There are, as we know, seven principle virtues—four cardinal virtues and three theological ones—I a daresay that abortion manages to violate all seven of them. Few sins, I think, can claim such thoroughness in being so opposed to virtue.

Abortion and Prudence

Note: This is the third installment on a long-dormant series of posts in which I reflect upon various heresies. Today's subject is cynicism; the modern cynic often tends to combine one or more formal heresies, or more broadly to reject three important ideas: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. I should add as a final note that I am here reflecting upon modern cynics, which are loosely based on the cynics described by Fr George Rutler in his essay for Disorientation: How to Go to College without Losing Your Mind, and not necessarily as the Greek philosophers such as Diogenes and Antisthenes (though these do have some things in common).
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"Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him" (John 18:36-38).

As a general rule, heresy involves taken a single true doctrine or set of true doctrines and either rejecting them or overemphasizing them to the detriment of all other doctrines. Today's heresy, however, is not a heresy in the proper and particular sense, but rather is a type of attitude which lends itself to heresy, and indeed is a more vague kind of heresy. In fact, in a certain sense, it is an attitude adopted along with certain other attitudes or heresies, upon whose shoulders it stands. Cynicism might be described as the combinations of modernity (and post-modernity), moral relativism, and iconoclasm with a decided--indeed even and intentional--lack of charity.

A topic of discussion which has come up a few times between my friends and I is the idea of "cultural literacy." Loosely defined, cultural literacy means that the culture has a broad enough familiarity with the "great" works of the past that the average (or average educated) member of the culture can recognize these works. This means a familiarity with the Great Ideas as conveyed by media such as books, art, or even music. Most people are still at least somewhat familiar with the Bible, though few know much about Dante and Milton and Chaucer, or Homer and Shakespeare and Dostoevsky, or Saints Athanasias, Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas, or Plato and Aristotle and Boethius (to pick a few examples); we may recognize the Mona Lisa or the David, but not the Dispute over the Eucharist or the Pieta. About this latter work of art, Fr George Rutler had this to say in his essay about Cynicism, written for Disorientation:

The Catholic scholars who formed the first great universities of Europe did so in the same age that popularized the image of the "Pieta" showing the Lady with Divine Wisdom on her lap. She reverences her own Son, whose divine Person existed before her. There is not much for students to sing about if they do not understand that.

[In part I of this series, we searched for a dominant metaphor by which to encapsulate the condition of the man of faith in the modern world. We settled upon one: "The contemporary soul wanders in a perpetual wasteland." We also anticipated that, in exploring this metaphor, we could not take it at mere face value and instead we must find a genuine expression of faith within it. Thus, in looking at the reality of faith, we begin by, today, examining the reality of sin.]

It scarcely bears mention that, from the perspective of faith, it is sin and its effects which provide the formal and efficient causes of the squalid conditions of our world, not just of now but in every other time in human history before us and after us. This is not at all apparent from the perspective of unbelief. Countless material explanations of our present darkness stand in the place of sin: economic (via Marx), historical (via Hegel), psychological (via Freud and psychotherapy), socio-historical (via Comte), biological (via Darwin), to give but a few, as the list is long and divergent. As people of faith, we can accept or reject any number of these material explanations based on the understanding that any material cause or combination of material causes is insufficient to account for the experience of darkness and desolation in our historical and cultural milieu.

[This is the first of a five-part series written to explore the role of faith within the modern world. We look at the response require of people of faith for living out the Christian vocation in the modern world. In the first part, we look at finding a dominant metaphor to describe where we are and what we are doing.]

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses[.]

—T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland, 331-345

Finding a dominant metaphor to encapsulate the plight of man in the throes of modernism is, in many ways, a fool’s errand. What image, what allegory, is capable of tying together the dismembered fragments of the existential, brooding, introspective angst? How can we hold both the Kafka-esque alienation from one’s surroundings, even one’s very self—and the heady, glimmering, exhilarating optimism that so characterizes our hope in ourselves with our social projects, our utopian schemas, our progressive tendencies toward an ever-better future in both hands?

Film Review: Contact
1997, Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, David Morse, Angela Bassett

Overall Recommendation: B-
Moral/Spiritual (-5, +5): -1
Artistic (out of 5): ***1/2

Sci-Fi treats of the topic of extraterrestrial life in several ways. They’re either there, or they’re here. E.T. phones home from here, or he phones here from home. They’re either bright-eyed, childlike scientists (E.T.), or benevolent emissaries come to help us progress into the future (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), or they’re hostile invaders who want our planet, our service, or whatever (War of the Worlds, Battle: LA). Nevertheless, it always seems that the best sci-fi treatment of extraterrestrial life strives to find a balance between the awe and wonder of such encounters and the crippling fear that accompanies the possibility. Contact, while giving a place for each of these poles, often fails in taking seriously the very real apprehension that rightly flows from the possibility.

[Note: This entry begins the first of movie reviews on the site. It is not likely that new films will be reviewed as released, rather, older films will be reviewed as fits having the time. I've started off with some benchmark sci-fi films, beginning with one of the greatest sci-fi classics Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In these reviews, I seek to view a film according to its merits as a film, and then using it to ask questions pertaining to the Catholic faith. I do not explicitly wish to judge a film according to Catholicism, but rather, from a Catholic perspective, to draw on a film's meaning as a film. My rating system is similar to Steven Greydanus'.]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977, Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Cary Guffey

Overall Recommendation: A-
Spiritual/Moral (-5, +5): 0
Artistic (out of 5): *****

As a child, I held a deep fascination with the topic of UFO’s and extraterrestrial life. I would always check out related books from the local library and watch as many UFO documentaries as I could. I’ve seen pretty much every film devoted to the subject, from the wholesome and friendly—for example, E.T., one of my favorites as a child—to the not-so-great B-list movies (see: the 1993 film Fire in the Sky, starring D.B. Sweeney, and the 1989 film Communion, starring Christopher Walken and based on the best-selling book by Whitley Strieber). I could go on.

The recent post by Mr Joe Carter of First things about Generation X Conservatives--and Mr Mark Shea's analysis thereof--has brought me back to a topic which I've pondered on occasion. This is the identity of my own generation, unimaginatively dubbed "Generation Y" because it's the generation after Generation X, I suppose; and if we are to become a lost generation, then I suppose that the one to follow us might be called "Generation Z," which might just as well be a generation asleep.

And though we're only just now coming of age (I am at the old end of Generation Y), we have already collected quite a few nicknames. We're the Millennials (apparently, because we come of age in the new millennium, though I'd think the name would be better suited for those who are born in the new millennium); the Peter-Pan generation, because we have delayed growing up (can you blame us, with the "adult" role models we've been given?); the echo-Boomers--which doesn't bode well, especially if we inherit their deserved nickname and become Generation Narcissus 2.0--the list goes on.

And though we're only just now coming of age (or maybe delaying the coming of age?), there is another name which i think fits us better than any of these.It's not too far off from our rather unimaginative name "Generation Y", in fact it is (as Mr Andrew Elster pointed out to me) a play on words with our designation. We are "Generation Why?".

"Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin…Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee."

Thus begins Saint Augustines’ Confessions, and these lines are among the most well-known ever written. I came returned to them after reflecting a bit on Mrs Jennifer Fulwiler’s discussion of Catholic misconceptions about atheists. Specifically, she notes that few if any atheists feel that they are “missing something” in their lives, and that few recognize the “God-shaped hole” in their hearts. Most atheists I’ve known, including those who are among my friends, would concur with this analysis, given that they reject the existence of said holes in their hearts. For her part, Mrs Fulwiler states that she only recognized that she was missing something after she had found it.

A couple of days ago, I was considering what it means to be a good Catholic in the context of having views opposed to Catholic teaching. I concluded the piece by saying, "If you are Catholic, and opposing the Church's teachings innocently, then the mark of being a good Catholic is to reconsider your own position before decrying the Church's." By this I meant that docility is a virtue which good Catholics ought to inculcate, especially a docile attitude towards the Church's own teachings. I'd like to take some time to expand this comment in a slightly less hurried manner.