Jim Manney of Loyola Press has an interesting blog called People of the Book, which focuses on Catholic book publishing. He has a recent post about a new book by Jeremy Driscoll, OSB entitled A Monk’s Alphabet: Moments of Stillness in a Turning World.  Here is an excerpt:

God so hates religious smugness and self-satisfaction and the
certainty that the other is a sinner and will go to hell that he would
empty hell completely of the sinners who deservedly belong there and
place the smug one there all alone to pass an eternity of painful
astonishment, learning that God has mercy on whom he will. Should some
faint sense of desiring to adore the One who is so merciful crack even
slightly the bitterness of this terribly misused virtuous one, maybe
then even hell would be emptied of him.

In short, it is not for me to judge, not for me to presume to
pronounce on others. ‘The last shall be first, and the first last.’

Sandro Magister’s latest blog ( http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=87082&eng=y) has an interesting story on the opening of the Vatican archives for the reign of Pope Pius XI. (1922-1939), along with an interview with one of the scholars who worked on getting the papers ready. One of the things that struck me is how immense the work is to get such a huge mass of material ready for consultation by experts.

University of Chicago historian David Nirenberg dissects the pope’s Regensburg lecture at the New Republic. A sample:

Benedict’s plea for Hellenization draws on a German philosophical tradition–stretching from Hegel’s The Spirit of Christianity
through Weber’s sociology of religions to the post-World War II
writings of Heidegger–whose confrontations of Hebraism with Hellenism
contributed to, rather than prevented, violence against non-Christians
on a scale unheard of in the Muslim world. We may grant that such an
intellectual dependence is hard to avoid, given the deep and abiding
influence of this theological and philosophical tradition on the modern
humanities and social sciences. From a Eurocentric point of view, we
might even concede the pope’s well-worn claim that, as Heine put it in
1841, the “harmonious fusion of the two elements,” the Hebraic and the
Hellenic, was “the task of all European civilization.”  

What we cannot accept without contradiction or hypocrisy is the pope’s presentation of the speech as an invitation to dialogue.

For the rest of his analysis, click here.

Stephen Colbert on the Culture Wars. “The best way to fight evil Islamic fanaticism is with good Christian fanaticism.”

The fracas over the Deutsche Oper Berlin’s cancellation of Mozart’s opera “Idomeneo,” produced this interesting factoid in the New York Times (9/27/06).

The bloody head of Muhammad brought on stage at the end of the opera is accompanied by the heads of Jesus, Buddha, and Poseidon. Could Mozart have ever written such an ending? (I have never seen Idomeneo, though it’s being produced at the Met this season). No, he could not and did not!

The bloody ending is new. It was introduced in a 2003 production by Hans Neuenfels, described by a colleague as “a secularist who does not believe religion solves the problems of the world.” Mr. Neuenfels’ agent said in the Times story, “you couldn’t chage [the ending]; it is part of the story.”

Well, apparently you can change the ending–as long as it was written by Mozart.

In August, Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford, Illinois, wrote a column in which he announced that the “seven ‘sacraments’ of [the Democrats'] secular culture are” — in alphabetical order — “abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation.” Carolyn, a Commonweal reader from Rockford, writes:

The politicization of the American Catholic church does seem to be picking up steam; I am concerned about it.

In the Midwest, it’s everywhere. Hastert’s campaign staff stands in the vestibule of my church with campaign literature. Catholics seem to be a big battleground for the political parties–and priests and others who should be more level-headed seem to be getting caught up. In other parishes Republican nominating petitions were circulated at the beginning and end of catechism classes. In Nov. 2004, one priest flat out told us we couldn’t vote for Kerry, and issued a “my guy won” sermon after the election. And yes, Hastert’s picture appears regularly in my friend’s church bulletin. My friend is a lifelong Catholic, a senior Knights of Columbus member, a pillar of his community; his daughter was the first altar girl in his parish. And he and his family are being told by their own bishop they represent buggery and are a clear and present danger to society because they vote Democrat.

I had another friend come to me in tears after Doran’s pronouncement. This stuff isn’t benign, it tears apart people who make up the fabric of our parishes. This woman is a member of Pax Christi and has worked tirelessly for many years in the cause of peace and social justice. She makes prayer shawls, helps at the homeless shelter, and wants desperately to belong to a church that takes its mission seriously. What can I say to her?

Maybe I’m reading too much Bonhoeffer, but in my view the politicization of our church and its members is a danger, and something I wish our bishops and those who write about church affairs would take more seriously. Political oaths have no place in church.

Of course we all fall short. But the weak cries for unity and civility I hear are just not working. We need some real leadership from our Conference, or the Vatican, somewhere. We need some level-headed Catholicism. The days of Cardinal Bernardin seem like a million years ago.

Pope Benedict’s Address to Ambassadors of nations with a Muslim majority includes this quote from John Paul II:

Respect and dialogue require reciprocity in all spheres,
especially in that which concerns basic freedoms, more particularly religious
freedom. They favor peace and agreement between peoples.

If you haven’t yet, check out our Web-only interview with Daniel Madigan, SJ, president of the Institute for the Study of Religions and Cultures at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, on Benedict XVI’s controversial address at Regensburg.

As Grant mentioned last week I’m happy to respond to complaints, questions or compliments regarding my piece on Catholics and contemporary politics. I’ll try to respond later today or tomorrow and look forward to the conversation.

The historian Niall Ferguson is the author most recently of The War of the World. In an interview in the “Ideas” section of today’s Boston Globe, he has this to say:

IDEAS: How do you understand radical Islamism? Is it, as some say, the successor to Marxism?

FERGUSON:
It is. The great category error of our time is to equate radical
Islamism with fascism. If you actually read what Osama bin Laden says,
it’s clearly Lenin plus the Koran. It’s internationalist,
revolutionary, and anticapitalist-rhetoric far more of the left than of
the right. And radical Islamism is good at recruiting within our
society, within western society generally. In western Europe, to an
extent people underestimate here, the appeal of radical Islamism
extends beyond Muslim communities.

IDEAS: To people who might once have been drawn to Marxism?

FERGUSON:
And for much the same reason. Here is a way to reject the impure,
corrupt qualities of western life and embrace a monotheistic zealotry.
That’s very satisfying.

This from Patrick Lang on Benedict. A very different take than Juan Cole’s, equally intriguing.

“Faith, Reason and the University” Benedict XVI

“The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.” Benedict XVI

—————————————————————————————-

Gripping stuff isn’t it? Not for most of us. For a theologian it must be like catnip. I reproduce below the entirety of Benedict’s address to the University of Regensburg (where he was once vice-chancellor). I do that so that those who are fascinated by his quotation from the dialog of Manuel Paleologus and the Persian scholar may see the quotation in its proper context rather than in the sensationalized and irresponsible isolation that the mass media placed it in.

In fact, Benedict quoted Manuel not to make points about Islam, but, rather to make points about Manuel and the intellectual tradition of Hellenistic thought in which Manuel resided. This pope is engaged in a defense of the rigor of theological discourse within the Christian world. He is certainly one of the leaders of Christendom. He believes that we Christians have become slovenly and confused thinkers and he seeks to restore the clarity of our ideas. I would say that this should not be surprising considering that he is a German university professor by “trade.” In other words, this talk was not about Islam at all, and the Byzantine/Persian dialog quotation was incidental to the argument. If that was so, then why have we seen such a fierce and heated response from so many (not all) Muslims?

Read more:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/

I’ve heard of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet, but “The 9/11 of Pope Benedict XVI”? I’ll let Deal Hudson, of the Morley Institute for Chuch and Culture, explain:

Ever since he emerged smiling through the doors of St. Peter’s, as the Cardinals’ choice to lead the Church, Benedict XVI has successfully avoided reinforcing the stereotype of a tradition-bound conservative academic. He was not unaware, however, that the Catholic Left was ready to pounce on any miscue and hold it up to the world as proof of the disaster they predicted his papacy to be.

The Left didn’t wait long. No less a critic than John Cornwell, famous for his depiction of Pius XII as anti-Semitic, announced that the pope’s speech at the University of Regensburg has “set back relations with Islam several eras” (The Australian, September 18, 2006).

Cornwell fails to mention how the 9/11 attacks with reports of terrorist pilots plowing into American targets while praying to Allah put a stain on Islam that will take “several eras” to remove.

(snip)

The Muslim reaction to the Regensburg speech will only strengthen the Western world’s resolve to confront the threat of radical Islam, whether it is best called fascistic or jihadist. It will reinforce the resolve of Bush, Blair, and their supporters to stay the course in the Iraq war and keep the pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear enrichment program.

Read the rest here.

Timothy Garton Ash has a piece in the current New York Review of Books that strikes me as unusually perplexed and pessimistic (though it may be only an indication of how intractable the reality is).

Under the title, “Islam in Europe,” it is his review-cum-reflections of books by Ian Buruma and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (The latter is the Somali-born Dutch politician whose Dutch citizenship was revoked and then reinstated; but who has now left Holland for the United States.)

The most interesting passage of the article for me was the following:

Having in her youth been tempted by Islamist fundamentalism, under the influence of an inspiring schoolteacher, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now a brave, outspoken slightly simplistic Enlightenment fundamentalist. In a pattern familiar to historians of political intellectuals, she has gone from one extreme to the other, with an emotional energy perfectly summed up by Shakespeare: “As the heresies that men do leave/are hated most of those they did deceive.” This is precisely why she is a heroine to many secular European intellectuals, who are themselves Enlightenment fundamentalists They believe that not just Islam but all religion is insulting to the intelligence and crippling to the human spirit. Most of them believe that a Europe based entirely on secular humanism would be a better Europe. Maybe they are right. (Some of my best friends are Enlightenment fundamentalists.) Maybe they are wrong. But let’s not pretend this is anything other than a frontal challenge to Islam.

Sounds rather like Pope Benedict in Regensburg:

In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion to the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures.

Yes, they’ve reached an accord on the interrogation bill, they say (the president’s 90-second commentary is viewable in this story). But what kind? What is the nature of the agreement? Why are McCain, Graham, and Warner now satisfied? Details remain scarce.

Update: The text of the “compromise” is available here (warning: PDF), and Balkinization has a round-up (and text if you’d rather avoid the PDF) well worth reading.

Update 2: The New York Times editorializes on the “compromise.”

Update 3: Adam Liptak’s Times piece on the deal, complete with graphic.

DotCommonwealer and Notre Dame historian John McGreevy has generously offered to answer reader questions on his latest article here on Monday, September 25. So get reading, and keep your eyes peeled for John’s Q&A post.

N.B.: Only registered users of the Commonweal Web site are able to post comments on dotCommonweal. Don’t have a username and password yet? What are you waiting for? Sign up now!

In today’s Audience, Pope Benedict reviews his recent trip to Bavaria. When he speaks of his Regensburg University address, he once again distances himself from the negative tenor of Manuel II’s observation regarding what was “new” in Mohammed’s message. His concern, rather, was to underscore Manuel’s insistence on the reasonableness of religious faith as a point of departure for his main theme: the positive relationship between faith and reason. As of now the complete text is only available in Italian. Here is an excerpt:

Per il
lettore attento del mio testo, però, risulta chiaro che non volevo in nessun
modo far mie le parole negative pronunciate dall’imperatore medievale in questo
dialogo e che il loro contenuto polemico non esprime la mia convinzione
personale. La mia intenzione era ben diversa: partendo da ciò che Manuele II
successivamente dice in modo positivo, con una parola molto bella, circa la
ragionevolezza che deve guidare nella trasmissione della fede, volevo spiegare
che non religione e violenza, ma religione e ragione vanno insieme. Il tema
della mia conferenza – rispondendo alla missione dell’Università – fu quindi la
relazione tra fede e ragione: volevo invitare al dialogo della fede cristiana
col mondo moderno ed al dialogo di tutte le culture e religioni

President Bush: “The bottom line is simple: if Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules, if they do not do that, the [interrogation] program is not going forward.”

The question David Gregory asked in response, which the president ignored, was, “And it will not endanger U.S. troops?”

Juan Cole, one of the most knowledgable Middle Eastern/Islam experts, had this to say on Friday about Benedict’s talk:

Pope Benedict’s speech at Regensburg University, which mentioned Islam and jihad, has provoked a firestorm of controversy.

In fact, the Qur’an at no point urges that religious faith be imposed on anyone by force. This is what it says about the religions:

‘ [2:62] Those who believe (in the Qur’an), and those who follow the
Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians–any who
believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have
their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they
grieve.’

See my comments On the Quran and peace.

The idea of holy war or jihad (which is about defending the community
or at most about establishing rule by Muslims, not about imposing the
faith on individuals by force) is also not a Quranic doctrine. The
doctrine was elaborated much later, on the Umayyad-Byzantine frontier,
long after the Prophet’s death. In fact, in early Islam it was hard to
join, and Christians who asked to become Muslim were routinely turned
away. The tyrannical governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj, was notorious for
this rejection of applicants, because he got higher taxes on
non-Muslims. Arab Muslims had conquered Iraq, which was then largely
pagan, Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish. But they weren’t seeking
converts and certainly weren’t imposing their religion.

The pope was trying to make the point that coercion of conscience is incompatible with genuine, reasoned faith. He used Islam as a symbol of the coercive demand for unreasoned faith.

But he has been misled by the medieval polemic on which he depended.
In fact, the Quran also urges reasoned faith and also forbids coercion in religion. The only violence urged in the Quran is in self-defense of the Muslim community against the attempts of the pagan Meccans to wipe it out.

The Pope was wrong on the facts. He should apologize to the Muslims and get better advisers on Christian-Muslim relations.

And then, Cole had this to say today about the apology:

Pope Benedict said on Sunday that the quote he had cited from Byzantine
emperor Manuel II, which said that the Prophet Muhammd brought only
evil and conversion by the sword, did not reflect his own views. He said:

“I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few
passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were
considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims . . . These in fact
were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express
my personal thought. I hope this serves to appease hearts and to
clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and
is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with mutual respect.”

Although there were protests in Iran and some scattered acts of
violence, mostly in already-violent areas, this statement seemed to
mollify some Muslim leaders.

A Muslim Brotherhood official in
Egypt initially said that the statement was a clear retraction and
sufficient as an apology, but apparently under popular pressure, he
backed off that stance slightly, saying that the Pope hadn’t actually
clearly apologized, though he had taken a good step toward an apology.
But the Brotherhood clearly was looking for a way to defuse the crisis,
and that it initially latched on to the Pope’s relatively impenitent
remarks so eagerly, shows that it is eager to see things calmed down.
The Egyptian MB thought the controversy was now likely to subside, and
I hope they are right about that.

Some Western observers think that this episode was the Pope’s play for moral authority at a time of a clash between Islam and the West.

I
think that is right. Benedict was trying to stake out a position that
Western godless atheism is actually unreasonable, and that hard line
coercive religion that disregards reason is wrong (he incorrectly
identified this position as that of Muhammad and the Quran). Thus, the
Catholic Church, with its reasoned faith, becomes the ideal, avoiding
the errors of the two extremes (Western secularism and Islam). To
accomplish this positioning, Benedict XVI had to reduce to cardboard
figures all three traditions–Western rationalism, Roman Catholicism,
and Islam.

Read the rest here

Sojourners editor Jim Wallis has launched, in collaboration with Beliefnet, a new group blog, God’s Politics, named after his most book, which recently came out in paperback. Among their writers are sometime Commonweal contributor Amy Sullivan and Sr. Helen Prejean. First up, a weeklong exchange between Wallis and Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition. Check out part one here.

I have a conservative Christian friend who is currently teaching English at a secondary school in Korea. Last Sunday, he went to one of the conservative Christian megachurches in Seoul and came back complaining that he couldn’t understand a thing. “All they did all day was blare praise and worship music out of these giant speakers,” he said. As a foreigner, naturally, he was lost.

He called to tell me that he was thinking about finding a Catholic Mass, “At least then, with the liturgy, I might have some idea what is going on,” he said.

A recent trend I’ve noticed in the Catholic blogosphere is a
fascination—sometimes bordering on obsession—with the public pronouncements of
Pope Benedict. The global reach of the
Internet has allowed every homily, Angelus address, speech, or off-the-cuff
remark to be quickly translated and disseminated.

There is no denying that Pope Benedict is a man of unique
spiritual and intellectual gifts. As a
friend of mine wrote to me recently, “Benedict leads me to prayer. When I read
his writings, I find myself praying and being opened up.” My friend recounted a story about
then-Professor Ratzinger’s 8am lectures in Munster being filled with townspeople who
came to listen on their way to work.
When the lectures ended, many would remain in their seats praying.

So it seems almost churlish to question whether this
fascination with the Pope’s public statements is a good thing. But question it I shall. Because the problem is not the Pope, but
rather the lack of any other Catholic voices of comparable stature.

I was thinking of this the other day when I was preparing my
post on St. John Chrysostom. When one
looks back at the 4^th and 5^th centuries, one is struck by
the number of bishops who had the kind of public profile—albeit on a smaller scale—that
Benedict has today: Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of
Nazianzus, John Chrysostom. To be Bishop
of Rome in those days was not to be the sun around which lesser bodies merely revolved. As Eamon Duffy once observed, it is not the normal state of things for the
pope to be the Church’s chief theologian, evangelist and legislator all rolled
into one.

One of the clear intentions of the Council Fathers at
Vatican II was to reaffirm the centrality of the episcopate in Catholic ecclesiology
after several decades (one might even say several centuries) of papal maximalism.
But 40 years after the Council, the pope remains something of a solitary
figure, floating above the episcopal college rather than firmly embedded in it.

The reasons for this are varied and even those who agree on
the problem may disagree about the cause.
Some point to the poor quality of episcopal appointments made during the
last pontificate and the impact of the sexual abuse scandals on public
perception of bishops. Others argue that
the national episcopal conferences have made it harder for individual bishops
to develop distinctive voices. Still
others note that the fascination with the pope is a result of forces within the
mass media over which the Church has limited control. There are many fine bishops who preach and
inspire their flocks, but who do not make the news.

I don’t know what the answer is. Surely it is not that Pope Benedict should
hesitate to share the fruits of his prayer and reflection with us. We would be the poorer for that. But as my aforementioned friend put it, “My
hope is that Benedict can provide a distinctive voice that allows other
distinctive voices to flourish.” That will be my prayer as well.

Click here for the live stream of his Catholic University speech (ends at 4:30 p.m. Eastern), much maligned by Cardinal Newman Society president Patrick Reilly at National Review Online (shocker) . 

Catholic University sociologist Dean Hoge has just released his new study of recently ordained priests–the first since 1990–and the findings are telling.

• Since 1990, the average age of priests ordained five to nine years has increased from 34.1 years to 42.6 for diocesan priests, and from 36.8 years to 44.2 for religious priests.
• Just over half of the surveyed priests were already pastors at the time of the survey. In 1990, just 23 percent of recently ordained priests were pastors. In the new study, more than 75 percent of pastors took their position within five years of ordination, and more than one-third were already running more than one parish.
• One-sixth of diocesan priests and one-quarter of religious priests were born outside the United States. Half of those priests were born in Vietnam, Mexico, or the Philippines.
• In 1990, half the priests had been in a college seminary program. Today, just 30 percent of priests entered seminary as a college student.
• The top three Web sites recently ordained priests list as most helpful are: 1. the official Vatican site, 2. the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops site, and 3. EWTN.
• In both 1990 and today, America was cited by new priests as the most influential periodical. The 1990 group listed the next four in order as: the National Catholic Reporter, the Priest, Origins, and Church. Today, the next four are the Priest, the National Catholic Register, First Things, and Origins.
• In 1990, 18 percent of newly ordained priests said Rahner’s work had the most influence on their priesthood, and John Paul II came in seventh. Today, John Paul II’s writings are more influential, cited by 21 percent of those surveyed, and Rahner was named by just 3 percent.
• In 1990, 63 percent of diocesan priests surveyed agreed that their ordination conferred a “new status…essentially different from the laity.” Today, 89 percent of diocesan priests agreed.
• Across both the 1990 and 2005 groups, religious priests identified with the servant-leader model more than their diocesan counterparts, who tend to adhere to a “cultic model,” in which the priest is “a man set apart” from the faith community.
• In 1990, one-third of recently ordained diocesan priests had at least one graduate degree (vs. 55 percent of religious priests). Today, just 21 percent of diocesan priests and 34 percent of religious priests surveyed had earned a graduate degree after ordination.

Much, much more in Jerry Filteau’s summary.

The New Republic‘s new blog, Open University, which is written by approximately seven thousand academics, has taken note of Paul Baumann’s Washington Monthly review of Damon Linker‘s The Theocons, which I mentioned earlier this week.

Columbia University historian Casey N. Blake recommends the review, picking up on Paul’s description of Linker’s argument as “tendentious and “frequently cartoonish.”

More important, Baumann makes the case that Linker’s endorsement of a purely secularist approach to politics actually plays into the hands of Neuhaus and others who insist that an allegiance to the Republican party follows naturally from religious commitments.

Fellow Open University contributor, and frequent contributor to Commonweal, Alan Wolfe, doesn’t agree.

I wrote a blurb for Linker’s book because it is alarming rather than alarmist. It should never be put in the same category as Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming or Kevin Phillip’s American Theocracy.

Linker has managed to write a book that is quite appropriately critical of a sectarian religious figure without dismissing religion as backward or misguided. I don’t recognize The Thecons in Bauman’s review.

Atlantic Monthly associate editor Ross Douthat, who contributes to the First Things blog, not only recognizes Linker’s book in the review, but declares Paul’s take to be “definitive”—“at least for people who don’t necessarily agree with what Richard John Neuhaus stands for.”

Presumably this includes some of you.

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) has had it with the politicization of 9/11 and the “war on terror.”

We’re at war
against an enemy that I happen to believe is the most dangerous enemy
ever to confront this country. We play petty politics constantly here
on the floor of the Senate, even after a solemn day of remembrance for
the valiant people who died on September 11. This is chilling. We just
can’t get past the politics around here, just can’t get past the
partisan advantage around here…

It certainly is depressing when politicians exploit tragic events for their own partisan advantage. Isn’t it?

September 13th is the feast day of Saint John Chrysostom (d. 407), patriarch of Constantinople and Doctor of the Church. Ordained a priest in Antioch in 386, he quickly gained fame as a preacher (hence the posthumous title chrysostom or “golden mouth”). In 397, he was chosen to succeed Nectarius as bishop of Constantinople. His sweeping program of moral and ecclesiastical reforms succeeded in alienating just about every established constituency in the city: clergy, monks, political leaders, and the imperial family (and particularly the Empress Eudoxia, who he at one point referred to as “Jezebel.”). He was exiled twice and died during his second exile in 407.

Chrysostom is revered in the Eastern Church, where the liturgy that bears his name is still in use. My perception is that his contemporary appreciation in the Western Church has been made more difficult by the survival of a set of vitriolic sermons against Judaism, preached while he was still bishop of Antioch. In the light of the history of the later use of these sermons in promoting anti-Semitism, it is perhaps too easy to argue that they should be read in their historical context.

Chrysostom was a man of many passions and an energetic reformer. He was an early advocate of confessing sins privately, believing that “the errors of fellow Christians are not to be made public.” He opposed the ordination of women to the priesthood but supported their presence in the diaconate. He once built a leper hospice outside the city walls, angering wealthy property owners who saw the value of their property fall. For an ascetic, he was surprisingly positive about marriage and sex. He aggressively promoted charitable works; at one point his church in Antioch supported 3,000 widows and prisoners. He challenged his listeners with words like these:

Do you want to honour Christ’s body? Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honour him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked. For he who said: This is my body, and made it so by his words, also said: You saw me hungry and did not feed me, and inasmuch as you
did not do it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me. What we do here in the church requires a pure heart, not special garments; what we do outside requires great dedication.

Hat tip to Karen Marie at From the Anchor Hold for the quote and to Henry Chadwick’s The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great for these and other fascinating tidbits about the life of Saint John Chrysostom. You can find some of his writings here.

The Pope Professor lectured today at his old university. Here is part of what he said:

This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Vatican Radio has a preliminary text.

Matt Lauer asks President Bush about his interrogation policy (hat tip, Andrew Sullivan):

Archbishop Rowan Williams–who happened to be in New York City five years ago on September 11th–offered some thoughts today.  Here is an excerpt:

Last week, we had a visit from one of the most senior rabbis in Israel;
and among much else we talked candidly about the bloody conflict of
recent months between Israel and Lebanon. The rabbi made no political
points. But he said that when in the Bible God tells Moses to take off
his shoes in the divine presence, the Jewish sages had interpreted this
to mean that we couldn’t meet God if we were protected against the
uneven and unyielding and perhaps stony or thorny ground. The same,
said the rabbi, when we meet the human beings who are made in God’s
image. Those who are responsible for violence of any kind, even when
they think it is in a just cause, need to take off their shoes and
recognise what it is like when flesh and blood are hurt. Those who
think they are naturally and permanently protected from such hurt, or
who have forgotten what life is like for most human beings, need to
remember how thin is the partition that shields them.

And they need to do this not in a spirit of panic and dread, but with a
long-term vision of what might one day be the foundation of lasting
peace – the conviction, felt in our very nerves and blood, that
another’s suffering is my problem too. Terrorism is the absolute
negation of any such recognition. And in the long run, what makes it
impossible is ‘taking off our shoes’, coming to terms with what we
share as mortal beings who have immortal value.

Thanks to Neil at Catholic Sensibility for the link.