December 2007 Archives

An atheist writer is fed up with eco-correct clergymen and the New Atheists, who agree on one thing: that man is just another animal among the animals. I wonder whether he's seen Pope Benedict's words from the World Peace Day address:

7. The family needs a home, a fit environment in which to develop its proper relationships. For the human family, this home is the earth, the environment that God the Creator has given us to inhabit with creativity and responsibility. We need to care for the environment: it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion. Human beings, obviously, are of supreme worth vis-à-vis creation as a whole. Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man. Rather, it means not selfishly considering nature to be at the complete disposal of our own interests, for future generations also have the right to reap its benefits and to exhibit towards nature the same responsible freedom that we claim for ourselves.

(emphasis added)

Now that's a statement: not only is man in first place among the critters, he's of "supreme worth vis-a-vis creation as a whole."

Lift up, O gates, your lintels; reach up, you ancient portals, that the king of glory may come in!
- Offertory antiphon, Christmas Vigil Mass

May you and yours find the peace and joy the infant Jesus brings!

For those who didn't hear the concert aired on EWTN Monday night from Washington, here's a link to other music by the same composer, the Russian Orthodox bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev).

I only heard about half of his Christmas Oratorio, but so far I like his liturgical music better. The latter is really quite beautiful, but the oratorio's long recitatives of Scripture texts, delivered ascetically stentorian and recto tono, didn't seem fitting in the work of a non-liturgical nature, intended for concert performance.

The premiere of a lengthy new work necessarily carries with it a certain amount of tension: when the composer is a bishop and the concert is hosted by another Church, add some more; this time, in a foreign capital, at a time of heightened international stress, this performance by the Orchestra and Chorus of the Russian Defense Ministry, of all things, came off as a joyless reminder of the Cold War. It's too bad: Bp. Hilarion deserves better.

Bill Donohue thinks that Mike Huckabee's Christmas greeting ad contains a subliminal message.

Catholic League president Bill Donahue said Huckabee went beyond wishing people a joyous holiday. Donahue said he was especially disturbed by the cross-like image created by a white bookcase in the background of the ad, saying he believed it was a subliminal message.

"What he's trying to say to the evangelicals in western Iowa (is): I'm the real thing," Donahue said Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends. "You know what, sell yourself on your issues, not on what your religion is."

Huckabee said the bookshelf is just a bookshelf and shrugged off the controversy: "I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead.'"

This is sad: a formerly constructive Catholic organization is now headed by a man who treats even the shape of a cross as something insidious. Heaven only knows what Donohue thought when he heard Huckabee actually mention the name of Christ!

This sort of nonsense makes me sorry I ever supported the League. Now it seems to fear evangelicals rather than seek common cause with them.

Also, notice the AP's spin:

Huckabee is courting evangelical voters and other religious conservatives in his bid to win the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3. In Texas for a fundraiser, he said the ad was a harmless holiday greeting even though it excludes other religions.

"If we are so politically correct in this country that a person can't say enough of the nonsense with the political attack ads could we pause for a few days and say Merry Christmas to each other then we're really, really in trouble as a country," Huckabee said.

Apparently for the AP, merely expressing one's own religion in public without mentioning others is considered as offensive -- as "excluding".

That's another sign of the misguided thinking that drives religion out of common culture and into the private sphere. It must not stand.

Apparently it's harder to find babies to be Jesus in live nativity scenes than it is to find... donkeys. But the babies behave better as long as their shifts aren't too long.

Courtesy of FOXNews and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an overview of the top 21 misconceptions about Mormonism. I like how they use the same 3 answers for 3 of the questions.

I didn't know they believe God the Father has a separate immortal body. Makes the Trinity pretty problematic for them I'm sure...

At the request of several Catholic and pro-life organizations, I went to see The Golden Compass last night. Setting aside the moral objections, the $200-billion-dollar film commits the unforgivable sin among fans of the fantasy genre: It's boring.

You can read my full review here.

Fr. Neuhaus deftly summarizes the significance of candidate Willard ("Mitt") Romney's religion:

Few Catholics believe that a candidate is disqualified by being a Mormon. The reason is obvious: Catholics are accustomed to having heretics in the White House.

A sweet video of two chant singers performing the lamentation Rorate Caeli.

Here's an audio sample from the "Stepping Stone Chant Project", a recording session I attended in Vermont this October: Kyrie fons bonitatis. (Sorry the file's in WMA format, but I didn't want to lose any quality by putting the file through a conversion procedure.)