Brutally Honest

"Idolatry has played a big part in bringing us to this place"

Things seem to be spiralling out of control.  Societal decay, corruption, coarseness, immorality in general seems to be on the rise while integrity, character, virtue and the like seem to be on the decline.

Why?

The Anchoress is positing a theory:

Idols demand worshipers comfortable with illusions, and around them questions become dangerous things. Idols are formed by an idea people take into their heads and then polish with soft cloths and protect from hard questions until it reflects what they really want to see shining back at them — which is themselves. A majority of us gave the government its entry into over-reach, and then a majority of us willfully bought into an inane, idol-affirming sentiment (“we are the ones we’ve been waiting for!”) mouthed by a man who admitted that he was a “blank screen” upon which people projected their best ideas about themselves.

Idolatry has played a big part in bringing us to this place. The adoring press; the fawning parents and teachers; the fainting crowds offering adulation. Whatever Barack Obama’s natural propensities, it may well have helped him believe he is entitled to do anything he wants, and we ought thank him for it.

But idolatry could not have moved so powerfully within us, had are society not already lost its bearings about God. Ed Driscoll discusses exactly this with the great Mary Eberstadt:

MR. DRISCOLL: Mary, over the last few years, there have been several books exploring the demographic decline that the west is undergoing, including those from authors such as Mark Steyn, Charles Murray, Jonathan Last and others. What role does the decline in religion or how our religious beliefs have changed in the last century, play in this demographic decline?

MS. EBERSTADT: Great question. Well, let’s look at the big picture, for starters, of what’s been going on. We know that over the past several decades, there’s been a decline of religious belief and church attendance across the western world, most markedly in Western Europe, but also in the United States.

And up until now, there’s been one prevailing explanation for this. And the explanation comes down from the Enlightenment, and you heard it from the new atheists most recently. The idea is that religion is a superstitious thing that will eventually die out as people become sufficiently educated and rational and enlightened. And this is what a lot of sophisticated people believe, obviously.

The purpose of my book is first of all, to hold that explanation up to the light and to ask whether it’s true. And I argue that it’s not true and it’s not true for several reasons, any one of which would deep six the prevailing explanation. But just to focus on one. That explanation would suggest that religion is a function of the lower classes, that belief in God is something that poor people do. Or if you remember that famous quote from the Washington Post, it was just about ten years ago, that a reporter wrote that the followers of evangelicals were, let’s see, uneducated and easy to command. Do you remember that?

MR. DRISCOLL: Yes, easy to command, easily led, yeah.

MS. EBERSTADT: Easily led. Yeah. That beautifully summarizes the stereotype of religious believers as being people who just haven’t gotten the word yet, you know, just haven’t gotten sophisticated enough to get rid of God.

Eberstadt, of course, goes on to explain how the stereotype is untrue. Easily led? Hello, MSM; hello secularists.

You’ll want to read the whole interview. I’m already trying to get my hands on Eberstadt’s new book, How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization.

Because it’s all of-a-piece. Once the secular dominated the sacred it was only a matter of time where the void left by ousting God would be filled by idols. As Chesterton said, “Once abolish the God and the government becomes the god.”

There's much more at the link.  And oh by the way, The Anchoress expounds on this notion of idolatry in her new book, one I received yesterday and am devouring.  It's good people, very good, and it speaks to what ails us in a profound way.

What ails us today isn't going to be easily solved by a change in political leadership.

What ails us today is, put as simply as possible, sin.

And there's only one solution to sin.

The Church points the way toward that solution.  Yes, the Church.

We need to embrace her.  We need to go all in.

All of us.  You too.  Hell, you especially.

Right behind me.

"Are we saying repentance is about our timing?"

A former Director of a Planned Parenthood clinic weighs in the Kermit Gosnell story with Godly wisdom:

I am vehemently against the death penalty. Now stay with me…this is not a post about my opinion regarding that. You can disagree or agree with me on that some other time. I did want to share a little bit about why I take the words of prolifers so seriously. I have heard so much vitriol spewed from the mouths of “Christian prolifers” since the Gosnell trial has concluded. I feel like I must address it.

When I was confirmed as a Catholic, I chose Mary Magdalene as my confirmation saint. I felt an immediate connection to her. She had sinned so much…and was forgiven in even greater amounts. She knew she didn’t deserve forgiveness…but she received it anyway. And because of this, she clung to Christ. She knew she was nothing without Him.

I have also done my fair share of sinning. And I have also been forgiven much more than I deserve. I abused and betrayed women in the worst possible way. I convinced them to kill their children. Did I slit the necks of children after they were born? No. But, I was an accomplice to murder. Thousands of times…women I knew, women I didn’t, my friends, even my family. I lied to people. I lied to women when they came to me for accurate information. I was among the worst sinners…those that help to take and destroy life. I am no better than Kermit Gosnell.

I took my own children’s lives…twice. Not because I was coerced. Not because I didn’t know better. But because I thought children would be an inconvenience to my lifestyle. I am responsible for their deaths…no one else.

So when someone talks about Gosnell and says things like, “murderers and people like him don’t deserve to breathe the same air as I do,” or “I hope he burns in hell,” it hurts a little. Because that was me. But I am still here…breathing that same air…and trying to spend my life righting my wrongs. And it’s not just me. I know they hurt others like me, as well. People who have left the abortion industry and will work every day to recover from their sins. People who are still in the industry and think they will be shunned by the pro-life movement…maybe they would reach out to us if they knew we would accept them. I am always terrified that clinic workers will see some of the words from prolifers. I have been told by several former workers that they will NEVER come forward with their stories because they are so scared of how they will be treated by us…by US…the supposed “Christian” movement. Their fears are real AND legitimate.

Please read the rest and ponder what she's saying, particularly if you're someone vehemently opposed to abortion.

Just do it.

Krauthammer to Republicans on Benghazi: "Stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves."

Very. Sound. Advice.

Via RCP:

Why were the requests for security denied including the desperate ones of the Ambassador who ultimately was killed? Second, what happened on the night [of the attack]? How could America at least made an attempt of rescue? And the response by Democrats, 'Well, it wouldn't have arrived in time.' How in the hell do you know in advance that it's not going to arrive in time? How do you know it would be 7 and a half hours and not 17 and a half hours? That is is not a response. 

And where was the president that night? We've all seen the videos and pictures in The Situation Room of Obama on the night of the Osama raid. Everybody looks at that, he was really involved in that. Show me a picture of where he was on the night of the attack in Libya. Give me a time line. Who did he talk to and what did he do? 

Lastly, the talking points, which are a fiction. And compounded by the fact that the president now say, 'I said it was a terror attack on the day after.' That is not true. Even The Washington Post has said today, it was absolutely a falsehood. It's a falsehood on top of falsehood. But the one advice I give to Republicans is stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves. Have a special committee, a select committee. The facts will speak for themselves. Pile them on but don't exaggerate, don't run ads about Hillary. It feed the narrative for the other side that it's only a political event. It's not. Just be quiet and present the facts.

Video at the link.

"If you feel no danger, you very likely see no need for rescue"

There are many I know who've regularly decided to miss out on weekly Church attendance.  I find it heartbreaking for numerous reasons but perhaps the largest being the preparation for life's hardships that I firmly believe weekly, regular, attendance brings.  

I suspect that some are put off my insistence that Church beckons though I've yet to experience any real persecution or hatred over it, something likely to mean that I'm not trying hard enough to get them to come.

In this homily by Fr. Phillip Powell, he touches on the notion of Church as lifeboat and the refusal by too many to recognize their need for rescue:

If you feel no danger, you very likely see no need for rescue. Sitting comfy and cozy on your couch, reading a good book, you would probably dismiss a neighbor who barges in yelling, “I'm here to rescue you from your comfy, cozy couch!” If you were kneeling in prayer in church, confident that all was right with your spiritual life, the rantings of a crazy friar from the pulpit about sin and God's love would be distracting but hardly alarming. However, if your world were collapsing, if your family, your nation, your civilization, all that you have come to rely on were spinning out of control, and someone offered you a way to leave that world behind, the first thing you would need to do is admit that your world was coming apart. You would need to see the destruction, hear the system tearing at its seams, feel the angst and anger rising. In other words, you would have to confess that the world you helped to build and operate was losing its soul, spiraling into a dysfunctional waste. If you make this confession, then rescue is possible. If you refuse, if you deny the truth, rescue is impossible, and you will grow to hate those who offer you a way out. 

Christ's offer to rescue the world is an accusation. To say, “You need rescuing” is to say “You are in danger,” and I am in a position to help. The hardest part of being rescued is admitting that help is required. Why does the world hate Christ and his disciples? Because the Church sees the world in danger and knows that the only way to be rescued is to embrace Christ and leave that dangerous world behind. Leave behind contesting for social standing; compromising the truth to gain political influence; rutting with violence for the applause of mob; to leave behind self-righteous do-gooding, the easy hatred of imaginary enemies, and the lust for things and people. Christ's offer of rescue is an accusation, but it is also—if accepted—a vindication, a victory over the world, a win for those who would confess that they can only lose without God. No slave is greater than his master. If we are slaves of Christ, then we can expect nothing more from the world than he himself received. The rulers of this world fear another King, and they fear his followers. When the world stops hating the Church, we know that we have stopped preaching his Good News. Therefore, go out and frighten the world!

Lord, give us the courage to boldly step into the world's hatred and, with your help, rescue those willing to be rescued.

And give us the passionate persistence needed to love those who aren't quite ready yet.

Amen.

Gravity lessons

This, from Ben over at Two Catholic Men and a Blog, I found to be excellent:

Gravity pulls us down and we attune our life and safety around it. The law of gravity does not change regardless of our opinions of it or how well we understand it. It also does not change if [we] choose to ignore it. No matter what, it still keeps us stable on the ground. Living in harmony with the law of gravity allows us to live a joyful life. Disharmony with gravity will hurt us or even kill us. We really never break the law of gravity, it breaks us!!

I run through this pseudo dialog with the class between two fictitious people referring to our classroom window, up on the second floor:

Person A: If I jump out that window, I will fall UP.

Person B: No, you will fall down.

Person A: That may be true for you, but it is not true for me. I truly believe with all my heart that I will fall up; it’s what my conscience tells me.

Person B: I hear what you are saying, but there is something called gravity that is not controlled by your conscience, so when you jump out that window, you will fall down.

Person A: I know about gravity too and I can see that you are very closed-minded about gravity, thinking it goes only ONE way for EVERYONE. Gravity can move different people in different ways. 

Person B: I am open-minded. My mind is open to reality and if you jump out that window you willfall down.

Person A: You need to respect the beliefs of others. Not everyone sees gravity the way you do.

Person B: I do respect you, but you are wrong. Please do not jump out of that window and please do not lead others to jump out.

Person A: You had better change your “downward” way of thinking. You and your kind are on the wrong side of history about gravity and you are dragging down the rest of us.

Person B: Better to be on the wrong side of history than on the wrong side of reality.

It’s the same type of thing when we discuss God’s spiritual laws, which are inescapably linked to our faith and morals (and our joy). Whether it’s about respecting human life at the moment of conception to natural death or defining marriage as one man and one woman, God’s laws do not change regardless of human understanding or a lack thereof.

Another analogy the kids understand well revolves around sports. Let’s take basketball for instance; it has rules and officials. There are boundaries on the court as well. Does all this take the fun out of basketball? No, the rules, officials and boundaries make the game of basketball possible and make it exciting. Without them, no basketball player could ever fulfill his or her destiny as a basketball player. It’s the same with God's rules, God’s boundaries, and God’s officials (The Church). They make us free to find our destiny as human beings.

Spiritual laws are not meant to take the fun out of life; they are really laws of love and the boundaries are more like an embrace. The Good Shepherd tells us that if we live within these boundaries, He can protect us, guide us and love us; when we go outside of this embrace, He can't promise us these things. When we sin, we refuse God’s embrace in our life and then we wonder why we feel abandoned, depressed, prayers not answered, etc.....

Living within boundaries, meant not to constrain or limit us, but to free us and fill us with joy.

If only we had ears to hear.

Carry on.

Hey ladies, want better sex?

Then you need to make an appointment with Dr. Greg... and no, I don't mean hook up with him, I mean listen to what he has to say:

New research by the Royal Society says that women taking oral contraceptives,“scored lower on measures of sexual satisfaction and partner attraction, experienced increasing sexual dissatisfaction during the relationship, and were more likely to be the one to initiate an eventual separation if it occurred.”

The study did also suggest that the same contracepting women were more likely to be satisfied with the non-sexual aspects of their relationships, but the researchers note that this is because the pill causes women to be attracted to lower testosterone men who lack passion and drive leading to a lower potential for conflict.

Superficially, it might appear that, despite the dissatisfaction in the romantic relationship,  the increased satisfaction experienced in non-sexual interactions would make oral contraceptive’s effect on overall relational happiness a wash, but I can tell you from professional experience that it is easier to teach a manly man to wash a dish than it is to teach a milquetoast man to be passionate.

Better sex, perhaps with more manly men.

What more could a lady want?

Read the rest of Dr. Greg's piece for more.

And yes, I'm glad to help.

“Sometimes when you’re silent you can hear her, you can sense her.”

Wisdom from the womb:

In a mother’s womb were two babies.

One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”

The other replies, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense,” says the other. “There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?”

“I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths.”

The other says, “This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short.”

“I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here.”

The other replies, “No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” says the other, “but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us.”

“Mother?!” You believe in mother? Where is she now?”

“She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world.”

“I don’t see her, so it’s only logical that she doesn’t exist.”

To which the other replied, “sometimes when you’re silent you can hear her, you can sense her. I believe there is a reality after delivery and we’re here to prepare ourselves for that reality.”

Good stuff.  

Reminds me of this gem from G. K. Chesterton:

If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.

"There's a pantheon of foreign gods waiting to grant our wishes..."

Fr. Philip Powell calls what follows a rant. I call it truth.  Read it and inwardly digest it:

These anxious times offer us a huge selection of false gods to worship, a wide variety of robber- shepherds to follow. It seems that each new horror, each new disaster gives us another solution, another path to take out of our troubles. More legislation. Better enforcement. More surveillance. Better intelligence. More money. Better prevention. All of which, of course, means more state power if not better government. Rarely do we hear anyone with any authority—politicians, media-types, academics—suggest that the moral fiber of our culture is frayed and coming undone. Rarely do we hear anyone publicly suggest that the Newtown school massacre, or the Aurora theater shootings, or the Boston Marathon bombing, or the slaughterhouse of Philadelphia abortionist, Dr. Gosnell, no one ever seems connect these horrible events to a dark reality: as a culture, as a nation, as a people, we no longer look to God first as our moral compass; we no longer live believe that His love for us matters. When disaster strikes, our Betters turn to any and every solution imaginable: the law, medicine, psychology, education; they run through any and every gate opened to them. . .but one: the gate the Shepherd himself opens for us all. 

Maybe it's our inherited pragmatic nature as Americans that sends us running after material solutions to spiritual problems. Or our need for quick and easy results that gets us rushing around looking for silver bullet answers. Or maybe we're just lazy and want someone else, anyone else to solve these problems for us. There's a pantheon of foreign gods waiting to grant our wishes, to lay out for us a whole range of fast and furious solutions. The problem with these solutions is that none of them really addresses the underlying cause of the problem. Why did those two brothers bomb the Boston Marathon? Your answer seems to depend on what remedy you want to impose to prevent future bombings? If you want more gov't control, your answer is: they bombed the marathon b/c law enforcement budgets are being cut. If you want to tar and feather all Muslims, your answer is: they bombed the marathon b/c Islam preaches hatred of non-Muslims. How about this answer? Evil is real, and its purpose is to annihilate life. The Shepherd holds open a gate for us to walk through, and that gate is called “Abundant Life.” Walking through any other gate held open by any other shepherd is robbery. It seems sometimes that our secular shepherds have led us through another gate entirely. 

If this is true—that we've been led through a gate other than the one marked “Abundant Life”—then, as followers of the One Shepherd, Jesus Christ, we need to stop bleating along behind these false shepherds and return to our Master for instruction. 

It's a clarion call to those who still have the ability to hear it.

Read the rest.

Pass it on.

"Jesus... a mystic who wandered around saying nice things about the niceness of being Nice"

There's much to learn anew or reaffirm in Mark Shea's Palm Sunday post over at The National Catholic Register:

We sometimes hear it said that Jesus was just a teacher full of punchy aphorisms and turns of phrase: a mystic who wandered around saying nice things about the niceness of being Nice.  But his stupid disciples, being 2000 years, stupider than Extremely Clever Us, managed to completely misunderstand him and construct an elaborate religion around him that he absolutely never intended.  It's a narrative in which our culture places an extraordinary amount of faith--far more faith, in fact, than the Christian story requires, since the Christian story does not require us to believe in absolutely ridiculous claims about human psychology that nobody would ever advance for one second were it not for the special need to debunk Christianity. To be sure, the faith advances extraordinary claims--the two principal ones being "God became man" and "Jesus rose from the dead in glory."  These claims have been disputed as matters of fact down through the ages, of course, but they are not ridiculous claims on the face of them.  Anybody can see that, if there is a God, hemight if he chose, become human and he might, if he chose, rise from the dead.  Whether he did or not is a matter of evidence and faith.  But there is nothing prima facie laughable about the claim, unless you happen to have an irrational prejudice against miracles.

But it is laughable--Monty Python laughable--that a man could deliberately gather a group of disciples around him and spend years assuring them that he is not the Messiah, all while they nodded and repeated back to him, "Exactly.  You are the Messiah."  It's silly to say that Jesus labored for three years to say, "Don't worship me.  Worship God" and saw nothing amiss as his disciples murmured as one, "Yesssss, Maaaaster.  We worship God and you."  If Jesus was really the brilliant teacher polite unbelievers say he was, you have to wonder why he said, "This is my body" and not the much clearer and more obvious "This symbolizes my body".  And if he didn't want to be called "son of David" (that is, "Messiah") then you have to wonder why he kept saying, "You rang?" when people shouted "Son of David, have mercy on me!" instead of chewing them out for being silly.

Here's the deal: the disciples thought Jesus was the Messiah because he claimed--in a dozen ways--to be the Messiah.  No.  Really.  He did.  And Palm Sunday is the most public and obvious claim of all.  The only reason we don't see that clearly is because we aren't steeped in Jewish history.

Read the rest, invigorate the faith.

Skip it, and don't.

A joyous Palm Sunday to each of you.

‘Which Parent Do I Not Need: Mom or Dad?’

And a child will lead them... them who have ears:

Minnesota state legislators considering a same-sex marriage bill for the state did not have an answer to an 11-year-old girl’s question on which parent is not needed.

“Since every child needs a mom and a dad to be born, I don’t think we can change that children need a mom and a dad. I believe God made it that way,” Grace Evans, 11, said before the Minnesota House Committee on Civil Law last week. “I know some disagree, but I want to ask you this question: Which parent do I not need – my mom or my dad?”

She paused for eight seconds as the legislators on the committee sat silent.

Evans then said, “I’ll ask again, which parent do I not need – my mom or my dad?” She paused again, this time for 13 seconds of silence from state lawmakers.

Evans concluded, saying, “I hope that you can see that every child needs a mom and a dad. Please don’t change your law on marriage to say otherwise.”

Nevertheless, the House committee voted in favor of the gay marriage bill and sent it to the full House. A similar bill is also before the state Senate.

There's video of the young gal's speech at the link.

It's poignantly cutting.

Pray for her for you know she will be pilloried by the self-described tolerant and open-minded.