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How to Make a Martyr

Seeing as how we’re in the middle of Lent, I thought it might be appropriate to have a post reflecting on the meaning of martyrdom. We’ve touched on this a few times in reference to specific examples, and I’ve discussed the topic personally with Iosephus, Iacobus and the Doctor, but I’m not sure we’ve ever opened it up for general discussion. The question is: what makes a martyr?

Of course, in general terms, a martyr is a witness to the faith, and the term has come to be used for one whose death serves as a witness to the faith. Distinguishing who qualifies as a martyr and who doesn’t seems to be a worthwhile endeavor, if only for this reason: martyrs are said to be “baptized in blood” such that they are cleansed of all sins and guaranteed passage into paradise. As it was explained to me, martyrs will not even need to spend any time in Purgatory; they get to make a beeline straight for the Beatific Vision. So, how does one go about becoming a martyr?

I propose three requirements, which seem common to all the stories of Christian martyrdom that I know.

1. A martyr must be killed for the faith. Since a martyr’s death bears witness to the faith, he must have been killed as a direct result of his faithfulness to Christ.

2. He must have some opportunity to avoid death by betraying his Christian commitment. Thus, death must in some sense be actively chosen in preference to apostasy.

3. A Christian martyr must display a loving attitude towards his oppressors. Unlike the Muslims, we do not grant suicide bombers or others who kill in hatred the status of martyrs. There must be some clear indication that the martyr forgives those who have wronged him.

The first requirement is fairly straightforward. The second, however, poses some interesting problems. To me, at least, it does seem that a martyr must make some kind of conscious choice that death is better than betrayal. An example might make clear what the concern is here. Suppose that a Catholic-hating maniac (a Mason, say) happens to learn that I am Catholic, climbs McGraw tower (a high tower overlooking Cornell’s campus) and snipes me as I walk unawares across the quad. I don’t think that alone would satisfy the conditions for making me a martyr. If I die instantly, without even knowing what was going on, I don’t seem to have consciously “witnessed” for the faith; for all anyone knows, I would have buckled immediately had I been warned in advance of what dangers lay in store. If that were sufficient, then any Catholic, no matter how lapsed, would potentially be a martyr even without repenting if only someone was crazy enough to kill them on account of their Catholicism. Rule Two rules out cases like that.

The case just described seems easy to me, but there are potentially more difficult ones. Let’s modify the previous example. Again I am sniped by a crazed Mason as I walk across the quad. Again I die instantly, with no ready opportunity to save myself by renouncing the faith. But now we’ll suppose that incidents of this kind have been happening to Catholics all across the country. Perhaps those pernicious Masons are trying to cleanse Academia of Catholics, and so they’re sending spies to take names of those who are assisting at Mass and practicing Catholic devotions. Nasty accidents have been happening to people who dare to be visibly Catholic in a university setting. The fainthearted seek to increase their safety by fleeing to the Episcopal Church and consciously avoiding Catholic activities. (Oddly, I once had a dream to this effect, which is one thing that got me thinking about this subject. In my dream, Catholics all across the country were flocking to Anglicanism to escape this peculiar form of terrorism, so that the Episcopal church up the street was full to bursting while the pews of the Catholic church were nearly empty.) I, though fully aware of the danger, continue assisting at Mass, attending our nightly Rosary group, and wearing my scapular. So, while I’m not offered a direct choice on the particular day that I’m picked off from McGraw Tower, I nonetheless ran a conscious risk in order to continue practicing my faith. In this case, I do look like a kind of “witness” to the faith in the face of death – which would seem to make me a candidate for being considered a martyr.

If that’s true, though, then it should be fairly obvious that there will be all sorts of grey areas. How much risk must a person run in order to count as a martyr if the risks catch up to him? How aware must he be of the danger? We’re tempted to try to solve this with counterfactuals (he wouldn’t have tried to get out of it if he’d been offered the choice) but this gets messy and philosophically complicated.

The third requirement on my list also seems difficult, for somewhat different reasons. How must the martyr express his loving disposition? It seems to me, first of all, that the martyr cannot die while in the process of perpetrating violence. The suicide bomber certainly cannot be a martyr, and I’m inclined to think, at least in the usual case, that the soldier who dies in action also cannot, though his sacrifice might certainly be meritorious for other reasons. Others may disagree, but my feeling is that this would hold even if the Vatican were to assemble an army of good Catholic men to march against hordes of infidels. Such men could certainly win graces for their efforts, and there’s no reason at all why a soldier can’t be loving, but my feeling is that a martyr must clearly be wronged through his death; in a military offensive it’s a complicated question whether or not the enemy is wrong to kill the soldier. The martyr must suffer death both wrongly and innocently and purely on account of his faith.

There’s a multitude of problems raised by the scenario of a holy war, but there are also problems about the directness of the expression of love. The martyr who dies with a beatific smile and “Father, forgive them!” on his lips seems clearly to meet the requirement. What about the martyr who dies scolding? And, more importantly, some deaths will leave little time for any kind of speech. In my sniping case, I probably would not have time to express lovely sentiments, even if my killer were to linger long enough to hear them. Even in a less rapid death, the martyr might have a number of things on his mind in the minutes before the end. It seems a bit harsh to disqualify from martyrdom the Christian who is thrown to the lions on account of his faith, but who finds himself somewhat preoccupied in his last moments with trying to protect his brethren (thrown in at the same time) from the vicious beasts. It would seem rather unfair to the Christian if his enemies could rob him of a martyr’s death merely by killing him so quickly that he never had a chance to forgive them.

There's no denying that I have more questions than answers on this subject, but ere I conclude, I should mention that there are a few problem cases in the martyrology who call both my second and my third requirements into question. The Holy Innocents may be the hardest case: they are often said to be martyrs, but they presumably did not have a choice regarding whether to die, and they were too young to forgive their oppressors. (I’ve also heard it said that the unborn victims of abortion are saved by virtue of being baptized in blood, but I don’t know how widespread or well-founded that saying is.)
I suppose the moral may be in the end that, as with so many other things, we need the Church to tell us who really died as martyrs and who didn’t. Most of us probably won’t ever have the opportunity to die for the faith, so the example of the martyrs isn’t likely to have that kind of brute practical significance for us. But who can tell? Elsewhere on this blog I have speculated that a new era of martyrdom might be precisely what is needed to answer the threat of Islam and cleanse the Church at the same time. Particularly for those of our readers who live in Europe, there is always the possibility that that the struggle may come to their doors. The Church has faced dangers in every age, and we would all do well to prepare ourselves in case our turn should come.

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Sacramentum Caritatis: Interesting Bits

Reading through the new Exhortation,
Sacramentum Caritatis now, I must admit I'm a bit disappointed -- not surprised, really, but not thrilled with it. But there are some bits that are interesting, so I thought I'd excerpt them here. Fellow Cornellians, please feel free to add anything you feel I've missed.

Also, be sure to read the comments offered by the inimitable New Catholic.

¶21.In this regard, it is important that the confessionals in our churches should be clearly visible expressions of the importance of this sacrament. I ask pastors to be vigilant with regard to the celebration of the sacrament of Reconciliation, and to limit the practice of general absolution exclusively to the cases permitted, (61) since individual absolution is the only form intended for ordinary use. (62) Given the need to rediscover sacramental forgiveness, there ought to be a Penitentiary in every Diocese. (63) Finally, a balanced and sound practice of gaining indulgences, whether for oneself or for the dead, can be helpful for a renewed appreciation of the relationship between the Eucharist and Reconciliation. By this means the faithful obtain "remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven." (64) The use of indulgences helps us to understand that by our efforts alone we would be incapable of making reparation for the wrong we have done, and that the sins of each individual harm the whole community. Furthermore, the practice of indulgences, which involves not only the doctrine of Christ's infinite merits, but also that of the communion of the saints, reminds us "how closely we are united to each other in Christ ... and how the supernatural life of each can help others." (65) Since the conditions for gaining an indulgence include going to confession and receiving sacramental communion, this practice can effectively sustain the faithful on their journey of conversion and in rediscovering the centrality of the Eucharist in the Christian life.

¶42. Finally, while respecting various styles and different and highly praiseworthy traditions, I desire, in accordance with the request advanced by the Synod Fathers, that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed (130) as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy (131).

¶51. Finally, I would like to comment briefly on the observations of the Synod Fathers regarding the dismissal at the end of the eucharistic celebration. After the blessing, the deacon or the priest dismisses the people with the words: Ite, missa est. These words help us to grasp the relationship between the Mass just celebrated and the mission of Christians in the world. In antiquity, missa simply meant "dismissal." However in Christian usage it gradually took on a deeper meaning. The word "dismissal" has come to imply a "mission." These few words succinctly express the missionary nature of the Church. The People of God might be helped to understand more clearly this essential dimension of the Church's life, taking the dismissal as a starting- point. In this context, it might also be helpful to provide new texts, duly approved, for the prayer over the people and the final blessing, in order to make this connection clear (154).

¶62. None of the above observations should cast doubt upon the importance of such large-scale liturgies. I am thinking here particularly of celebrations at international gatherings, which nowadays are held with greater frequency. The most should be made of these occasions. In order to express more clearly the unity and universality of the Church, I wish to endorse the proposal made by the Synod of Bishops, in harmony with the directives of the Second Vatican Council, (182) that, with the exception of the readings, the homily and the prayer of the faithful, such liturgies could be celebrated in Latin. Similarly, the better-known prayers (183) of the Church's tradition should be recited in Latin and, if possible, selections of Gregorian chant should be sung. Speaking more generally, I ask that future priests, from their time in the seminary, receive the preparation needed to understand and to celebrate Mass in Latin, and also to use Latin texts and execute Gregorian chant; nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian chant. (184)

This, apparently, offered to satisfy Sandro Magister ...

Eucharistic celebrations in small groups
63. A very different situation arises when, in the interest of more conscious, active and fruitful participation, pastoral circumstances favour small group celebrations. While acknowledging the formative value of this approach, it must be stated that such celebrations should always be consonant with the overall pastoral activity of the Diocese. These celebrations would actually lose their catechetical value if they were felt to be in competition with, or parallel to, the life of the particular Church. In this regard, the Synod set forth some necessary criteria: small groups must serve to unify the community, not to fragment it; the beneficial results ought to be clearly evident; these groups should encourage the fruitful participation of the entire assembly, and preserve as much as possible the unity of the liturgical life of individual families. (185)

¶69 In new churches, it is good to position the Blessed Sacrament chapel close to the sanctuary; where this is not possible, it is preferable to locate the tabernacle in the sanctuary, in a sufficiently elevated place, at the centre of the apse area, or in another place where it will be equally conspicuous.

Note the persistence of the bad English translation here:

Footnote (57) For example, the Confiteor, or the words of the priest and people before receiving Communion: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed."

Footnote (150) Taking into account ancient and venerable customs and the wishes expressed by the Synod Fathers, I have asked the competent curial offices to study the possibility of moving the sign of peace to another place, such as before the presentation of the gifts at the altar. To do so would also serve as a significant reminder of the Lord's insistence that we be reconciled with others before offering our gifts to God (cf. Mt 5:23 ff.); cf. Propositio 23.

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Sprinting Away from Planned Parenthood

I'm generally not one to get behind commercial boycotts, but this has me quite agahst. My cell phone provider—Sprint—has decided to lease space on their network to, of all people, Planned Parenthood. You can thus now sign up for Planned Parenthood Wireless, and have 10% of your cell phone charges go to help kill babies. Obviously, this has Clara and me very concerned and we're looking to switch providers. I really hate this in no small part because I have actually liked Sprint (for the data services), but we obviously cannot remain with them in good conscience. The key question, though, is how we can make it clear that this is the reason we are leaving. If you, or anybody you know, has Sprint you should probably be looking to move.

Tradition, Its Maintenance and Form

Or, A Whupping for the Whapping?

It is sometimes maintained, particularly by brash, if clever, youngsters, that somehow the Traditional Mass could sweep to popularity if only its advocates, attendees, and devotes would be a bit more flexible: "Couldn't it be just a little more participatory?" they opine; "Or at least not be peopled with annoying Saint Pius X quoters -- wouldn't a little JP the Great, or at least Papa BXVI, go a long way to reaching out to Today's Youth?" And while these aren't silly questions, those who ask them have made a fundamental error in their approach to Tradition and modernity.

The snag, you see, is that a novice, an outsider, one trained in the modern ways, is liable to make all manner of errors in his selection of the vital from the peripheral when it comes to sifting the Traditions of the Faith from the traditions of men; and is also very likely to disregard the deep power held by the latter, even while he gives lip service to both. In the case of the young man whose musings have prompted this reply, a frequent suggestion is trotted out: why not go back to the Dialogue Mass? That's pre-Vatican II, but anticipates the sort of "full, active, etc" business that's been such a hit (?) with people since the Council. And while his suggestions have a sort of facile truth -- who wouldn't agree that a young energetic priest's Mass is easier, humanly speaking, to attend to than that of a rickety old priest? -- they are presumptuous to the extreme, in their implication that those who love and provide for the offering of the traditional Rite are somehow all fuddy-duddys who love nothing more than obscurantism and ossification, who would sooner drive off a curious young'un like him than give up their ca. 1920's devotional structure.

Nothing could be further from the truth. For, even while it is true that a number of such grumpy trads are out there, it is not so easy a thing to keep a hold on a traditional devotional life and to traditional piety. Part of the reason for the disaster of the past four decades is the widespread adoption of this attitude: I don't see the need for X; let's drop it. Then why do we have Y? We'll drop that too. And so on.

Instead of such an approach, what we who are young to Tradition must be, first of all, is patient learners and cautious changers. We must first know and love all that is already there, before we make bold to change aught. Until we are very, very familiar with the old way of doing things, we cannot be sure that our preference for the new way is not driven primarily by our pre-existing familiarity. It is a truism that we are most comfortable with that which we already know. This drives, it is true, some of the resistance to cosmetic and more substantive changes to the surrounding pieties of the old Mass; but it also is a significant part of the young and aspirational trad's passion for aggiornamento.

We must never think of ourselves as a marketing team for Tradition^TM, but as servants of God. And if we, as newcomers, should ever decide to promote even a small change in a particular community's local liturgical traditions, we must expect, even encourage, skepticism and resistance. The question one must expect, and be able to answer, is "why should we change for you, when you tell us you aren't interested unless we change? When does this end? If we change one thing, and you say that's not enough, do we change three? Eighteen? Why should you, who by your very demands have shown yourself unwilling to submit to that which you have not yourself chosen, dictate to us what of our own preferences and traditions we must give away?"

To close, I will say -- for completeness and to be fair -- that there are those among the traditionalist movement who have a disordered attachment to various things that are outside the established Tradition. There are some that raise a stink if the gregorian chant chosen for the Mass is changed, crying "how dare you change from Credo III to Credo I!" (true story!). Many others, contrary to the constant teaching of the Popes, maintain that the low Mass is a "higher" form of the Mass than the High, or Solemn Mass. Other crusty old folks can be quite rude to novice trads who haven't yet learned much, berating as-yet ignorant young women over their lack of veils or the like. In these cases, though, human frailty -- not traditionalism as such -- is the culprit, and though we must do what we can to gently correct those in error, we must simultaneously take, ever and always, as guarded and narrow of corrections as necessary, as charity and prudence demand.
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Parenthood as Hobby

I’ve been pondering a question lately… do liberals have a right to have children?

I don’t mean this in the childish, cliché way. That is, I’m not saying that most liberals are such awful people that they should not be perpetuating their genes or their lifestyles. Of course in other posts on this blog, I and my fellow contributors have scorned liberals for not having more kids, so you may think you’ve caught me in a contradiction, but I don’t think that’s the case. The point I want to make is this: liberals may have no right to bear children, because they’re doing it for the wrong sorts of reasons.


I suppose what got me thinking of this was the irritation that I often feel hearing about liberal parents raising their One Perfect Child. Having lived in more than one town filled with educated liberals, I have a multitude of slightly distasteful associations with a particular sort of liberal upbringing: the arbitrary-seeming dietary rules, the special daycares, the politically correct coloring books and television programs. Parents who give their little boys dolls and enroll their little girls in martial arts classes. Just in general, I have a sort of aversion to the idea of the excessively-programmed childhood.

Still, at the same time, I’m admittedly a lot more sympathetic to the same sort of engineering from the other end. Without broaching the difficult topic of homeschooling, I can certainly at least agree that parents are right to read their children Bible stories, to expect them to observe (at appropriate ages) the Church’s feasts and fasts, to observe and regulate the books, music and television through which their children are entertained. All parents will properly make decisions about how their children should be educated and about the environments that are appropriate for them; I may disagree with the decisions that liberals make, but there’s no reason to be irked about the fact that they’re making them. Why, then, do I have this residual feeling that there’s something disturbingly unserious about the liberal approach to parenthood?

I think it really boils down to this: for many people, having kids is something that a person chooses to do, as a part of his own quest for self-fulfillment. The liberal emphasis on autonomy naturally leads one to this sort of view: some people choose to devote their lives to having families, some to furthering careers, some to becoming champion ping-pong players, and all of these are perfectly legitimate so long as the person in question is pleased and happy and not hurting anyone. Obviously as a Catholic, I find this way of looking at things deeply flawed on lots of levels, but with regards to having children it seems particularly depraved. In bringing a person into existence, you are making a very radical choice on behalf of another human being. Far more than just affecting another’s autonomy, you are actually in an important sense causing it to exist. (And indeed, many liberals would probably be happy to say that the parents are the only rational agents responsible for bringing the child into being.)

If, as most liberals seem to believe, becoming a parent is something you decide to do (rather than something that just happens in the natural course of events, or something that you agree to do out of obedience), what could be a sufficient reason for making that decision on behalf of someone else? There's something very disturbing about the idea that I could justify the existence of another life merely on the basis of my desire for the experience of motherhood.

A lot will depend, of course, on the attitude one takes towards life in general. If you suppose that most people are better off existing than not, you’ll probably be less worried about that fact that some people decide to have children, say, just because they think kids are cute. In most cases, they won’t be harming anyone, even if their attitude is reprehensibly frivolous. On the other hand, if you’re inclined towards a more pessimistic view of life generally, you might think it rather barbaric that one person should consign another to endure it, just so that the offspring's early years can be spent as a kind of glorified pet for their parents.

Anyway, I find this line thought-provoking. If parenthood is undertaken as a kind of hobby, is the parent then responsible in some way for the suffering that their offspring will endure in the course of life? The Catholic, without denying the obligation to provide the best upbringing possible for his young, can lessen the emotional burden by viewing the bearing and rearing of children as simultaneously a duty and an honor, and as a task undertaken for holy reasons. If he became a parent out of obedience to God, and did his best to discharge his obligations as a parent, he can reasonably expect God to make it all work out for the best. The truth is, of course, that any child, no matter how carefully his upbringing is planned, may go astray in one way or another, and some parental decisions will turn out for the worse. Seeing one's child turn to sorrow or sin must under any circumstances be deeply painful, but the liberal, unlike the Catholic, must bear the full weight of the responsibility himself.

Well, in this spirit, I thought I'd include this poem by Wendell Berry. It is titled, To My Children, Fearing for Them


Terrors are to come. The earth
is poisoned with narrow lives.
I think of you. What you will

live through, or perish by, eats
at my heart. What have I done? I
need better answers than there are

to the pain of coming to see
what was done in blindness,
loving what I canot save. Nor,

your eyes turning towards me,
can I wish your lives unmade
though the pain of them is on me.

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From a draft of Sacramentum caritatis

In answer to my President's call for more information and speculation about the soon-to-be released Sacramentum caritatis, I thought that it wouldn't be out of order to contact some of my, well, contacts in Rome to see if I couldn't pry from them the first sentence of the document. I mean, come on, that's not too much to ask, is it? The first sentence is generally a lot of fluff, but it often contains some interesting hints about the general tone of the whole document. Plus, with a title like "Sacramentum caritatis" the first thing everyone is thinking is: "Is 'sacramentum' in the nominative or the accusative?'" Thankfully - or Ambrosius would have been angry with me - they were willing to oblige:

Sacramentum caritatis quod fundamentum Ecclesiae spiritualeque Christianae in via vitae fastigium est et quod cum longius in obscurissimis degeret plagis propter improbissimos patres Secundi Vaticani Concilii male agentes atque perverse cogitantes, nunc tamen hodie Nostra auctoritate propria ad derigendam Sancti Petri, Principis Apostolorum, navem concitata et magis atque magis auxiliis Sanctissimae Dei Genetricis ac semper Virginis et praecipue Sancti Pii illius nominis quinti et alterius eximii decessoris Nostri Sancti Pii decimi imploratis, clara declaramus voce secundum illam priscam formam veterioris ritus venerabilisque quem sacra Tridentina synodus adprobavit sanxitque numquam abrogatum esse, quippe qui nequaquam posset aboleri; praeterea dispectis omnibus infelicibus innovationibus vel magis manifestioribus erroribus ritus novae Missae promulgatae a Paulo Sexto, infelicis liturgicae memoriae, in ignes iubemus flagrantissimos ipsum ritum iaci et eodem tempore conficere episcopos Christifidelium et ceteros superiores videlicet religiosos plenam instaurationem latissimumque ritus Sancti Pii Quinti imperamus.

I don't know what you all think, but sounds promising to me . . .

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Sacramentum Caritatis: What to Look For

Only the laziest slug-a-bed on the East coast will not yet know of today's announced March 13th release date for Pope Benedict's long-awaited Post-Synodal Exhortation, which we now know will be called Sacramentum Caritatis. So, rather than just waiting 'round till next week to see what it actually says, I thought I'd toss up this post as a clearing house for the members of our august Society to give their "things to look for" in the Exhortation when it does arrive. My own list of things-to-note:

1) Ratio of references to and quotes drawn from Vatican II + John Paul II to everything else. The question is whether this is 20-to-1 or 10-to-1. Bonus points for any mention of Trent or even St. Pius X
2) Mention of Mass said ad Orientem. Even a whiff of this would tempt me to break my Lenten fast in celebration.
3) Weasel words, or words with force? If the tone is, "in communion with the exhortations of the second Vatican Council, we encourage blah blah blah," forget it. But if a few "We declare and command"s or similar verbiage sneaks in, watch out!

My fellow bloggers, your thoughts? Readers, your concerns?

Update: It's Out. Commentary will be here
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Where are the traditional pre-seminary options?

Partly because I was thinking about St. Gregory's Academy on account of their very cool '67 Ford Mustang raffle, so later last night, I was wondering what a boy of high school age, who is favorably inclined towards religion or the priesthood, is to do when he reaches college age. This particular question had never struck me before: there are, after all, by this date, more than a few solidly orthodox Catholic colleges. They're not yet traditionalist colleges - though the SSPX does have one - but they're certainly far better than Georgetown or Marquette, say, in terms of orthodoxy. Places like the University of Dallas, Christendom College, and Thomas Aquinas College come to mind. But there's something missing, as it were, in each of these places: an all male environment.

No, the preceding sentences weren't a prelude in defense of Bishop Williamson's sound counsel that women should stay home from college. Instead, bracketing that question, I think that all of us traditionalists and perhaps even some Novus types can see the importance of at least the opportunity for an all boys college education.

There are certainly reasons why even worldly folks would want, for a time, to leave aside the company of the opposite sex in order to devote themselves more exclusively to the cultivation of the mind and the advancement of knowledge. While distractions can come in many forms, the absence of the opposite sex seems to me to be a not insignificant difference in the college environment: a pretty girl a few desks over, dating, dressing to impress, the different social dynamics of mixed sex groups are potentially great distractions, especially at the college age. Such reasons, at least in part, were presumably the motivation for places like Oxford to remain all male long after the University had ceased to be something of a monastic institution or even to be Catholic. Such also were presumably the reasons, at least in part, for the foundations of all men and all women liberal arts colleges in the United States.

But what I have in mind are not only reasons which anyone intent on serious learning or discipline could appreciate, but the specifically religious and Catholic motivation of cultivating a religious vocation or calling to the priesthood. Haven't we all heard, either personally or in another form, of the men who in the old days went off to seminary at age 12? I always thought that sounded ridiculous: no one can enter seminary, properly so-called, at the age of 12. But what I take it they had in mind in saying that they entered "seminary" at that age was that they began an education track which would eventually deposit them in seminary at the proper age and which before that time would instill in them the discipline and religion which would make it easy for them to stick with it until ordination. It was theirs to opt out of at anytime, if they had wanted. Importantly, I think, it was all male from start to finish.

Now what about today? Say a young man has been home-schooled, then gone, possibly, to a boys' Catholic high school, and now he must find a place to complete his education before he can enter Our Lady of Guadalupe seminary. There are a number of good Catholic colleges from which to pick. He goes off to college, and like most young people, this is his first time away from home (say). In this Catholic college, he is surrounded by many others like himself, who are also thinking of the priesthood and religion. There are also many others who are discerning; there are still others somewhat discerning and mostly not; there are others for whom a celibate life is definitely not in the cards. There are many, hundreds even, of sweet, pretty, orthodox Catholic girls in this place; like the boys, some of them are serious about a vocation, others are ambivalent, and others are already set upon marriage.

Unless this young man is to segregate himself within this community or is exceptionally gifted with the grace of continence and chastity, this environment will certainly prove to be a challenge to his initial intention to enter religion or the priesthood. At least, such is my intuition. He will, perhaps, be better off down the road for having faced this initial test in which on nearly any day he could abandon his plan and set off on the road towards marriage. But I think that there was wisdom in the old system which enabled those who wanted to do so to spend the college years and, indeed, all the years of their education, in a non co-ed enviroment.

My guess is that if this kind of option were made available or made available on a wider scale, there would be an increase in priestly "vocations". For when boys and girls are pluncked down in the same place, in large numbers, are taught that religion and marriage are both wonderful, beautiful gifts of God - no pressure! - I think it's reasonable that many will marry who would have, in a different enviroment, entered religion or the priesthood.

So it seems strange to me that we as tradtionalists have home-schooling, perhaps through the end of high school, or places like St. Gregory's, but then for college, our children confront a mixed sex environment on a large scale, possibly for the first time, and away from home. If the Church in the past nutured and groomed even young boys who seemed apt for the priesthood, from grammar school to the priesthood, why don't we have something similar in place today?

Incidentally, I thought I'd mention that a friend of mine from Reggie's course had gone to one of these pre-seminary type colleges in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. I'm actually not sure whether it was co-ed or all-male, but I did have the impression that it was probably the latter, though maybe this is an unhappy surmise? (Perhaps one of our readers can tell me if such things exist at all in the United States.) But when he got to the seminary proper, as you might have expected, he was weirded out - literally out. Just another item on the lists of things for which the Patriarch of the West will answer at the end.


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Sunday Notes

It was an interesting Sunday for us at St. Michael's, even if we were deprived of Clara's conversation. First of all, a traditional priest from Nigeria, Fr. Evaristus Eshiowu, F.S.S.P., offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. (See more here.) As Fr. Adam Rigourous, F.S.S.P. explained to us before the homily, Fr. Eshiowu is Stateside for awhile in connection with an effort to obtain visas for young Nigerian men who wish to become priests of the traditional rite. Unfortunately, at this time, neither the the local government in Nigeria nor the United States government, explained Fr. Rigourous, has been very cooperative. From the sounds of it, there are a number of young men who would eagerly take up this calling, if the way were opened to them. Please say an Ave that the road may be speedily opened for these men!

As usual, the homily was interesting. We've now come to the Fifth Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill, in a series of homilies on the 10 Commandments leading up to Easter. We learned that among the things prohibited by the 5th Commandment is listening to almost any type of modern music, such as rock and roll (so-called), rap, most country western songs, as well as Christian rock. In short, Fr. Adam Rigourous admonished us to avoid any type of music that we would not listen to in company with Our Lord, Our Lady, and the Patron Protector of the Universal Church.

Having, as I do, a very sensual soul, easily swayed towards sin by sinister sounds rhythms, lyrics, and beats, I made something of a conscious decision to cease listening to all such music around the time when I became a Catholic. (Also because my entire collection of that music had been "illegally" downloaded.) So no further problem for me there. But I worry about whether it would be in good taste to listen to Mozart's compositions for the Masons in company with Our Lord, Our Lady, and St. Joseph? I kinda like that music - I mean, I went so far as to buy it - but it seems like it would be offensive to put K. 623, 546, 468, 429 and the like on when the Holy Family stops by for tea (counterfactually-speaking).

Pro absentibus fratribus - oh, which reminds me: for those folks of our Society who are now away from Cornell, I want you to know that you are remembered specially each Saturday night when we pray the Litany of Saints. Of course, that line was originally meant, I guess, for the monks who were travelling away from the monastery, but from the first, whenever we've come to it, I've thought how perfect it is for praying for those who have wandered far from this den of vipers and bastion of liberalism - I mean Ithaca, of course, and not the company of Franciscus and I. : ) And so pro absentibus fratribus, I thought I would mention that we tried a new place in Scranton today for lunch after Mass: Smokey Bones. It was pretty good. I don't know if it was good enough to enter the rotation, but we might have to go there at least once more for the sake of Clara, who was warm in bed while we, with faces bent to the wind, wended our way towards Scranton without her.

And one more thing - I think this is pretty cool! I quote from the website: "Toward the end of the last school year the boys of St. Gregory's Academy helped Fr. J Fryar restore a 1967 Ford Mustang Coupe as an extra-curricular activity. You can find details about the restoration in the links above, and now that the car is restored it will be raffled for the benefit of the school. Support St. Gregory's Academy and the Traditional formation of young boys and buy a ticket or two!" Indeed, do! The St. Michael's bulletin this weekend adds these remarks: "The parish in Pequannock raised over $3,000 for the school. Almost every family in the Sacramento parish made the effort to buy at least one ticket and they raised close to $3,000 too. How about us? Can we?"

Just my opinion, but I think it would bring undying glory to this Society if one of us were to win the car. Iacobus, I expect you to buy enough tickets to mathematically guarantee that you win the car. Doctor Asinorum, you were looking for another car? Well, here it is!


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The 110th Successor of St. Petronius

As many of you know, Giacomo Cardinal Biffi, the emeritus, if I may, Archbishop of Bologna was chosen by Benedict XVI to preach the Lenten retreat to the Roman Curia. He made waves on Tuesday when, according to Vatican Radio, he told the Holy Father and the assembled prelates that "the Antichrist presents himself as pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist." As I said yesterday to Ambrosius and Iacobus after reading that quotation, "I think we have our marching orders, boys!"

Cardinal Biffi, to be fair, was only quoting from the Russian Orthodox theologian, mystic, and eventual Catholic convert (see here) Alexander Soloviev (1853-1900), a thinker who has been praised by both van Balthasar and Cardinal Ratzinger. But what sass! After how many years of Fr. Raniero Cantelamessa, we're accustomed to less than stellar - and sometimes plain stupid - things being said by those specially chosen to preach to the Roman Pontiff.

If you're interested in reading more about Cardinal Biffi's thoughts in connection with Soloviev, there is this article by the cardinal, "Soloviev and Our Time." It's not long and it's definitely worth every minute! As a traditionalist crazy, I'm struck by the ways in which Soloviev's predictions align with evil plans of the bad guys in Malachi Martin's Windswept House. In particular, I mean the dissolution of individual nation-states, a Church divested of Christ, and the triumph of silly ideologies (enviromentalism, pacificism) over the concerns of salvation.

These lines should be sufficient motivation to read the whole of Cardinal Biffi's article:

One sees here described -- and condemned -- a Christianity of "values," of "openings," of "dialogue," a Christianity where it seems there is little room left for the person of the Son of God crucified for us and risen, little room for the actual event of salvation.

A scenario, I think, that should cause us to reflect...

A scenario in which the faith militant is reduced to humanitarian and generically cultural action, the Gospel message is located in an irenic encounter with all philosophies and all religions and the Church of God is transformed into an organization for social work.

Are we sure Soloviev did not foresee what has actually come to pass? Are we sure it is not precisely this that is the most perilous threat today facing the "holy nation" redeemed by the blood of Christ -- the Church?

It is a disturbing question and one we must not avoid.

There are some fun/funny comments about Biffi in this article about papabile from 2001 (from which I took the picture). Scroll down towards the bottom.


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God's Will in Nature

Given my great love of literature, art, music, and so many other of the humanist, liberal studies which delight others in the academy, I sometimes sadden a bit that my own chosen field, physics, is less immediately delightful and often merely frustrating. But this morning I remembered this poem by George Meredith and was reminded that, in studying natural Philosophy, I at least am concerned with an arena that is wholly God's, where His will is being worked out in all its delightful precision and beauty; and that is a consoling thought.

Lucifer in Starlight

ON a starr'd night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen'd,
Where sinners hugg'd their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he lean'd,
Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careen'd,
Now the black planet shadow'd Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that prick'd his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reach'd a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he look'd, and sank.
Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.

A Lenten quote from Balthasar

God's Face like a countenance beaming forth from the darkness: in order to see it we throw everything we possess into the fire -- the world, our joys, our hopes. The flame leaps forth, consumes it all, and in its glow the beloved Face lights up. But the flame dies down, and we feed it with what little remains to us: honor, success, our will, the intellect, our temperament, finally our very self: absume et suscipe -- "take and receive." This is not simple self-giving but, increasingly, the knowledge that I am being taken, that I must surrender. Grace is everything: the moment of God's appearing; grace also every sacrifice the fire snatches from me.

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Standing on Ceremony

We have a question that I has hoped some of our readers might be able to help us with. It is perhaps known to some of you that a Nuptial Mass is forthcoming with regards to certain persons associated with this blog. What we're interested in is the status of the Solemnization of Matrimony ceremony that appears in both the Angelus and Baronius Press 1962 Missals. Our FSSP priest offhandedly claimed that this ceremony was authorized only for use in Britain, and not in the United States. Indeed it is a much nicer ceremony (more ornate, more genteel, more English(?)) than the one found in the famous white Nuptial Mass Booklet Missals put out by the Ecclesia Dei Coalition. My question is simple: is this, in fact, correct? Is this form of Solemnization of Matrimony not approved for use in the US? And if so, isn't it strange that the Baronius Missal (i.e. the FSSP's "official" pew missal), which carries the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, contains a ceremony that cannot be used in his diocese? Obviously, we will use the American ceremony if it is the only one permitted, but we just wanted to make sure that is the case.

Apologies

Many apologies to our readers for our brief absence!

Mardi Gras

As a Mardi Gras gift to our readers, I thought I would post for them a recipe for a real Louisiana Chicken and Sausage Gumbo [pdf][doc]. But, of course, the most important thing about today is that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and it is imperative that Catholics take the season of Lent seriously. As Iosephus observed to me one time, it isn't sensible to have a daylong bacchanalia to introduce the season where you don't eat chocolate. Which is why I would like to encourage our readers to listen rather to the Church, whose traditional Fast for Lent is an excellent means of mortification of the flesh. It also has the benefit of being externally prescribed: one tends to be less inclined to spiritual pride when being obedient to the Church's ideas about what makes for a fast, rather than constructing a fast for oneself. Anyway, here is the fast. Each day of Lent, a "fast and partial abstinence," which means: two small meals: one ~4 ounces (= a bagel, two pieces of toast); one ~8 ounces; and one full-sized meal, with meat taken only at the full meal. On Fridays, the same fast proportions, but with no meat at all -- full abstinence. Simple and effective. Give it a try! (A note: women often have commented to me that they eat less than this anyway. Fine! Just, for Lent, keep it up, but make sure you do it every day, and with partial abstinence and no snacking. It's about obedience, not losing weight. In this vein, you may also want to read Iosephus' fine words on Fasting from last Lent.)

Bertrand Russell gets something right

Generally speaking, the conventional wisdom about outsiders being able to see things that insiders cannot, fails to hold in matters of the faith. From St. Augustine’s time and before (though St. Anselm is generally credited with the insight) it has been recognized that faith is often a prerequisite to understanding. Many aspects of it will appear arbitrary or even crazy until the sensibilities are properly trained.

Nonetheless, it can be interesting at times to see what vestiges of truth penetrate the warped sensibilities of those who are entirely hostile to the faith. In this spirit, I offer a little excerpt from Bertrand Russell, one of the twentieth century’s rock star atheists. His book, Why I Am Not a Christian, is on the whole a disappointing read if you pick it up hoping for an invigorating challenge. Maybe some day I'll get around to writing a post making fun of him. But he did have a way with words, and the book is peppered with memorable phrases. His essay On Catholic and Protestant Skeptics hones in on a point that I have made before in another form: the seeds of truth are often planted much more deeply in the soul than we ever expect. Even for those Catholics who are trying to lose themselves in the woods, the compass is still calibrated.

Obviously Russell does not put it that way. He only observes that Catholics, even bad ones, seem to feel a very powerful tie to the Church, which continues to follow and haunt them even after they’ve resolved to abandon it. The point of the essay could be boiled down to the following: Protestant “freethinkers” rebel in order to be good; Catholic “freethinkers” rebel in order to be bad. There’s a charming simplicity to this very true observation.

“To the Protestant the exceptionally good man is one who opposes the authorities and the received doctrines, like Luther at the Diet of Worms. The Protestant conception of goodness is of something individual and isolated. I was myself educated as a Protestant, and one of the texts most impressed upon my youthful mind was, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.” I am conscious that to this day this text influences me in my most serious actions. The Catholic has quite a different conception of virtue: to him there is in all virtue an element of submission, not only to the voice of God as revealed in conscience but also to the authority of the church as the repository of Revelation. This gives to the Catholic a conception of virtue far more social than that of the Protestant and makes the wrench much greater when he severs his connection with the church. The Protestant who leaves the particular Protestant sect in which he has been brought up is only doing what the founders of that sect did not so very long ago, and his mentality is adapted to the foundation of a new sect. The Catholic, on the other hand, feels himself lost without the support of the church. He can, of course, join some other institution, such as the freemasons, but he remains conscious, nonetheless, of desperate revolt. And he generally remains convinced, at any rate subconsciously, that the moral life is confined to members of the church, so that for the freethinker the highest kinds of virtue have become impossible.”

Russell takes some more shots at both groups, but particularly the Protestants. “The Protestant freethinker of the present day,” he observes, “is apt to take liberties in action as well as in thought, but that is only a symptom of the general decay of Protestantism. In the good old days a Protestant freethinker would have been capable of deciding in favor of free love, and nevertheless living all his days a life of strict celibacy.”

Ambrosius likes to remind us that the best Protestants become Catholics, while the worst Catholics become Protestants. Interesting that even an atheist can see this difference: Protestants can’t make up their minds what it means to live well, whereas Catholics know in their souls that they have the truth already, so that the most important question is whether or not they want to live it.

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Armel and Co.

A photograph of our pilgrim, Armel, with his family, at his brother's ordination (FSSP).

A Call for Better Lovers

I meant to post this on St. Valentine's Day, but this whole new blogger business was giving me problems. Ambrosius ended up putting up a very appropriate post for the Day of Love, but now that the kinks are worked out I thought I'd offer mine as well... I could save it for next year, but by then I'll be married myself and my husband might regard it as a personal criticism of him. This year I'm presumably safe.

I should warn you all at the outset that this does not come from an authoritative source. In fact, if anything, it comes from an anti-authoritative source; not only is the author an Anglican priest (or "priest" if you prefer), he is a hypocrite as well. In his book on marriage, from which I am about to quote, he says a number of nice things, including declaring divorce to be "a metaphysical impossibility"... but, after having six children with his wife and writing a book about it, he divorced her and remarried. Go figure. So take this or leave it as you like, but I found it thought-provoking nonetheless.


I suppose what I found thought-provoking was this: in an age in which love-making has come to be associate with that dirty word "sex," we hardly think it necessary or even fitting to think about being good lovers. In the eyes of the Church, good love-making is that which is done within wedlock, non-contraceptively, and that, we might think, is about all there is to say on the matter. I have two friends who did an Engaged Encounter weekend before their marriage, which included a session on love-making (though of course they insisted on calling it "sex.") The leaders of the session declared that there was really nothing special that needed to be said on that topic, but apparently the EE program required them to address it, so they turned the hour into a Q and A session. How typical, in an age in which sex is seen primarily as a recreational activity, that people would assume that this aspect of marriage would take care of itself, and that no special thought needed to be put into it.

If we can spill so much ink telling people about the wrong ways to go about making love, surely at least a few words can be said about the right way? Anyway I think so, and in that spirit I offer this little tidbit from the hypocritical heretic priest, Robert Farrar Capon, who, whatever his errors, is at the very least exploring a worthwhile line of thought.

""St. Paul may have been prejudiced toward women (what with not letting them speak in church), and we may be able to sit loose to his obiter dicta about them; but on the subject of wives and husbands he deserves more of a hearing than he currently gets. The husband, he says, is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church. The marriage rite takes him at his word. It is the groom who speaks first, gives first and loves first. The bride is to obey, to receive and to respond....

The reason the headship of the husband is so violently object to is that it is misunderstood. First of all, St. Paul's anti-feminist prejudices notwithstanding, the Bible does not say that men and women are unequal. Neither does the Church. There are no second-class citizens in the New Jerusalem. It is husbands and wives that are unequal. It is precisely in marriage (a state, you will recall, not to be continued as such in heaven) that they enter into a relationship of superior to inferior -- of head to body. And the difference there is not one of worth, ability or intelligence, but of role. It is functional, not organic. It is based on the exigencies of the Dance, not on a judgment as to talent. In the ballet, in any intricate dance, once dancer leads, the other follows. Not because one is better (he may or may not be) but because that is his part. Our mistake, here as elsewhere, is to think that equality and diversity are unreconcilable. The common notion of equality is based on the image of the march. In a parade, really unequal beings are dressed alike, given guns of identical length, trained to hold them at the same angle, and ordered to keep step with a fixed beat. But it is not the parade that is true to life; it is the dance. There you have real equals assigned unequal roles in order that each may achieve his individual perfection in the whole. Nothing is less personal than a parade; nothing more so than a dance. It is the choice image of fulfillment through function, and it comes very close to the heart of the Trinity. Marriage is a hierarchical game played by co-equal persons. Keep that paradox and you move in the freedom of the Dance; alter it, and you grow weary with marching.

But that only says what the headship doesn't mean. What it does mean is equally misunderstood. The husband is head over his wife as the head is over the body. It isn't a description of what ought to be; it just says what is. He is the head. He will be a good one or a bad one, depending; but if he isn't the head, there isn't any other. He is to be the lover, she the beloved. If he doesn't initiate, she will wither of neglect. She cannot supply what only he can give. If the locomotive doesn't pull, the train doesn't move.

He, then, is to love and cherish her. And he is to do it first, because he promised it first. She must do it too, of course, but in her own way, as an answering voice, a counterpoint. Unfortunately it doesn't often work out that way. And our little bete noire, Sex, doesn't help much. One of the commonest ways it suceeds in frustrating honest sexuality is to train men to look on women as sources of stimulation, rather than as objects of love. They come to marriage after years of being conditioned to respond to certain more or less irrelevant fetishes -- the height of heels, the length of hair, the size of waistlines, the prominence of busts. When they become husbands, however, they find that what they have learned to consider Sexy is not too dependably supplied by marriage. Waistlines thicken as the years go by, and busts fall and fashions change. But husbands still wait to be aroused, and not infrequently they wait more than they do anything else. They grow impatient. They complain. If, in their disgruntlement, they resort to reading marriage books, they are liable to get the impression that the source of trouble is lack of technique; theirs, if they are diffident; their wives', if they are arrogant. But that isn't the trouble at all. It's that they are being passive where they should be active. Don't misunderstand. Perhaps most husbands do fairly well. The point is that what they are doing is responding, not leading, and their wives suffer for it. No human being can afford to settle for being only the occasion of somebody else's pleasure. No wife can long endure being treated as if her chief sexual function were to arouse her husband. That puts the shoe on exactly the wrong foot. She is, after all, a person; if her husband never grows from passion and response into action and love -- if he doesn't stop waiting to be aroused and realize that he's got to make something of a career of arousing -- she is not going to find being a wife much of a fulfillment.

As a priest, I listen dutifully to a lot of wifely discontent. Women have their faults, and I don't suppose there is a pastor on earth who doesn't at times wish he had the power to convert them all back into ribs -- nice, quiet, uncomplaining ribs. But all this female smoldering is evidence of a fire somewhere. I dare say that at least one of its causes is the fa