I hope to write something about the Princeton abortion conference this weekend. In the meantime, I have been thinking about a remark made by several that young people don’t think about abortion in the same way that it was thought about in the 80′s and 90′s.

This thought crystallized for me a moment ago, as I just heard Ben Folds  Five’s “Brick” on the radio–it’s about an abortion the drummer’s high school girlfriend had.  The sense of loss and disruption is excruciating–at the same time, there is no indication that the author is part of the political pro-life movement.

The ever-helpful Wikipedia has a list of songs about abortion.  What do people think?  Does the under-thirty cohort think about abortion differently?

The University of Notre Dame is about to launch a new, multi-year, scholarly initiative under the direction of Scott Appleby entitled: “Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, and Secular” in Manhattan the weekend before Thanksgiving. It’s held in connection with a football game to be played in Yankee Stadium (Notre Dame – Army ).

While the football game isn’t free (except on television), the academic events are. John McGreevy is speaking on the keynote panel, and I’m included in a later panel discussion. Later in the day, there is another academic panel featuring not only John, but also EJ Dionne, John Dilulio, Robert Putnam, and David Campbell on the status of Catholicism in American public life.

I expect that this project will provide material for Commonweal articles for years to come!

The phrase above is often attributed to Pope Benedict XVI. I have just googled it but not found it as his own expression, although many people attribute the idea to him. For example, in a story at the time of his election, I find this reference to our own David Gibson: “‘He has said himself that he wanted a smaller but purer church,’ Gibson said, referring to Ratzinger’s suggestion that Christianity may need to become smaller, in terms of its cultural significance, to remain true to itself.” In David’s book, The Rule of Benedict, there is a reference to the phrase in the context of a discussion of Ratzinger’s criticism of the German hierarchy during the Second World War for having allowed concern for institutional security to dull its awareness of what was going on under the Nazis. David writes:

Ratzinger says there was a German core that did remain faithful to Catholicism, but as cardinal and pope he would return to the theme of the dangers of privileging institutional ties, emphasizing that the church would do better to shed bricks and mortar–universities, hospitals, parochial schools, and the like–rather than have them animated by anything less than a purely orthodox faith. This is an element of his oft-cited preference for a “smaller but purer” church of the holy remnant. This preference for the minimum, the creed of the classical conservative he remains, would manifest itself in many ways, notably in an ingrained suspicion of national bishops’ conferences, which he saw in wartime Germany and later as acting in national-self-interest rather than in the interests of worldwide Catholicism.

This reference could suggest an argument along these lines: If the Catholic Church in Germany under the Nazis had been smaller but purer (e.g., if there had been more people like Franz Jägerstätter and fewer like his bishop), it would have provided a greater Christian witness against Hitler’s totalitarian regime than it did. I would agree with such an argument. Similarly, the massive institutional structure and apparatus of the Church can seriously compromise the freedom and eagerness of the Church to follow Christ as much as his possessions led the rich young man to depart saddened from his encounter with Christ because he had demanded that he sell all that he have, give it to the poor, and follow him along a path that would end at Calvary.

But I would like to be able to consult the place or places in which Ratzinger/Benedict speak of this “smaller but purer church”? Can anyone help?

Now up on our homepage is Robert Vischer’s report on last weekend’s “Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Fair Minded Words” conference at Princeton University. (The conference title came from President Obama’s speech last year at Notre Dame.) Vischer observes that there now seems to be more fear of compromise on the prochoice side of the abortion debate than on the prolife side:

[W]hile both the prolife and the prochoice camps view each other with a significant amount of fear, there’s far greater suspicion on the prochoice side. At one level, that is understandable. After all, the status quo essentially permits abortion on demand throughout pregnancy, provided the mother’s health (broadly construed) is at risk. If common ground between prochoice and prolife advocates is to be implemented legally, the move will likely be toward the prolife side of the ledger. Given that the status quo largely reflects the prochoice perspective, more than one prochoice participant expressed exasperation along the lines of “Why are we even here? What do we stand to gain?” Even one of the organizers (Kissling) expressed pessimism in her closing remarks, concluding that she does not discern much in the way of common ground between the two camps.At another level, however, fear gives the appearance that the two sides are even farther apart than they are. One participant expressed concern that, “if Catholics win on the abortion issue, they’ll try to outlaw birth control too.” Another speaker explained that opposition to abortion and birth control are all part of the same agenda. As Helen Alvaré helpfully pointed out, given the low percentage of Catholics who support the church’s teaching on birth control, it is a stretch to insist that opposition to birth control is the driving force behind opposition to abortion.

Public Discourse has posted the remarks of John Finnis, who participated in a discussion with Peter Singer and Margaret Little about the moral status of the fetus. According to Finnis, equal moral status belongs to all human beings because of the kind of creatures we are from the moment of conception on: creatures with the “radical capacity” for rationality — a capacity whose development is gradual but also self-directed:

The early human embryo has the radical capacity to think and laugh and pun; all it (he or she) needs is time and nourishment, no more: the actual and active second-order or radical capacity, written into its molecular and cellular constitution, to develop first-order, promptly usable capacities such as to learn a language here and now.

For Singer, the fact that our capacities develop gradually means that our moral status also develops gradually, emerging as we become aware of ourselves and able to imagine and value our own futures. Singer himself pointed out that this position entails conclusions that many prochoicers would be uncomfortable with: as that a newborn has no more of a “right to life” than a late-term fetus does. Finnis made the same point, somewhat more forcefully:

The last time I had the opportunity of discoursing on today’s topic was at the American Political Science Association, in 2000, in a debate with the Rawlsian political philosopher Jeffrey Reiman. Reiman is a liberal, but he too, like Peter Singer, doesn’t believe in human equality. Peter must speak for himself, but in his publications around 2000 he agrees, I think, with Reiman that birth has little or no real moral significance. Reiman’s position is clear enough: the baby has no more rights, is no more entitled to respect, in the minutes or hours or days, or weeks, after birth than in the minutes or hours or days, or weeks, before birth. So far he and Peter agree. But then they split; for Reiman the child doesn’t acquire the equal moral status of having rights of its own for several years, when it has started to “consciously care about the continuation of its life”—whereas for Peter the moral status of equality and right to life is to be affirmed (I’m not sure why) a month after birth. (In the debate following this presentation, Singer made clear that his “one month” proposal dates back to 1984 and was intended just as a pragmatic legislative line, and that his basic and present view approximates to Reiman’s.)

So, on Reiman’s view (and I suppose Peter’s), if there is to be a law against infanticide from birth, it certainly doesn’t rest on the moral rights, or moral status, of the young infant—it has none—but only on the feelings and dispositions of adults. And Reiman is keen to add this: since the unborn child, like the born child for quite a while, has no right to life, the mother’s right to an abortion is not a right simply to be relieved of the presence of what is growing in her body, but a right to ensure that it is killed, whether or not it was delivered or expelled alive.

In responding to Finnis’s remarks, Singer argued that it can’t be just membership in the human species that gives us our moral status. If there is such a person as E.T., surely we would agree that he too has a right to life, because he too is a rational creature. Here Finnis agreed: if it could be demonstrated that some nonhuman creatures are rational, then we’d be obliged to acknowledge their right not to be killed by us. So it is not just a matter of “species membership.”

But then Singer pointed out that not all human lives will, given only time and nourishment, develop into actively rational creatures. Some embryos stop developing at an early stage because of a genetic defect. Then there are those fully developed human beings who, because of injury or illness, will never again be conscious, much less rational. Finnis might have replied that even such human beings belong to a species that is naturally rational — that’s the kind of creature they are, even if some accident or abnormality destroys (or prevents) their own capacity for rationality — but he didn’t quite. In any case, species membership does seem to be at the heart of the natural-law prolife argument, even if, theoretically, ours isn’t the only species to which that argument could be applied.

Someone at the conference asked Singer if he thought there was any chance he might be wrong about the nonpersonhood of prenatal human lives. He acknowledged that there was (a very remote chance), but said he found it odd that so few of those who advance a why-not-be-safe argument in the case of abortion apply the same kind of reasoning to questions about animal rights. If there’s even a remote chance that some other animals might be rational creatures, shouldn’t we play it safe and all become vegetarians, like Singer?

USA Today carried a headline this week that  made me want to throw up my hands: “Minn. archbishop: No ‘lukewarm’ Catholics welcome.” It’s difficult enough to interest people in the Catholic Church these days without having bishops usher them toward the exit.

The headline was on an Associated Press story recounting an interview with Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis. The archbishop is evidently feeling pressured by a week of controversy which included his announcement that 21 parishes would be closed and much debate over his decision to mail the faithful a DVD opposing  gay marriage.

The archbishop  has a right and even a duty to speak out on church teachings, although he and other bishops who  isolate  a single, politically controversial issue  at election time in a way that might provide advantage to one candidate over another should not be surprised to find themselves in the middle of the political fray.

In this case, it looks as if Archbishop Nienstedt responded  to this pressure unwisely – by daring Catholics who disagreed with his DVD to leave the church.  At least, that is what comes across in The AP’s story, which quotes the archbishop as saying that  Jesus told his followers  to “either be hot or cold, but if you’re lukewarm, I don’t want that. So we want people who live their faith.’”

It is a very selective reading of Scripture, since  Jesus is depicted time and again in the New Testament as welcoming those who were  outside the fold of religious orthodoxy. He brought people to the table.

For some, it’s just not enough that nearly 1 in 3 adult Americans raised Catholic  has left the fold, or that 1 in 10 Americans is a former Catholic.

First read Peter Steinfels’s superb piece in the current Commonweal on the crisis of attrition in the Church. On the big issues for Catholicism in the United States — and why bishops (and other Catholics) don’t talk enough about the big issues — it strikes me as exactly right.

If you’ve done that and are looking for something completely different you might take a look at the Journal of Modern History, June 2010 issue. (I couldn’t find an open link — you can access it through many university libraries with a university identification.) There William Patch  has an unusually lucid summary of the ongoing stream of books on the relationship between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. The polemics around the topic have attracted attention, of course, but the real story is access to a wide range of new sources as the Vatican (and other bodies) slowly open their archives for the 1930s and 1940s. Patch’s  conclusions:

1. The highest Vatican officials — including Eugenio Pacelli, Vatican nuncio to Germany and then Pope Pius XII — did not display a sympathy for Nazism over Communism. Instead, consistently, they condemned both.  They muted public criticism of Nazism because of fears that many German Catholics would abandon the Church, obviously a decision that can be critiqued, but their anti-communism did not blind them.

2. Anti-Semitism among even those Catholic leaders — German, American, French — strongly  opposed to Nazism was more significant than previously realized. Of course Anti-Semitism was evident among political leaders as well, but the Anti-Semitism among church officials has a casual, everyday currency that jolts the contemporary reader, and makes the discussion of Catholic-Jewish relations at the Second Vatican Council even more surprising.

3. Pius XII certainly knew about the Holocaust in 1942-43 but he did not know much more (indeed perhaps less) than Roosevelt or Churchill.

4. Intriguingly: fierce Vatican opposition to the Soviet Union, and the influence of this opposition on figures such as George Kennan, may have played a role in jumpstarting the early cold war.

They are the gift that keeps on giving:

First, Christine O’Donnell, candidate for the, um, United States Senate, gets a lesson on the Constitution:

“Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked while Democrat Chris Coons, an attorney, sat a few feet away.

Coons responded that O’Donnell’s question “reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is. … The First Amendment establishes a separation.”

She interrupted to say, “The First Amendment does? … So you’re telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ is in the First Amendment?”

She got laughs, though apparently not intentionally.

Then Ginny Thomas, wife of the, um, Supreme Court Justice and a major Tea Party organizer, raised eyebrows with her cold call to Anita Hill last weekend — last weekend — saying she’d accept an apology for all that business 19 years ago:

“I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something,” Virginia Thomas said on Hill’s school voice mail. “I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”

Needless to say, Hill at first thought it was a prank. Then she said thanks, but no thanks.

This means I’ll have to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert tonight.

You’ve probably already heard the one about the Democratic candidate who questioned his Republican opponent’s claims to Christian faith. Republicans are shocked, shocked that a Democrat would go after a member of Christ’s party, as if everyone doesn’t already know that Democrats would hate God if only they believed in Him. Even some liberals have hopped the outrage train. Democrats don’t do religious attack ads, lest they give the impression that there are religious tests for office, or signal that voters care much about a candidate’s faith.

Here’s the thumbnail: Democrat Jack Conway is running against Republican Rand Paul to represent Kentucky in the Senate. During Sunday night’s debate, they traded barbs over an ad Conway is running that says Paul, who sought and obtained the endorsement of James Dobson after proving his prolife Christian mettle, belonged to a “secret society that called the Bible a hoax,” a group that was “banned for mocking Christianity and Christ.” The ad also says Paul “once tied a woman up,” telling her to “bow down before a false idol and say his god was ‘Aqua Buddha.’” During the debate, Paul went the “have you no decency, have you no shame?” route, and Conway flatly said, “You don’t have the guts to stand by your positions.”

Some liberals echoed Paul’s response. Jonathan Chait called the ad illiberal, lamenting its “sickening premise” for coming “perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office.” (Chait also helpfully reminds readers that Paul is a devotee of another, less Christian-friendly Rand.) Others find liberal opposition to the ad “prissy,” and applaud Conway for hitting Paul where he’s trying to live. Who’s right? I suspect Chait is exaggerating the ad’s implications. I’m with Mark Silk, who notes that if a candidate is going to run on his Christian faith then his opponent is well within his rights to say “explain these things”–especially when these things entail membership in a group that called the Bible a hoax, and participating in a hazing prank that forced a presumably Christian woman to blaspheme. Mark concludes:

Democrats have tended to respond by saying, “But we’re religious too.” So because the religion card is being played by everyone, I’d say that if there’s reason to question its face value, let the questioning go on.

Of course, this smoke might clear if Paul denied Conway’s charges. But he hasn’t, and, as Factcheck noted, he really can’t. The only problem in Conway’s ad, according to Factcheck, is the claim that Paul wants to end tax deductions for religious institutions. That, at least, is something Paul’s campaign denies.

For my part, this controversy is a tempest in a shave cup, and it distracts from what may truly be the worst political ad of the 2010 cycle, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s attack on his Republican challenger Bill Brady:

And who can blame them?

The newspaper cited an analysis in the Oct. 16 issue of the Italian Jesuit magazine, La Civilita Cattolica.

In it, Father Francesco Occhetta examined a Catholic-themed episode from 2005, “The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star,” in which Homer and his son Bart are befriended by a priest named Father Sean, and consider conversion to Catholicism.

“The Simpsons remain among the few TV programs for kids in which the Christian faith, religion and the question on God are recurrent themes,” Father Occhetta wrote.

What Fr. Occhetta fails to mention is that the episode he lauds contains the most accurate depiction of heaven ever to air on network TV:

Patrick Madrid calls attention to a story claiming a Muslim man did the worst slow-mo breakdance ever on the altar of the Florence cathedral (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore), and poses a telling thought experiment:

Try to imagine what would happen if a Christian were to perform this same moronic dance in crowded mosque. Do you think he’d leave the building alive?

Don’t forget, Muslims: The only reason we don’t want your victory mosque on Ground Zero is because it would offend the memories of the 9/11 victims. Why are you being so insensitive?

P.S.–Dubious about the provenance of this story, especially the question of the dancer’s religion? Me too. Anyone care to translate the Italian story?

(H/T Elizabeth Scalia.)

The October 22 issue just went live, so be sure to look at its table of contents, but before you do, you’re going to want to read “Further Adrift: The American Church’s Crisis of Attrition,” by Peter Steinfels. Here’s how it starts:

It is not often that someone at a New York dinner party calls for a count of religious affiliations, and I cannot recall exactly what led to it. But one guest suddenly said he had the impression that many of those present were Catholics. “Can we have a show of hands?” he asked.

Two of us raised our hands. A third person, who once wrote frequently in the Catholic press, said “no longer,” though as a conservative he continued to sympathize with the church. A fourth person, with whom my wife and I have sometimes worshiped on Easter, Christmas, and other occasions, chose not to make any declaration at all. Finally, the man who asked the question avowed that he had been raised Catholic, “and I hate everything about it.”

Bottom line? Two-and-a-half out of five, perhaps. Par, you might say, for a bunch of overeducated writer-types. Not at all. That’s roughly the proportion you would find at working-class family gatherings or suburban cookouts. In February 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, based on interviews with a representative sample of thirty-five thousand adult Americans, reported that one out of every three adult Americans who were raised Catholic have left the church. If these ex-Catholics were to form a single church, they would constitute the second largest church in the nation.

One in three. Think about it. This record makes the percentage of bad loans and mortgages leading to the financial meltdown look absolutely stellar. It dwarfs the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler. Thomas Reese, SJ, the former editor of America, recently described this loss of one-third of those raised Catholic as “a disaster.” He added, “You wonder if the bishops have noticed.”

Read the rest right here.

So much wackiness, so little time. But here are a few interesting tidbits I came come across this morning:

One, New Yorkers really are smarter than everyone else, as Andrew Cuomo is running ahead of Carl Paladino by 59 percent to 24 percent among likely voters.

Two, Alaskans are not New Yorkers, but they’re also apparently not swooning for their own Tea Party paladin, Joe Miller, according to the latest polls. But his hired goons handcuffed a reporter who had the temerity to try to ask Miller questions this weekend — until police, who actually have authority to arrest people, freed the scribbler. That could help Miller more than hurt.

Three, Republican leaders (Boehner) and key candidates continue to dodge the question of what they might cut even as the blast Democrats and Obama for spending too much money — to get the country out of the Republican fiscal ditch. Well forget that last part. Just check out this exchange between Fox’s Chris Wallace and California senate candidate Carly Fiorina, via Sully:

WALLACE: I’m going to try one last time, and if you don’t want to answer it, Miss Fiorina, you don’t have to.

FIORINA: It’s not a question of not wanting to answer it!

WALLACE: Let me ask the question, if I may, please. You’re not willing to put forward a single benefit – I’m not talking about the people 60 or let alone 65, or 70. I’m talking about people under 55. You’re not willing to say there is a single benefit eligibility for Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security that you are willing to say “Yeah, I would cut that?”

FIORINA: What I think we need to do to engage the American people in a conversation about entitlement reform is to have a bipartisan group of people who come together and put every solution on the table, every alternative on the table. Then we ought to engage in a long conversation with the American people so they understand the choices.

Finally, the Kentucky senate debate seems like a pay-per-view match I’d have paid to watch. And is Democat Jack Conway unfair by associating Rand Paul with the decidedly not-Christian views of his hero Ayn Rand?

Smackdown central via The Swamp.

How Augustine began one of his sermons:

“Let’s take what we have just sung as our topic today. And may the one to whom we have said, “You have held my right hand and have led me by your will and have taken me up in glory” (Ps 72:23), take up our hearts into clearer understanding and help by his mercy and grace both me as I speak and you as you pass judgment. Although I am seen to stand in a higher place so my voice will carry better, you yourselves judge in a higher place and we are judged by you. We are called teachers, but in many respects we seek a teacher, and we do not want to be considered masters. The Lord himself said that that is dangerous and forbidden: “Do not be called masters; one is your master, Christ”(Mt 23:10). The teaching-role [magisterium] is dangerous, then; being a disciple is safe. That is why the Psalm says, “To my hearing you will give joy and gladness” (Ps 50:10). A hearer of the word is safer than a speaker of the word. That’s why John the Baptist safely stands and hears him and rejoices at the voice of the bridegroom (Jn 3:29).

“See what the Apostle said because he was obliged to take up the teacher’s role: “I was with you with fear and trembling” (1 Cor 2:3). The safest thing is that both we who are speaking and you who are listening recognize that we are disciples together of a single master. Beyond any doubt it’s safest, and most useful, that you listen to us not as masters but as fellow disciples of yours. See what a concern is imposed on us when it is said: “Be ye not many masters, since we all offend in many things” (Jas 3:1-2). Who does not tremble when the Apostle says, “All”? What follows? “Anyone who does not offend in word is a perfect man.”  Who would dare to say he is perfect? One who stands and listens does not offend in word. Anyone who speaks, however, even if he does not offend (which is difficult), still suffers from fear that he may offend. You, then, must not only listen to those who are speaking, but have mercy on them in their fear, so that when we speak the truth, you praise not us but him (any truth, after all, comes from Truth), and when we offend, you pray for us.” (Augustine, Enar. in Ps 23, 1-2)

Mark Silk, Trinity College’s indispensable observer of all things religious, is just back from a pilgrimage to Mormon Country, a.k.a. Utah, and in addition to observations on the LDS view of the divine inspiration of the nation’s foundational documents, he notes the inevitable buzz about Mormon leader Boyd Packer’s comments on homosexuals — which we all discussed here.

Silk also adds this fascinating insight into a possible difference between Mormon and traditional Christian issues regarding homosexuality:

It’s important to recognize, though, how big a deal homosexuality is in the Mormon belief system. In the Christian tradition, sex and gender is not central to the main message, though some seem to pretend that’s so today. Celibacy was always preferable to the alternative: Better to marry than to burn, was the best Paul had to say about the institution. In Roman Catholicism, marriage was the johnny-come-lately sacrament.

But as my friend and host Phil Barlow, USU’s new Arrington Professor of Mormon History and Culture, emphasized to me, in Mormonism, ontology and soteriology–the theories of being and salvation–are heterosexually gendered. Where Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bishops have to be unmarried, Mormon bishops have to be married. Families exist for time and eternity. One might call Mormonism the apotheosis of 19th-century familialism.

It’s conceivable, then, that accepting the naturalness of homosexuality would be a bigger theological deal for the LDS Church than putting plural marriage on hold or accepting people of color as full-fledged members of the Church. Fortunately, however, this is a tradition designed for the reception of new revelations.

I wonder, though, if the increasing emphasis — often in reaction to discussions on homosexuality and the legitimacy of gay priests — on what seems to be a nuptial theology of ordination is becoming the Catholic answer to Mormon “familialism.” The idea that the Church is the Bride of Christ and hence priests must be straight if they are to have a properly ordered relationship to the Church is a favorite argument of those who seek to bar homosexuals from the priesthood.

To me, the argument seems weak at many points, but it could serve a purpose similar to the belief Mark Silk noted in Mormonism. In any case, the religious education Silk provides is food for thought.

(BTW, the LDS’ change on people of color and polygamy are very remarkable and relatively swift adaptations.)

The Synod on the Middle East began in Rome on Monday and there have already been a number of interesting interventions. Today the two Muslim observers addressed the Synod: a historic first.

Both John Allen at NCR and Austen Ivereigh at America are reporting on the spot, with their accustomed insight and professionalism.

Sandro Magister has a transcript of Pope Benedict’s Meditation at the opening of the Synod. It begins:

Dear brothers and sisters, on October 11, 1962, forty-eight years ago, Pope John XXIII inaugurated Vatican Council II. Back then, October 11 was the feast of the Divine Maternity of Mary, and by this action, on this date, Pope John wanted to entrust the entire council to the motherly hands, to the motherly heart of the Virgin Mary. We are also beginning on October 11, and we also want to entrust this synod, with all its problems, with all its challenges, with all its hopes, to the maternal heart of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

Pius XI had introduced this feast in 1930, sixteen hundred years after the Council of Ephesus, which had legitimated Mary’s title of “Theotókos,” “Dei Genitrix”. In this great expression “Dei Genitrix,” “Theotókos,” the Council of Ephesus had summarized the entire doctrine on Christ, on Mary, the entire doctrine of the redemption. And so it is worth it to reflect a little, for a moment, on the message of the Council of Ephesus, the message of this day.

In reality, “Theotókos” is an audacious title. A woman is Mother of God. One might say: how is this possible? God is eternal, he is the Creator. We are creatures, we are in time: how could a human person be Mother of God, of the Eternal, given that we are all in time, we are all creatures? So one realizes that there was strong opposition, in part, against this expression. The Nestorians said: one may speak of “Christotókos,” yes, but of “Theotókos,” no: “Theós,” God, is beyond, above the events of history. But the Council decided this, and precisely in this way brought to light the adventure of God, the greatness of what he has done for us. God did not remain within himself: he came out from himself, he united himself so much, so radically with this man, Jesus, that this man Jesus is God, and what we say about him we can always say about God as well. He was not born only as a man who had something to do with God, but in him God was born on earth. God came out from himself. But we can also say the opposite: God has drawn us into himself, so that we are no longer outside of God, but we are inside, inside God himself.

The rest is here.

You’ve probably seen this correction already (H/T everyone, but Chait has a great kicker). It’s a doozy:

This blog post originally stated that one in three black men who have sex with me is HIV positive. In fact, the statistic applies to black men who have sex with men.

But have you heard about this typo? Illinois Green Party gubernatorial candidate Whitney will appear as “Whitey” on electronic-voting machines in twenty-three wards in Chicago–half of which are in largely African-American neighborhoods. Apparently it’s too late to reprogram the machines for Election Day. Care to guess his first name? Rich. Of course.

Can the Green Party catch a break?

Spiegel-online today has a photo essay on the tunnel being built under the Alps in Switzerland–57 kilometers long (35 miles). I’m getting claustrophobic just looking at the photo!

Last Friday evening I participated in a particularly memorable Liturgy at Saint Ignatius Loyola Church near the Boston College Campus. Seven young Jesuits were ordained to the diaconate, in the midst of a celebratory congregation, buoyed by splendid music. The Bishop, who presided, was imposing in voice and personal in manner. I had never seen Archbishop Wilton Gregory in person before; but I shall long remember his mellifluous voice and his striking homily. Here is how he concluded his words to the young men:

As members of the Society of Jesus, you have already professed your desire and intentions to live the Evangelical Counsels of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience.  You have been shaped and formed as men religious in that resolve.  You have pondered what those promises mean for you personally. And we rejoice at the decisions that you have made thus far.

You have decided that Christ calls you to perpetual chastity and this evening the Church calls you to renew those promises within this Sacramental ceremony.  The world is baffled by our desire to live as chaste men in such a sexually charged environment.  The world has grown cynical at the possibility or even the wisdom of living such a life.  The public failures of too many of our brothers have given the world ample reasons to be so cynical.  What you must do with your lives now is to give that same world a reason to question its cynicism and to doubt its own judgment.  You will only be able to do so with prayer and an oneness with Christ that is the fruit of your desire not only to proclaim Good News but to be Good News for the entire world.  May the Lord, who has begun the Good Work within you, bring it to fulfillment! Amen!!

Senior PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo, “It is important for us to know where are the borders of Israel and where are the borders of Palestine. Any formulation the Americans present – even asking us to call Israel the ‘Chinese State’ – we will agree to it, as long as we receive the 1967 borders. We have recognized Israel in the past, but Israel has not recognized the Palestinian state.” Here: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/plo-chief-we-will-recognize-israel-in-return-for-1967-borders-1.318835

Is Jon Stuart Stewart (Or–is it John Stewart?) writing his lines?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS, a.k.a. Mormons) has come under fire for recent provocative statements by a senior leader about gays (he sees it as nurture rather than nature) and God’s intentions in their regard (God would not create homosexuals), all of which follow in the vein of discussions we have been having here and here.

(Those posts were on gay bullying and Catholic responsibilities, and Carl Paladino’s rhetoric on gays, respectively. PS: Paladino has amended his comments yet gain. Whatever.)

In any case, on Tuesday the LDS came out with a statement on gays and discrimination (it had earlier amended the controversial statements by Apostle Boyd Packer for the official version) that was rather substantial. From my story at PoliticsDaily:

[O]n Tuesday, just an hour after the nation’s largest gay civil rights organization delivered a protest petition with 150,000 signatures to the LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City, a Mormon spokesman issued a statement denouncing bullying against anyone, including for reasons of sexual orientation, and said Mormons have a special responsibility to be kind to minority groups since Mormons themselves have experienced persecution.

“Our parents, young adults, teens and children should therefore, of all people, be especially sensitive to the vulnerable in society and be willing to speak out against bullying or intimidation whenever it occurs, including unkindness toward those who are attracted to others of the same sex,” said LDS spokesman Michael Otterson.

“This is particularly so in our own Latter-day Saint congregations,” he said. “Each Latter-day Saint family and individual should carefully consider whether their attitudes and actions toward others properly reflect Jesus Christ’s second great commandment — to love one another.”

The statement also seemed to indicate that the church considers homosexual orientation, or “inclinations,” as innate to some degree, and it made no mention of trying to turn gay people into heterosexuals.

Read the entire statement here. I have not seen anything comparable engagement from Catholic leaders. Anyone?

Full LDS statement here.

Just posted: our editorial for the October 22 issue, which we just put to bed. Here’s how it begins:

“I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies,” Liu Xiaobo said in his 2009 “Final Statement” to the Chinese court that sentenced him to eleven years’ imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power.”

“Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience,” Liu continued. “That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.”

Liu’s goodwill, courage, and humbling example were recognized by the Nobel Committee earlier this month when, to near universal if muted acclaim, it awarded the imprisoned activist the Nobel Peace Prize for his steadfast nonviolent resistance to the tyrannical rule of his country’s Communist Party. The Communist government, long frustrated by the failure of a Chinese citizen to receive a Nobel, reacted predictably, denouncing the decision and issuing veiled threats to those championing Liu’s cause. News of the award was expunged from the Internet and airwaves, and Liu’s wife was placed under house arrest.

Read the rest here.

In our latest issue, Tom Baker reviews Judith Shulevitz’s book The Sabbath World. He begins by noting that, for modern believers, the third commandment is one of the most neglected:

For those of us who go to church, Sunday is still the day we do it. Aside from that, our Sabbath has become, in practice, just a slightly lower-key Saturday.

…

Have we lost anything by freeing ourselves from all these Sunday (or Saturday) Sabbath ideals? And if we have, what are our chances of recovering it? Those are the questions Judith Shulevitz wants to answer in The Sabbath World, a beautifully written, consistently engaging reflection on what she calls “the social morality of time.” Written from a Jewish perspective, this extended essay on commitment and discipline in our use of time will reward readers from any religious tradition.

Some months ago, Slate hosted a round-robin discussion of this book, with Shulevitz, Dahlia Lithwick, and Mary Boys trading their responses. You may find the whole conversation interesting, especially if you’ve read the book, but I found the contributions from Sr. Boys (number two and number five) most edifying. An expert in Jewish-Christian relations, she fills in some background on how Christians understand and approach the obligation to keep the Sabbath. (Shulevitz and Lithwick are both Jewish.) This rang true for me: Read the rest of this entry »

An illustration of how Newman was regarded as a spiritual counsellor is given in a letter written to him while still an Anglican priest, sixteen months before he entered the Catholic Church. It came from John Bramston, who had been a fellow of Oriel at the same time as Newman and was then an Anglican vicar:

My dear Newman:

I must write one line to you to tell you of the deep affliction it has pleased God to visit me withal–My dearest wife breathed her last breath this morning at 2 o clock. She had long desired to depart out of this world, for her gentle and pure and confiding spirit was no match for the rough ways of this sinful world–she felt her own infirmities so keenly that she could not endure being of no use, as she thought, to any one. But if there was one upon earth who came under the description of our blessed Saviour, as pure in heart, she was. Read the rest of this entry »

Just two weeks ago I heard on the radio a Metropolitan Opera Broadcast of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.” The voice was rock solid with incredible breath control and magnificent trills. I did not have to wait until the Act’s end to recognize “La Stupenda.”

Now, Joan Sutherland, the unassuming Australian, who was one of the great sopranos of the second half of the twentieth century, has joined il coro dei serafini.

Anthony Tommasini has a fine appreciation in today’s Times. He writes:

Though never a compelling actress, Ms. Sutherland exuded vocal charisma, a good substitute for dramatic intensity. In the comic role of Marie in “La Fille du Régiment,” she conveyed endearingly awkward girlishness as the orphaned tomboy raised by an army regiment, proudly marching in place in her uniform while tossing off the vocal flourishes.

Ms. Sutherland was plain-spoken and down to earth, someone who enjoyed needlepoint and playing with her grandchildren. Though she knew who she was, she was quick to poke fun at her prima donna persona.

“I love all those demented old dames of the old operas,” she said in a 1961 Times profile. “All right, so they’re loony. The music’s wonderful.”

To see, and better hear, the “large walking column,” here she sings the great aria, “Casta Diva,” from Bellini’s “Norma.” “Loony,” but stupendous.

Reuters reports that Geron has launched a clinical trial of embryonic stem cells for treating spinal cord injury. It’s a Phase I trial, that is, it is intended to establish safety, not to cure the problem, though they are using spinal-cord injured people as research subjects.

Of course, Geron funds its own research, meaning that the details are proprietary (though subject to FDA oversight.) The Bush-era ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research without banning the research entirely created to a huge market for investors in research that might result in extraordinarily remunerative therapies. We might expect further clinical trials very soon, if this Phase I trial is successful.

Market-driven research, though, has ethical difficulties that aren’t absent from university-based research or federally-funded research, but that are exacerbated in that realm. First, scientists are aware that unnuanced publication of adverse events or unsuccessful trials means a likely drop in stock value as investors grow skittish. (Failure to publish adverse events seems to have been a factor in the death of Jesse Gelsinger in a genetic-engineering trial years ago.) So they’re likely to avoid publishing negative results if they can. (Again, there is oversight in this trial.) A related problem: removal of the traditional publication imperative is likely to slow research progress overall, as unsuccessful areas of endeavor are repeated in multiple labs. Third, we can expect to pay a premium price for privately-derived therapies–a question of justice in access to medical care. This in turn contributes to spiraling health-care costs, and an increasing gap between health-care haves and have-nots. And this just scratches the surface.

Catholics who hold to the magisterial instruction to respect embryos as persons will be in a difficult spot if these therapies prove successful. The question is cooperation with evil–may Catholics avail themselves of therapies derived by ethically-unacceptable means? We do have a precedent–vaccines derived using tissues grown from aborted fetuses were judged to be acceptably remote from the original abortion, thus OK for Catholics. Pushed on this question, Richard Doerflinger opined years back that Catholics still ought to avoid such vaccines wherever possible. I wonder, though–given the highly politicized nature of the debate on embryonic stem cells, will Catholics be instructed to avoid these therapies? Stay tuned…

Taking a well-deserved break from the Catholic “Gay Watch” episodes, I take the title of this entry from Joe Klein’s post at TIME about this year’s Peace Prize winner. For my money an inspired choice, not least for the reactions from Beijing that have revealed again that government’s implacable and almost eerie indifference to public opinion or human rights. This is an award that merits recognition for the Nobel Committee and Liu Xiaobo.

Klein writes:

The Chinese government is going berserk, of course, snubbing the Norwegians and putting the laureate’s wife under house arrest. It’s always good to remember that they don’t call themselves the Middle Kingdom for nothing: they are as xenophobic, as convinced of their superiority and righteousness, as any country on earth…and they’ve been getting rather chesty lately, threatening the Japanese, threatening tariffs against American chicken manufacturers–!–and dragging their feet on currency reform.

The Chinese have helped quietly, but significantly, in keeping Pakistan from going off the rails; and their willingness to join the Iran sanctions regime is important. But not so important that we need to maintain radio silence every time they start acting obnoxiously. Our signals can be subtle, like sending Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Vietnam to discuss mutual defense issues (the Vietnamese have been threatened by China for 2,000 years). Or they can be less than subtle, like having the Senate pass the House legislation that would give the President the power to impose tariffs on the Chinese if they don’t reform their currency.

It is important to remember the basic equation here: The Chinese don’t have us over a barrel. We’ve had the better of the deal. We get their products; they’ve got our debt. I’ll take that deal anytime, especially since we have ultimate power over how much that debt actually is worth.

And so congratulations, Liu Xiaobo. And let the Chinese understand that their ranting in protest only causes them to lose face, and seem weak, in the eyes of the world.

PS: The recent New Yorker profile on the Dalai Lama was also excellent, showing his missteps vis-a-vis China, and concern for the future of Tibetan Buddhism (beyond its domestication-to-death by Americans) but also Beijing’s record on Tibet.

That’s kind of a scary statement given the latest comments by the Tea Party fave and GOP gubernatorial candidate for governor in New York. Paladino has a hard-earned reputation for being, let’s say, mercurial, and his statements on Sunday about gays at an Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn plus his kind-of-walkback on the “Today” show this ayem only reinforce that.

I have a story on the exchanges here, and NYT coverage is here.

What intrigued me, in light of our recent discussions of Catholic teaching and gay bullying and the gay marriage battle by the bishops, were these quotes from Paladino’s campaign manager, Michael R. Caputo, in reference to Paladino’s often sneering dismissal of homosexuals:

“Carl Paladino is simply expressing the views that he holds in his heart as a Catholic,” Caputo told The Times. “Carl Paladino is not homophobic, and neither is the Catholic Church.”

Caputo continued that line in remarks to CNN.

“Carl Paladino’s position on this is exactly equivalent to the Catholic Church,” Caputo said. “And if Andrew Cuomo has a problem with the Catholic Church’s position on abortion and homosexuality, he needs to take it up with his parish priest.”

Caputo may be right, but does Paladino’s tone at least merit a pastoral response from someone in the Catholic hierarchy? And is his attitude representative of how many Catholics internalize — and then express — church teaching on/against homosexuality and gays and lesbians?

The New York Times carried an interesting profile today of Pamela Geller, who has enjoyed great success in whipping up fear and hatred of Islam through her opposition to the Islamic cultural center planned for a site near the World Trade Center.  The paper reported:

Operating largely outside traditional Washington power centers — and, for better or worse, without traditional academic, public-policy or journalism credentials — Ms. Geller, with a coterie of allies, has helped set the tone and shape the narrative for a divisive national debate over Park51 (she calls the developer a “thug” and a “lowlife”). In the process, she has helped bring into the mainstream a concept that after 9/11 percolated mainly on the fringes of American politics: that terrorism by Muslims springs not from perversions of Islam but from the religion itself. Her writings, rallies and television appearances have both offended and inspired, transforming Ms. Geller from an Internet obscurity, who once videotaped herself in a bikini as she denounced “Islamofascism,” into a media commodity who has been profiled on “60 Minutes” and whose phraseology has been adopted by Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

Her approach to Muslims – she calls herself a “racist-Islamophobic-anti-Muslim-bigot” – ought to strike any Catholic familiar with Vatican II’s statements on Islam  and subsequent papal teachings as obviously wrong. But many Catholics have signed on to her agenda, including some Catholic politicians.

I could have done without some of the Times’s reportage on Geller’s marital history or her bikini. What caught my interest were a  few paragraphs deep into the article about how Geller became involved in the 2007 campaign to oust Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim woman known for her involvement in intercultural dialogue, from serving as principal of an Arabic-themed public school in Brooklyn. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined this year that the city’s Department of Education “succumbed to the very bias that creation of the school was intended to dispel and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on D.O.E. as an employer.” According to The Times story, “It was this victory, critics say, that emboldened Ms. Geller’s circle and set it on a path to national influence.”

Nothing seems more threatening to Geller and her associates than a Muslim known for bringing people together. Her campaign against the Islamic cultural center was a large-scale version of the effort against Almontaser – propelled forward in both cases by the New York Post. The main difference was that when there was strong pressure to deny the Islamic center developers’ constitutional rights, Mayor Michael Bloomberg found the courage he lacked when his administration went along with the smear against Almontaser.

The endlessly elusive peace talks between Palestinian President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are in limbo. The apparent need of Netanyahu to negotiate a further freeze with his cabinet is no doubt masking his efforts to ring out even more concessions from the Obama Administration via Dennis Ross.

But here is a smart analysis of where that may be going along with a bracing critique of the Palestinians and some analysis of what to do when the two-state solution passes into the dust bin of history. If this happens, new ideas and strategies will emerge, as this site suggests: http://mitchellplitnick.com/2010/10/08/giving-up-on-obama/#more-471

My intermittent posts here on Israel and the ensuing comments show how important it is that all of us keeping reading and thinking about a real peace settlement instead of clinging to unstinting support of what Israeli politicians, and their U.S. allies, decide is in the best interest of the United States. Time for the tail to stop wagging the dog!

A week ago today, the members of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation completed two papers which they now submit for consideration by the leaders of the Catholic Church and of the Orthodox Churches. The first calls for a common date for celebrating Easter, the second addresses what is probably the greatest obstacle to reunion, the role of the Bishop of Rome. What distinguishes this text from many others is that if offers concrete steps for the meantime. Full disclosure: I’m one of the Catholic members of the consultation.