St. Austin Review: Reclaiming Culture

September 1st, 2010Toward a Definition of “Conversion” Part IIby Dena Hunt

To continue, “Why did you become a Catholic?” is a different question from “Why did you become a Christian?” What’s the reason for that difference? Well, here’s a clue: http://rainhadocanto10-evangelicalchristian.blogspot.com/2010/08/roman-catholic-church-is-not-christian.html

This is only one of many “Christian” anti-Catholic sites, of course. A friend sent it to me this morning; the title of yesterday’s post (“Christianity vs. Catholicism”) attempts to answer the exact question I asked.

Catholics scratch their heads over this sort of thing. Where does this stuff come from? Dutifully ecumenical-minded, they ask questions like, “My goodness, if these people don’t want to be Catholic, okay, but why do they hate us? We accept them, we acknowledge the validity of their faith. Shouldn’t all Christians want unity—if not in the same church, at least in the same faith in Christ.”

Well, the links on the sample blog cited above link love of country to Christianity. What kind of Christianity? Any of the 28,000 or so protestant denominations currently active. The only Christian denomination they hate is Catholicism. Why? Where does it come from? From the English Deformation—which had the same motive. All the lies—historical, (e.g., “The Inquisition killed and tortured millions of people because they disagreed with the Pope”), theological (the ever-popular “Catholics worship Mary”), even linguistic (“Call no man ‘father’”, and of course, “Jesus’ ‘brethren’”)—not some, but all the lies have their origin in 16^th century English anti-papal propaganda. American protestants inherited that ___. What was the English motive? Actually, American anti-Catholics can look at their own motive because it’s the same: concentration of power (and faith is the greatest power there is) in the state. What did England fear? Authority that supercedes the state’s. What do the patriotic American anti-Catholics fear? The same thing.

And the left-leaning folks, usually secular, humanist, atheist, or some combination of these, fear the same thing. Strange bedfellows for evangelical sorts, it may seem, but they actually have one binding aim that the evangelicals don’t recognize—kill the authority of the Church. Any pro-choice or pro-homosexual activist prudently expresses public approval of “Christianity”, keeping his more honest opinions to himself; it’s a policy that has borne good political fruit: “Christian” means “open minds, open hearts, open doors”, as the Methodists now advertise themselves. And American Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson says that rejection of homosexuality is “not Christian”. So, “Christian” is okay, they say, only “Catholic” is evil.

Catholics aren’t Christians, but Catholics. Ask anybody, including Christians. On either side of the Atlantic, on either end of the political spectrum.

What does the term conversion mean then? Does it mean love of country? Does it mean loyalty to one’s cultural or national identity above all other loyalties? Or perhaps it means a belief in one’s own judgment as supreme moral authority—and if supreme, shouldn’t it be “shared” with unenlightened others? If it means any of these things, it may be a conversion to something, but not to Christianity. If, however, one recognizes all these as mere extensions of the self, one has converted to Christianity, which means one has become Catholic.

So, when someone asks me why I became a Catholic, I answer, “Because I believe in Christ.” When they repeat the question, “But why did you become a Catholic?” my answer is “I just told you.”         

September 1st, 2010Aloneby Pavel Chichikov

How does an atheist die? Obviously, he dies the same way as everyone else. God doesn’t vanish because one of His creatures denies His existence. The universe, of which the atheist is a part, doesn’t evaporate when he expires. Angels will be the same as they ever were, and the spirits of those we call the dead still live in the House of Love.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because of the apparently terminal illness of Christopher Hitchens, a prominent atheist, which was in the news a little while ago. I don’t know Mr. Hitchens personally, and I haven’t read much of what he’s written. I’ve never attended any of his talks. He is, however, a prominent publicist for the atheist viewpoint, and he is known to be a very energetic, angry and articulate one. He said recently that if he ever turns away from atheism in the course of his illness, it will be the effect of medication, not a change in conviction.

Though Christopher Hitchens may be an arch and public skeptic, I’m not skeptical about what he says. The cancer he seems to be dying of is a very serious matter, even beyond its fatality. It’s almost invariably fatal. The symptoms are extremely unpleasant. Facing it with courage, and even defiance, is admirable from anyone’s point of view. I know that many people are praying for Christopher Hitchens, no matter how detestable he might find that sort of attention.

A long time ago, I heard someone say: Everyone dies alone. At this point, I must express my own skepticism. I doubt very much that anyone dies alone. Those of us who have glimpsed what Tolkien called the Imperishable Flame, or have known other signs of a reality beyond our ordinary consensus, think otherwise.

The universe doesn’t evaporate when an atheist dies, and neither does he. I believe that what happens next is up to him, and that anyone who beholds the glory of the Flame will not reject it, if only he can for a moment renounce pride and accept love.

ALONE

Shipwrecked on an island,
Himself the rounding sea
That he himself can summon,
His solitude is he

Wind his breath and vision,
Waves the heart and pulse,
Weather his decision,
There is nothing else

Inheritor of nothing
Except what he can think,
Rescue may be passing
Between each breath and blink

Immortal soul is mortal
Because his life is spent,
Dying is the portal
To empty firmaments

Light has been abolished
No stars have coalesced,
His emptiness is furnished
With less than emptiness

But rescue will be summoned
From far across the sea,
And he will be made welcome
If welcome he would be

September 1st, 2010Empathetic Capacityby Ferdi McDermott

I recently read about some 17th century Dominican dialogues with Zen Buddhist monks and the many interesting and moving consequences that such cultural openness brought to the men of that age. I am also currently engaged in some research into the work of Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary in China. These men were Christian humanists, engaged in bold cultural outreach in faithfulness to the Gospel injunction to preach to all nations.

Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts (of which I am a Fellow) recently gave an illustrated talk, now available online, which calls for a ‘21st century enlightement’, or a new humanism for the new century. This is going to be the RSA’s new ‘strap’ or byword. You can watch his fascinating, entertaining (and short) lecture, complete with cartoons at:

Taylor speaks of progress in the development of ‘empathetic capacity’ and notes what he sees as the decrease in person to person violence down through the centuries. It seems to me that such an observation is inevitably anecdotal and subjective, rather than empirical. Try telling that to the child-slaves, or urban beggars in India and China, or the child prostitutes in Thailand; people whose ancestors perhaps serenely tilled the fields; or indeed to the millions of aborted babies who bloody our hands without – it would seem – making much of a dent in our consciences. ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’ is always with us. The 21st century – is seems to me – is no time to get complacent. And yet, one knows what Taylor means.

And Taylor is right that popular culture is encouraging us to think about other people. He is, here, in the same optimistic line as men such as Pius XII and Paul VI who saw in the new means of social communication the way to achieve not just a shrinking planet, but a more mutually aware and loving one, as long as we can avoid the very modern curse of ‘compassion fatigue’.

He is right to draw attention to the truth that education has no value if it does not, above all other things, foster ‘empathetic capacity’, or - in simpler terms – love. “For I can have all things, but if I have not charity …” as St Paul observed.

The RSA today is a mixture of university professors, literary figures, industry chiefs and the rising stars of the new left. The latter group tends to dominate. Faithful StAR readers will know that I am very pleased to be described as a conservative, and that have no illusions about Marx, and yet it seems to me that men such as Matthew Taylor do care about people’s lives. Their empathetic capacity, despite its awful name, is a challenge to men like me. Perhaps it is now time for the Christian humanists to join debates like these and to bring to them the light of the Gospel, just like – for example - the great Jesuits and Dominicans of the post-Reformation era. 21st Century Christian humanism’s time has come. Because man is indeed the measure of all things. But it was God who made him so. And, in the man Jesus Christ, He has given us some powerful answers about the Z of A-Z: answers about our final destination. Modern man needs these answers more than ever now, as the world grows ever smaller and history moves ever faster, towards its ultimate consummation.

Ferdi McDermott founded StAR in 2001. He is Principal of Chavagnes International College, an English-language Catholic boarding school for boys, situated in western France.

September 1st, 2010One Small Step for Virginiaby Sophia Mason

Last week a state delegate and an attorney general got together and decided that it is again time for the Commonwealth of Virginia to regulate abortions.

This may sound like small potatoes—of course there is still a federal mandate permitting abortions, and there will be plenty of abortions performed in Virginia even if the Attorney General’s suggestions are adopted—but it is a step forward nonetheless.

Virginia regulated abortion clinics in the years following Roe v. Wade, prior to the term of Governor Chuck Robb (1982-6).  Robb was known as a moderate Democrat (one of only eleven Democrats to vote for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ nomination); but on the question of abortion his moderation was not in evidence.

Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall thought that the time was right to return abortion regulation to Virginia, and he asked for the Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s opinion on the legality of the move.  Cuccinelli, a Roman Catholic with seven children, determined that Virginia “has the authority to promulgate regulations for facilities in which first trimester abortions are performed . . . so long as the regulations adhere to constitutional limitations.”  Abortion clinics and dental and plastic surgery offices are not currently required to be licensed in Virginia—that grouping says something about how pro-choice people view abortions!—although the doctors who work in those settings must be licensed. 

Supporters of the right to life see the move as a matter of course.  As the Attorney General’s spokesman put it, “The state has long regulated outpatient surgical facilities and personnel to ensure a certain level of protection for patients.  There is no reason to hold facilities providing abortion services to any lesser standard for their patients.”

State regulation of abortion clinics has stood up in court before; South Carolina successfully underwent a federal challenge to its 1995 amendment to existing law.  Following the challenge and implementation of the new regulations, the state saw a marked decrease in abortions and abortion clinics.  Though it is impossible to say how much of the decrease was due to the amendment to the law, the correlation is suggestive.

So yes—one small step for the state of Virginia.  Let us pray for a favorable review of the Attorney General’s opinion!

August 31st, 2010From Here to Babylonby Pavel Chichikov

I spend a lot of computer time reading and contributing to a blog called Calculated Risk. It’s a finance and economics blog, although people tend to wander very far from the topics, especially when business hours have ended. Many of the contributors are highly educated, articulate, and funny. They can be good electronic company.

Some of them are professed atheists, and a few of those are bitter opponents of religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. I find myself crossing metaphorical swords with them, because when someone attacks faith, it provokes that sort of response in me. I don’t enjoy arguing, but sometimes it can’t be helped.

It doesn’t help that sometimes the things people do, even when they’re members of a church, or the Church, are indefensible. For instance, I can’t excuse or explain away some of the actions of bishops and priests, generally known as the Scandal. I don’t even try, except to point out that the Church is addressing the problem forcefully, and that it is a much smaller problem than it was decades ago. Still, the inexcusable can’t and should not be explained away.  The Holy Father has taken the lead in expressing contrition and asking for forgiveness.

But how can one explain to people who are afflicted by spiritual blindness why people remain Catholics, and in a way perhaps invisible to nonbelievers, continue to flourish in the Catholic Church? How to describe the ineffable transmission of God’s glory and grace in the sacraments, in prayer, in simple but receptive silence? It’s not easy to do.

The way to heaven is not only hard, it is very often obscure. Babylon, the earthly city in which we live, is not particularly generous with road signs and maps.

FROM HERE TO BABYLON

I saw a line of crucifixes
On the long highway
From here to Babylon that was
And is and yet to be

A darkened sky and grizzled sand,
A sentence for dissension,
For many miles the crosses stand.
A human vivisection

Not Jesus Son of God who rose
Already crucified -
Whose bleeding injuries are those
In hands and feet and side?

There will be the wounded host,
The short whip turned around,
The crown, the robe, the whipping post
Deep rooted in the ground

The hearsay of redemption spread,
A rumor spreading still,
Slowly, word by whispered word
And syllable by syllable

August 29th, 2010Toward a Definition of “Conversion”by Dena Hunt

A couple of recent little incidents have set me thinking about “Christian ecumenism” again. I’m a convert (1984), and I’ve been asked occasionally why I chose to become Catholic. I can never answer that question directly because it’s a single question with two answers. “Conversion” means either a conversion to Christianity or a conversion within Christianity, and these are not the same question.

On EWTN’s “The Journey Home”, most of the conversion stories are those that happen within Christianity. Even when Marcus Grodi interviews someone who was a former atheist, these guests usually (always?) come into the Church after having first entered a protestant church, likely the one that provided the context for their conversion to belief in Christ. Later, they are exposed to Catholicism by some set of circumstances, and become Catholic. Occasionally, he interviews “re-verts”, or those who were born and raised in the Church, left, and then return. But even the reverts just about always come home after first going through a revitalization of their faith within a protestant church of some kind. Though their stories differ, the many converts from the Anglican priesthood are actually in this category. All these, then, are conversions within Christianity. Rarely, he interviews Jewish converts, but these too (at least those I’ve seen or read about) were first converted from a lapsed Jewish faith into a protestant church, and then into the Catholic Church. The single exception I know of is the conversion of Eugenio Zolli, the chief rabbi of Rome who converted from a lively Jewish faith directly into the Catholic Church, but it must be remembered that his exposure to Protestantism would have been very limited at best. And he was inspired by the saintliness of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi occupation of Rome. 

The fact is that the vast majority of Catholic converts are converts within Christianity, not to it. (I’m in the minority.) I think this means something about the Church’s understanding of itself in contemporary Christianity, but I’m hesitant to speculate because I’m not sure I completely like what I come up with. Let me put it this way: When someone has a religious experience in, say, an evangelical church, no one asks him why he joins that church. His “belief in Christ” is understood as cause enough. Yet, when someone, either Catholic or protestant, asks me why I became a Catholic, I answer, “Obviously, because I believe in Christ.” The inevitable response is, “But why did you become a Catholic?” Why isn’t the repetition of the question nonsensical? There can be only one reason: there is a conviction among both protestants and Catholics that belief in Christ is insufficient cause for becoming Catholic. 

August 28th, 2010The Feast of St. Augustineby Bruce Fingerhut

Dear Friends:

Today is the 1580th anniversary of the death of St. Augustine. The Church celebrates the Feast of St. Augustine on August 28 each year.

It’s difficult in the extreme to outline all his accomplishments in a few sentences, but suffice it to say that he is perhaps the most influential theologian in history (after St. Paul), that our notions of history itself are largely Augustinian, that he framed the important concepts of original sin and just war, that he is considered the pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and authored the single most important work on history in The City of God, which he completed a few years before the Vandals laid siege on his own city of Hippo. Shortly after his death the Vandals returned and destroyed the entire city, except for Augustine’s cathedral and library, which were left untouched. His writings, including the world’s first autobiography (and the only one to tell the truth by calling it Confessions), could largely be said to pronounce the end of paganism and the triumph of Christianity, though one could be forgiven for thinking the opposite had occurred if one were looking solely at contemporary political events.

He influenced virtually every great theological thinker after him, including, most especially, St. Thomas Aquinas. Our present Pope Benedict XVI writes with an Augustinian perspective. The whole world has been influenced by St. Augustine, and, indeed, in his very life of conversion, penance, and faith, he has lived up to the words of British Cardinal Hume, who said that the life of St. Augustine proves that all saints have pasts and all sinners futures.

August 28th, 2010Scabby People & that Grimfaced Nunby Christian LeBlanc

One night decades ago I was watching TV; that nun, Mother Teresa, was on Leno. I knew she'd won a Nobel prize, took care of scabby people all day, and looked grim as cancer. What could they possibly talk about that would be, if not entertaining, at least not unpleasant? Curious as to how this was going to work, I didn't zap immediately to another channel.

So she comes out, sits down: outfit from Big Lots, Quasimodo posture, Vietcong sandals. Leno starts asking her the usual stuff about her what, career, I suppose, and..... she is absolutely incredible. After a couple of minutes I think she may be the most serene, fully happy person I have ever seen. She smiles, her eyes twinkle, she's animated. And she says stuff, I can't believe she means it:

Jesus spoke to her on a train, said to go to Calcutta and take care of the poorest of the poor- and so she did!

And how does she keep on caring for these poor, dying unfortunates day after day, year after year? Well, she sees Jesus in each one of them, there you go! Why, Jesus himself said plain as day, "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me." And, "as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Yep, he said it alright, in Matthew 25. I can read.

She was saying this stuff just as plainly as I'd say, "I can't believe it's Tuesday." Lady, it can't be that simple, can you really think like this? Can anybody? Can you really see Jesus in the least of them? Your whole life is cleaning sores or whatever, how can you be so bright and happy? Why aren't you miserable? I sure would be.

And then Mother Teresa's visit with Jay was over, the happy little arthritic confounding mystery.

For a couple of years I percolated on these few minutes, browsed a Mother Teresa coffee-table book or two. The bluntness of her life was compelling: God says do x, she does x. No intellectualizing, vacillating, plea-bargaining, just action. And she was happy. I had a family, and other reasons (not all of the finest quality) for not doing The Mother Teresa Thing, but felt drawn to her simple motif of faith/action; or as James'd put it in his Epistle, faith/works. And Jesus' instructions in Matthew had bugged me way, way longer than M.T. (since 1981). I wasn't doing any of that stuff, and didn't plan to, either. But she took one of the most annoying things Jesus ever said and made a life out of it.

I envy people like St. Paul: Jesus knocks him off his horse, personally scolds him, blinds him....who wouldn't swap a heart of stone for one of flesh after that? I wasn't on the receiving end of such drama, nor had Jesus spoken to me on a train, but I'd been prodded enough over 15 years to take a baby step or two.

After a Mass, I told my pastor Fr. Day how impressed I was by Mother Teresa's way of living out Matt 25, and said, "The thing is, she steps out her front door every day, and sick people are right at her feet. I step out, all day long there's not a wretch in sight." Fr. Day smiled & said, "If you want to visit the sick I can help with that."

So I began to visit the sick, all thanks to Mother Teresa. Happy 100th birthday.

Jay Leno gets some credit, too.

August 20th, 2010One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestby Joseph Pearce

Way back in March, on this site, I highlighted the near-death experience of the atheist philosopher, A. J. Ayer (see "An Athiest Sees the Light" below). Two weeks after I posted this short piece on Ayer, another famous atheist philosopher, Anthony Flew, passed away. For more than half a century, Flew was one of the most outspoken atheists in England, the "Richard Dawkins" of an earlier generation. In Theology and Falsification (1950) he offered a Logical Positivist refutation of God's existence. 

Like Bertand Russell before him and Dawkins since, Flew was almost obsessed with proving the non-existence of God. In God and Philosophy (1966) and The Logic of Morality (1987) he returned to the subject with the sort of irrepressible tenacity that we have come to expect of Dawkins and the neo-atheists of today. Unlike some of these neo-atheists, however, Flew proceeded from a position of genuine intellectual integrity, nurtured by his encounters with the apologetics of C. S. Lewis and the arguments of the Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe whilst a student in Oxford in the years following World War Two. This genuine curiosity and intellectual integrity stood him in good stead as developments in scientific knowledge threw some of his atheistic presumptions into question. It was the unravelling of the mystery of DNA, coupled with his reappraisal of Einstein's views on theism, and his own further reflections on the laws of nature that led him to abandon his life-long atheism. 

Always fearless in the face of controversy, Flew shocked the world of philosophy in 2004 by publicly professing theism and refuting the arguments for atheism that he had spent the whole of his life disseminating. In 2007, with Roy Abraham Varghese, he published There is a God, definitively proving the philosophical arguments for the existence of the divine. 

Richard Dawkins was outraged by Flew's "coming out" as a theist and dismissed it as the product of old age and the consequent fear of death. Typically, Dawkins had descended to the level of emotion-driven invective and had not even sought to address Flew's arguments. Flew considered it outrageous that Dawkins, "a man who has never spoken to me should make such remarks. If he had done any research, he would know that I am one of the few philosophers who have actually written on death and he would know that I don't expect very much from it!" 

Although Flew's Deism did not mature into fully-professed Christianity, he acknowledged a respect for Christian revelation and came to accept at least some of Aquinas's proofs for the divine. Furthermore, and crucially, he proclaimed his desire in his last years to "correct the enormous damage I may have done". Perhaps, as a by-product, he may also help to correct some of the damage being done by Dawkins and his ilk. In any event, Flew has flown over the cuckoo's nest inhabited by the neo-atheists and has found in death the truth that had eluded him in life. We can but pray that Dawkins will also "fly the nest" before his own inevitable end.          

August 20th, 2010Towards a Post-Imperial Futureby Joseph Pearce

A friend drew my attention to this article in today's Wall Street Journal (see below for the introductory paragraphs), which speaks about an unlikely alliance between "progressive liberals" and "conservative libertarians" over the thorny issue of defence spending. I consider myself neither right wing nor left wing, nor do I adhere to the label of either "progressive liberal" or "conservative libertarian". Nonetheless, I am certainly in favour of a radical downsizing of the US military to take the United States forward into a post-imperialist future. I would therefore agree with the WSJ's contention that the idea represents a convergence of disparate worldviews. I would add further that Bush's neo-con imperialism was the reason that he lost the last election and therefore the reason we are shackled with Obama. It is surely time that the ghost of the Cold War was exorcised from political discourse. 

Here's the article ...

Where Left and Right Converge 

Anticorporatist views are becoming more and more common.

BY RALPH NADER 

Earlier this year, Barney Frank and Ron Paul convened the Sustainable Defense Task Force, consisting of experts "spanning the ideological spectrum." They recommended a 10-year, $1 trillion reduction in Pentagon spending that disturbed some in the military-industrial complex.

Other members of Congress were surprised by this improbable combination of lawmakers taking on such a taboo subject. But the spiral of bloated, wasteful military expenditures documented by newspapers has reached the point where opposites on the political-ideological spectrum were willing to make common cause. 

A convergence of liberal-progressives with conservative-libertarians centering on the autocratic, corporate-dominated nature of our government may be ...