narrative all about him, Obama can do as he pleases to all the other dead white men narratives such as the rule of law, the institution of the presidency or the Constitution of the United States.

It really is all about him and he can remake everything according to his new self-referential story, since, by postmodern lights, it is all about power, there is no objective, underlying reality of any kind, only what you make it out to be.

People like me and Mark Steyn are just trapped in the old paradigm. Poor us.

So all those niceties about the rule of law? In some ways, it would be better for KSM to have a genuine, old-fashioned trial by people with an objective sense of the rule of law, with a jury committed to serving justice rather than their own personal narratives. Yes, better even if KSM gets off and he is then free to fly to Pakistan to join Osama bin Laden in his compound.

Obama's postmodern attitude towards the rule of law is even worse than that. This is a show trial, full stop. There are a number of people who actually watched the OJ Simpson trial from gavel to gavel who can legitimately argue that the jury was right not to convict him because the evidence did not meet the standard our rule of law requires of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
He was later found guilty in a civil lawsuit on the lesser standard of the preponderance of evidence.

But the postmodern idea of justice is straight out of the peoples' tribunals you might have seen thrown up in the streets of China during Mao's Cultural Revolution. It's pure show, pure theatre, pure whatever the powers-that-be conjure up. That's beyond incompetence. Obama does not know how to be president, but he doesn't care. He is remaking the presidency of the United States and every other institution as he goes along. So by his lights, he is supremely confident, since it is all about him. This is deliberate. We have a new sheriff in town and he rejects the idea that America has anything good about it. That's why he bows, scrapes and apologizes.

While in Toronto, I got into a discussion with some friends about postmodern architecture and the fact that the ROM's Chrystal has been ranked the 8th ugliest building in the world.

Though postmodern architecture can also be traditional, according to the whim of the architect in the "it's anything you want it to be" some postmodern styles go out of their way to defy such things as function, or, if they could get away with it, the very rules of gravity. Some of these buildings are known for their stairways to nowhere, their eschewing of any straight lines, etc. etc.

But an architect still has to consider basic laws of physics and engineering or else the building will collapse. So all the pretence is superficial, the structure must remain on a firm foundation--unless you are in a totalitarian country where the building code is eaten away by corruption and the rule of law does not exist. Ezra wrote some interesting stuff about that here.

To me, that perfectly encapsulates the difference between China's cities and Manhattan or Las Vegas. Part of China look modern and capitalist on the outside; but if you scratch beneath the surface, there is no cultural infrastructure that forms the hidden strengths of our system. Capitalism isn't just the ability to build a tower -- even the North Koreans can build tall things. But can they build foundations for them?

Foundations like the rule of law; property rights; sanctity of contract; government and corporate transparency; the ability to seek redress without fear of political repercussions. And what flows from all that is a culture of personal responsibility.

With Obama, all those things that have made the west great---those foundations---are so much dead white male narrative that they are irrelevant.

The problem for us all--Obama included---is that the dead white males---and not all of them were white---discovered truths about reality and passed their accumulated wisdom down to us. There is a big difference between discovering the truth and making it up as you go along, as if there is no truth.

Alas, what we are seeing is the latter. This is beyond incompetence. It is a sign of the utter decay of our civilization. Time to build that ark.

Guess who caused the economic crash!

The Doctor is In and reading the Atlantic! This just in:

Many of us have been struggling to understand the nature of our current economic meltdown. Was it greedy bankers, who made unscrupulous loans while passing the risks on to others? High-rolling hedge fund managers who resold the risky bundled securities and reaped millions? Politicians and political activists who pressured banks and lending organizations to make risky loans to minorities and low-income customers or be castigated as racists and bigots? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or the FHA? Let the confusion end: The Atlantic has hit the news stands with a breaking revelation: It’s the Christians!

Un. Freakin'. Believable.

The Doctor gives it a good exam. The diagnosis? No wonder the mainstream media is dying out.

Global Warming has stalled?

Hmmmmm. This just in from Der Spiegel, that right-wing rag.

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.

Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth's average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Ironically, climate change appears to have stalled in the run-up to the upcoming world summit in the Danish capital, where thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists plan to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.

H/t Gay and Right.

Has Kasperian ecumenism become a dinosaur?

UPDATE: I'm informed it was not Bishop David Chislett who made the remarks below but Fr. Anthony Chadwick. My apologies.


Traditional Anglican Communion Bishop David Chislett says it has and here's why, (my bolds):

Now, the question we ask ourselves is: What is true ecumenism? In my reckoning, there are two levels:

1. The corporate reunion of ecclesial bodies outside Roman Catholicism with the Roman Catholic Church, confessing the integral Catholic doctrine of the faith but conserving elements of their particular culture that do not oppose this profession of faith. Such communities go to Rome, not only because they are alienated by unacceptable changes in their communions of origin, but because they are aware that Christ wills the unity of the Church. [Amen! Amen! ]Rome is the original Christian Church, despite the sins of its clerical and lay members.
2. Members of separated church communities being kind and charitable with each other, seeking to resolve historical differences through theological study and shared prayer without the sacramental communion which is possible only after complete agreement of faith. Now the difference with what has passed for ecumenism over the last forty years or so is that the Catholic Faith is not negotiable. However, people often need help to understand, and we should be ready to enlighten and teach with firmness and kindness. This was the ecumenism of men like Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Philip Neri, both of the 16th century.

As I see it, Cardinal Kasper saw his role, as a professional theologian and ecumenist, as essentially clerical - brokering agreements and relationships with the mainstream Orthodox Patriarchates (those interested in talking with western liberals), the Anglican Communion and the various national Protestant confessions of European and other countries. Such a vision excludes the minorities alienated by the general movement of secularisation in the mainstream churches. The way to Rome is only by the movement of a whole mainstream Church body or individual conversion. Anything remotely resembling uniatism in name or principle is to be strictly proscribed. As this process of deterioration and secularisation deepens and continues, "official" ecumenism becomes increasingly detached from and irrelevant to the reality of examining and settling differences between Christians, so that the Gospel may find a new credibility in the world through the positive witness of a unified Christian community. The "ecumenism" à la Kasper has become a dinosaur.

H/T Father Z. Please see the links and comments section. Most interesting.

No wonder Cardinal Kasper doesn't like us.

There is a kind of ecumenism that is on its knees, Bible in hand, praying, groaning to discern God's will, and most of all, willing to obey. For as Jesus said, those who will to do God's will will know if Jesus' doctrines are from God or not. The willingness to obey is the key to understanding.

There is another kind, done over cocktails and handled in board rooms that skirts differences and agrees on the lowest common denominator. That kind may find lots to agree about in the secular arena, but does not lead closer to Truth, I'm afraid.

For the Bible Tells Me So

Last night I got my dates mixed up and thought I was going to Saint Paul University for a talk on euthanasia by Dr. Tim Lau and Dr. Rene Leiva, only to find it had taken place the night before.

I met a friend in the hallway who told me the event that night was a documentary film called For the Bible Tells Me So. Here's the blurb:

Can the love between two people ever be an abomination? Is the chasm separating gays and lesbians and Christianity too wide to cross? Is the Bible an excuse to hate?

Through the experiences of five very normal, very Christian, very American families -- including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson -- we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child. Informed by such respected voices as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard's Peter Gomes, Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg and Reverend Jimmy Creech, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO offers healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the crosshairs of scripture and sexual identity.

So I stuck around, curious. This was an interesting, well-crafted piece of slick propaganda that painted anyone who held a traditional view of marriage and sexual morality as a hateful Biblical literalist (lots of clips of evangelical preachers frothing and waving their Bibles, including Jimmy Swaggart). Lots of time was spent in Leviticus, debunking a literal interpretation of "abomination" though there was some interesting stuff that I hadn't heard before that put some of the Old Testament law in a new light. But no one I know who is concerned about this issue cites Leviticus.

Some very, very interesting and personal interviews with parents and children as they mutually came to grips with the child's coming out as gay or lesbian. These were very well done; the families and the children were all sympathetically treated and the individual stories compelling and interesting. It was good for me to hear openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson and his ex wife talk about their marriage and how he had told her when they married that his previous relationships had all been with men. One story was especially heart-breaking--that of a mother who wrote her daughter that she could never accept her lifestyle, even though she still loved her daughter. The daughter eventually committed suicide. Tragic.

Then lots of clips of various liberal Christian theologians, who all came across as loving, and expansive and inclusive (except for a not-very-bright sounding gal from Harvard Divinity School---my goodness, John Harvard must be rolling over in his grave---but she hits the diversity trifecta---female, black and lesbian--and she spit out the usual stuff about how she reads the Bible as a woman and sees Christianity's discrimination against women; she reads the Bible as a black person and sees the discriminationa against black people; and she reads the Bible as a lesbian and . . . you get the drift. Imagine spending $30K a year or more for a Harvard education for your kid and ending up having that kind of sloganeering masquerading as scholarship in the classroom.

The usual propaganda surfaced, i.e. that it is the teachings of the Church that are responsible for the shame and inner conflict that drives a much higher proportion of gay and lesbian young people to suicide than found in the normal population. While it is a fact that suicide rates are much higher,
I dispute the cause and effect relationship. Also, it is not Sunday school kids who are doing the gay bashing, prompted by Bible verses, but thugs who have often have had more exposure to the misogynist and homophobic lyrics of popular rap music and fear their own internal feminization than to the book of Romans, but I digress. Studies in countries where the Christian influence has virtually disappeared and are much more tolerant of homosexuality also show high suicide rates among gays.

Third, does pressure from society lead to mental health problems? Less, I believe, than one might imagine. The authors of the study done in The Netherlands were surprised to find so much mental illness in homosexual people in a country where tolerance of homosexuality is greater than in almost all other countries.

Another good comparison country is New Zealand, which is much more tolerant of homosexuality than is the United States. Legislation giving the movement special legal rights is powerful, consistently enforced throughout the country, and virtually never challenged. Despite this broad level of social tolerance, suicide attempts were common in a New Zealand study and occurred at about the same rate as in the U.S.

In his cross-cultural comparison of mental health in the Netherlands, Denmark and the U.S., Ross (1988) could find no significant differences between countries - i.e. the greater social hostility in the United States did not result in a higher level of psychiatric problems.

I remember a conversation I had with a gay activist years ago just before or after he went into the studio for an interview or panel I had produced for the CBC. He told me that while he respected freedom of speech, he would like to see the Bible, or at least parts of it, deemed hate literature and banned, because of its deleterious effects on gay youth and their high suicide rates.

We need to find a way to live together without gay activists shutting down my religious freedom or my beliefs or theirs becoming coercive. We need to figure out where the law can be based on objective morality, but the limits of the King's writ in what people like me might call sin.

The documentary raised concerns about society's demonizing and "othering" gays and lesbians, yet the documentary was demonizing and othering and unfairly painting the position of those of us who do not see gay sexual expression as God's plan for men and women. The film went a long way towards pushing an inclusive, God-loves-us-as-we-are Gospel that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course God loves gays and lesbians and we as Christians are called to love them as well. But God loves us all out of what we are; through Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection, we are called to die with him (and die to our sinful nature) and rise with him in newness of Christ.

But here's the thing. I totally agree with the film that there must be no demonization and stereotyping and "othering" of gays and lesbians or any human being for that matter. I also think we need to recognize we live in a pluralistic society where people can and should be able to disagree vehemently in the public square, yet do so with civility and respect. The film showed some horrific and graphic examples of gay bashing, yet by linking this to Christians it could be dangerously contributing to Christian bashing.

The solution to the very real problem of violence against gays is not to demonize, "otherize" Christians who disagree with the prevailing sexual morality or pan-sexuality of today's secularist world.

I think the documentary could have been much improved if it had included some equally sensitive portrayals of theologians who lovingly and insightfully explained why, say, the Catholic Church or intelligent evangelicals say God's plan for human sexuality has two functions--the unite the man and woman in marriage and to be open to new life.

It's kind of sad to me that this documentary was shown at a Catholic university without some kind of discussion afterwards that explained a good Catholic apologetic for chastity.

I do not want to impose my faith or my views on human sexuality on anyone else. But I do not want to have the gospel of inclusiveness or someone else's sexual dogma imposed on me or my children or grandchildren either. But this is what we are seeing. We used to be a society that forced a Christian sexual dogma that forced gay people in the closet.

Are Christian believers now going to be pushed into the closet and bashed unless they get with Bishop Gene Robinson's version of the faith? This is the direction I see our society moving in.

We have a new inquisition, powered by the state, in the form of human rights commissions. Increasingly, Christian expression is the one aspect of diversity that is not tolerated.

BTW, I totally reject this push in Uganda to make homosexuality and the promotion of homosexuality illegal. This is horrendous.

It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Christian behavior that is truly virtuous is never coerced.

Hey! I outta sue for copyright infringement

I wake up this morning, start my blogging rounds and discover someone has taken one of my photographs of Mark Steyn, made a fridge magnet out of it and is selling it on Amazon!

Ezraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

H/t Kathy Shaidle who writes:

Mark Steyn reports that his new Christmas CD is temporarily sold out at Amazon. While looking for the link, I found this:

'Mark Steyn Is an Evil White Male Oppressor' Magnet

No word on whether or not he and/or Deborah Gyapong are getting a cut...