I Keep Bad Company

I am "of a certain age" and I live in the ivory tower of academia so am a bit naive about the Blogosphere.  Boy there are some nasty people out there.  I guess I spend too much time in Church and not enough with the local neo-Nazi groups.   I have posted a number of entries over the past year on anti-Catholicism in the United States.  I had always seen this as an aberration but now I am learning not to take it personally.  It is not Catholics that some people hate—it is just about everyone. There is a cesspool of hatred out there.  I have been a little taken aback by just how nasty people can be on comments to blogs or news articles.  Here are some examples.  

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates pledged a further $750 million to the troubled global AIDS fund on Thursday and urged governments to continue their support to save lives.

"These are tough economic times, but that is no excuse for cutting aid to the world's poorest," he said in Davos at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

So what response does this generosity generate:

Yet another tax deduction that I will ending paying. My plan, who ever you are, Buffet, Gates, Winfrey, etc., only American charities, with monies spent in America, are tax deductible. Americans are the ones that built your empires, give to those, not some third world country that hates us anyway.

Why not donate the money for cancer research you liberal fool instead of something that effects mostly perverts? All of my friends and relatives who died of cancer spit upon you from their graves.

I'm glad the overlords of this "charity" have another $750,000.00 to play with.

aids cost in America? Only the rich can afford. Aids cost in 3rd world countries? basically free. American's foots the bill. Hey Bill, give the money to charities or hospitals that use it in America.

What did Bill Gates do for America lately. Its like people adopting from China, as a status trend. As if Americans are #$%$ and don't deserve charity!!!!!!!!!!!

Barney Frank thanks you

Bill should be funding tubal ligation's, vasectomies, contraception, and abortion - not pills to keep AIDS sufferers

AIDS patients have to bear the responsibility for their own diseases as it is their behavior that led to them getting sick in the first place.

“The individual suffering from AIDS certainly is a victim — frequently a victim of his own lifestyle

What a waste of cash. Let them croak.

What's next? Is he going to be bridesmaid at Barney Frank's wedding?

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And then they can't Joe Paterno rest in peace.  Granted the man didn't do all that he could to stop kids from being abused, but he's dead.  You would think that they could at least let him pass without condemnation but even those who criticize the hatemongers have to get ugly

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP)—Crediting him with building not just better athletes but better men, some 12,000 people—including Penn State students, fans and football stars—paid tribute to Joe Paterno in a campus memorial service Thursday that exposed a strong undercurrent of anger over his firing.

In a 2 1/2 -hour gathering that capped three days of mourning on campus, Nike chairman and CEO Phil Knight brought the near-capacity crowd at the basketball arena to its feet when he defended the coach’s handling of child-sex allegations leveled against a former assistant. Paterno was fired two months ago by the Penn State trustees.

granny pa should have jerry tell the little pas how great joe pa was at asleepover

poor joe, he's going to miss all those big hot beefy boy's. i know i would :)

Paterno's eternity? A daily insertion of a pineapple up the A$$. Bend over Papa Joe, here's your reward

Joke Pa's coffin looked great with those NIKE' swooshs on each side.....free coffin Joke Pa? Scumbag.

To all you haters ....I will pray for you, pray that you get cancer and DIE !!!

I should go take a @#$% on your mother's face for ever giving birth to such a pathetic excuse for a human being. Get off you pedestal my friend.

so,,,it looks as though all you pedophiles,,and supporters,, may just want to move to Happy Valley(if you're not already there).. you'll have an army of people who will stand behind you,,(literally),,and you can do your child rape thing for a looooong time and no one will say shizz about it!! Maybe you can even get you a job at PSU,,it's the place alot of people like work,,some of have plenty of power,(pull),,and they've been there long enough to call the shots on what goes down around campus.
Myself,,I think I'll stay as far away from that place as I can..I'll bypass waaaaay around Pennsylvania,,,I don't want any of you sicko butt rapers getting near my kids,,,

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And then what are the bloggers writing about Mitt Romney?  I'm not a Romney fan but criticize him for substantial issues not his religion.  Catholics who engage in attacks on a candidates' religion need to look at our history a bit closer.  In our day, of course, the crazies wore sheets and hoods but it is the same ugly bias, just directed towards someone else.

VOTE Anyman but Morman.......Mitt Romney - Bishop of the Satanic Cult of Latter Day Saints. America, you will put Satan's brother in the White House.

Mormons despise the Cross, DO NOT believe in the Holy Trinity, and interpret Armageddon as the destruction of all Gentiles (You!) and Jews and... More

DEPORT ALL ILLEAGALS. Enforce the law, we don't need them, or want them.

Admin Link: 658

Romney can donate all he wants to his cult and hides as much money in the tax loopholes as he wants. But this also tells that Romney is clearly not interested in contributing to the US but only his Mormon brothers. He is not fit for presidency.
Mitt was a used car salesman in his former life. No problem giving $$ to his church, but LDS ...? It's nothing more than a very wealthy cult. Lastly, don't forget, he makes millions every year and is in the 15% bracket!! Why was I paying more than 30% when I was earning $75K/yr.?!!

The United States is a Nation founded on the Christian belief. No group, including the mormons have a right to change that. If they don't like what is going on over here, do like Jim Jones and buy land somewhere else and do what ya'll do.

OK , So Is Mitt a Christian?

The Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of 

Later Day Saints in Salt Lake City

Is Mitt Romney a Christian?  This question seems to capture the attention of a lot of people right now.  First, let me say that as a Catholic who remembers John Kennedy’s presidential campaign when his Catholic faith was an issue, I support the United State’s Constitution that provides there shall be no religious test for office.  I am interested in a person’s values—very interested—but not their formal religious affiliation.  But that isn’t the point I want to deal with in today’s posting.  I want to look at the question of whether the Mormon faith is a genuine Christian denomination or not.  
     First of all the problem is the word “Christian.”  We use it in very ambiguous ways.  “She is such a Christian” generally means “She is such a good person.”  It particularly refers to people who are kind and generous, as if one had to be a disciple of Jesus to be kind and generous.  I wish all of Jesus’ disciples measured up to this standard.  I know more than a few, and even some who wear those funny black and white “dog collars” around their necks, that would fail the “Christian” litmus test if Christian genuinely meant nice and kind.  In fact, sometimes the more religious a person is the less Christian he or she seems to be.  As one old priest from Poland who is a friend of mine confided to me, his frequent prayer is “From the daily communicant, libera nos, Domine!”    
      A second sense in which one can use the word “Christian”—and this one with some legitimacy—is a person who embraces the ethical teachings of Jesus as outlined in the Gospels.  One may accept Jesus as a great moral teacher without espousing his Divinity or even the uniqueness of the Revelation he imparts to humankind in his teachings as the New Testament records them.  By this standard, Thomas Jefferson and many of our Founding Fathers (and I suppose Mothers) would qualify as Christian as would Quakers, most Unitarians, and many good souls who have no formal religious affiliation with a particular denomination that claims to be “Christian.”  Few of our the founders of our nation were Christians in the stricter use of the term.  Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, was one of the few leaders of the new nation who actually was a practicing Christian. 
     A third sense of the word “Christian” would be a person who does have formal membership in a religious group that claims for itself to be a “Christian” Church or denomination.  Now claiming to be Christian doesn’t make a person or collective group of people Christian anymore than claiming that bag you’re selling on a street corner for 25 dollars is a genuine Versace makes that knockoff a genuine Versace.  But there is a social convention by which we generally don’t call each other out in public about such claims.  Nevertheless, while we may be polite and choose not to challenge the authentic Christian beliefs of one another, that doesn’t mean that we accept the authenticity of Christian faith in each other.   A particular point is the issue of valid baptism.  Some groups that claim to be Christian, groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, baptize “in the name of Jesus” as opposed to baptizing “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  The Catholic Church insists that the Trinitarian formula is necessary for valid baptism according to Matthew 28:19.  (There are scripture passages which would seem to validate baptism in the “Name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 2:38; 10:48;19:5, but the Catholic Church and most other Christian denominations reject this formula as insufficient based on historical usage and the centrality of the Doctrine of the Trinity to Christian Orthodoxy.)   While we might say that a particular Jehovah’s Witness is “such a fine Christian” in the sense that he or she is a very nice person, or we might even see how their reading the Gospels has endowed them with a set of good Christian values, we would not consider Jehovah Witnesses to be Christian in the sense of belonging to a community of baptized disciples. 
     A fourth sense of the word “Christian,” very close to the last mentioned definition but still different from it, is public affiliation to one of the Churches or religious communities that stands by Christian Faith and Doctrine  as taught by the Apostles and historically defined by the first seven Councils of an undivided Christian Church.  This faith is generally seen as that proclaimed in the three historic creeds: the Apostle’s Creed, the Creed of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople I, and the Athanasian Creed or Quicumque Vult.  A Christian in this sense accepts the doctrine that there is one God in three Divine Persons, each Person possessing the fullness of the Divine Nature yet being not three Divine Beings but only One.  Such a person, to be a Christian also must accept that Jesus Christ is truly God as is the Father (and the Holy Spirit) and is truly human as are we.  In the one Person of Jesus Christ there are two natures, one Divine and one Human, the natures are joined but not mixed and while each nature is and remains distinct, what can be attributed to each nature can also be said of the other.  All this sounds very complicated but that is because we always try to explain that which transcends our experience and thus is inexplicable.  Sometimes I think we should simply let Mystery be Mystery and not try to unpack Grace.  
      How do Mormons fit into this scheme?  Mormons use the Trinitarian formula for baptism (and until I had done research for this posting, I had thought they baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus), but most “mainline” Christian theologians and denominations—Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist—have looked at Mormon theology and decided that while Mormons talk about the Trinity they have a very different understanding of the Divine Nature, that is of “God,” than historic Christianity.  In other words, while they use the same words (God, Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) they mean something quite different by those words.  That would mean not only that their faith is substantially different from Christian faith but that their baptism, while using the same words and outward signs (immersion in water), means something very different than as understood by historic Christianity.  For this reason the Catholic Church as well as most other Christian denominations require that Mormons be baptized when joining the Church.  A Presbyterian or a Lutheran, for example, would be “received” into the Catholic Church without repeating baptism.  Baptism in the Catholic theology is an unrepeatable act.  If validly baptized once, you are never baptized again.  But a Mormon becoming a Catholic would have to be baptized as his Mormon “baptism” would be regarded as invalid as the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” in which he or she had been baptized as a Mormon is not the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” of our historic Christian faith which is shared by the Orthodox Churches of the East and the majority of Anglican and Protestant Churches (or ecclesial communities) of the West.   Also, because the Mormon understanding of the Divine Nature is, or at least appears to us to be, so radically different than that espoused by historic orthodox Christianity, their understanding of Jesus Christ—in whom the Divine and Human natures are united (though not mixed)—is radically different from that proclaimed historically by the Christian faith.  Thus Catholics would not recognize Mormons doctrinally as Christians. 
      So it all seems to boil down to Are Mormons Christians?  Yes, in the sense that as many (indeed most) Mormons are really fine people many (indeed most) Mormons  are Christians in that broad colloquial sense.  Yes, also, in the sense that most Mormons lead lives shaped by the moral teachings of Jesus.  In this they are as Christian as Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin or most of our Founding Fathers who thought Jesus was this really wise and ethical teacher.  Actually even more so for while they understand the Divinity of Christ, and indeed divinity, differently than historic Christianity, Mormons do believe that in their sense of being Divine, Jesus fit the bill.  They do not think of him merely as some enlightened human teacher.  But No, from the Catholic understanding of Christian Faith and Sacraments, Mormons are not Christians in the sense of professing authentic Christian doctrine and no they are not Christian in the sense of being in the community of the baptized.  Frankly, when it comes to being President of the United States, I won’t hold anyone to a test of religious beliefs, but the only sense in which I would prefer a Christian over a non-Christian is that second sense—a man or woman whose life and values are shaped by the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel.  When it comes to Christians in public life, I am much more interested in orthopraxis than orthodoxis.   And in that sense, Mitt is the only fellow (or fellowette) currently  in the Republican field that I would vote for.   

Is Vatican II in Danger? VII The Sacred and the Profane of the Liturgy

One of the questions we need to look at as we examine the new translation of the liturgy in the light of the question “Is Vatican II in Danger?” regards the relationship of the Worship of the Church to its mission in society.  Steven Millies, a professor of political science at the University of South Carolina at Aiken wrote an article for America magazine this February past raising a concern about the new translation and its impact on the Church’s mission of calling society to Justice.  Now the first problem, of course, is that not all agree that the Church has such a mission, but it is clear from the Gospels, from the Decrees of the Second Vatican Council, and from the Catechism of the Catholic Church that working for a just society is a constitutive element of the Church’s mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God.  Striving for social justice is not a characteristic of Christian life that one can accept or reject.  Some months back Glen Beck warned his listeners “If your Church is preaching the Social Gospel—get out of your Church.”  Well, Mr. Beck is a Mormon and perhaps (and I only say perhaps as I am unfamiliar with Mormon theology) the Book of Mormon doesn’t believe in Good News for the Poor, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ does.  Stephen Colbert, in his testimony before Congress, testified that his passion to defend the rights of immigrants and migrant workers in particular, came from his conviction “that whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me.”  That is in the Gospel of Jesus and, Mr. Colbert, a devout Catholic, takes those words to heart.  Mormons are good people; Mr. Colbert is a good Christian. 

Dr. Millies in his article speaks of the late Monsignor George Higgins, the famous “labor priest,” who headed up the social action department of the Bishop’s conference for decades and then he goes on to cite Monsignor Higgins’ mentor, Monsignor Reynold Hillenbrand.  “The Mass helps us learn our oneness at the altar and to bring that oneness to the other relations of life.” 

As a historian, I have often wonder what brought about the tremendous shift in the American Catholic population from the social conservativism of the first six decades of the twentieth century where it drew back from the Civil Rights movement, open housing, the peace movement etc. to its current commitment to human dignity, rights for immigrants, and social justice?  The liturgy modeled for us the Kingdom of God.  We heard the prophets being read to us in the liturgy.  We prayed together, confessing to one another in the penitential rite our own sinfulness.  At the most sacred moment of the mass, as Christ himself lies on the corporal and in the chalice, we turned to one another and offered one another his peace.  We drank from one cup.  The horizontal dimension of the liturgy formed the cross-bar with the vertical and we understood that one cannot love the God whom we cannot see if we do not love the neighbor whom we can. 

Now those various rites—the prayers of humble confession, the sign of peace, the cup of consecration all remain, but the language surrounding them will be a very elevated language—not the language in which we speak to one another but a “God language, ” an artificial and somewhat stilted language that actually puts God a few steps further from us and leaves more room in our subconscious to divide the world between the Sacred and the secular as if all we must do is render unto God some segment of our lives for there is a firewall between heaven and earth.  Artificial it may be, and terribly dangerous it probably isn’t—but it does betray a mindset of restoring the ancient hierarchies that led to that blasphemous hymn

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

There is a subtle shift in these translations that removes God a few steps from the every day and permits us more room to play unsupervised by heaven in the economic and social playground of our modern world.