A couple of days ago, I wrote a somewhat rambling piece about Voice of the "Faithful" (VOT"F") Chicagoland's open letter to the Holy Father*. I focused on one passage in particular, namely the one in which VOT"F"C attempts to rebut the "metaphor argument" (e.g. the "sexual symbolism" argument) against ordaining women to the Catholic priesthood**. However, I had time only to consider the first half of that passage, which concerns their mistaken view as to the role of a priest. Today, I'd like to spend some time considering the second part of that passage, in which they make an even more grievous (and an even less well founded) error concerning Christ himself. Let's have another look at the passage in question, this time with the emphasis on its second part:

"The metaphor argument, that the priest should be male because he represents Jesus, the male priest, is simply fallacious. The priest does not represent Christ, but serves as leader of the community of men and women worshiping God in communion with Christ. Further, since the Risen Christ is neither male nor female, any gender based symbolism ascribed to the presider is meaningless" (emphasis mine).

I was reading a reflection by Monsignor Charles Pope concerning beliefs, philosophies, and God. He opens by stating that

There is a tendency in the modern age, at least in the Western world, to trivialize the human person. One of the ways we do this is to say, in so many words, that it does not really matter what a person thinks or believes.

This is by no means a new sentiment (in the sense of being unique to today), but rather has permeated the "modern" era. For example, writing about 100 years ago, G.K. Chesterton said that this was often the attitude of the day. He continued by writing that

“It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages….But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period.” (Heretics)

"Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down."
--G. K. Chesterton (The Innocence of Father Brown)

Professor J Budziszewski offers his own version of this quote (even citing the quote itself) in his books about the natural law philosophy. The good professor notes that just as no man can keep at a level of evil, neither can any society. We begin with our favorite sin--usually something specific like fornication or theft which is based upon something abstract such as lust or envy--and our refusal to repent of said sin. Yet, if we can't go through a normal and healthy repentance, we will be dragged through an abnormal, unhealthy form of repentance. Failing to confess the sin--and our guilt in it--we tell all of the sordid details about the sin, in gory detail. A simple sin seems to become an obsession--perhaps even a possessive one; but even having confessed every detail, even crying out "Peace, peace," we find that there is not peace to be had.

The Texas Alliance for Life—along with the Diocese of Austin—commemorated the infamous Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton decisions on Saturday. It was a day filled with Masses and marches, rosaries and rhetoric, statistics (over 50 million dead in the American abortion holocaust alone) and speeches—of prayer and politics. The problem in America—indeed, in what was and may someday again be Christendom—is one not merely of politics, but also of culture. The late (and perhaps great) president Ronald Reagan once referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire; it was true, but the late and certainly great Pope John Paul II offered a more profound critique of culture when he called ours “the culture of death.”

Chesterton once remarked that a heretic is unable to truly have an original thought. His point was that the heretic was too busy tearing down to ever really build up, and it's certainly a good point to consider. In my own experience, however, the heretic's problem is not that he never has an original thought, but rather that once he has that singular thought he can think of nothing else.

You get into my head,
You may dig and dig,
Trace every synapse,
Examine every cell,
Probe my gray matter,
Prod both lobes of my brain,
You can even take control
Of my motor functions--
And all this may be mapped,
Yet still you cannot find
Just which cell is it
Which knows me as myself?
You cannot locate my mind,
And you can't find my will--
Thus your science concludes
That I must not exist.

The Catholic Thing has an article about the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland, the first of which began 70 years ago today.

"By the time Polish resistance ended on October 5, 200,000 Poles were dead or wounded and 400,000 were taken prisoner....Hitler, who despised Poland and held that all Poles were subhuman, ordered his invading army to kill “without pity or mercy, all men, women and children of Polish descent or language.” In the first thirty days of occupation, the Wehrmacht destroyed 531 towns and villages and murdered over 16,000 civilians. Hitler’s aim was more than expanding Germany’s borders; he wanted the “annihilation of living forces” by means of extermination and enslavement."

The telegraph has an article about Cherie Blair's attack on the Church for her teaching on contraception.

"Despite being a devour [sic] Catholic and encouraging her husband, Tony, to convert from Anglicanism, she said she used contraception.

The wife of the former Prime Minister said: 'I feel if you look at what progress women have made in the world, one of the reasons is because they have been able to control their fertility.' "

I would here argue--along with Blair's countryman, Chesterton--that her definition of "progress" leaves something to be desired. There was a time when "progress" meant that things are getting better and not merely changing.

A New Hampshire court has ordered that a ten-year-old girl must immediately enroll full-time as a student in the public schools. That's right, she must go to public school--not a private school. She cannot continue homeschooling--in spite of the fact that she is academically superior to her peers as reported by standardized testing and the accounts of her teachers (she is already taking a handful of classes in the public school). Why would the court do this?