tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59605652024-03-07T04:49:19.950-05:00The Stone OwlSince October 18, 2003 (but we changed the name).Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.comBlogger1290125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-92164621042402620402017-02-24T06:00:00.000-05:002017-02-24T10:58:28.747-05:00The Bishop of Brooklyn on Amoris laetitiaThe Bishop of Brooklyn, His Excellency Nicholas DiMarzio has penned <a href='http://thetablet.org/putting-amoris-laetitia-into-practice/'>a column on <i>Amoris laetitia</I></a> for the Brooklyn <i>Tablet</i>, his (and my) diocesan newspaper.<br />
<br />
The chief difficulty is the one rehearsed so many times about the lack of attention to the clash with the teaching of <i>Familiaris consortio</I>, but perhaps even more crucially with that of <i>Veritatis splendor</I>, which is even closer to the deposit of faith.<br />
<br />
Secondarily, pitching the response to <i>Amoris laetitia</i> as an "internal forum" solution is strange. That decision puts <i>Amoris laetitia</i> directly in conflict with <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_14091994_rec-holy-comm-by-divorced_en.html">the 1994 letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith</a> approved by St. John Paul II (and issued when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was prefect) condemning the internal forum solution. Generally, those who've backed Communion for the divorced and remarried via Amoris Latitae have *not* called it an internal forum solution so as to avoid falling under this condemnation.<br />
<br />
But also, it reminds me of my long term concern about the American hierarchy that they've isolated themselves from all advice. If Bishop DiMarzio had competent advisers who could read his columns before they were published and who weren't afraid to speak honestly with him, he might have avoided these three basic errors of fact.<br />
<br />
First, Bishop DiMarzio writes, "The Council of Trent confirmed that the Roman Pontiff could not lead the Church into error in matters of faith and morals, which describes the doctrine of infallibility which unfortunately has been misunderstood over time." This was, however, confirmed by Vatican I, not by Trent as any good member of the Old Catholic or Polish National Catholic Churches could tell you.<br />
<br />
Second, he writes, "Pope Francis builds upon the teachings of his predecessors, recognizing the dissolubility of marriage." Surely he means "indissolubility." The supporters of <i>Amoris laetitia</i> have all said that it maintains the previous teaching that marriage is indissoluble. It's a telling error though!<br />
<br />
Third, Bishop DiMarzio informs us that "Some time ago, I listened to the press conference Cardinal Coccopalmerio gave about the book and clearly he recommends that it be read by priests who may be more experienced in moral and canonical issues." Yet, <a href="https://twitter.com/EdwardPentin/status/831449023018070016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">as was widely reported</a>, Cardinal Coccopalmerio didn't give a press conference about the book. There was a press conference, but he wasn't there. Since he didn't give a press conference, it would have been rather difficult for Bishop DiMarzio to listen to it.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0Queens, NY, USA40.7282239 -73.79485160000001540.342719900000006 -74.44029860000002 41.1137279 -73.149404600000011tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-9875175832905292982015-10-22T13:45:00.001-04:002015-10-22T13:45:32.767-04:00St. Charles Borromeo Seminary Book AuctionI have <a href="http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2015/10/rare-liturgical-books-from-seminary.html">a guest post at the New Liturgical Movement</a> about the sale of rare books from the library of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-42885474920062299062015-04-22T19:44:00.001-04:002015-04-22T19:44:09.429-04:00Joe Connelly on AnxietyThere's a remarkable description of anxiety and it's role in illness and medical trauma from Joe Connelly in his novel <em>Bringing out the Dead</em>. The novel is told in the first person by the main character, a paramedic in Manhattan in the 1980's. Here's the quote:<blockquote>But shortly after they put me to work, I began to realize that my year of training was useful in less than ten percent of the calls, and saving someone's life was a lot rarer than that. I made up for this by driving very fast, one call to another—at least I looked like a life saver—but as the years went by I grew to understand that my primary role was less about saving lives than about bearing witness. In many cases the damage was done long before I'd been called, and there was little I could do to reverse it. I was a grief mop, and much of my job was to remove, if even for a short time, the grief starter or grief product, and mop up whatever I could. Often it was enough tat I simply showed up. Most ailments are side effects of other problems: the fear of going mad, the anxiety of being alone among so many, the shortness of breath that always occurs after glimpsing your own death. Calling 911 is a fast and free way to be shown an order in the world much stronger than your own disorder. Within minutes, someone will show up at your door and ask if you need help, someone who has witnessed so many worse cases than your own and will gladly tell you this. When your angst pail is full, he'll try and empty it.</blockquote>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-76986416647749575582013-12-01T20:11:00.000-05:002013-12-01T20:11:11.290-05:00Part of Why Pennsylvania Has So Many Churches?I was reading David Brody's <i>Steelworkers in America: the Non-Union Years</i>. The book is about the period between the collapse of the steel industry craft union the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers until the onset of the Great Depression. The Depression would lead to the organizing drive that would eventually result in the formation of the United Steelworkers, organizing the steel industry on an industrial unionism basis. The book covers this intermediate period, the time of great Eastern Catholic immigration to Pennsylvania. Men came to work in the mines and the steel mills. The book provides an interesting insight into life in Pennsylvania during that period. Including this bit about how Churches were sometimes funded (pg. 116):<blockquote>The Bethlehem Company deducted for their churches one dollar a month from the pay envelopes of its Catholic workmen.</blockquote>That was a huge amount of money in those days. Many of these men made only about $15 per week.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-36896374777337056212013-11-03T20:04:00.000-05:002015-04-22T19:45:23.889-04:00From Robert Hugh BensonDiscussion of papal primacy and particularly infallibility from Robert Hugh Benson's memoir of his conversion, <i>Confessions of a Convert</i>:<blockquote>After my reception into the Church [a Catholic priest who had discouraged Benson's conversion] wrote to me again, asking how I had surmounted the difficulty [about papal infallibility] which he had indicated. I answered by saying that I could not be deterred by such elaborate distinctions from uniting myself to what I was convinced was the divinely appointed centre of Unity and that I had simply accepted the Decree [of the First Vatican Council] in the same sense in which the Church herself had uttered and accepted it. (pg. 87)</blockquote>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-17425630537198452842013-09-10T00:10:00.000-04:002013-09-10T00:10:02.279-04:00Neo-Latinity in Early AmericaJames Raven writes about neo-Latinity in early America in his review of Roger E. Stoddard's <I>A Bibliographical Description of Books and Pamphlets of American Verse Printed From 1610 Through 1820</i> in the July 19 <i>Times Literary Supplement</i>:<blockquote>One of many questions that Stoddard's work enlarges on is that of neo-Latinity. Several early American poems were written in Latin, and lively English translations from the classics also appeared. Richard Lewis (d. 1734), master of the Latin school at Annapolis and correspondent of the Royal Society, memorably announced the reign of civility in Maryland with his translation from Holdsworth, "Musiculpa, sive Kambromyomachia", a poetic narrative adapted from Homer about battles (at least in this version) between the ancient Welsh and mice (although Holdsworth's 1709 original is not mentioned in the entry for the Lewis 1728 edition). In 1741, Aquila Rose (1695-1723) offered imitations of Ovid's elegies of Scythian exile empathizing with intellectuals living in colonial backwaters. Historians have long debated the commercial and political significance of New World classical learning. Bernard Bailyn famously dismissed classical influences on revolutionary thinking as highly marginal (and his comments are echoed by others). According to Bailyn, participants exhibited amateurish and superficial learning. And David S. Sheilds, in his book <i>Civil Tongues and Polite Letters in British America</i> (1997), quoted a poem by John Seccomb (1728):<blockquote>At Ten this Morn. Dear Friend, <i>Your Most</i>,<br />
Receiv'd your Packet by the Post,<br />
Kiss'd the out-side, broke up the Seal-o<br />
And promis'd Fi'pence to the Fellow,<br />
Then try'd to read – But hah! what is't?<br />
O vile! the Language of the Beast!<br />
<i>Chinese?</i> or <i>Syriac?</i> – let me see, –<br />
– <i>Amice selectissime</i> –<br />
Magick! of which thy old Acquaintance<br />
Knows not a Page, or Word, or Sentence,<br />
But stands with Horror Half a Headful,<br />
And cries, O terrible! O dreadful!</blockquote></blockquote>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-39944129139295679542013-08-14T10:09:00.001-04:002013-08-14T10:09:27.495-04:00Temptations on Feast Days<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Paisios_of_Mount_Athos">Elder Paisos</a> was asked, "Geronta, why do temptations often occur on feast days?"<blockquote>Don’t you know? On feast days, Christ, the Panagia, and the Saints are joyful. They treat people, giving blessings and spiritual gifts. If parents give gifts when their children celebrate their namedays and kings release prisoners when a prince is born, why shouldn’t the Saints care for us on special occasions, too? Certainly the joy they give greatly endures and our souls are greatly helped. Knowing this the devil creates temptations in order to deprive people of the Divine gifts: they neither rejoice nor benefit from the feast. Sometimes you even see when a family is preparing to commune on a feast day, that the devil will send them a temptation to fight and then not only do they not commune, but they don’t even go to church! That’s how the little demon does it, so as to be deprived of all Divine help.<br />
<br />
The same thing can be seen in our own monastic life. Many times the little demon—tempter that he is, because he knows from experience that we will be spiritually helped on some feast—will, beginning on the eve of the feast, create an atmosphere of temptation. For example, he might get us to quarrel with another brother, and then afterwards torment us in order to overpower us both spiritually and bodily. In this way he doesn’t allow us to benefit from the feast, with its joyous atmosphere of doxology. But the Good God helps us when He sees that we had not given occasion, but that this happened only by the envy of the evil one. And God helps us even more when we humbly reproach ourselves, blaming neither our brother nor even the devil, who hates everything good. For his work is this: to create scandals and spread evil—while man, as the image of God, should spread peace and goodness.</blockquote><em>From</em> Family Life<em>, by Elder Paisios the Athonite via the <a href="http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/elder-paisios-on-family-life.aspx">Orthodox Christian Information Center</a></em>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-39183009679048673882013-08-09T23:55:00.000-04:002013-08-09T23:55:09.106-04:00The Gospel Shatters Our ExpectationsOrthodox priest and theologian David Bentley Hart writes in the most recent <em>First Things</em> (August /September 2013) about how we should look at Christian civilization in its historic glories, with its historic flaws, and considering its current "exhausted" state. The article is titled "<a href="http://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/08/no-enduring-city">No Enduring City</a>" and while I don't agree with every one of his judgments, the conclusion is luminous:<blockquote>So perhaps the best moral sense Christians can make of the story of Christendom now, from the special vantage of its aftermath, is to recall that the Gospel was never bound to the historical fate of any political or social order, but always claimed to enjoy a transcendence of all times and places. Perhaps its presence in human history should always be shatteringly angelic: It announces, even over against one’s most cherished expectations of the present or the future, a truth that breaks in upon history, ever and again, always changing or even destroying the former things in order to make all things new. That being so, surely modern Christians should find some joy in being forced to remember that they are citizens of a Kingdom not of this world, that here they have no enduring city, and that they are called to live as strangers and pilgrims on the earth.</blockquote>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-79756170142751716242013-07-07T13:03:00.000-04:002013-07-07T13:03:00.082-04:00Modern Myths and Dissipated OnesWilliam Logan writing about Sylvia Plath and modern myths:<br />
<blockquote>
The two myths that defined the fifties for itself were those of Marx and Freud. We still live in the ruin of those sacred myths (the Christian myth is of longer standing but more dissipated effect). If half a century later Freud doesn't command the old belief, we have labored so long in the age of the ego and the subconscious, of the Oedipus complex, of Eros and Thanatos, of compensation and sublimation, of projection and transference, it is difficult to imagine how people will explain themselves without such terms. ... It's a mistake to condescend to a thinker as subtle, if at times brilliantly wrongheaded, as Freud.</blockquote>
<small>(From "You Must Not Take It So Hard, Madame," originally published in <i>Salamagundi</i>, summer-fall, 2002 and republished in <i>The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin</i>.</small>)Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-48532520467968366562013-07-06T11:28:00.001-04:002013-07-06T11:28:15.159-04:00The Boston Press in '68 ... and Every YearIn "<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1968/04/13/1968_04_13_129_TNY_CARDS_000289882">The Short Season</a>," a 1968 <i>New Yorker</i> article, Roger Angell describes the Boston press during Red Sox spring training in 1968:<br />
<blockquote>
Morning training sessions at Chain-O'-Lakes Stadium, in Winter Haven, were studied with a mixture of excessive optimism and unjustified despondency by the immense Boston press corps, which has traditionally been made uneasy by success.</blockquote>
Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-77467819428241439712013-06-18T00:57:00.001-04:002013-06-18T00:57:38.226-04:00The Praying ParrotFrom Marilynne Robinson's <i>Housekeeping</i>:<blockquote>A tiny old lady named Ettie, whose flesh was the color of toadstools and whose memory was so eroded as to make her incapable of [pinochle] bidding, ans who sat smiling by herself in the porch, took me by the hand once and told me that in San Francisco, before the fire, she had lived near a cathedral, and in the house opposite lived a Catholic lady who kept a huge parrot on her balcony. When the bells rang the lady would come out with a shawl over her head and she would pray, and the parrot would pray with her, the woman's voice and the parrot's voice, on and on, between clamor and clangor. After a while the woman fell ill, or at least stopped coming out on her balcony, but the parrot was still there, and it whistled and prayed and flirted its tail whenever the bells rang. The fire took the church and its bells and no doubt the parrot, too, and quite possible the Catholic lady. Ettie waved it all away with her hand and pretended to sleep.</blockquote>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-41867167750261042082013-01-22T04:19:00.000-05:002013-01-22T04:19:49.187-05:00Kimball on Kramer on Modernism & Postmodernism<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Modernism" is a word with many meanings. As Hilton [Kramer] understood the term, it describes not just a particular style or period of art but an attitude towards the place of culture in the economy of life. This may be the place to say a word about abstract art. Hilton is sometimes regraded as a champion of abstract art. It would be more accurate, I believe, to say that he was a champion of good art, by which I mean art that, whatever its genre or technical prowess, was palpably true to our experience of life. An inventory of Hilton's criticism shows that he wrote, as often, and as enthusiastically, about figurative as about abstract art. Unlike Clement Greenberg, he never thought (as Greenberg wrote in 1959) that "the very best painting, the major painting, of our age is almost exclusively abstract." If modernism, as Hilton put it, remains "the only really vital tradition that the art of our time can claim as its own," it was not because of its association with abstract or other "experimental" forms of art/. It was because modernism recognized that traditional sources of spiritual nourishment had been irreversibly complicated. The "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the "sea of faith" that Matthew Arnold descried in "Dover Beach" was now an inextricable part of our our cultural inheritance. Preserving or reclaiming what was vital in that inheritance, and adapting it honestly to the vagaries of new experience, was the high and serious task of cultural endeavor. Hilton loathed everything that traveled under the banner of postmodernism not because it was "playful" (as was sometimes said) but because it betokened a terrible cynicism about the whole realm of culture, which is to say the realm of human engagement with the world. Postmodernism, said Philip Johnson, a doyen of the genre, installed "the giggle" into architecture. He was right. But that giggle bespoke not the laughter of joyful affirmation but the rictus of a corrosive and deflationary snideness, a version of nihilism. It is not always easy to distinguish the two. That was part of Hilton's genius: an unerring instinct for the fraudulent. </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="text-align: right;">--Roger Kimball, "Hilton Kramer & the critical temper," </span><span style="text-align: right;">in </span><i style="text-align: right;">The New Criterion</i><span style="text-align: right;">, May 2012</span></div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-52074461705583031372012-11-01T17:25:00.000-04:002012-11-01T17:26:02.746-04:00For All Saints DayI thought this excerpt from a prayer of Our Father among the Saints, John Chrysostom before Holy Communion was especially approproate for the Feast of All Saints: ...For not with disdain do I approach Thee, O Christ God, but as one trusting in Thine ineffable goodness, and that I may not by much abstaining from Thy communion become prey of the spiritual wolf. Wherefore do I entreat Theen for Thou art the only Holy One, O Master: sanctify my soul and body, my mind and heart, my belly and inward parts, and renew me entirely. And implant Thy fear in my members, and make Thy sanctification inalienable from me, and be unto me a helper and defender, guiding my life in peace, vouchsafing me also to stand at Thy right hand with Thy saints, through the intercessions and supplications of Thy most pure Mother, of Thine Immaterial ministers and immaculate hosts, and of all the saints who from the ages have been pleasing unto Thee. Amen.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-85047148892401674632012-10-28T11:32:00.000-04:002012-10-28T11:32:11.247-04:00The Pontificator ReturnsFr. Aidan (Alvin) Kimel the Russian Orthodox, <a href="http://showard1.blogspot.com/2006/12/ordination-of-rev.html">formerly Roman Catholic</a>, formerly Anglican priest who was behind <i>Pontifications</i> back in the day is back with a new blog, <a href="http://afkimel.wordpress.com/">Eclectic Orthodoxy</a>. <br />
<br />
Over at the <a href="http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/387639/My%20new%20blog#Post387639">Byzantine Forum</a> he humbly writes, "I don't know if it will prove of interest to anyone but myself..." Hah, very unlikely that no one would be interested.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-31389747529374925962012-09-08T01:53:00.000-04:002012-09-08T01:53:39.155-04:00Gain and LossI was reading the Wikipedia article about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Farmer">ultramarathoner Pat Farmer</a> who did a Pole-to-Pole run, departing the North Pole on April 8, 2011 and arriving at the South Pole January 19, 2012. As I'm reading I say, "Oooh, he's Catholic." This being the post-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy">Seigenthaler incident</a> Wikipedia, there's a reference footnote. I click it. Up pops the citation:<br />
<blockquote>
White, Marcel (March 2007). "<a href="http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2007/mar2007p9_2475.html">The scandal of Australia's anti-life Catholic politicians</a>"...</blockquote>
Bah!Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-34772751636514492862012-09-06T21:14:00.000-04:002012-09-06T21:14:25.821-04:00Distance Education & St. PaulI have a <a href="http://www.deadphilosopherssociety.com/2012/09/06/distance-education-st-paul/">new post over at the blog</a> of the Dead Philosophers Society, the graduate student association at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. The topic is Joseph Loconte's recent discussion of distance education in <i>Standpoint</i> magazine and the example of St. Paul.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-71331664750715721662012-08-13T19:54:00.001-04:002012-08-13T19:54:34.670-04:00That's Not a Catholic Church<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4cX3Bekf0D_r68y7ISK-pNOlymjQYUU_w3pCf5fQqU4LPbol8DJRZf6bmQfjumG9g8s6PUbsWW8WhLgTs7N3MZOfZpR3z4WAbPKJMlWpFWHAinQ64sBb1gJPkkMD1ieAs4cf8/s1600/basillica" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="182" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4cX3Bekf0D_r68y7ISK-pNOlymjQYUU_w3pCf5fQqU4LPbol8DJRZf6bmQfjumG9g8s6PUbsWW8WhLgTs7N3MZOfZpR3z4WAbPKJMlWpFWHAinQ64sBb1gJPkkMD1ieAs4cf8/s320/basillica" /></a></div><br />
Here's another entry for the Internet Movie Liturgical Database (descendant of the <a href="http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page">IMFDB</a> and the <a href="http://www.imdb.com">IMDB</a>). The above is the "<a href="http://www.nationalshrine.com">Basilica of the Immaculate Conception</a>" in "Red Mass", season 4, episode 4 of <i>The West Wing</i>.<br />
<br />
That's definitely not a Catholic Church. Not visible in this photo is that above the sanctuary there's a balcony with seats facing down the nave. <br />
<br />
Oh, and for the scene's most prominent music they used Vivaldi's <i>Gloria</i>. That piece of music lasts about half an hour and no one in their right mind would program it for Mass.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-22334175471517407662012-08-01T00:53:00.002-04:002012-08-01T00:54:57.149-04:00Excerpt of a Poem by Caleb Curtiss<span style="font-family: inherit;"> In the <i>New England Review</i> Vol. 33, No. 1 (2012):</span><br />
<blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Poem with You Drinking a Cup of Coffee</b> </span></blockquote><blockquote><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.5;">This poem has no occasion.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5;"> </span></span></div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I edited that out a long time ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It, like a body, or like a memory,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">has rebuilt itself over time:</span></div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">each of its component parts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">has been exchanged for newer,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">more efficient ones, so that now,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">when I overhear someone</span></div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px;"><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">saying the word “coffee,”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">you are drinking a cup of coffee. </span></div><div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">...</span></div></div></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">The <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/new_england_review/v033/33.1.curtiss01.html">complete poem is here</a> (except that the word "you" in the final line should be italicized.)</span>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-52781664580962533792012-07-18T12:55:00.001-04:002012-07-18T13:10:55.061-04:00On the Support of The PastorsDiscussion today in the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=19978542&postID=932089112801757409">comments section of Rorate Cæli</a> calls to mind the importance of the obligation of supporting the pastors.<br />
<br />
The list commonly given in the United States (it has varied in different places and times) is a <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04154a.htm">result of the 3rd Council of Baltimore as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
•to keep the Sundays and Holy Days of obligation holy, by hearing Mass and resting from servile work; <br />
•to keep the days of fasting and abstinence appointed by the Church; <br />
•to go to confession at least once a year; <br />
•to receive the Blessed Sacrament at least once a year and that at Easter or thereabouts; <br />
•to contribute to the support of our pastors; <br />
•not to marry within a certain degree of kindred nor to solemnize marriage at the forbidden times.</blockquote>
Coincidentally, I came across an interesting discussion of the issue while looking for something else. This comes from an 1886 number of the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=qKM9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA160#v=onepage&q&f=false">Irish Ecclesiastical Record</a> (3rd series, vol. VII, pg. 160). Note that "pastor's second paragraph refers to the different listings of the Precepts of the Church as recounted in the Catholic Encyclopedia article linked above.<br />
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong>The Fifth Precept of the Church</strong></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
"The faithful are instructed by the Catechism that they are bound in conscience and in justice under the above precept to contribute to the support of their Pastors. "Would you therefore kindly inform me on the following points:—(<em>a</em>) <em>Who</em> are bound by it? Are (1) married women who may happen to be possessed of private means? Are (2) grown-up children who, though living with their parents, have a small salary or allowance of their own? Are (3) domestic servants, labourers, clerks, shop-assistants, et hoc genus omne, who find it a pretty sharp struggle to keep afloat? (<em>b</em>) <em>How much</em> are they bound to contribute? And (<em>c</em>) <em>When</em> or how often are they so bound?<br />
<br />
"It is noteworthy that this precept, grounded, as the Catechism states, on <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/1cor/9:14">1 <em>Cor.</em> ix. 14</a>, is only to be found in poor, generous, Ireland; it is unknown in England, nor is it to be met with amongst the "praecepta Ecclesiae" in any handbook of theology I have "come across. It is perhaps due to this fact that so many Priests differ in answering, if indeed they answer at all, the above questions.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<strong>Pastor.</strong></div>
<br />
St. Paul in the passage mentioned by our correspondent states and proves conclusively that those who preach the Gospel have a right to live by the Gospel. Such is the ordinance of Christ. Such too is the law of nature. If the minister of grace spends his life in attending to the spiritual wants of the faithful, those who expect and benefit by his holy services are assuredly bound, one and all, according to the means of each, to supply his temporal support. This is not merely a duty of sacrificing something to acknowledge God's supreme dominion, from a motive of religion; it is proximately a sacred debt of justice arising out of a solemn contract implied in the reception of baptism. The Church too, for her part, provides pastors on the understanding that the faithful will, as far as possible, secure them becoming maintenance in return for spiritual services. This, no doubt, is only an aspect ot the natural obligation. It suffices, however, to show how the Church could withdraw for a time .the ministrations of her priests, if no better means could be found of compelling her children to discharge the duty of maintaining their pastors. Happily, as our correspondent so truly hints, in Ireland there is only question of who in particular come under the law proclaimed in our Catechism. The commandment is intended to enforce by ecclesiastical authority in a definite way an obligation that comes already in substance from the natural and divine law. Our forefathers had stored permanent support in benefices and foundations for the priests of the land; but alien rapacity devoured the sacred inheritance and made it necessary for Irish bishops and councils to call on the people for such provision as was possible in the ruin that supervened. The system, in one sense voluntary, is in truth a modified application of tithe legislation and must accordingly be in some measure obligatory. To explain this inference we must go back a little.<br />
<br />
In the first centuries, though all priests could not hope to earn their bread by manual labour like St. Paul, the contributions of the faithful towards clerical support, were, for the most part, voluntary. First-fruits (<em>primitiae</em>) and offerings (<em>oblationes</em>), which were meant to meet the expenses of public worship and feed the poor, conjointly with maintaining the clergy, came without the asking. It was a time when charity gave more than justice could demand. But after some years the Church thought well to legislate on the subject, and enforce by her Canons the payment of certain customary contributions. Soon first-fruits fell into disuse, but the offerings of various kinds, some free, others of obligation, continued as before, and tithes were almost everywhere imposed. These tithes were of three kinds, <em>prædial</em>, <em>mixed</em> and <em>personal</em>, the latter falling on the produce of industry and labour and accordingly affecting all classes of persons. In Ireland the law began with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Kells">Synod of Kells</a> before, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synod_of_Cashel">Synod of Cashel</a> after, the English Invasion. Although the Council of Trent endeavoured to protect them, tithes have gradually passed, in most countries, out of the hands of the Catholic priesthood. The general establishment of benefices and foundations had rendered them less necessary than before, and the hostility of governments hastened their disappearance. As a rule then the law of paying a fixed proportion of yearly produce has gone into disuse, or, as with ourselves, though it may still run "to pay tithes to the lawful pastors of the Church," it means to pay the dues fixed as a yearly contribution to our true pastors, since tithes properly so-called have been seized for another purpose. This is the least the Catechism implies, and we are now free to examine the precept in detail.<br />
<br />
1. In Ireland the extent of contributions has wisely been left in great measure to the generosity of the faithful. Obligation seems to affect only the fixed dues or collections. Hence everything else is perfectly free so long as the priest is suitably maintained. But should he fail to derive from the appointed stipends such a living as becomes his position, the Commandment certainly intends to enforce the obligation that would at once arise from the natural law, and bind every parishioner according to his means, to help in supplying the pastor's wants.<br />
<br />
2. Who are bound by the Commandment? As a rule those who are on the priest's list for annual stipends. The heads of families, male and female, are of the number. So in some instances are officials, clerks, and even servants. But usage varies for these classes, and everywhere allowance is made for peculiar circumstances, such as their means, the distance of their employment from home, the kind of contribution demanded.<br />
<br />
3. Excusing causes are often present, and even if there he nothing to justify a refusal, we must think twice before proclaiming our rights. Voluntary offerings on other occasions may cover the obligation, or failure may be of rare occurrence. Again, the charm of a clergy maintained by the free contributions of the people should not be broken for a trifle. It is much better to keep the question of right in the back-ground. No reasoning on the subject, at least in a public and disputatious way, would improve the spirit of the faithful in regard to clerical dues. What is true of the people at large, on this head, is also applicable to the case of individuals. Unless there be good hope of success it is useless to proclaim and insist on rights in justice. At the same time laymen who know their obligations and refuse to discharge them, without any excuse or reason for supposing that the priest does not press his right, are plainly committing an offence against God, His Church, and the neighbour. But, owing to the voluntary character that in some measure has passed, to the whole system by which the priesthood is supported, a <em>materia gravis</em> is not so readily reached in these transactions as in ordinary dealings.</blockquote>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-56306537371108144522012-07-16T22:47:00.003-04:002012-07-16T22:48:10.770-04:00The Rosary and PredestinationToday, the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, is a great day to renew the resolution to carry a Rosary with you always and say it as often as you can, preferably at least five decades every day. I've <a href="http://showard1.blogspot.com/2010/05/poterma-on-predestination.html">written here before about predestination</a>. Here's an excerpt from St. Louis de Montfort's <i>The Secret of the Rosary</i> that touches on the topic of the Rosary and the doctrine of predestination (and also the scapular, which is particularly relevant to today's feast.)<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;">Seventeenth Rose</span></b></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b style="background-color: white;">The Hail Mary - Fruits</b></b></div>
<br />
<br />
Blessed Alan De la Roche who was so deeply devoted to the Blessed Virgin had many revelations from her and we know that he confirmed the truth of these revelations by a solemn oath. Three of them stand out with special emphasis: the first, that if people fail to say the Hail Mary (the Angelic Salutation which has saved the world) out of carelessness, or because they are lukewarm, or because they hate it, this is a sign that they will probably and indeed shortly be condemned to eternal punishment.<br />
<br />
The second truth is that those who love this divine salutation bear the very special stamp of predestination.<br />
<br />
The third is that those to whom God has given the signal of grace of loving Our Lady and of serving her out of love must take very great care to continue to love and serve her until the time when she shall have had them place in heaven by her divine Son in the degree of glory which they have earned. (Blessed Alan, chapter XI, paragraph 2).<br />
<br />
The heretics, all of whom are children of the devil and clearly bear the sign of God's reprobation, have a horror of the Hail Mary. They still say the Our Father but never the Hail Mary; they would rather wear a poisonous snake around their necks than wear a scapular or carry a rosary.<br />
<br />
Among Catholics those who bear the mark of God's reprobation think but little of the rosary (whether that of five decades or fifteen). They either fail to say it or only say it very quickly and in a lukewarm manner.<br />
<br />
Even if I did not believe that which has been revealed to Blessed Alan de la Roche, even then my own experience would be enough to convince me of this terrible but consoling truth. I do now know, nor do I see clearly, how it can be that a devotion which seems to be so small can be the infallible sign of eternal salvation and how its absence can be the sign of God's eternal displeasure; nevertheless, nothing could possibly be more true.<br />
<br />
In our own day we see that people who hold new doctrines that have been condemned by Holy Mother Church may have quite a bit of surface piety, but they scorn the Rosary, and often dissuade their acquaintances from saying it, by destroying their love of it and their faith in it. In doing this they make elaborate excuses which are plausible in the eyes of the world. They are very careful not to condemn the Rosary and Scapular as the Calvinist do - but the way they set about attacking them is all the more deadly because it is the more cunning. I shall refer to it again later on.<br />
<br />
My Hail Mary, my Rosary of fifteen or five decades, is the prayer and the infallible touchstone by which I can tell those who are led by the Spirit of god from those who are deceived by the devil. I have known souls who seemed to soar like eagles to the heights by their sublime contemplation and who yet were pitifully led astray by the devil. I only found out how wrong they were when I learned that they scorned the Hail Mary and the Rosary which they considered as being far beneath them.<br />
<br />
The Hail Mary is a blessed dew that falls from heaven upon the souls of the predestinate. It gives them a marvelous spiritual fertility so that they can grow in all virtues. The more the garden of the soul is watered by this prayer the more enlightened one's intellect becomes, the more zealous his heart, and the stronger his armor against his spiritual enemies.<br />
<br />
The Hail Mary is a sharp and flaming shaft which, joined to the Word of God, gives the preacher the strength to pierce, move and convert the most hardened hearts even if he has little or no natural gifts for preaching.<br />
<br />
As I have already said, this was the great secret that Our Lady taught Saint Dominic and blessed Alan so that they might convert heretics and sinners.<br />
<br />
Saint Antoninus tells us that this is why many priests got into the habit of saying a Hail Mary at the beginning of their sermons.</blockquote>
<br />
<i>This text taken from the <a href="http://www.rosary-center.org/secret.htm">electronic edition of</a></i><a href="http://www.rosary-center.org/secret.htm"> The Secret of the Rosary</a><i> published on-line by the <a href="http://www.rosary-center.org/index.htm">Dominican Father's Rosary Center</a>, the headquarters of the <a href="http://www.rosary-center.org/nroscon.htm">Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Rosary</a>.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
It's important to contextualize this passage as not being absolutely universal. Eastern Rite Catholics, for instance, may not have the Rosary as part of their devotional culture. This is not a sign that they're all going to Hell. But for ordinary Latin Rite Catholics and especially any of us who would claim to be "traditional" Catholics (whatever that means) it's a different matter.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-91619966807890038282012-07-05T23:16:00.000-04:002012-07-05T23:19:04.301-04:00Trappist PhotoseBay seller "shadesofgrey*" has posted two auctions for a total of three photos of monks at the Trappist <a href="http://www.newmelleray.org/">New Melleray Abbey</a> in Iowa. The photos were taken by Russell Trall Neville of Kewanee, Illinois. Neville, an attorney, was also a pioneering cave explorer and photographer.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trappist-Monastery-Ceremony-New-Melleray-near-Dubuque-Iowa-Original-Photo-/390435391153?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item5ae7c346b1">first auction</a> is for this photo:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxP18255Dcwx5yVH27Yc5qjdkIbRZD1HGsdPJbt4rQTmjEu9CssaYtEz1RfLzSrCcEkm-hlGKSkhCIm3hdC8y9_xZ0Bg6F5ByRkRGqH5jzzad3Thp9NFYiyd6KqN7-OV9tSIwP/s1600/trappist+abbey+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxP18255Dcwx5yVH27Yc5qjdkIbRZD1HGsdPJbt4rQTmjEu9CssaYtEz1RfLzSrCcEkm-hlGKSkhCIm3hdC8y9_xZ0Bg6F5ByRkRGqH5jzzad3Thp9NFYiyd6KqN7-OV9tSIwP/s400/trappist+abbey+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxP18255Dcwx5yVH27Yc5qjdkIbRZD1HGsdPJbt4rQTmjEu9CssaYtEz1RfLzSrCcEkm-hlGKSkhCIm3hdC8y9_xZ0Bg6F5ByRkRGqH5jzzad3Thp9NFYiyd6KqN7-OV9tSIwP/s1600/trappist+abbey+1.jpg">Click here for a (much!) larger view</a>. The accompanying caption reads:<br />
<blockquote>
The Prior, second in authority in the Trappist Monastery, New Melleray, Poesta, Iowa, here presents two novitiates to the Abbot during the Solemn Profession service. The Prior commends them to the abbot and petitions him to permit them to make their solemn profession, which consists of assuming the final vow of the Order. This is one of the series of photographs, the only ones ever taken in a Trappist Monastery during a service of this character.</blockquote>
The <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Funeral-Burial-of-an-American-Monk-the-casket-makers-Unique-Post-Mortem-/390429534353?pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item5ae769e891">second auction</a> is for two Trappist funeral photos. The first, taken during the vigil in the church, is captioned, "Brother Eugene, Sup-Prior, the third in authority ... during funeral services for a departed brother. The deceased is in his habit and will be buried without a coffin." The second is taken in the grave yard. Since the deceased brother is visible in the photos, I've put them below the cut.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU79C3zRanUcWMCgmGn6iixR1g-WFvccYitP4A3uVu76_dvmU86JPuxHe84oXjWUcCsXRZ14IN90warYbLSansN1JNGtUZP1eTsfwg_bSNDIAd9VQO9yFqDHiAQRvR1fpZT6K0/s1600/trappist+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU79C3zRanUcWMCgmGn6iixR1g-WFvccYitP4A3uVu76_dvmU86JPuxHe84oXjWUcCsXRZ14IN90warYbLSansN1JNGtUZP1eTsfwg_bSNDIAd9VQO9yFqDHiAQRvR1fpZT6K0/s400/trappist+3.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-83417560918110444052012-06-22T00:26:00.000-04:002012-06-22T00:26:04.356-04:00Two Bits From PoetryThe July/August 2012 number of <i>Poetry </i>has recently arrived in the mail. This bit, the beginning of an essay by Robyn Schiff, may not be the best thing in the magazine this time 'round, but it's sure to please the <a href="http://holywhapping.blogspot.com/">Whappingites</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
It's 7:08 AM and I just watched the "cold open" of yesterday's episode of <i>Days of Our Lives</i> online. The episode has been loosened from its forty-seven-year-old programmed slot by what the television industry calls "time shifting." Every age gets the science fiction it deserves. There's a tight one-beat shot of a sealed manila envelope. It has an anachronistic black wax stamp. Standard-issue inter-office mustard against the jet of the wax makes for a disorienting prop, giving the apparent secret concealed within the impression of having been documented by a hooded procurement specialist sent from the Renaissance to buy envelopes at Office Depot.</blockquote>
The essay, titled "Hell Mouth" is not yet available on the web, but I imagine it will be soon.<br />
<br />
Second, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/05/fugitives-works-in-progress-young-duncan-and-marianne-moore/">a May 31 blog post</a> by Lindsay Garbutt, the magazine's editorial assistant,<i> </i>calls our attention back to the fabulous May 1932 "Southern Number" of <i>Poetry. </i>It was edited by Allen Tate and is <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/toc/236">available in full on the Poetry Foundation web site</a>.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-42185548870935059182012-06-17T23:44:00.001-04:002012-06-17T23:44:22.326-04:00Paris Review Interview: Evelyn WaughI've been reading some of the archived <i>Paris Review</i> interviews on their web site. I've been focused mostly on the Art of Poetry ones, but <a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4537/the-art-of-fiction-no-30-evelyn-waugh">this one from the Art of Fiction, with Evelyn Waugh</a>, also caught my eye.<br />
<br />
Pretty much the whole thing is great, but there are two parts I want to highlight here. First Waugh talks about politics and art or, more specifically, why the artist is, he thinks a reactionary:<br />
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
INTERVIEWER</div>
<br />
Do you think it just to describe you as a reactionary?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
WAUGH</div>
<br />
An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along; he must offer some little opposition. Even the great Victorian artists were all anti-Victorian, despite the pressures to conform.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
INTERVIEWER</div>
<br />
But what about Dickens? Although he preached social reform he also sought a public image.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
WAUGH</div>
<br />
Oh, that's quite different. He liked adulation and he liked showing off. But he was still deeply antagonistic to Victorianism.</blockquote>
Secondly, Waugh had something to say about a question in the philosophy of mind that a friend and I have been batting around. Waugh claims to think in words instead of images or concepts:<br />
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
INTERVIEWER</div>
<br />
I gather from what you said earlier that you don't find the act of writing difficult.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
WAUGH</div>
<br />
I don't find it easy. You see, there are always words going round in my head: Some people think in pictures, some in ideas. I think entirely in words. By the time I come to stick my pen in my inkpot these words have reached a stage of order which is fairly presentable.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
INTERVIEWER</div>
<br />
Perhaps that explains why Gilbert Pinfold was haunted by voices—by disembodied words.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
WAUGH</div>
<br />
Yes, that's true—the word made manifest.</blockquote>
The interview doesn't develop the topic beyond that... but there it is.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-38716043610230520052012-06-14T10:03:00.001-04:002012-06-14T10:09:52.710-04:00Brooklyn EcumenismThe New York City Council is considering a plan to "Legalize Brunch," that is to allow sidewalk cafe service before noon on Sundays. This is currently forbidden by an obscure city rule. <br />
<br />
I've often said (though I probably wasn't the first) that Catholicism and Brunch are New York City's largest religions. That makes Msgr. Joseph Calise, pastor of the Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Brooklyn <a href="http://nyti.ms/MOxRpy">one of the city's leaders in ecumenical dialogue</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"'There'd really be no reason not to support them as long as they're not blocking free passage of anybody else.' <br />
<br />
"Anyway, he said, church and brunch can co-exist. <br />
<br />
"'If someone comes to an 8 a.m. Mass here, they go to a 10 o'clock brunch, it's not an either/or proposition,' he said."<br />
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5960565.post-23592749796048510752012-05-06T23:10:00.000-04:002012-05-06T23:10:07.632-04:00Kids Draw the News<i>The New York Times</i> is running a new feature that is genius in its simplicity and old school community newspaper style good fun. "<a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/kids-draw-the-news-epic-brawl-depicted/">Kids Draw The News</a>" is what it says on the tin. Hysterically, they started with the story of the recent <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/brawl-sheds-an-unwelcome-light-on-a-tony-athletic-club/">New York Athletic Club brawl</a>.Samuel J. Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12766238466391394665noreply@blogger.com1