Post from Curmudgeon, Jr.

Had an idea for a short post tonight, but with Mrs. Curmudgeon running an errand and the little Curmudgeons vying for my attention, I'll have to postpone until tomorrow. Two-year old Curmudgeon, Jr. insists on making a contribution to the blog, which I've admonished him to keep short:

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;alsjk;sldkjasnwgsadfws34333333;LADF;JASNASA;LAJASNVNVAas;
lfkjs;dflkjdfg;jlnsnmd.fssssssssssssssssss

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wfwa;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;sdzxcvlk;vlx;llkc;;;;;;;;;;;;kjvzxcbvb
eoefb n dovnbzld;zkdn.

More from the literate (or semi-literate) members of the Curmudgeon family tomorrow evening!

Robt.

Plush Doll Wedding Update

OK, we resolved the issue with my daughter. I confessed to her that the stuffed cat was not really married to the stuffed bear because lacked the power to marry them (I told my three year old this ONLY after I obtained her promise not to report me to the Bishop for violating Canon 1379). Therefore, the cat and the bear were not married.

I used the opportunity to remind her that the only way she could get married was by a priest in the Church, when the time came, and that a civil marriage before a judge or a protestant minister would be no more valid than my marriage of the stuffed animals. I also reminded her that she promised that I could pick out her husband when the time came.

Organizing a "Sanger Society"

I tend not to post much on life issues. It's not that I don't care about them, of course; it's just that there are others who can do so more eloquently, and anyone who comes back to this blog more than once is unlikely to need any convincing from me. But I'm prompted by what is probably old news by now, and it was on Foxnews.com, but there's probably some truth to it anyways:

Clinic: Free Abortions for Evacuees
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A doctor has offered to perform free abortions on hurricane evacuees (search), saying it may be too dangerous for them to wait until they return home.

One of the great ironies of contraception and abortion--the tools of the eugenicists who sought to reduce the number of "undesireables"--is that they have resulted in fewer white kids from prosperous, well-adjusted families, but we still have gazillions of illegitimate, poverty-stricken black babies in the ghettos. Instead of a eugenic effect, widespread abortion and contraception appears to have had what the original eugenicists would call a dysgenic effect.

Considering the color and socioeconomic background of the evacuees we've seen in the news, and therefore the color and socioeconomic background of all those little non-persons our Doc is offering to scrape away pro bono, we know Margaret Sanger would be proud of him.

People in the pro-life movement talk some about the eugenic society origins of contraception and abortion advocacy, but I've never heard anyone talk about how that advocacy has failed even to serve the devious purpose that underlay it. I can kind of see why they don't do so--rhetoric of that sort, however effective on those who are actually listening to the whole discourse and who are thinking, can easily be taken out of context and used against the movement by everyone else who isn't really listening or thinking (which is to say, thanks to television, damned-near everyone).

Back in my glory days, when I was in a certain post-graduate academic program with time on my hands, I had the idea of putting up posters around campus inviting fellow students to an organizational meeting of a sham eugenics club, called the "Sanger Society."

My idea was to have the organizer rant in the poster against the missuse of abortion and contraception by modern day advocates, and call everyone to join a club that advocated a "return to the basics" of the eugenics movement, promoting abortion and contraception only among the "undesireables" and discouraging it among the well-to-do white folk. I would simply leave an email address to contact for informaiton, and then I could watch it fill up with hate mail from the pro-death crowd (and from minority activists who weren't thinking clearly). I still have the text I was working on for the poster that I never made:

Help form the XYZ University Chapter of the Sanger Society: Americans for Better Eugenics!!!

[INSERT GRAPHIC: Sanger Photo]

The Origins. In 19xx, Margaret Sanger started an organization dedicated to creating a better world through selective breeding. She recognized that many of the world’s problems—hunger, domestic abuse, drunkenness, and crimes against people and property—were perpetuated by the continual replenishment of the culturally and genetically inferior underclass through uncontrolled breeding. While more direct and ambitious eugenic efforts failed to wipe out the underclass in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific in the first half of the twentieth century, Ms. Sanger was developing a vision for a new, more humane, and less expensive way to address the problem of the underclass. That vision was to provide the underclass with sufficient birth control information and abortion services to encourage them to simply stop reproducing. As the affluent and biologically superior population in the affluent classes would grow to fill the void, the remnant of the underclass could be assimilated or sterilized as ecessary. Ms. Sanger recognized that within a few generations, the whole of the remaining population throughout the United States, and eventually, the world, could enjoy the tranquillity, good health, and prosperity promised which had been obstructed by the incessant rejuvenation of the underclass.

The Problem. The organization she started became Planned Parenthood, but that organization has betrayed her vision. Instead of pursuing a directed and selective campaign to implement population control for the underclass, Planned Parenthood promoted contraception and abortion for all women. The results have been horrific. In the decades that have followed, the underclass has clung to obsolete notions about human life and has largely rejected Ms. Sanger’s tools of contraception and abortion. The growth of the underclass has continued unabated, and with it, Wal-Marts, fast-food chains, methamphetamine and crack labs, MTV and NASCAR tracks have spread across the United States. Meanwhile, the more affluent and biologically superior strata have adopted and now misuse Ms. Sanger’s tools, and now that Upper Strata—not the underclass—teeters on the brink of its own extinction.

The Solution. The Sanger Society: Americans for Better Eugenics is committed to restoring Ms. Sanger’s vision to its true form and seeding it in the social, political and legal landscape. For now, the Society works on educating the Upper Strata about the social harm caused by contraception and abortion among their ranks, and the social good that comes from their use among the underclass. Ultimately, the Society envisions directed, and then mandated, reproductive planning for the underclass and stronger economic incentives for childrearing in the Upper Strata. The Society seeks to enlist affluent, deliberative thinkers from the Upper Strata in its effort to educate their peers and eventually elect legislators who will enact her vision, to train administrators who can implement it, and to appoint judges are willing to read the law in a way that will permit us to achieve our end. Although it is now a small organization in terms of members, it recognizes that its best hope for growth lies with the ranks of those studying at America's best universities, including XYZ University, and it seeks to form a chapter here.

We invite you to contact us if you are interested in helping start the XYZ University Chapter of the Sanger Society. Please send us an email at the address below, and we will discuss with you how we might go about organizing a group and gaining official recognition from the University.

Sangersociety@hotmail.com

The thought being, of course, that maybe a few students who saw this outrageous message might get the connection between our modern, precious, legally preposterous "constitutional right of privacy" from Conyers v. Georgia, Roe, Doe and Sandy Day O's contribution to Constitutional jurisprudence, Casey, with the bigoted purpose which was its genesis. I never got around to executing the poster scheme, but I offer the use of it free to whomever's listening.

BTW, I never set up the email address above--it doesn't really exist--so don't waste time composing any hate mail to that address. I take my hate mail at curmudgeonkc@yahoo.com or in the comment boxes below.

Is a stuffed animal marriage forever?

At my three year old daughter's suggestion that her stuffed cat and my son's stuffed bear were married, I got out my 1962 missal and performed the nuptual rite for them. The cat and the bear manifested their consent; the marriage was declared and blessed by yours truly. Within a few minutes thereafter, though (before there was any question about consummation), my daughter was very upset about the marriage and wanted the cat and the bear "unmarried."

So what's protocol here? And what of my daughter? When I explained that Christian marriage was indissoluable, she cried. I can't just unmarry the stuffed animals, can I? I don't want my three year old daughter thinking that divorce is a quick and easy option, do I? I suppose I could call a tribunal and declare the marriage null for defect of form (for starters, they weren't valid matter, and I don't happen to have orders or jurisdiction for marriages). But of course, my little tribunal wouldn't have proper jurisdiction either, so the declaration of nullity would be itself a nullity.

My daughter is rather upset, but I fear that this is a turning point in her moral and spiritual growth. She needs to learn about the permanency of matrimony. She understands that Mrs. Curmudgeon and I can't be "unmarried," but if I give in on these stuffed animals, it's a chink in the armour, right?

Oh, what to do, what to do!!! If I refuse to declare them unmarried, she'll continue to cry. If I do "unmarry" them, then any doubts or worries she may have about Mrs. Curmudgeon and me will be my fault, and any rash marriage she might make (God forbid) will be my fault, traceable back to this fateful night when she was three years old.

Three schools of Radicalism

I'm a gadfly I know, introducing a new topic that I don't intend to get into anytime soon and which I shouldn't even raise until I've tackled what's still on the table, but before I put Kirk's The Conservative Mind back on the shelf, I want to get his paradigm of radicalism--the three principal schools of radical thought into which various other radical ideas more or less fit--into my blog. Someday, as I (or, more properly, "if I") continue to test the extent to which labels like "conservative" or "progressive" are useful in describing the non-doctrinal currents that have been pushing the visible, human structure of Holy Mother Church over the last decades, I may want to come back to them:

1. The Rationalism of the philosophes.
2. The romantic Sentimentalism of Rousseau and his disciples.
3. The Utilitarianism of Bentham.

Also, we'll throw in for later ruminations, the six tenets of 18th century radicalism which Kirk boiled down:

1. If there is divine authority in the universe, it differs sharply in its nature from the Christian idea of God: for some radicals, it is the remote and impassive Being of the deists; for others, the misty and new-modeled God of Rousseau
2. Abstract reason or (alternatively) idyllic imagination may be employed not merely to study, but to direct, the course of social destiny.
3. Man naturally is benevolent, generous, healthy-souled, but in this age is corrupted by institutions
4. The traditions of mankind, for the most part, are tangled and delusory myth, from which we learn little.
5. Mankind, capable of infinite improvement, is struggling upward toward Elysium, and should fix its gaze always upon the future.
6. The aim of the reformer, moral and political, is emancipation--liberation from old creeds, old oaths, old establishments; the man of the future is to rejoice in pure liberty, unlimited democracy, self-governing, self-satisfying.

(The Conservative Mind, 7th ed. p 26-27)

Love is not a feeling

The priest who preached the sermon at high Mass this morning said--as a parenthetical to the story of the conversion of Cyprian and the martyrdom of Cyprian and Justina--something he's said a number of times over the last couple of years, and something that certainly isn't a novel thought (as the Angelic Doctor would observe were he here), but it's worthy of repeating anyways because it's Truth which, if generally understood and accepted, would probably reduce the great Western malaise by half:

Love is not a feeling. Love is an act of the will.

Funny, growing up in my goofy Texas diocese, I didn't hear stuff like that said in sermons at all. It could be that I wasn't listening, but it was more likely that powerful, unambiguous stuff like that wasn't being said.

--Curmudgeon

PS. It may seem to you that this is simply a "placeholder" post, one which I threw onto the blog just to have something new, because I lacked the time or motivation to do a more substantive post in which I respond to several loose ends raised by Todd or by Jeff (and now somewhat stale--they may erroneously think I've thrown in the towel), or I continue the thought on what it means to be "conservative" versus being what most people understand to be a "traditionalist" or a reactionary. If that's what you think is happening, congratulations! You're very perceptive. Not to take away from the great principle of which I was reminded today, but too much real reality is getting in the way of my virtual reality this weekend. Regards, C.

Is pewter a precious metal?

It's been reported to me through a source several degrees away from the action (and hence subject to confirmation) that Coday's parish (see If They're Worried, Finn's Doing Something Right, on September 15 below) is replacing its crystal communion set with a pewter set. Since when, my source asks, is PEWTER a precious metal? What the heck is pewter alloyed from anyways?

I can imagine someone ordering the clunkiest, ugliest vessels they can find, just to make a point that the glass vessels the Bishop made them get rid of were "more fitting."

And has there been some complaining about the cost? Somehow for centuries mission priests who may not have even had horses to get around with did manage to have precious metal vessels, but a parish in a reasonably prosperous part of Kansas City cannot get a gold-plated chalice and ciboria? Perhaps, with Finn's cuts to the CPLM, the parishes' diocesan assessment might go down and parishes will be able to use the money they save to buy some new, suitable vessels (or, heaven forbid, find some beautifully crafted antique vessels in a basement somewhere).

What is a conservative Catholic?

A couple of times, in a couple of places (i.e., in comments to other blogs and this one), I've asked what people really mean when they talk about "conservative" Catholics. Usually, in other blogs, I don't pose the question until the original post is stale and no one who cares to answer sees it, or simply no one cares to answer it, or I post it in this blog where, of course, my audience is quite limited. Nonetheless, I'm going to raise the question again, starting with a comment that I posted in a discussion about Bishop Finn last week in a blog by Todd, the fellow Kansas City blogger. The comment was a response to another comment by "Jeff," I believe:

"Conservatives"? That's a word I see thrown around a lot. (Also "Crunchy Con," the definition or origins of which I haven't the slightest idea of--please fill me in). Somewhere I've said this before (in a comment to Todd or Rocco or maybe at my own blog). A conservative position is doomed to fail in the Church (or for that matter in politics). We could make a good case that Bishop Boland as a "conservative," in that he mostly stayed-the-course from his predecessor, and the diocese suffered (not as badly as some, but it suffered). My hope is that Finn is no conservative; that he is a reactionary.

Another commenter, who I haven't engaged before, came back with this response:

"A conservative position is doomed to fail in the Church"

I do not know what your definition of concservative is, but I always took it as a way of conserving the truth handed down through the Apostles in TRADITION. Holding steadfast to the truth the Church has taught for over 2000 years. Truth that has remained unchanged and will until the end of time. Our Church is one of great and timeless beauty. If conservatives are holding on to the Church's teaching being loyal to Rome. I I do not see how thier position of obedience, loyalty, and submission would fail, and dissent and lack of mystery and going through the picking and choosing of what you will decide to believe would suceed. That just leads to confusion and argument. Perhaps our definitions are different, and if so I invite to say so.

I answered:

For Christe, I'm using the word "conservative" here with literal and current connotations; and NOT as a label for a substantive position in the same way you are, or the manner that someone like Russell Kirk (the late great post-New Deal synthesizer of what people now call "paleoconservative" or "traditional conservative" political thought, and a convert) might. As the word is thrown around these days in both political and ecclesiastical circles, it seems to mean generally keeping the status quo, slowing the rate of "progress" and approaching new ideas cautiously (but approaching them nonetheless). By conservative, I mean those who want to hold the line and tow the line wherever they happen to find that line. Elsewhere (I wish I could remember where) I described "conservative" in the current sense of the term as always being halfway between two points--a fixed point and another point that might be propounded at a given time (however far out that point might be). The "conservative" in this sense must define himself with reference to the present zeitgeist, even if he's defining himself in contrast to it. I've got more to say on this, but this is ultimately Todd's forum, not mine, so I'll save the rest for my own blog. But just so you know my perspective, I'm not a liberal or progressive; I'm a reactionary. However, I won't try to explain that because this comment is too long already.

In response extension of that, I'll start by reminding myself and anyone who happens to scroll down this far that "conservatism" is a socio-political concept that can only awkwardly be applied to ecclesiastical matters. One is typically not "conservative" or "progressive" in one's theology. As wiser men than I have pointed out, these two terms are commonly (and at least somewhat accurately) thought of as directions, without any referenced point to fixed Truth, as Christe suggests. In theology, which must be grounded in fixed Truth, one is either orthodox or heterodox.

That being said, when it comes to the governance and discipline of the church, the terms "conservative" and "progressive" could possibly have some currency. Before addressing how they're used or misused, I'll look at what they could mean, or mean to some people. In expansion of Christe's suggestion of "conservative" substance, I'll plagiarize the six characteristics of a conservative that were expounded by Russell Kirk in the opening of The Conservative Mind, an important book first published in 1953, written by the figure who, though not widely known, was perhaps the most important figure in moving "conservative" ideas from academic circles like the Southern Agrarians at Vanderbilt (i.e., Robert Penn Warren et al) to the rhetoric of Goldwater and Reagan:

1. Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. . . . .

2. Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism and utilitarian aims of the most radical systems . . . .

3. Conviction that civilized society required orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless" society" . . . .

4. Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked; separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. . . .

5. Faith in prescription and distrust of "sophisters, calculators, and economists" who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs. . . .

6. Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress. Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Proficence into his calculation, and a statesman's chief virtue, according to Plato and [Edmund] Burke [the Whig!], is prudence. . . .

(The Conservative Mind, 7th ed., pp 8-9). I think it's clear that these conservative socio-political principles fit within (or are complementary to) the religious "conservative" description offered by Christe, and I think if the Church had been governed by this principle over the last fifty years or so, She would be more externally healthy, and the West would be a more humane place to live.

However, as I observed above, I'm not sure that when most people talk about "conservative" clerics or laymen, we mean that they act on the above principles or their ecclesiastical equivalents. I think most people simply mean, as I sat forth above, folks that are interested in preserving the status quo. More on this at my next post, which will probably be tonight (my list of Saturday chores is quite long).

(oops, it's ember Saturday and I've already blown it).

Fr. Harrison on Emily Rose

Brian Harrison, O.S., the wise Puerto Rican priest who usually has quite measured comments about everything, positively gushes in Seattle Catholic about the Exorcism of Emily Rose. I think Fr. Harrison is a bit too-uncritical, and maybe I'm a little too critical. I'll have to see it again, I believe.

Confirming Cardinal Pompeda wasn't there

Shortly after (and actually before) the meeting between Pope Benedict and Bp. Bernard Fellay of the SSPX a few weeks back, those with axes to grind with the SSPX started grumbling, and cwnews ran an article featuring a certain Cardinal Pompeda, a retired tribunal officer, making HIS conditions for a regularization of the SSPX known to the press. (I'd link the article but I can't access cwnews' website right now).

CWNEWS, which is a reliable source of information on most other Catholic topics, presented the Cardinal's comments as those of a Roman official, if not Official Rome. Many readers might have been led to believe that the Cardinal's conditions were relevant to the discussions taking places (as opposed to the Holy Father's conditions, or the SSPX's conditions). The obvious question that nobody at cwnews answered was, "Was His Eminence even at the meeting?"

I think we have an answer now. Papabile's blog includes an excerpt of the DICI interview with Bp. Fellay, which confirms that while Benedict and Fellay were meeting, Pompeda may have been enjoying a nice lunch with his personal secretary in a trattoria somewhere and prepping for his media event. Maybe he wasn't doing that, but wherever he was, Pompeda was not at the meeting.

I simply don't understand why (what Jeff and Todd would describe as "conservative" Catholics), and generally sensible folks like those at cwnews, are so eager to interfere with (and faciliate those who wish to interfere with) the reconciliation of the SSPX. Is it not obvious that the SSPX would be better off within the regular structure of the Church, and the Church would benefit as well? One expects bombthrowing from the NC Reporter crowd, but not from cwnews. I'm thinking of dropping my subscription and depriving them of my $2.95 oer month.

More on Finn

Not much time for a post (I think I got ahead anyways yesterday), but there are more comments on Finn's Kansas City Star article by Todd from KC at catholicsensibility and Rocco at whispersintheloggia . Todd thought the article was good and then took Finn to task (politely, as is his way) for, among other things, cutting the center that offered the suspect New Wine program and for not keeping Rush and his chancery buddies around to meddle. To Todd, I'd say if there's more administrative fumbling from Finn than from his predecessor, it's because his predecessor didn't do any administering to speak of. I've tried not to bag on Bishop Boland in this blog, but he came out of retirement and talked to the press, so he's fair game for the next few days.

Rocco thinks Finn is right on target. But Rocco strays when he suggests that Finn-haters and Mahoney-haters are in the same boat. As I observed in his comment box. One group is upset because a bishop isn't behaving like a Catholic and is doing things that put distance between his diocese and the universal Church; the other is upset because the bishop is reining them in and exercising his office in a traditional way. I'm sorry, I don't see how the comparison works!

The Squishy Alliancce.

I'm still editing, but I just learned that there is a webring entitled The Alliance for Moderate, Liberal and Progressive Blogs. Wow. Isn't controlling the major media outlets enough? Here's part of their schtick:

The Alliance for Moderate, Liberal and Progressive Blogs is primarily a religious blogring, but we also welcome those who maintain politically and socially moderate, liberal and progressive blogs. NOTE: Religious intolerance is STRICTLY prohibited. The administrator reserves the right to decide what is and is not religious intolerance, and to expel any member acting out of religious intolerance without warning.

Doesn't sound very tolerant to me, now does it? Be careful not to mention the Gospels in that ring.

This of course brings to bear the questions "What is tolerance?" and "What is prejudice?." Curmudgeon has some good answers (or rather, Curmudgeon can repeat someone else's good answers as if they were his own) in due time. Now back to editing.

Perhaps I should try to join the Squishy Alliance myself, just to see how long it takes to be shown the door.

Uncle Gilbert on Lost Causes and Becket

Uncle Gilbert on Lost Causes and Beckett

Spending the evening editing old posts, now that I know people are looking at this blog, but I do want to throw in another quote from GK Chesterton (What's wrong with the World, pp 36-37 in the Ignatius edition) to close the weekend with:

The task of the modern idealists indeed is made much too easy for them by the fact that they are always taught that if a thing has been defeated it has been disproved. Logically, the case is quite clearly the other way. . . .

When four knights scattered the blood and brains of St. Thomas of Canterbury, it was not only a sign of anger but of a sort of black admiration. They wished for his blood, but the wished even more for his brains. Such a blow will remain forever unintelligible unless we realize what the brains of St. Thomas were thinking about just before they were distributed over the floor. They were thinking about the great mediaeval conception that the church is the judge of the world. Becket objected to a priest being tried even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was simple: because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest. The judiciary was itself sub judice. The kings were themselves in the dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom, without armies or prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms of the earth. Whether such a supreme church would have cured society we cannot affirm definitely; because the church never was a supreme church. We only know that in England at any rate the princes conquered the saints. What the world wanted we see before us; and some of us call it a failure. But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure, simple because the suchr failed. Tracy [one of the knights] struck a little too soon. England had not yet made the great Protestant discovery that the king can do no wrong. The king was whipped in the cathedral; a performance which I recommend to those who regret the unpopularity of church-going. But the discovery was made; and Henry VIII scattered Becket's bones as easily as Tracy had scattered his brains.

Goodnight all.

Bishop Finn in the KC Star

Bishop Finn in the Kansas City Star

The Bishop of Kansas City St. Joseph was interviewed for a story in Saturday's Kansas City Star by Helen Gray. I'm not so sure I would have consented to it, were I the man under the mitre. The Star is an anti-Catholic rag, and its religion page (just recently demoted from a Religion Section, presumably because of lack of interest in its mushy, non-substantive fare) is run by a fashionable syncreticist who hasn't manifested a belief in too much of anything permanent that I can tell, Bill Tammeus.

Were I the the bishop (and thank God I'm not, because I wouldn't have the grace or patience to do the job here, as Finn seems to have), I'd at least run the full text of the interview on my own website, free from the editorial hatchet, as cautious Archbishop Chaput did last fall when he let the New York Times interview him.

My first reaction to the article was that it wasn't as bad as I expected. However, on reflection, I think it really was bad. Even though I hate quantitative analysis (counting things alone rarely leads to understanding them), let's start there anyways:

• Six (cautiously negative) quotations from two of the main chancery officials who've been ousted, Rush and Noonan.


• Negative comments from the New Wine director.


• 0 comments from priests happy with the new change


• 0 comments from new chancery officials


• 1 attributed general comment from a layman positive about the change ("We traditional Catholics have kind of been held back for many years") Surely they could have found someone to say more said than that!


• 1 unattributed quotation from someone happy to see McBrien's column gone.


• 1 laissez faire comment from retired Bishop Boland.

Hardly a balanced article, based on the numbers, was it? I do want to note that Bishop Boland's contributions to the article (i.e., his refusal to support or detract from Finn and his exposition of his diocesan governance strategy . . . I mean, non-governance strategy) are reflective of the way he governed the diocese: ignore things and let the staff do what they want, and snap back at concerned laity that objected.

Looking at the content of the article, Finn's comments and the discussion of his actions were cobbled together for the story to almost be incoherent. But I suppose that the main "beef" I have is with the usual distinction between the supposed "pastoral" bishop and the "strict constructionist" bishop, and the unchallenged subtext of the article that Finn isn't a "pastoral" bishop.

What is a "pastoral bishop"? Why the word itself answers the question! A pastoral bishop is a Pastor Bonus, a Good Shepherd—the Good Shepherd that Christ spoke of. Who's the better shepherd? A bishop who's attitude is to delegate and to "govern least"? Or is it the shepherd who's vigilant to keep sheep from straying and keeping predators from the flock?
Somebody gave me a CD containing a sermon by a priest who hailed from a sheep farm. In that sermon, he described in disgusting, vivid terms (terms Mrs. Curmudgeon could hardly listen to) what it means to take good care of the sheep. He told the story of his finding a ewe with fleece rot and scrubbing her raw, maggoty flesh with medicine in order to save her. This priest's point was that sometimes you have to inflict a little pain in order to do what's best. Would this priest have been a good shepherd if he had just let the ewe go when she struggled against him and bawled? No.

So, then, back to our bishops. Who's the more pastoral, the one who lets McBrien's heretical column run in the diocesan newspaper and funds programs that are incompatible with historic and established moral and doctrinal Catholic teaching, or the one who watches his flock closely, and takes decisive action when he sees their well-being threatened?

Now, we can't necessarily blame Helen Gray for this article, because her work has to go through multiple edits, including (we assume) one from religion editor Bill Tammeus, who's own columns leave no doubt he's got an axe to grind against anyone who takes traditional religious teaching too seriously. But, nonetheless, it wouldn't hurt to drop an email to Ms. Gray and let her know that there are plenty of Catholics happy with what's happening here. Her email address is hgray@kcstar.com .

Oh no people are finding my Blog

Oh no, people are finding my blog!

About ninety minutes ago, I added a counter script to my blog template. I've already had 14 visitors. I would have never guessed . . . really, because I've only had like three comments in the last seven weeks or so.

It's kind of frightening to think that people know I'm out there. I suppose I ought to get serious about editing my posts and cleaning up typos. In the meantime, I hope they aren't really reading this.

But if you out there are actually reading this, let me know if you think this is as bad as I think it is.

Exorcism of Emily Rose

Mrs. Curmudgeon and I had some free babysitting last night and a couple of movie passes, so we went to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Mrs. Curmudgeon had seen (via a Seattle Catholic,* link) a generally positive review of the film; I had seen the link but never got around to it. I don't know any of the details of the actual situation from which the film gets its premise, so I can only comment on it as a work of art. I have three thoughts, (just impressions really--not worthy of being called "analysis") which I hope to expand someday, perhaps after seeing the film again:

WARNING: I REVEAL THE ENDING OF THE FILM BELOW. IF ANYBODY ACTUALLY READS THIS BLOG, AND IF ANY OF THOSE PEOPLE LIKE SURPRISES, THEY SHOULD SAVE THIS POST UNTIL AFTER THEY'VE SEEN THE FILM.

A. The crowd. Not all of the caterwauling was coming from the possessed woman; much of it came from the auditorium where the film was shown. People are breathtakingly rude. It shouldn't amaze me, but it still does. Kids talked and cut up through the whole film, and when occasionally someone would call out for them to be quiet, they'd scream profanity at them. Likewise, kids noisily stomped out of the auditorium at regular intervals (I guess that, although this film fell into the "horror" genre, it apparently wasn't the sort of Freddy/Jason/Chuckie flick these kids expected to see. Admittedly, this is the first time I'd gone to a late movie in many years (and I don't go to many movies at all), but I was appalled that people--even 21st century teenagers--acted that way.

B. The purpose and general message of the film. The review was accurate in the sense that it didn't send out the typically-Hollywood message that Catholics were statue-worshipping cranks or that the priest was stupid, crazy or evil. It was refreshing to see a priest doing what he was supposed to do on film (i.e., not breaking his vow of chastity). The director successfully got the message through that there is a willfully Evil One in creation and that he can manifest himself in horrible, sensible ways. He also attempted to get it across (with perhaps less success) that there's purpose of suffering.

C. The details. While the film had merit, there were a number of things that the director could have tightened up to make the work more coherent (without making it didactic). Some of the Catholic "jargon" in the script seemed shaky to me. I think that he could have had the priest speaking a bit more forthrightly about Satan, rather than vaguely about "dark spiritual forces." On the other hand, he did pull some good detail in, such as when the priest said a small portion of what I sounded like the unabridged version of the Leonine St. Michael prayer. Likewise, the dialog concerning the apparition of the Blessed Mother was awkward to traditional Catholic ears.

The director also could have checked his facts, i.e., the exorcism norms. Surely no simple parish priest these days would be authorized to perform an exorcism, much less on his own parishioner. Very few priests are trained to or authorized to perform exorcisms. Nor would it seem likely that a priest would perform an exorcism without at least one other cleric present, and without better restraints (restraining Emily with rags? C'mon!). The film gave no inkling of the steps that I hear are now required to rule out medical explanations of I also thought that throwing in the stigmata near the end was a bit of a stretch--it was a superfluous detail that had a potential natural cause (which was otherwise unexplored) and it thus undermined the supernatural events of the film. Did the director and script folks just decide from the beginning that they were going to do the stigmata and just stuck them in wherever it would fit, without really weaving them into the story?

And the defense lawyer's closing sequence was unbelievable and weak. Even a novice lawyer would have addressed the holes in the prosecution's case (which were presented in the film) before launching into a speech about doubts and possibilities. When the jury brought back a guilty verdict, Mrs. Curmudgeon had to ask "based on what?" My only answer was "malpractice by his lawyer." After all, through the two hours of the film, we as the audience heard that Fr. Moore tried to make her eat, that he had a medical professional in attendance at the rite, that she'd previously been on that psychotropic drug for weeks to no effect, that he visited her regularly before and after the exorcism, and that she refused further intervention of any kind.

I'm not asking that the film be a documentary. I'm not asking that the director be doctrinaire. I'm just merely suggesting that a little more attention to detail (consultation with a knowledgeable priest and a trial lawyer on the script), this good movie could have been a great one--more powerful, both technically and thematically.

But then, part of being a Curmudgeon is that I'm never happy with anything.

--Curmudgeon

*Seattle Catholic is one of two essential almost-daily compilations of Catholic news; the other "essential compilation" of the day's news for Catholics is, of course, Catholic World News. Between the comprehensive set of links to mainstream press articles (and some original reporting) appearing every morning on CWN, and Seattle Catholic's fewer, but carefully-selected articles from both mainstream press and alternative opinion and news outlets (with coverage of special interest to Catholics of traditional comportment) posted around noon most days, one gets a good overview of what's going on in the Church, at least in this country from day-to-day.

St. Augustine joining the blog.

Well, I've been working on my blog title. I think I'm going to leave it as "Curmudgeon's Cave," even though it's kind of a mixed metaphor. At one time I was thinking of taking the pseudonym "Troglodyte," which which case calling the blog my "cave" was only natural. But I settled on Curmudgeon, and kept the "cave" simply because of the alliterative value (after all, nothing would prevent a Curmudgeon from having a cave, would it?). I've been struggling mostly with the tagline. Too much alliteration is silly (unless of course, you're writing Germanic poetry). I'm settling for now with St. Augustine of Hippo's quote,

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

It seems to serve two purposes. The "anger" bit as an apologia of sorts, so that I can remind myself (and others can remind themselves) that anger is related to hope. One can be both expectant and angry; on the other hand, it seems that dispair and anger are mutually exclusive. The "courage" bit is a self-challenge of sorts, as I hide behind my anonymous blog, wondering where I have actually put myself out in the line of fire for my faith and the secondary values I hold dear. Thinking about the follow-through . . . the courage . . . is a reminder that wherever I can do so without compromising my duty to my family, I need to be charge in.

And whomever wants to pick up my leftover pseudonym is welcome to it.

Chesterton on discipline.

Continuing through What's Wrong with the World with my with Uncle Gilbert (page 76 in my Ignatius edition):

Thus, if an army actually consisted of nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be better in the case of a surprise that they should not all give orders together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of them all gave the orders. Thus, we see that merely military subordination, so far from resting on the inequality of men, actually rests on the equality of men. Discipline does not involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always right when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown that somebody. On the contrary, displine means that in certain frightfully rapid circumstances, one can trust anybody so long as he is not everybody. The military spirit does not mean (as Carlyle fancied) obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is only servility.

The beauty of Chesterton isn't his originality. Rarely does he say anything that hasn't been said a thousand times before or since. It's that he says those commonsense things so pithily. And not everything Uncle Gilbert writes is easy to swallow. I, for one, have a disinclination for follow the weakest and stupidest men simply because they wear the crown.

Spending other people's money in New Orleans

Here's another example of why I generally avoid the news, even in print. I just saw an article with this lead come over the wire:

NEW ORLEANS - President Bush was expected to tell the nation Thursday night the government would pay most of the costs of rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen — estimated to cost $200 billion or beyond.

Um, bringing all resources to bear to help rescue people in immediate danger is one thing. Perhaps using some public resources (if voluntary giving isn't enough--it might be) to help out with short term lodging, food and clothing for refugees is somewhat justifiable given the magnitude of this event.

However, committing the rest of the country to pay for most of the rebuilding is quite another thing, especially when the promise appears to be just a futile attempt to ingratiate oneself with the crooked and incompetent local officials who failed to to meet their own public duty by preparing an immediate response plan for a predictable disaster, and who spent the first days after the storm on TV demanding that OTHER people do something.

As for rebuilding, that's what insurance is for, isn't it? The people down there lived with the calculated risk of hurricanes, just as we midwesterners live with the risk of tornadoes, hail, ice storms, and flooding of our own (not to mention, for those in the Cape Girardeau area, earthquakes. This promise to rebuild has nothing to do with being kind and charitable. It's just redistribution. Voluntary giving bestows grace on the donee and the donor. Coerced redistribution of wealth does not count as Christian charity, and in the end, it enriches no one.

Let's all give to those who are in need down there (I've sent my check directly to the Archdiocese of New Orleans--skipping the bureaucrats at Catholic Charities or the other agencies), but let's not demand that the government take from everyone else for them.

If they're worried, Finn's doing something right!

Some guy just forwarded me an article that some other guy just forwarded him from the NCReporter online. The article by staff writer Dennis Coday, Too much focus on rubrics causes worry, is lamenting the fact that the bishop is insisting that we start following the rules and otherwise treating the Mass as belonging to the whole Church rather than just the liturgist in charge at one parish or another.

No time to comment on it fully this morning, but the first question that comes to mind is why in the heck do they need ELEVEN extraordinary ministers on a regular basis? I can see why he's balking at calling the ministers "extraordinary." Nothing extraordinary about it there. I've seen seen a single priest distribute Holy Communion to a full church that holds about 350 people in maybe 15 minutes (and it was in the old rite where he didn't just say "Body of Christ"; he said to each "Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. Amen.") Even if this guy's church seated 800, there's no justification whatsoever nearly a dozen lay ministers (except of course the furtherance of lay clericalism).

Oh, wait a minute he does say this:

...collect the ciboria for distribution of the bread and extra hosts from the tabernacle...

I get it now. What's all the fuss over bread? Ignoring our neighbors and instead worrying about crumbs and precious metals and whether we show a wafer proper reverence? In that case, Coday's right. It IS silly to make such a fuss over bread.

His quote of Berneir (whoever that is) also makes sense if it's only bread:

Berneir wrote that the Eucharist should be a communal experience and outward looking. It should be active if not down right activist. The Eucharist should drive us out into the world and to work building the kingdom of God, he wrote. "If we do not [do this work], our liturgies are empty." He wrote: A true Eucharist is never a passive, comforting moment alone with God, something which allows us to escape the cares and concerns of our everyday life. Eucharist is where all these cares and concerns come to a focus, and where we are asked to measure them against the standard lived by Jesus when he proclaimed for all to hear that the bread that he would give would provide life for the entire world.

I guess a liturgy without Christ present in the Most Blessed Sacrament and without congregational good vibrations WOULD be truly empty. I'll have to try to find out which parish this guy is from (although it's my policy, for now, not to name individual parishes or clerics below the rank of bishop here). But if I find out more I'll take this up again.

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