Catholic News Service reports on a ruling by the Vatican holding that baptisms performed by invoking ”the Creator, the Liberator, and the Sustainer”–rather than the old-fashioned Father, Son & Holy Ghost–are invalid, as are all sacraments that follow thereof, such as marriage. Whoops. Apparently this formula, and a couple of variations, is used in some Catholic parishes, and perhaps more widely in Protestant churches. The aim was to take the testosterone out of the Trinity. The Vatican–with the Pope’s imprimatur–says no gender-bending allowed. And those baptized with that formula–or married, or exorcised, etc–will have to go back and do them again, the right way. Whatever the merits of the Trinity language debate, I’m not sure the pastoral prescription is the best one. I suspect those told to do the sacraments again will wind up in one of those alt-Catholic categories the Pew study found this week…

UPDATE:  Check this CNS folo:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801185.htm
U.S. officials: Vatican statement clarifies validity of baptisms
 

While I find all this “renounce” and “reject” stuff a bit silly, as long as we’re playing that game, what is good for the goose should be good for the gander. With that in mind, I want to give credit to Bill Donohue for calling on John McCain to renounce the support of the anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic John Hagee.

UPDATE:  (Via TPM)  Here’s McCain’s response to all of this.  Pretty weak tea compared to what Russert demanded from Obama the other night:

“Yesterday, Pastor John Hagee endorsed my candidacy for president in San Antonio, Texas. However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee’s views, which I obviously do not.

“I am hopeful that Catholics, Protestants and all people of faith who share my vision for the future of America will respond to our message of defending innocent life, traditional marriage, and compassion for the most vulnerable in our society.”

What then are you, my God? What, I ask, but the Lord God? For who is the Lord but the Lord? Or who is God but our God (Ps 17:32). Most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, utterly omnipotent; utterly merciful and utterly just; utterly hidden and utterly present; utterly beautiful and utterly strong; constant and incomprehensible; unchanging but changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new and leading the proud into old age without their knowing it (see Job 9:5); always active, always resting; gathering though needing nothing; sustaining and filling and protecting; creating and nourishing and completing; seeking even though you lack nothing [quaerens cum nihil desit tibi]. You love, but not hotly; you are jealous but without anxiety; you repent but without remorse; you grow angry but remain calm; you change your works but do not change your plan; you take back what you find, though you never lost it; you are never in need but rejoice at your gains; you are never greedy, but demand profits (Lk 15:17). People pay you more than you require (see Lk 10:35) so that you may be in their debt, but who has anything that is not yours? Owing nothing, you repay debts; you pay off debts and you lose nothing.

And what have we just said, my God, my life, my holy sweetness? Or what does anyone say when he speaks of you? But woe to those who do not speak of you, since those who speak most say nothing! [Vae tacentibus de te quoniam loquaces muti sunt. ] (Augustine, Confessions, I, 4:4)

James O’Donnell thinks the loquaces are Manicheans and other philosophers, so he doesn’t think it’s a general statement about negative theology, but is similar to what Augustine says in his exposition of Ps 144:7, where he refers to “certain eloquent mutes who praise the creature but forget the Creator” [quidam eloquentes muti, laudantes creaturam, obliviscentes Creatorem]. Many translations, including mine above, see it as an expression of the wonderful paradox: we have to speak about God–woe to those who don’t–but should never forget that our much-speaking says nothing. It is a view that Augustine shared with Aquinas: we can only say of God what he is not; what he is escapes us now.

The Latin adjective mutus was used not only of people who do not or cannot speak, but also of animals incapable of speech–it’s apparently onomatopoetic: they moo or low or grunt.

Completely forgot to mention this: fellow Commonweal staffer Marianne Tierney and I will be hosting the magazine’s booth at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress–starting tomorrow. (The Commonweal jet touched down just a few hours ago.) If you’ll be among the horde of 30,000, swing by booth 319 and say hello, why don’t you? We might be able to snag some of the free exhibitors’ coffee for dotCom readers. Shh…

George Will throws a stone!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022703205.html?

The passing of William F. Buckley made me reflect on how fortunate we were that he did not pursue a career in academia. Not that there’s anything wrong with academia. It’s just that one could never imagine him in an ivory tower. But maybe his career choice was not just coincidence (or Providence). A feature in the Chronicle of Higher Ed examines the work of a mixed ideology couple, the Woessners (he’s Republican, she’s a Dem) who found that–conservative complaints of a liberal monopoly notwithstanding–conservatives don’t go into academic careers for others reasons. To wit:

“…the Woessners looked at differences in interests and personality. They found that in a variety of ways, conservative students were less interested than liberals in subject matter that often leads to doctoral degrees, and less interested in doing the kinds of things that professors spend their time doing.

For example, liberal students reported valuing intellectual freedom, creativity, and the chance to write original work and make a theoretical contribution to science. They outnumbered conservative students two to one in the humanities and social sciences — which are among the fields most likely to produce interest in doctoral study. Conservative students, however, put more value on personal achievement and orderliness, and on practical professions, like accounting and computer science, that could earn them lots of money.

The Woessners also found that conservative students put a higher priority than liberal ones on raising a family. That does not always fit well with a career in academe, where people often delay childbearing until after they earn tenure.

The research led the Woessners to conclude that if higher education wants to attract more conservatives to the professoriate, it should smooth the way financially, offering subsidized health insurance and housing for graduate students, and adopting family-friendly policies for professors.”

Does this sound legit? And whatever the reasons, does this still lead, as those in the Anscombe Society and elsewhere might say, to liberal intellectual hegemony on campuses? And what can conservatives do about it? Or should they pursue Buckley’s well-trod–and highly successful, I’d say–extramural intellectual path?

Jacob was both blessed and lamed; his withered leg symbolizes bad Christians. Jacob is blessed in those who are living rightly; he limps in those who are living badly. Right now they are both in the one man; distinction and separation will come later, which is what the Church hopes for in the Psalm: Judge me, O God, and discern my cause from a people not holy (Ps 42:1)…. Bad people are to be cut off at the end. But right now the Church limps; it puts one foot down firmly, but the other one is weak. Watch the pagans, brothers. Some times they find good Christians, serving God, and they admire them and are drawn and come to believe. Some times they see people living badly, and they say: “Look at those Christians!” Those Christians living badly belong to the hollow of Jacob’s thigh that withered when touched. The Lord’s touch is his hand correcting and giving life. Jacob was in part blessed and in part withered. (Augustine, Sermon 5, 8; PL 38, 59)

(2) Come to him and be enlightened. (Ps 33:6) This is said to the Gentiles…. Behold, people came who had been in darkness, people who did not see were enlightened. How did the Gentiles come? They came by eagerly following in faith, by the longing of their hearts, by running out of love. Your feet are your love. Make sure you have two feet. Don’t limp. What are your two feet? The two commands of love, of God and of neighbor. On these feet run to God; come to him. He has both exhorted you to run and has himself strewn his light in such a way that you can follow him magnificently and divinely. (En. In Ps 33-2, 10; PL 36, 313-14)

(3) “A person who limps on the path goes better than one who runs off the path” (Ser 169, 18; PL 38, 926). “It is better to limp on the path than to walk briskly off the path” (Ser 141, 4; PL 38, 778). “The best is the one who stays on the path and walks briskly there. But one who follows after may have hope even though he limps a little, but does not go off the path or remain behind; he makes progress, even if little by little. We may hope that he will get where he is going, even if somewhat late. (Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 31-2, 4: PL 36, 260)

Classmates since first year high, David Tracy and I were ordained in Rome in December 1963 and, after having earned our Licentiates in Sacred Theology, came home in 1964. The following fall I was a curate in Yonkers and David at St. Mary’s in Stamford, CT. This was the parish of William F. Buckley, whom David named as one of the first readers as the very initial liturgical reforms began in Advent 1964. David was in the parish for only one year, before going back to Rome for a doctorate, so this must have happened in the spring or summer of 1965. One evening I received a call from him saying that Buckley had called him and asked him for help on a headline he wanted for an article in National Review, namely, how to say in Latin, “What in the name of God is going on in the Catholic Church?” David and I put our heads together and came up with something like: In nomine Dei, quid agitur in Ecclesia Catholica? But I’m not sure if it was ever used.

I believe that Buckley wrote a piece for Commonweal back in 1967 about what he saw as the degeneration of liturgy in the years after the Council. It is very funny.

R.I.P.

[This is a revised and somewhat shortened version of a letter I wrote to Deal Hudson last week; he has posted his own summary of the letter on the InsideCatholic website and promises to respond.]

 Dear Deal,

I just read your latest response to Douglas Kmiec’s article in Slate about the possible appeal of Barack Obama to Catholics. You argue that Obama’s position on abortion should keep all faithful prolife Catholics from supporting his candidacy, even if they agree with other parts of his platform. You write that it is a mistake for Kmiec to suggest that voting for Obama is even an option. 

I agree with you that the church’s position on the morality of abortion is non-negotiable, and that this fact should have some bearing on every Catholic voter’s deliberations. But in your rebuke of Kmiec–and more generally in your dogged defense of the Republican party–I think you are making a serious category mistake. If this were merely a matter of logic, I wouldn’t mention it, but I think it has important consequences for the way we think and talk about politics.

You lean hard on the legitimate distinction between the church’s non-prudential, non-optional teachings, and prudential political judgments. This is a real and important distinction, which has been invoked and helpfully developed by many Catholic theorists and pundits.

But those who insist on this distinction need to be very careful about it; they should not push it further than it really goes. The distinction between non-prudential and prudential is the distinction between what is simple and unconditional and what is complicated and contingent. It is not the distinction between the more important and the less important. Clarity and gravity are not the same thing. This is why the predicament of Catholic voters in the U.S. is not as easy to resolve as you seem to think. One can make a strong (but not unanswerable) argument that a Catholic should not vote for a prochoice Presidential candidate–at least not now, when the reversal of Roe v. Wade seems to be within reach. (For what it’s worth, I don’t plan to vote for a prochoice candidate until Roe v. Wade is reversed, or until there seems no immediate chance of its being reversed.) 

You write as if the priority of the abortion issue should mean the same thing for all Catholics no matter what they think about other issues. Your easy confidence on this point would be more persuasive if you did not happen to agree with the Republican Party on most other issues as well. This is not a trivial coincidence. If your only options were, say, a rigidly prochoice Republican and a prolife socialist who believed that the United States should give up its national sovereignty and join a world government, I suspect your abortion-trumps-all rhetoric would change somewhat. As it is, your position involves few trade-offs. This is not the way it is for many, perhaps most American Catholics. If you believe, as I do, that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake and also a grave injustice, and that universal, state-sponsored health care is not only the most efficient and rational medical system but also an obligation for a society as rich as ours, then you will not find it so easy to settle for a Republican presidential candidate just because he says he is prolife. (Here, too, we face prudential questions, questions that require us to calculate consequences. We must ask ourselves how prolife a self-described prolife politician really is–how willing is he to invest real political capital in this cause? We must also ask ourselves about circumstances: What possible–or likely–effect will a politician have on abortion law now? His opinion, merely as an opinion, is of little political consequence until it is translated into legislation or judicial appointments. And these may have no consequence, or the wrong consequence, in a democratic society that refuses to accept the prolife premise. Kick it back to the states. Good. Then what?)

Of course the church has no non-prudential teaching about the details of health-care reform or this or that particular war, but that tells us nothing about the importance of the Iraq war or health-care reform as political issues. The church says nothing about the priority of the U.S. Constitution or the viability of nation states in the twenty-first century, but I doubt you consider these things to be of marginal importance.

Since both of us consider ourselves prolife, and since both of us acknowledge that the profile cause is, among other things, an important political movement, you may think the rest is hair-splitting. It is not. Your position–or, at least, the rhetoric in which it is couched–entails a terrible constriction of the political imagination. And it gives American Catholics a way to let themselves off the hook: they do not have to question the GOP’s economic and foreign-policy positions because the church offers no official pronouncement on these positions–those issues are up for grabs and therefore relatively unimportant. That kind of sectarian minimalism is really not a very Catholic way to think about politics. If the church’s social teachings are about any one thing, they’re about solidarity: solidarity between the born and the unborn, but also between the rich and the poor, the healthy and the sick, the powerful and the powerless. Not every part of the “seamless garment” is of equal importance, and not every stitch is clear, but we make a terrible mistake in clutching at one sleeve and forgetting about the rest. Prohibiting abortion is an important goal of the pro-life movement, but it is not the only goal. We want to prevent as many abortions as possible. To do this we will have to persuade our non-Catholic neighbors, people whose opinions are not changed by appeals to the church’s authority, and that will mean persuading them to think differently about what we owe the most vulnerable members of our community.

Today’s Washington Post has an op-ed column by Jim Hunt, former governor of North Carolina in which he defends the role of superdelegates in the Democratic Party. Here’s a crucial paragraph:

“In creating superdelegates, the Democratic Party recognized the expertise that its top holders of public office have gained by running for office themselves. They are experts at winning. They know the issues. They are in a unique position to evaluate presidential candidates. They have a well-honed instinct for how candidates will be received in their own states and districts. In short, they can help the Democratic Party pick a winner.”

In addition, the involvement of the superdelegates is necessary, Hunt argues, if these leaders are to be enthusiastic in support of the candidate in the general election. The failures of the McGovern campaign and of the Carter administration are traced to the failure to appreciate the role of the superdelegates. The conclusion:

“Too often, the Democratic Party has been split between its grass-roots activists on one side and its elected officials and party leaders on the other. It’s important to remember: We need both wings to fly.”

Comments?

Discuss. Or better: list one book on your bookshelf that you bought and thought you would read but never got more than a couple pages into. Mine: Brian Stock, “Augustine the Reader.” 

(Fooled you.  . . . I bet you thought from the title that this was a Bob or Joe post not a Cathleen post , didn’t you!)

A couple of posts below, there is an interesting conversation on the recent Pew Forum Study, which shows that a substantial portion of the American population (10 percent) are ex-Catholics. The discussion centers around the answers that the Church is providing to American Catholics –too much ritual, too little ritual, too much structure, too little structure, too many demands, too few demands.

I’d like to take the discussion back a level–and look at Christianity in more general terms. This Pope is worried about evangelization–not merely in the context of localized disputes among Christians, but in the broader, global context where Christianity itself is affirmed only by approximately one fifth of the world’s population, and where Christians have ready access to people of other faiths.

So what are the obstacles to evangelization? How does one evangelize? It seems to me that the first step is not to provide people with the answers, but to convince them that one is framing the problem in the right way. As anyone who has taken any Intro to World Religion course knows, the major world religions do not provide different answers to the same problem; in most cases, they ask very different questions. For someone who wants to see an examination of this question within a Catholic framework, see (JA DiNoia, The Diversity of Religions: A Christian Perspective).

The basic problem that Christianity sets itself out as answering is the one from the Gospel of Luke: “What must I do to obtain eternal life?” That problem would be unintelligible as a problem to most Buddhists, who want, not heaven, but to escape the endless cycle of birth and rebirth.

I think it’s worth considering whether and how people relate to the problem identified in the Gospel in contemporary first-world countries. I see several basic lines of resistance to this way of framing the problem. First, there has always been worry–and resistance–in Christianity to the idea that God has favorites. Judaism saw itself as in a unique covenant partnership with God, and Christianity continued that idea with the idea of a Church whose true membership was the elect –those who were given divine grace. Some people, through no merit of their own, received it grace; others, for no reason, were denied it. Most preachers (for a stark example, read Calvin) emphasized that we cannot know–and must not attempt to know –God’s eternal will. For many centuries, the urgency behind the need to evangelize was the need to impetus people from eternal damnation–certainly, that impetus can be seen in the Pauline corpus. Over time, Catholicism has finessed the question; Vatican II affirms that God can save people outside the Christian fold who live morally upright and pious lives.

But the problems do not disappear. First, influenced by democratic thought, which itself is influenced by the Christian conviction that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, many people are repelled by the idea of an arbitrary and capricious God who does not give all people an equal chance to love and to know Him. The call for human beings to treat all people as made in the imago dei loses much of its moral force if God Himself treats the vast majority of humanity as if they were throw-aways, to be cast forever into the pit. Interestingly enough, the moral call of Catholicism to respect human dignity in every instance can be turned back on God himself, to call into question the picture of a heaven where the elect few will reside in bliss, and a hell where the damned masses will undergo eternal torments. The idea that God is the Lord of life and death, who can do what He wants, whereas we simply don’t have the power, doesn’t touch the underlying moral issues any more, if it ever did. No lord should have that power. The underlying problem is this: Is a divine being who behaves this way worthy of worship?

But doesn’t the Catholic way of finessing the problem make the problem disappear–God provides for the morally upright of all religions? God does give people an equal chance? Yes and no, depending upon how you conceive of the moral life. Here is the second basic line of resistance. Many sociological and psychological studies show that morality is not simply something one chooses; parental love, support, education, nutrition, etc. all have something to do with it. Many of the “monsters” on death row have had something monstrous done to them. To say that life’s fortunate–the ones who get the good genes, the good parents, the good upbringing, in any society, will also get eternal life, seems to undermine the great reversals of the beatitudes. The poor are disproportionately the ones in jail. The poor, it seems, will be disproportionately the ones in hell too.

Furthermore, as the Pope knows, we’re walking a fine line. If God does give everyone an equal chance, if no one is his favorite, then what is the point of evangelization? It can’t be to win eternal salvation– it must be something else, such as to better know and love God. But in this case, the fundamental question of Christianity has been altered in a fairly significant way. The same question can be asked of theologians like Balthasar (whom I find deeply attractive on this point) in his Dare We Hope that All Men Might be Saved?

What about the attractions of eternal life? Interestingly enough, I think here, too, work needs to be done. The idea of eternal life–of paradise–was formulated in a time and place where life, for most people, was nasty, brutish, and short. In the United States, and in Europe, we suffer from a different problem–ennui, boredom, a slowly freezing sense of despair. The idea of eternal life, as generally formulated–doesn’t begin to touch the emotional problems of first world countries. It seems to be more of the same–and who wants that? In such a context, it seems that may people find the Buddhist notion of release from the endless cycle to be more appealing.

At any rate, I agree with John McGreevy and Peter Steinfels that using the Pew study to push our ideological lines isn’t going to help anyone long term. I also think there are deeper questions at stake. My own increasing sense is that the key points for further reflection aren’t at the level of the answers, but at the level of the fundamental question itself. That’s where the greatest challenge to Christianity lies, at least in developed countries.

Someone of you may ask: “What did Jeduthin mean when he said: Listen to my tears? (Ps 39:12) Tears are seen but they aren’t heard. Tears flow but they don’t make a sound. But they do have their own voice, as Abel’s blood had its voice [see Gen 4:10: "The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the earth"]. If the blood of a slain man had a voice that reached God, the tears of one praying certainly have their own voice. For tears are the heart’s blood. So when you ask for eternal life, when you say, Thy kingdom come–that kingdom where you will live in safety, where you will live forever, where you will never grieve over a friend nor ever fear an enemy–weep when you plead for this, pour out your inner blood, sacrifice your heart to God. This is what it means that we must pray and never lose heart. (Augustine Sermon 77B, 6)

There’s a lively discussion going on about the November election set off by Wm. Kristol’s NYTimes column yesterday. The discussion is going on at Pat Lang’s site: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2008/02/kristol-on-obam.html#comments

Lang comments that Kristol’s column contains the thrust of the Republican case against Obama should he get the nomination. Is Lang correct?

Here is Kristol’s column:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/opinion/25kristol.html?scp=2&sq=William+Kristol&st=nyt

I think this Pew survey of American religious practice will get a good bit of attention, even beyond the front page of today’s NYT. The two most striking findings:   1. The increasing number of non-affiliated and/or non-religious people. 2. The discovery that one-third of adults raised as Catholic no longer consider themselves Catholic. (The total Catholic percentage of the population is steady because of immigration.)  Or put another way: 10% of the American population is ex-Catholic.

I knew we couldn’t trust those newfangled voting machines…

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

[Thanks, Joe!]

And my mouth spoke in my distress. … What did his mouth say in his distress? I shall offer a marrowed holocaust. What does “marrowed” mean? That I want to hold my love for you deep within me. It won’t be on the surface. That I love you will be in my marrow. Nothing is more inward than our marrow. Our bones are more inward than our flesh, but marrow is more inward even than bones. Someone who worships God only on the surface is more interested in pleasing other people. Having something else within, he does not offer a holocaust of marrow. But when God sees a person’s marrow, he accepts him whole and entire. (Augustine, En in Ps 65, 20; PL 36, 799)

And the Lord was awakened as if he were asleep (Ps 77:65). The Lord seems to be asleep when he gives his people into the hands of those who hate them and who say to them: Where is your God? (Ps 41:11). He was awakened as if he were asleep, like a strong man drunk on wine. No one but the Holy Spirit would dare to say this about God! The meaning is that when the Lord does not come to the aid of people as quickly as they think he should, it appears to wicked mockers that he is sleeping too long, like a drunk. (Augustine, Enar. in Ps 77, 39; PL 36, 799)

Continuing their campaign follies, Hillary Clinton and/or her aides are reportedly circulating a “stunning” photo of–get this–Obama dressed as a tribal elder while on a visit to rural Kenya in 2006. According to Politico.com the Clinton campaign is not denying sending the shot to Matt Drudge and others. Knockout punch? Maybe in middle school. Then again, it may be effective. And it’ll certainly prepare Obama for the general election against the GOP. I don’t see how it’ll help Hillary now. Or later, as she tries to rescue her legacy.

Although its root is alive, in winter even a living tree is like a dead one, both of them bare of fruit and leaves. Summer will come and distinguish between the trees. The living root produces leaves and is filled with fruit; the dried-up root will remain without them in summer as in winter. The living tree bears fruit for the storehouse, while the axe is laid to the dead tree and it is thrown on the fire. Our summer is the coming of Christ–our winter is when he is hidden; our summer when he is revealed. The Apostle said to good and faithful trees: You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Dead, yes–dead in appearance–but alive at the root. See the coming summer that Paul then describes: But when Christ your life shall appear, then you too will appear with him in glory (Col 3:3-4). (Augustine, Sermon 36, 4; PL 35, 216)

The New York Times’ Public Editor weighs in on the McCain story. Here’s part of his exchange with Bill Keller, the Executive Editor of The Times:

[I]n the absence of a smoking gun, I asked Keller why he decided to run what he had.

“If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we’d have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members,” he replied. “But that was not the point of the story. The point of the story was that he behaved in such a way that his close aides felt the relationship constituted reckless behavior and feared it would ruin his career.”

I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

He also gives a sample of readers’ reactions:

Marilyn Monaco of Philadelphia, one of more than 2,400 readers to comment on The Times’s Web site, said the newspaper “has sunk below its standards and created a salacious distraction from an otherwise substantive campaign. And for the record, I am an Obama supporter.” Terry Bledsoe of Sun Lakes, Ariz., said, “I am most disappointed in The New York Times for engaging in this sort of trash-the-candidate journalism.” A minority of readers applauded the article. “Bravo to The Times for integrity and guts,” said Rick Gore of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Well — is it boo or bravo?

Speaking of Augustine…the Department of Justice has announced an investigation into waterboarding–sort of. Not a criminal investigation, of course–Attorney General Mukasey has already promised not to look into that (thank you, Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein). Rather, DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility will investigate “the department’s legal approval for waterboarding of Qaeda suspects by the CIA,” according to the New York Times.

The disclosure by H. Marshall Jarrett, the head of the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was the first official acknowledgment of an internal review of the legal memorandums the department has issued since 2002 that authorized waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods.

Mr. Jarrett’s report could become the first public accounting for legal advice that endorsed methods widely denounced as torture by human rights groups and legal authorities. His office can refer matters for criminal prosecution; legal experts said the most likely outcome was a public critique of the legal opinions on interrogation, noting that Mr. Jarrett had the power to reprimand or to seek the disbarment of current or former Justice Department lawyers.

He brought me out of the pit of misery. (Ps 39:3) What is the pit of misery? The depth of wickedness…. From where did he bring you out? From a certain depth. In another Psalm you cry out, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” (Ps 129:1). Those who cry out from the depths, are not completely in the depths; their very cry lifts them. Others are more deeply in the depths because they do not even know they are in the depths. (Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 39, 3; PL 36, c. 434)

[Sunt alii profundius in profundo, qui nec sentiunt se esse in profundo.]

DotCom readers have been enriched this Lent by the Augustinian feast that Joseph Komonchak is providing. Here is another morsel from the Bishop of Hippo’s commentary on a verse from this Sunday’s gospel:

“Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus at the well. It was about the sixth hour.” Now begin the mysteries. For it is not without a purpose that Jesus is weary; not indeed without a purpose that the strength of God is weary; not without a purpose that He is weary, by whom the wearied are refreshed; not without a purpose is He weary, by whose absence we are wearied, by whose presence we are strengthened. Nevertheless Jesus is weary, and weary with His journey; and He sits down, and that, too, near a well; and it is at the sixth hour that, being wearied, He sits down.

All these things hint something, are intended to intimate something, they make us eager, and encourage us to knock. May He Himself open to us and to you; He who has deigned to exhort us, so as to say, “Knock, and it shall be opened to you.” It was for you that Jesus was wearied with His journey. We find Jesus to be strength, and we find Jesus to be weak: we find a strong and a weak Jesus: strong, because “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God.” Do you desire to see how this Son of God is strong? “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made:” and without labor, too, were they made. Then what can be stronger than He, by whom all things were made without labor? Would you know Him weak? “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The strength of Christ created you, the weakness of Christ re-created you. The strength of Christ caused that to be which was not: the weakness of Christ caused that what was should not perish. He fashioned us by His strength, He sought us by His weakness.

(Tractates on the Gospel of John, XV, 6)

And my heart abandoned me (Ps 39:14). Why wonder if your heart is abandoned by your God when it has abandoned itself? What does it mean: My heart abandoned me? That your heart is not capable of knowing itself…. With my heart I want to see the Lord but I am not able because of my many sins; but that’s to say too little: my heart does not even understand itself. No one understands himself; no one should presume to know himself. In his heart did Peter understand his heart when he said, “I will be with you even unto death”? (Mt 26:35) The presumption in his heart was false; what was true was the fear that lay hidden in his heart; his heart was incapable of understanding his heart. His ailing heart was hidden from itself, although open to its doctor. What was prophesied about it came true. God knew in Peter what Peter himself did not know in himself because his heart had abandoned him, his heart was hidden from his heart. And my heart abandoned me. Well, what then? What should we cry? What should we say? Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; look down to help me. Repentant members, members in pain, members crying out under the surgeon’s knife–but with hope. (Augustine, Enarr. in Ps 39, 23; PL 36, c. 448)

A few weeks back there was a discussion on dotCom of the words of St. Ignatius in the “Constitutions of the Society of Jesus” to the effect that one under obedience should allow himself to be directed “as if he were a lifeless body:” perinde ac cadaver.

One of the blogs on the official website of the 35th General Convention reports this reading of the phrase (cited by the Pope in his letter to Father Kolvenbach) from a member of the General congregation:

there was a discussion about a point in the letter of Pope Benedict XVI to Fr. Kolvenbach at the start of GC35 where the Pope reminds us about St. Ignatius wanting our obedience to be perinde ac cadaver, “like a dead body”. Here is part of an interesting post about this:
“ In the process of obeying a superior… there is the key moment where I choose to obey in accordance with my vow. At that moment I am passive, in a stance of abandoning myself and putting myself at the disposal of the superior, implementing the “take, receive” of the ad amorem. This moment in some ways is akin to the moment when I receive a consolation without cause or an impulse of grace over which I have no control. However prior to that moment there is the full activity of my preparation for the moment of obedience: my discernment, my consultation of others, my dialogue with my superior, perhaps even my representation. And following that moment there is the lengthy process of implementation where I fully engage all my strength in doing what I am asked to do as a Jesuit apostle. The “perinde ac cadaver” moment is the still point at the centre of my activity as a Jesuit, the point which focuses it and energizes it…”

Interesting too that the Pope in his address to the Jesuits at today’s audience ends with the prayer from the Spiritual Exercises to which the above comment refers:

Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will — all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all to me. Now I give it back to you, o Lord. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for that is enough for me.

But before reciting the prayer, Pope Benedict confesses:

mi unisco a voi nella preghiera insegnataci da Sant’Ignazio al termine degli Esercizi – preghiera che sempre mi appare troppo grande, al punto che quasi non oso dirla e che, tuttavia, dovremmo sempre di nuovo riproporci

I join with you in the prayer taught us by Saint Ignatius at the close of his Exercises — a prayer which I always find almost overwhelming, to the point where I almost dare not say it … yet which we must always appropriate anew.

That “the Word was made flesh” is great beauty for those who understand. “Far be it from me to glory,” said one of the friends of the Bridegroom, “except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It’s not enough that you are not ashamed by the cross; you must glory in it. Why, then, is the Bridegroom said not to have any beauty or fairness? Because Christ was crucified, a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But why did he have beauty on the cross? Because the folly of God is wiser than men, the weakness of God is stronger than men. May the Bridegroom who is beauty wherever he is come to meet us who have come to believe.

Beautiful as God, as the Word who is with God; beautiful in the womb of the Virgin, where he did not lose his divinity but assumed our humanity; beautiful when born, a Word who could not speak, because while he was still unable to speak, while he was being held and suckled, the heavens spoke, the Angels sang his praises, a star guided the Magi, he was adored in the manger, he who is food for the meek.

Beautiful, then, in heaven, beautiful on earth, beautiful in the womb, beautiful in the arms of his parents, beautiful when he was performing miracles; beautiful when he was being scourged; beautiful in his invitation to life; beautiful in his scorn of death; beautiful in surrendering his life and in taking it up again; beautiful on the cross, beautiful in the tomb, beautiful in heaven.

Augustine, En. in Ps. 44, 3.

I first heard of Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ when I was a student.  In one of my theology classes, we listened to a taped interview that Fr. Greg had done on NPR about his work with the gangs of Los Angeles.  I think we may have also read excerpts from his book “G-Dog and the Homeboys.”  I remember being struck by the work that Fr. Greg was doing and how powerful his story was, but I had actually forgotten about him until the other day. 

 I was reminded of Fr. Greg, to be perfectly and somewhat humiliatingly honest, when an episode of MTV’s ”True Life” caught my eye.  The episode was titled “True Life: I live in the projects” and it profiled three young people who lived in three different housing projects around the country.  One young man had lived in the projects in East L.A. his whole life and was trying to break free.  In order to stay on the straight and narrow, he was working at “Homeboy Industries,” the organization the Fr. Greg Boyle founded.  This young man talked briefly about “Homeboy Industries” and its mission but I remembered there being much more to it.

 Fr. Greg founded “Homeboy Industries” in 1992 and based its mission off of the ideas of liberation theology.  It strives to help former gang members in Los Angeles by providing jobs, job training, counseling and tutoring services and it has been pretty successful thus far.  “Homeboy Industries” has extended into a line of clothing, silkscreen and embroidery, a bakery, a cafe, and maintenance services.  One of Fr. Greg’s mottos is “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”  “Homeboy” also provides tattoo removal services for free in order t0 help clients escape gang life and join the larger community. 

“Homeboy Industries” is an ambitious operation but one that I think does a lot of good and I just wanted to shed a bit of light on Fr. Greg Boyle’s achievements.   

From the greeting of the new Father General of the Jesuits to Pope Benedict at today’s audience:

What inspires and impels us is the Gospel and the Spirit of Christ: if the Lord Jesus was not at the centre of our life we would have no sense of our apostolic activity, we would have no reason for our existence. It is from the Lord Jesus we learn to be near to the poor and suffering, to those who are excluded in this world.

The spirituality of the Society of Jesus has as its source the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. And it is in the light of the Spiritual Exercises – which in their turn inspired the Constitutions of the Society – that the General Congregation is in these days tackling the subjects of our identity and of our mission. The Spiritual Exercises, before becoming a precious tool for the apostolate, are for the Jesuit the touchstone by which to judge our own spiritual maturity.

In communion with the Church and guided by the Magisterium, we seek to dedicate ourselves to profound service, to discernment, to research. The generosity with which so many Jesuits work for the Kingdom of God, even to giving their very lives for the Church, does not mitigate the sense of responsibility that the Society feels it has in the Church. Responsibility that Your Holiness confirms in Your Letter, when You affirm: “The evangelizing work of the Church therefore relies a lot on the formative responsibility that the Society has in the fields of theology, spirituality and mission”.

Alongside the sense of responsibility, must go humility, recognizing that the mystery of God and of man is much greater than our capacity for understanding.

It saddens us, Holy Father, when the inevitable deficiencies and superficialities of some among us are at times used to dramatize and represent as conflicts and clashes what are often only manifestations of limits and human imperfections, or inevitable tensions of everyday life. But all this does not discourage us, nor quell our passion, not only to serve the Church, but also, with a deeper sense of our roots, according to the spirit of the Ignatian tradition, to love the hierarchical Church and the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ.

“En todo amar y servir”. This represents a portrait of who Ignatius is. This is the identity card of a true Jesuit.

The full text is available on the official Jesuit web site, as is the Pope’s discourse, not yet translated from the Italian.

However, Vatican Radio provides some indications of the Pope’s message:

Today, noted the Pope, “the obstacles challenging those who announce the Gospel are no longer seas and vast distances, rather they are the boundaries of a superficial vision of God and of man, which place obstacles in the way of faith and human knowledge, faith and science, faith and the commitment to justice”. Faced with these boundaries, continued Pope Benedict, Jesuits must “witness and help create the understanding that there is instead true harmony between faith and reason”, a harmony that must be translated into the defence of those “central issues which today are increasingly under attack from secular culture”. In short marriage and the family, sexual morality and the question of mankind’s salvation in Christ:

Here the Pope invited the Jesuits to renewed reflection on the meaning of their characteristic “fourth vow” of obedience to the St Peter’s Successor, which he said “does not only imply readiness to be sent on mission to far off lands, but also in true Ignatian spirit – to feel themselves “with the Church and in the Church” – to love and serve the Christ’s Vicar as precious and irreplaceable collaborators at the service of the Universal Church”.

My own reaction to the New York Times story on John McCain and allegations of ethics problems and intimations of playing footsie with a lady lobbyist (I feel free to use tabloid language here as that’s what the story is, at heart) was decidedly negative. For one thing, they tried to mask a straightforward tabloid front about a senator’s possible extramarital romance as a serious investigation about ethics and lobbying–McCain’s bread-and-butter, and something that, if proved, could derail his not-so-Straight Talk Express. But they got nuthin’ solid on the supposed flying sugar shacks (corporate jets). Second, the unproved and largely irrelevant (McCain is twice-married and never set himself up as Mr. Family Values, I believe) romance angle obscured the very relevant and very troubling allegations about his “prudential judgments,” as we might say, on conflicts of interest.

What are your thoughts? 

Here is Howard Kutz’s first take at the WaPo.

UPDATE: Straight from The New Republic, a dissection of the story behind the story (subscription needed, but this gives a sense of the drama):

TNR.com has just posted an article tracking the behind-the-scenes drama at the ‘New York Times’ over the paper’s controversial story about John McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman. The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn’t. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.

Read the full text here: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=8b7675e4-36de-43f5-afdd-2a2cd2b96a24

John McCain is also on the magazine’s cover this week, in an article by TRB columnist Jonathan Chait that assesses the cold calculations of the Straight Talker.

Read the full text here: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6f4b1ece-5c7e-4a41-9a64-279c54510f69