Posting Again

Ok, I've been a bad boy and havn't posted in ages, I'm erratic and all of that.

One thing I wanted to comment on. Appearantly there was a contest where a whole lot of awards were given out for female Christian bloggers. Appearently, one of the awards was given to a blog entitled "Daring Young Mom." Now thing about DYM is that she is appearantly a Mormon. Marla Swoffer posting at "Always Thirsty" put up this post in which she pointed out that Mormons are not Christians. She went on to suggest that the giving of an award intended for a Christian to a Mormon was an example of the low level of discernment practiced in most Christian churches these days.

The response, was sadly predictable, while some complimented Ms. Swoffer, she was given the standard accusations of being "unloving" and of attacking DYM. Actually, as she made clear in several subsequent posts, she was in intending to attack DYM, she was intending to criticise the lack of discernment practiced by Christians. The fact is, she's right. These days, anyone whocalls himself a Christian will be accepted as one, regardless of whether they actually believe anything that resembles historic Christianity. Daring Young Mom's response was priceless, "don;t say nasty things about my beliefes, it makes me cry". As if the Mormon church dosn't say heaps of unpleasant things about other churches. What was that in Joseph Smith's alledged vision about God saying that all the churches and the creeds are abominations.

The basic problem with the church today is a misguided idea about love. We hear the commands to love others repated ad nauseam and taken out of context, and appearenttly saying that other beliefes are false has been labled "unloving". But St. John, known as the Apostle of Love, was very clear on this. His command to Christians in dealing with gnostics was to have nothing to do with them, don't so much as sit down to a meal with them. But this is not a scripture text the modern church likes to talk about.

There is Life on Mars

The first episode of "Veronica Mars" aired in Australia last night. I'm not quite ready to join those who are hailing this show as the new Buffy, but it was certainly an enjoyable first episode.

Like Buffy, Veronica is a girl in a small, fictional, Southern California who was once part of the "popular crowd" but has now been forced very much onto the outer. Like Buffy, she's a stereotypically atractive blonde girl (although Kristen Bell is not quite as beautiful as SMG) and like Buffy, she conceals a real vulnerability beneath her toughness. But, what makes Veronica seem to me most like Buffy is the basic "high-school is hell" feel of the show. Veronica has, within a brief period, had her best friend brutally murdered, her father has lost his job, she's been raped, her mother has left her and her dad and she has lost her status as one of the cool kids at school. The dialouge, while not as funny as the dialouge on Buffy, does have a certain Buffy-esque crispness, and I think I recognise the influence of Buffy is certain parts of the characterisation of various high-school students.

On the down side, the sound-track is nothing like as good as Buffy's. They have "We Used to be Friends" by the Dandy Warholes as the theme-song. In their defence, I'd probably like that song a lot more if I hadn;t first heard it as the theme song of "My Resteraunt Rules" and it is more appropriate here.

Words of Wisdom from a Calvinist

Phillip Johnson has a post on his blog with excerpts from a piece by the great Calvinistic Baptist preacher, C. H. Spurgeon. The article needs to be sent to most of the Catholic priests around these days.

White vs. Brown

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega mintistries has been doing a serise on Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" the serise has been good and White does an excellent job of demolishing Brown's alledged schoolarship, but I thought this post particularly amusing. How anyone can take Brown seriously is beyond me.

Update

The episode of Veronica Mars will screen in Australia (or in Canberra, in any event) at 8:30 this Monday night. Be there or be square.

An Interesting Ending

I've just watched the last episode of season one of "House" the excellent medical drama on Network Ten. I've enjoyed the season very much.

Of course, everyone and their dog is talking about Hugh Laurie and how good a performance he gives as the show's eponymous lead character and this is justified. I'd previously known Lauri only for his comedey work, watching him do drama has been quite change. Comparing Laurie's portrayal of Dr. House to the foppish George of the Blackadder shows, it's almost impossible to believe they are played by the same man. However, I think the focus on Laurie undersells the rest of the cast, all of whom do a great job. I have a particular soft-spot for the lovely Jenifer Morrison who play's House's side-kick Dr. Allison Cameron. I think Morrison has done a great job bringing out the sensitivity, vulnerabilty and beautiful optimism of her character, I've been a House/Cameron 'shipper (ie someone who wants those two characters to get together) since episode one and I've enjoyed watching their friendship grow throughout the season. Cameron seems to have given up on the possibility of her and House, but I remain the eternal optimist.

The final episode brought things to a nice conclusion, setting things up nicely for the show to go a somewhat different direction next season. The surprise return of House's old flame (whom House is clearly not over) and her appearently coming on board as a continuing character should mean lots of fun for fans in the year to come.

Mars Attacks

C.S. Lewis once wrote an essay on Orwell in which he commented on how much more human the characters of Animal Farm are than those of 1984. In his view, the "heroic horses, snapping dogs and guzzling pigs" give a true picture of what humanity is like while "if men were only like the characters in 1984, it would not be worth writing stories about them."In a latter essay, about the Lord of the Rings, Lewis wrote that we have not truly seen and undertood humanity until we realise that humanity is like the hero of of a fairy tale and that by putting the human predicament into a myth "we do not retreat from reality, we rediscover it"

I've long thought something similar about that post-modern tv genre, the teen drama. This genre, originating with the hugely successful "Beverly HIlls: 90210" starts out with a group of friends in early high-school and follows them through high-school and (in some case) into adult life. On the whole, the genre has not exaclty produced great televison, it can be etertaining at times, but generally in a superficial over the top way.

There has been one great exception to the rule, "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer" and, as the name suggests, that show does not exactly make an effort at realism. But it is real, it captures the emotional reality of what it is like to a teenager or twenty-something is like. I was well ouyt of high-school when Buffy first came to Australia, and still some of the shows brought back the memorry of what school was like with a painful clarity. Buffy, with her immortal enemies (and lovers) her preternatural strength, her shape-changing friends and her vocation to awful to contemplate showed us what beeing a young person in this confusing post-modern world is really like in a way that her more superficially realistic rivals never could (although I must admit that the early seasons of "Dawsons Creek" came close at times). I have, in fact, come close at times to stating the theory that its just not possible to realisticly depict the reality of contempory high-school with realistic means, the experience is just too sureal to be conveyed without vampires, monsters, magic or something of the kind.

But, perhaps I'm going to have to re-think my views. Network Ten is about to bring to Australia a new show called "Veronica Mars". The netork is advertising it as the new "O.C." which would hardly have lead me to watch it, but, from what I'm reading from fans and critics of the show in the US, this is not an accurate characterisation. The shows eponymous heroine, is appearently a teenage detective, a sort of modern Nancy Drew, only much darker, Veronica's first mystery involves the murder of her own best friend.

A couple of things have got me very excited about this show, first a large number of Buffy fans seem to be wild about it. Secondly, Joss Whedon himslef, the genius behind Buffy, has been activly encouraging his fans to watch it. Have a read of Joss' views here. As an aside, it's very cool to see Joss getting so excited and fan boyish about another show, the way lesser mortals like myself get over Joss. A third reason I'm getting excited is the type of fans the show seems to be attracting, I had a look around various fan sites and they seem to have the same mix of deep, almost intence, seriousness and quirky sense of humor that characterises Buffy fans. Check out this fan site and see what I mean.

Of course, I haven't seen the show yet, it could turn out to be a big let-down, but right now I'm thinking I have good grounds for optimism. Can a realistic show tell us what high-school is really like? Only time will tell.

Answers For a Calvinist

Mr. John Jackson (who I believe is a Calvinist) has posted some interesting question for Catholics on his blog. Lets see how we can go at answering him.

1. Why do Catholics pray the rosary? Where is there precedent for this in scripture, or for that matter anything that even comes close to it?

Well, not all Catholic pray the Rosary, the practice is largely confined to the Western Church and, although it is highly recomended, no law of the churc has ever made it mandatory. That said, it is highly recomended because practical experience has shown it to be a powerful weapon which wonderfully focuses the mind on the great events of our redmeption.

As to the second part of the question, let me answer a question with a question, from where does Mr Jackson get the idea that all of our devotional practices must have scriptural precedent?

2. Why do Catholics pray to Mary as their intercessor, when it seems to be outlined in Scripture that the Holy Spirit is our intercessor? (Romans 8:27)

From the way Mr. Jackson phrases the question, it's possible that he is under the impression that Catholics look to Our Lady as our primary or even sole intercessor. Actually, we look to Jesus Christ, who is our great High Priest as our primary intercessor.

That said, we do believe Our Lady to be a powerful intercessor, this is based on a number of things, amoung them the fact that Our Lord performed His first miracle at her request, and at a time when he did not wish to do so (John 2:1-11).

As for the passage Mr. Jackson cites from Romans, that passage certainly teaches that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, all Catholics know this and we certainly welcolme His help. But if He is our sole intercessor, this is as bad for Protestants as it is for Catholics. I have never met a Protestant who didn't pray for his friends, I have never met a Protestant who did not encourage his friends to pray for him. If Mr. Jackson truly believes the Holy Spirit is our one intercessor, I hope he will be consistent in speaking out against this practice.

3. Why do Catholics add the Apocrypha into their Bibles when to my knowledge the Early Church never regarded it as equal to the rest of scripture, and some of the books of the Apocrypha were written after the Apostolic period?

Ok, some clarification is called for here. The term "Apocrypha" is somewhat vague and refers to a large range of documents written over a lengthy period. The seven books plus parts of two others which are regarded as scritural by Catholics but not by Protestants are called "Deuterocanonical" by Catholics. We regard them as cannonical because those same councils of the early church which our Protestant brethern point to as establishing the New Testament Cannon clearly state that these books are cannonical. Mr. Jackson is simply mistaken in his statements about the Fathers. Catholic Answers has a good tract here on the patristic witness to the authority of these books. It must be admitted that some of the Church Fathers did not admit the full authority of these books, but the same can be said of a number of New Testament books.

As to Mr. Jackson's claim that some of the Apocrypha was written after the Apostolic period, this is where we run into problems with the fuzziness of the term, however, I know of no schoolar who does not date the writing of all of those works which the Catholic Church calls Deutero-Cannonical to before the time of Our Lord.

4. Is the transsubstantiation that Catholics believe takes place in Communion, in which the bread and the wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus equivalent to Jesus dying more than once? (when He only needed die once)

No, absolutly not. The Council of Trent made it perfectly clear that the mass is an unbloody sacrifice. The idea that Catholics believe that Jesus dies again in the mass is a fiction invented by the likes of Jack Chick.

5. Why do Catholics believe that good works are necessary for salvation, when scripture, at least from my reading of it, seems to indicate otherwise. ( Eph. 2:8-9)

This is a subject too big to be dealt with here, although, if Mr. Jackson wishes, I'd be happy to devout a post soley to this question. However, lets look at the text given here:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no man can boast."

The key point here, is that Catholics agree that no person could possibly earn salvation by good works, indeed, no amount of natural good works could bring a person any closer to salvation. The key phrase here is "so the no man can boast". We Catholics freely acknowledge that our good works are nothing to boast of, that any good they bring to us is only a result of a totally unearned grace.

6. Do not Catholic apologetics, which center around proofs for the existance of God assume that unbelief is merely a problem of knowledge rather than one of the heart?

I don't think Catholic apologetics do centre around proofs for the existence of God. Even if they did, Mr. Jacksons claim still don't follow. An apologist is not an evangelist and the best of them know this, but this does not make an apologist useless. As the great Protestant appologist, C. S. Lewis noted, a person's will is always the decicive factor, however, when the time comes for the will to make a decicion, it will certainly help if that person's intelect is on the right side.

7. Why do Catholics believe that Peter was the first pope?

The New Testament clearly shows the leading role played by St. Peter amoung the disciples. One of the best examples of this is Luke 22: 31-32. The impact of this passge is frequently lost on modern readers because modern English (unlike NT Greek) does not distinguish between plural and singular in second person pro-nouns. What the passage says is:

"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you [plural] as wheat but I have prayed for you [singular], Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your bretheren."

You see what is happening? Satan is coming after all the apostles, but Christ is praying for St. Peter, and then calling on him to Strengthen the breatheren. After Our Lord left the world, St. Peter is shown time and time again taking a leading role, his presiding at the selection of St. Matthias to replace Judas being an excellent example.

Amoung the early fathers, there is ample testimony to the fact that St. Peter settled in Rome and that the Roman Church, from the earliest of days, assumed the leadership of the church, something I will say more on in an answer to a subsequent question.

8. Why do Catholics assume that Mary was a perpetual virgin when there seems to be nothing to indicate this in scripture?

I'll answer a question with a question again, from where comes this beliefe that all Christian beliefes must be in Scripture? The protestant notion of Sola Scriptura (ie that scripture is our sole infallibke guide in matters of faith) is a late developing invention which would have been totally meaningless in the early centuries of the church before the cannon of the NT was agreed on. The beliefe in Our Lady's perpetual virginity is an early belife of the church, as can be seen here.

9. Why do they believe that she was perfect?

Once again, this beliefe can be shown to have originated amoung the early church. See here for details.

10. Why is there a doctrine of Papal infallibility in the Roman Catholic Church?

Once again, we can show the ancient natur of this beliefe. Writing around 190 AD, St. Ireneus of Lyon, in the third book of his master work "Against Heresies" posed the question of how we can know true Christian teaching from false his answer, you look to what the bishops teach. He then asks, what if the bishops disagree, and answers himself that we must look to Rome for an answer. He writes:

"With that church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition"

You see? Over a hundred years before Constantine, a bishop was ackowledging Rome as the church with which all other churches must agree.

There is also a question that must be asked, if the Pope is not reliable, what is? What did Jesus leave us to ensure that we could carry on His message and know His truth? I'm sure Mr.Jackson's answer will be "The Bible", yet it was over three hundred years after the death of the last apostles that agreement was reached on which books make up the New Testament. "Church Councils" will perhaps be the reply of some, yet bodies claiming to be church councils have gone so far as to anthamise each other.

In his excellent book "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic" David Currie demonstrates how, over a period of centuries, every majour see in Christendom was held by a Bishop who actively promoted a beliefe which Catholics, Protestants and the Orthodox agree is heretical. The one exception to this was the See of Rome.

Credit Where Credit is Due

Since I was so critical of Jack Chick in a previous post, I feel I should note that he occasionally hit the nail right on the head. I think this piece of his is just brilliant.

Lord Have Mercy

The Traditional Roman Liturgy is all in Latin, with two exceptions. Once exception, obviously enough, is the sermon, always delivered in the language of the peole. The other exception comes towards the begining of the liturgy and is in Ancient Greek.

The words are quite simple, Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy) said three times, Christe eleison (Christ, have mercy) said three times followed by Kyrie eleison three more times. These eighteen words show the influence of the our eastern bretheren on the way we western types worship, and not just by the language.

One notable point is the repetition. A friend of mine once noted an importance difference between the Greek and Latin minds has to do with austerity versus repetion. Latin poetry, latin rhetoric, latin buildings have a certain austerity about them, the greeks tend to be more florid and repertitious. Following this pattern, the traditional latin liturgy tends to be very simple, if something is repetative, there's a good chance that we are seeing a Greek influence (although the Greek influence often reached the latin liturgy via the ancient french liturgies). Of course, the patern of the repetition here is also signifigant, three groups of three, the number of the trinity multiplied by its self.

These thoughts were brought to mind by my good friend Magdalen. Mags has had some great stuff on her blog recently, but what really got me were her words in this post. Mags wrote:

"I don't even know what to pray for any more. I guess, just 'help'. Help her. Help me. I don't even know what it is we need help with. Just help.'Lord have mercy' really is the purest prayer. It kind of covers all possible bases, doesn't it?

So, I guess, Lord have Mercy."

This put my finger on something that has played on my mind for a while. Most Western Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, would tend to associate the words "Lord, have mercy" with prayers of confession not so our Eastern friends. Take a look at the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysotom, the main form of the Byzantine Liturgy, which is used by the Orthodox as well as several rites of the Catholic Church. That simple phrase is repeated time and time again, in response to a large number of petitions, most of them not linked to the confession of sins. Indeed, it has been said that Kyrie eleison is the basic prayer of Byzantine/Greek spirituality.

So, Kyrie eleison, and thanks, Magdalen for much food for thought.

Jack Chick, Anti-Catholcism and the Creed

Chick publications, the "ministry" of Jack T. Chick, has long been know as the lunatic fringe of anti-catholicism*. They've recently given their web page a re-vamp. I've got to hand it to them, the new site design is more visually appealing and more user friendly. It also makes it easier to find certain pieces of absolute rubbish about catholicism. A great example is this article "Purgatory, Gold Mine of the Priesthood". Seriouse question, how many blatant falsehoods can you find in this article? Their are monets when I can't help wondering if Chick's works aren't some kind of amazing hoax. I mean, Chick can't really believe that he is helping his side's cause by printing such misrepresentations of his opponent's beliefs and practices, can he?

I pointed this out to my friend Heather who blogged on it here. Now I certainly share Heather's feelings of anger and frustration towards Mr. Chick, but her frustration seemed to be as much directed towards his view that Roman Catholics aren't Christians as towards the misinformation and distortions he uses to support his view. I don't share this view. As a good tyke myself I obviously think we are Christians, but there are protestants (mostly of the Calvinist variety) who make out a cogent case for the contrary view, and they make it on the basis of what we actually believe, not on Chickesque distortions. Actually, some of my favourite blogs are written by such people, Phillip Johnson of Pyromaniac being a good example.

I'm also a little concerned about what I understand to be Heather's main argument for Catholics being Christians which revolves around the Nicean Creed. Now don't get me wrong, the creed is a great treasure of the church which I value greatly and which I love to recite or sing in the liturgy but I think it dangerous to set it up as the defining point of what a Christian is. The Fathers of Nicea and Constantinople wrote the creed to refute certain then problamatic heresies, heresies which primarily dealt with the nature of God and the relationship of the Divine Persons. That is why the question of what we need to do to be saved, a majour concern of the New Testament is hardly mentioned in the creed.

Heather also has quite a bit to say about the "truly ecumenical" nature of the creed. A couple of points need to be made here. Firstly, there is the point of the "filoque" controversy. The creed we got from the councils called the Holy Spirit "the Lord, the Giver of Life, who procedes from the Father". It was some time later, that a pope, acting on his own authority and with no counciliar aproval, added the Latin word fillioque, "and the son". Today, western tradition Catholics as well as most Protestants say the creed with the added words, eastern tradition Catholics and the Orthodox say the original version. I don't think this is a big problem, the two can be theologically reconciled, but it is worth noting.

Of much bigger concern, can we be said to be affirmin the same creed when we say the same words but give those words different meanings? That this is the case can easily be seen if we read the exposition which the Tridentine Catechism gives of the phrase "one, holy, catholic and apostolic". The catechism, whose primary author was St. Charles Borremeo and which was promulgated by Pope St. Pius V (my all time favourite Pope) explains that when Catholics speak of one church, we mean, amoung other things, that it is one by "Unity of Government". It goes on to explain this as:

"The Church has but one ruler and one governor, the invisible one, Christ, whom the eternal Father hath made head over all the Church, which is his body; the visible one, the Pope, who, as legitimate successor of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, fills the Apostolic chair.

"It is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers that this visible head is necessary to establish and preserve unity in the Church."

So, how many of our Protestant and Orthodox friends speak of "one church" meaning a oneness that comes from the government of the Pope?

With regards to the catholicity of the church, the catechism states:

"Unlike states of human institution, or the sects of heretics, [and I don't think there can be any doubt that by "sects if heretics" is primarily meant the protestant churches] she is not confined to any one country or class of men, but embraces within the amplitude of her love all mankind, whether barbarians or Scythians, slaves or freemen, male or female. Therefore it is written: Thou . . . hast redeemed us to God, in thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us to our God a kingdom."

If you surveyed a group of modern Protestants as to what they mean when they say they a believe in a "catholic" church, you'd get a wide variety of views, some closer to the view propounded above, some further away, although I doubt any would agree with that exact definition.

And of the apostolicity of the the church, we read:

"That all, therefore, might know which was the Catholic Church, the Fathers, guided by the Spirit of God, added to the Creed the word Apostolic. For the Holy Ghost, who presides over the Church, governs her by no other ministers than those of Apostolic succession."

Since the vast majourity of Protestants reject the historic doctorine of apostolic succession, they will obviously not agree with us here.

The difference is even more noticable when we turn to the creed's confession of "one baptism for the forgivness of sin." The meaning given to this statement by the Catholic Church is clear. We mean that the sacrament of water baptism actually effects the remmision of both original and actual sin. Now, a large strain of protestantism historicaly and probably a majourity of protestants today outright reject the catholic belife in this matter, insisting that baptism (like the eucharist) is purely symbolic. What they mean when they say those words of the creed, I have no idea, I suspect many of them have never thought about it.

It seems clear to me, therefore, that the ecumenical nature of the creeds is a largely a mirage. We have a set of words that everyone can agree to, but only because we give some of those words radically diffferent meanings. It's almost like a group of people got together and signed a statement extolling the virtues of democracy and declared this an agreement, while half of them were using the word "democracy" to mean the sort of government that existed in the former "democratic republics" of Eastern Europe.

I should add a few disclaimers to the above. First, the term anti-catholicsm is a some-what controversial one. For purposes of this post, I simply mean a Christian who does not regard us papists as christians. I should make clear that I'm using it simply as a descriptive term, not as a term of reprobation.

Second, nothing in the above should be read as denying the teachng of Vatican II that Christians of other denominations are turly our brothers in Christ.

Third, In my comments on the creed I am simply attempting to prove that different Christians understand the words differently to a degree that renders any claim to real agreement highly problematic. I am not, at this point, trying to prove the Catholic understanding better or worse than another, which is not to deny that I'd be willing to debate that question if anyone's up for it.

Back To It.

Ok, ok, this is not the first time I've done this, but the blogs of some of my friends have spurred me to give the blogging thing another go. I seriously do intend to post at least once every few days. We'll see how long that intention lasts.

You Can't Make Up Stuff This Funny

The 1.3 million member American "United Church of Christ" once a strongly Calvinist denomination, recently held it's national convention. At this convention, a motion declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord was moved, and soundly defeated. So, a denomination calling its self United Church of Christ can't agree that Christ is Lord. As for the minority who supported the ressolution, it seems they won't be leaving but will rather take the "stay inside and fight" aproach. I can, up to a point, sympathise, but there surely comes a point where you just have to leave.

I'm not sure who said it, but you can't reform a whore by giving her make-up tips.

Sometimes I Hate Being Catholic

New Testament Reasearch Ministries had this article linking to a piece in the Washington Times on the growth of evangelical churches in Iraq post the fall of Sadam. There is much in this article to make a faithful catholic cringe, but my personal most hated moment was when the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch, a Catholic Patriarch in full union with the Pope, declared that if a muslim came to him and asked to be baptised, he would turn him away and tell him to go on being a good muslim. So much for Christ's command to baptise all nations.

I'm told that the Eastern Rites of the Church permit their members to eat the flesh of creatures without spines during Advent. Anyone know a good recipie for stewed Patriarch?

What a Begginng!

I saw "Batman Begins" last night and all I can say is "wow!". Of the five modern Batman movies, this is certainly the best and the truest to the comics.

That last remark needs some clarification. Far too many people who have either never read or read only a little of the comics imagine them to be much like the silly 1960s Batman TV show staring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward "Holly squirrle-cage Batman!". To them, Batman is either a figure of fun or, at best, merely a cut-price Superman, fighting for "truth justice and the American way" only without the aid of super-powers. That's not it at all.

The real Batman is a guy mentally and emotionally scarred for life by watching his parents bruttally gunned down in front of him when he was six, who inhabits a city so consumed by crime, corruption, polution and poverty that you really have to wonder whether it is worth saving, he is a obssesive individual who dedicates himself 24/7 to fighting crime, thus shutting himself off from far too many oportunites to enjoy the normal pleasures of friendship and a social life and he dresses as a bat and stalks the dark places not merely to fight criminals but to terrify them, at times he seems little more sane than the psichotic killers that he fights.

So, the movie, Christian Bale, who I don't think I'd ever seen before, gives a stunning showing as Bruce Wayne/ Batman, he brings out the depth, the obsession, the intensity of the Dark Knight.
Katie Holmes, in spite of everything I maintain she can act, gives a solid performance as the crusading Assistant District Attourney, although it's probably the least complex character and least challenging majour role in the film, Micheal Cain is superb as Alfred, bringing out his deep loyalty to Bruce and obvious pride in the young hero, but also real concern at the dangerous course his young master has taken.

Liam Neeson looks nothing like the Ra's Al Ghul of the comics, but is otherwise the very embodiment, of that noble, elequonent, honourable but deeply evil being, although,when we was teaching Bruce to fight I'm certain I caught more than a glimpse of Qui-Gon Jin.

I'm a little more ambivalent about Cillian Murphy's performance as Dr. Jonathan Crane/ Scarecrow. He was very evil, but a little too calculating, a little too sane, and he was obviously doing what he did for money, rather than the pleasure. The Scarecrow of the comics is a man maniacly obsessed with fear who inspieres fear in other for the fun of it, a sort of dark mirror to Batman who inspires fear for the greater good.

I originally had simarlar feelings about Morgan Freeman's portrayl of Lucius Fox. Freeman gave a great performance (dosn't he always) but my initial feeling was that he lacked the style and sophistication of the Fox of the comics. However, the friend with whom I saw the film, made the point that, for most of the film, Fox is in a kind of exile, towards the end, we see the true Lucius emerge.

Taking the film as a whole, the friend I saw it with described it as a good action film full of martial arts, car chases, explosions and the like. The film certainly had all those things, and they were done well, but I think it undersells the film to focus on these things. Batman is ultimatly a tale of character, the interest laying in the complex psychology of the heor and his suporting cast, both good and evil and here is where the film is at its best.

Complaints, I have a few. Batman eventually reveals his true identity to Katie Holmes' character. This was possibly nessecary as a means of resolving the sexual tension between them, but it was still something the comic Batman would never do. Also, where was Harvey Dent? The crusading District Attourney who later (almost Anakin-like) becomes one of Batman's most bitter enemies? But, I guess he would have detracted too much from Holmes.

Overall, the film gets two big thumbs up, not for kids, but otherwise I strongly recomend it.

Back to it

I've been very quite for a while, but two articles in the Canberra times today made me want to get back into the blogging action. Actually, it was a little bizzarre, two opinon pieces, side by side, which said almost exactly the same thing. The pint of these articles was that Vatican II had tried to decentralise the church but that the newly late Pope had been guilty of recentralising.

Firstly, a lot of nonsense is talked about Vatican II, while it is true that the council did place greater stress on the roles of the individual bishops and on the colective authority of the bishops united with the Pope, it also inisted on some very "centralist" notions, such as the duty of all the bishops and all the faithful to believe the teachings of the pope.

Secondly, while John Paul II did (and it feels so weird to think of him in the pat tense) strongly insist upon papal teaching authority, he also enacted the new code of cannon law which entrenches the roles of the national bishops confrences. In all John Paul II's reign, was a single liberal bishop removed from his see, or even disciplined in any substantial way?

One of the articles complains that "nuns were told to go back to wearing habbits and theologians were told to be docile." Well even if the late Holy Father did tell nuns to go back to wearing habbits (he may have done, although I can't remember when) he certainly did nothing to make them do so.

As for theologians, well, it's certainly true that catholic theologians, most of whom are catholic priests and therefore have taken solemn oaths to deffend and uphold catholic teaching, were told that they would actually (what a radical concept!) be expected to keep their oaths. But the question then becomes, what happened to those who didn't comply? For all the talk of Papal investigations and heresy trials, the fact remains that not one liberal theologian was excommunicated during the entire reign of John Paul II.

Lets take an example, Hans Kung, a (now retired) catholic priest from Switzland who is frequently held up as an example of a victim of vatican persecution. In the late 1970s Kung was proffessor of catholic theology at the university of Basel and his books were widely read in theological colleges (both catholic and protestant) around the world. In 1979 the vatican ruled that a number of his books taught things clearly contrary to the catholic faith and Kung was asked to recant. When he refused to do so, it was declared that he could no longer be a teacher of catholic theology. So, Kung resigned as proffessor of catholic theology, the university at which he worked then created the new position of proffessor of ecumenical theolgy, to which it appointed Kung and Kung continued teaching essentailly the same material to the same students. Meanwhile, he remained a catholic priest in good standing and his books continued to be taught in catholic seminaries and sold in catholic bookstores (as they still are to this day, last time I walked into the catholic bookstore in Canberra, his latest book was on prominent display).

So much for John Paul the authoritarian.

New Book on St. Francis

I learned from a friend today that a new book on the life of St. Francis of Assisi will soon be published. Hardly a surprising thing, St. Francis is one of the most popular saints in history, not just amoung catholics but amoung protestants and even non-Christians, so books about him are hardly a rarity. What makes this book interesting is it's authour, environmentalist and lawyer Robert Francis Kennedy juniour, son of the famous Attourney General and Presidential hopeful.

Smells Good

As I write this post I'm listening to "Nevermind" the 1991 albumn by Seatle Grunge R band Nirvana. I've been listening to said albumn quite a lot lately and am getting hooked. Back in 91 I thought Grunge was just a lot of noise, but the more I listen, the more I discover a surprising diversity of melody and structure.

Some years back, I was shocked and outraged when the Australian National University student newspaper "Woroni" printed an article which awarded "Nevermind" the title of "Greatest Rock Albumn Ever". Now, don't get me wrong, I still disagree (I think I'd give the palm to Bob Dyalns "Highway 61 Revisited"") but the claim of "Nevermind" is nowhere near as silly as I once thought.

Now, I make no claims to be an expert on grunge (I couldn't even explain what it is that puts a song in that genre) but I think that one would get a general agreement that Nirvana are the greatest grunge band ever and that "Nevermind" is the greatest ever grunge albumn.

Now, what inspired to write this post, was a discovery I made yesterday. As most people know, the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana was the late, great, Kurt Cobain, a man almost synonomous with grunge. Now "Nevermind" has twelve songs on it and eleven of them were written by Mr. Cobain. But what really surprised me was the discovery that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" the lead single from the albumn and the one Nirvana song most people know was written by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl.

John Paul the Great?

I don't agree with everything in this article by ex-pat Australian Fr. Brian Harrison, but he raises many interesting and valuable points.

I personally find the suggestion that the current Holy Father should be offically known as "John Paul the Great" truly laughable. There have been hundreds of Popes, dozens of whom have been declared saints, many of whom steered the church through difficult times, yet only two of whom (Leo I an Gregory I) have been oficially named "the Great". On blogger, who is normally full of good sense, suggested the current Pope should be called "the Great" because he has modled great personal holiness. Presumably this blogger thinks the great number of Popes who have been declared saints but have not been given that title- men like Gregory VII, Pius V and Pius X did not have great personal holiness.

St. Thomas, Pray For Us!!!

Today is, (at least Traditionally) the feat day of my hero, St. Thomas Aquinas, friar, theologian, philosopher and poet. St. Thomas lived in a world of great change, the introduction of Aristotelian philosophy into Europe, while a great blessing, had caused many people to raise questions about the degree to which the Catholic faith could be harmonised with reason. Also, this was a time when the Albergensian heresy, which claims the existence of two Gods, one good and one evil, was rampant.

It was into this breach that St. Thomas, who has been called the great warrior for truth, stepped. In his famous works, he showed clearly the rationality of beliefe in one God and the solid compatability of true faith and right reason. For all the differences between his time and ours, St. Thomas remains a figure of great relevance, if anything, our age, an age in which the teachings of the church are constanly under attack from inummerable sides, needs the solid defence of the faiththat St. Thomas can give us and the general sceptisim of modern philosophy, which denies any object truth or knowledge, needs to be counted with a solid Aristotelian/Thomist defence in the reality of the real.

Laetare Jerusalem

Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of the Western lent, traditionally called Laetare Sunday, from the Latin "Laetare" the imperative (command) form of the Latin verb "rejoice", which, at first blush, is a rather strange name for a Sunday in the middle of Lent.

Fr. Ken Webb, FSSP preached on this very theme, pointing out that, from the viewpoint of the world, rejoicing while doing penance is a contradiction. It is only in the paschal mystery of Christ that we can find a reconciliation of this appearent contradiction. I can't do Fr. Webb's sermon justice, so I'll simply let the liturgy speak for it's self:

Laetare Jerusalem: et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam: gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuisstis: ut exsultetis, et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae

Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her; rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow; that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of consolation.

From Dr. James White

Dr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries has put two pieces on his blog recently that I thought worth linking to. Needless, to say, I don't agree with this but it's too funny not point out. The lightbulb joke is one of my favourite genres of humour, but most attempts at an aplication to catholicism that I've seen strike me as terribly strained.

On a far more serious note is this post on the death of Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley. As a catholic who accepts the Church's teaching on invincible ignorance, I'm slightly more optimistic than Dr. White about the possibility of one who dies a believing Mormon entering heaven, but I am fully behind Dr. White in his insistence that there is an objective truth about God and that humans ignore or reject this truth at our peril.

The existence of a single God who made all things is not a matter of faith, reason clearly proclaims it, and the Mormons deny this basic truth. Well, as Dr. White says, Hugh Nibley now knows that there is one God, having stood before that One God's judgement seat, I pray he received a favourable outcome.

I Just Can't Believe This

My opinion of the modern episcopacy is not high, but this is just a bit much to take. On reading this I felt a profound desire to throw something at the Bishop of New Ulm. I mean, the Tredentine Mass is a private devotion? What next?

Jews and Same Sex Marriage

This article is quite interesting, especially the bit about natural law. I had to laugh just a little at the rabbi who is pro same sex marriage but anit any marriage between a jew and a gentile.

Sorry

I'm sorry I havn't been posting much of late. I was in Melbourne having a whale of a time, enjoying myself too much to think about blogging.

In my abscence, a Swedish Court of appeals has overturned the conviction of Swedish Pastor Ake Green who was convicted of vilifying homosexuals. This has not, however, detered Kansas' Westboro Baptist Church from teaching that God Hates Sweden. I certainly wish that I could claim to have WBC's insight into the Divine Mind.

In fairness, I have to thank WBC and their Pastor, Fred Phelps, for giving me a great laught when I read this. I can only imagine the exression on Howard Deans face when he read this.

Now the question: Who out of Phelps and Dean do I dislike most?

Reformed Catholic Post-Modernism?

Mr. David Fahrenthold posted this on the Reformed Catholicism Blog or, as I like to call it, the oxymoron blog. According to the good Mr. Fahrenthold, we shouldn't say that any text has a clear meaning because the idea that a text can have a clear meaning is a modernist notion that post modernism has thouroughly deconstructed.

My immediate thought, if the idea that a text can have a clear meaning is modernist, does that mean that pre-modern types like Aristotle, the fathers and the schoolastics never believed a text has a clear meaning.

Reformed Baptist apologist Eric Svendsen has a much beter reply to Mr. Fahrenthold's nonsense, here.

Interview With Robert Schuller

Beliefenet has an interview with the Rev. Robert Schuller, Pastor of the "Chrystal Cathedral" and one of the founders of the so-called "Mega-Church Movement". One thing Schuller said deeply disturbed me.

First, he says that the church needs to be like a supermarket, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom this brings up images of the money-changers in the temple. But what disturbs me more is Schuller's description of how it should be like a supermarket:

"Whatever people want to buy, they can get it in the shopping center. It’s one-stop shopping. Churches should be that way. They can get a Sunday morning church service, but they can also have a ministry to singles, a ministry to young people, a ministry to music people, a ministry to people who have specialized hurts. "

Now I have nothing at all against youth ministries or young adult ministries, and I hope a church would have ministries to people with specialised hurts (otherwise known as pastoral care) but Schuller seems to regard such things as on a level with the Sunday mourning service. It isn't. The joining together of the church, on the sabath, for worship and to listen to preaching is not presented in the New Testament as a optional extra for Christians but as a basic thing commanded of us all.

This is a good example of the kind of thinking that has become very prominent in Evangelical circles, the church as a company with a product to sell, if the consumers don't like that product, we can chage it to fit their needs. On this basis, Christ would have to have been a fairly unsuccessful evangelist, when His message was rejected He didn't sit around looking for ways to make it easier to accept.

Another Royal Wedding

I've just read the news the Prince Charles is to marry Ms. Carmilla Parker-Bowles in spite of the fact that her first husband is still alive. Loose Cannon makes a number of good points: Charles will, when his mother dies, be head of the Church of England, a body whose traditional doctorine forbids divorce, Charles will also be Defender of the Faith; all this Loose Cannon deplores.



Also, it seems that the marriage will not be a church wedding but a civil ceremony followed by prayers and blessings in a church. What does this mean? The church isn't going to perform an invalid marriage, but it will bless their adultery and pray for it's success? Also the Queen (the current head of the church and defender of the faith) and the Archbishop of Canterburry have declared themselves happy about the engagement.



Loose Cannon, is upset by all this, and points out that it wasn't always so, Edward VIII was forced to abdicate when he chose to marry the divorcee Wallis Simpson. Unfortunatly, I can't share LC's hurt. The very reason their is such a thing as the Church of England in the first place is because Henry VIII wanted to flout Catholic moral and sacramental teaching by granting himself an annulment he had no grounds for and marry Anne Bolyn while Queen Catherine was still alive, you can hardly expect such an institution to maintain high standards, especially in opposition to the monarchy.



Rev. Fr. J.P. Parsons, one of the men most responsible for my becoming Catholic, was an ex Anglican. He told me on more than one occassion, that the key to understanding the CofE is that it is not a teaching church but a reflecting church, it reflects what most people in England think. So, when most of the English people opposed divorce, the CofE did too, now the moral climate of England has changed, the CofE has changed with it.



Needless to say, this is the exact opposite of what Christ intended for His Church. He gave the church prophets and apostles to lead the people, not to be lead by them.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Memento, Homo

Two days ago was Ash Wednessday, the beggining of the Western Lent. Attending the Ash Wednessday liturgy is not exactly a fun experience, but it is a beautiful one, and our parish choir, as always, was superb. The liturgy calls upon us to reflect up two important, and interconected, aspects of our humanity: our sinfullness and our mortality. "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris." says the priest as he imposes ashes on our forhead- "Remember man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return."



The prayers of the liturgy are a touching, plaintive and repeated cry of a sinful people who know that we stand before the majesty of a perfectly Holy God whom we have offended and yet is whose mercy we complelty trust.



Inter vestibulum et altare plorabunt sacerdotes ministri Domini, et dicent: Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo: et ne claudas ora canentium te, Domine



Between the porch and the altar, the priests, the Lord's ministers, shall weep and say: Spare, O lord, spare your people, and close not the mouths of them that sing to you, O Lord.

Bishop's Hijinx

I found this and this on The Seattle Catholic. We really need to pray for the Bishops of the world.

All Mans Are Equal?*

The incomparable C. S. Lewis is well known (among other things) for his excellent "Screwtape Letters". The fame of these letter is entirely deserved. Much less well known, however, is "Screwtape Proposes a Toast". This is, in my view, a great pity. Much good would be done if the message of this piece were more widely understood.



Basically, Lewis has Screwtape lecture a group of demons on the great value to Hell of the perversion of the concepts of "Democracy" and "Equality". The point, according to Screwtape, is to keep these two concepts fuzzy in peoples minds and to try and take the claim "all men are equal" out of it's original, political context and try to turn in into the idea that all men are, or ought to be, equal in talents, abilities, virtues and other ways in which it is quite obvious that we are not and can not be equal. In Screwtape's view, much could be done by this to undermine humanity.



I say all this in reflection on a incident in last night's episode of Ten's new "Reality Show" "The X Factor" (I realize it does nothing for my credibility that I profess to hate "Reality TV" but blog on two such shows in as many days). Anyway, a woman came (voluntarily) before three expert judges and sang. They, politely but firmly, told her that she had no talent.



What intrigued me was her comments afterwards, she insisted that she had talent, she said that the judges thought they had power just because they had influential positions in the music industry and they thought they new who did and didn't have musical talent, but they were wrong. And then came the point, the reason these industry bigwigs don't have power and can't judge who does and doesn't have talent "All men are equal, the Queen, industry types, we are all equal."



This, I submit, is a perfect example of the attitude Screwtape was encouraging is fellow demons to promote. Note the confusion. I will, of course, happily concede that there are important, nay vital, political, moral and theological senses in which all men are equal, but so what? How does the fact that we are all equally important as immortal souls affect the question of whether or not the "X Factor" judges can adequately judge a persons talent? Or did she mean it in some other sense? Did she mean that all humanity is equal in ability to judge musical talent? Does this include the tone deaf? Does it include the deaf?



Ultimately, I don't think the woman had the faintest clue what she meant. She had volutaraly submitted her talents before a panel of experts and those experts has been unanimous in giving her the thumbs down, she wanted to come back at them and needed to say something plausible. Perhaps I am judging her too harshly, but she is an example of a genuinely troubling phenomenon. People mouth slogans like "we are all equal" without giving any thought to gaining a clear idea of what they actually mean, this is not a healthy thing for political and philosophical discourse.







* This is not a typo but an reference to Orwell's "Newspeak"

The Inclusive Bible

I should comment on this but words just fail me. A friend of mine suggested (in jest, I hasten to add) that inclusivness dosn't go far enough. In his view, we need a "Nice Bible" where, for example, God confuses the tounges at Babel not as a punishment but in order to promote multi-culturalism.

Fuzzy Thinking In Clevland

Patrick Madrid has this post on a statement released by the Clevland Diocese Social Action Committee. I won't comment, I think Madrid says all that needs to be said.

Whose Resteraunt Will Rule This Time?

I generally avoid "Reality TV" like the plague, but last year I couldn't help getting into "My Resteraunt Rules", the second season of which began last week. The basic concept; five teams of two from five different cities were given funding to open and run their own reasteraunts.



There being no team from my home city of Canberra, last time I barracked for the team from Perth, I used to live in Perth and the young couple seemed really nice and had a good idea for a Resteraunt (I must eat there one day). This time however, I don't think I like team Perth. At the bank (where each team tries to convice a panel of judges to give them more money) they came across as winney and having no clear idea of what kind of resteraunt they were going to open.



I'm tentavily backing team Brisbane at this point. I'm shallow enough to admit that part of the reason is that the woman in said team is really beautiful, but I also think they've made a smart move going for a resteraunt with live music. The aforementioned woman has a great voice. If, as she says she plans to, some of the live music is provided by her, it will be great.

George Barna and Human Irrationality

I've heard quite a bit about George Barna recently. I've heard his reseach quoted in various forums and he seems to be reasonably highly thought of. I looked up his web-site and found a study which, if at all accurate, would give strong credence to the beliefe that humans are basically irrational.



Take this, Barna defines a "Born-Again Christian" (BAC) as someone who says that they have made a personal committment to Jesus Christ which is still important to them and who says that they expect to go to heaven when they die because they repented their sins and trusted in Jesus as their Saviour. He claims that there are between 80 and 85 million such folks in the USA. Now my first comment has to be that, from a biblical and patristic viewpoint, this is a totally unacceptable definition, however, we'll let that slide for the time being. The study further says that the number of BACs in the USA is between 80 and 85 million.



Now according to Mr. Barna:



* 98% of BACs say that their faith is very important to them (this might sound high, but have a read of the definition of BAC and ask how could the remaining 2%- 1.6 million Americans- possibly fit that definition and then say their faith is not very important to them)



* 38% of BACs say that a person can earn heaven by their own moral efforts (so they think they are going to heaven because they repented and recieved Christ as Lord but other people can get there some other way.)



* My personal favourite; 32% say they believe in moral absolutes. So the remaining 68% of BACs- rougly 55 million Americans- say that they are going to heaven because they've repented of their sins and accept Christ as Saviour but also deny the existence of moral absolutes. Can someone please explain to me what these people are thinking?



All in all, the reading of Barna's reasearch left me scratching my head at how people can believe such obviously contradictory things, and this from Christians. It left me feeling profoundly depressed about humanity's capacity for reason.