I came across this letter on good Father Zuhlsdorf's blog, What Does The Prayer Really Say?. It is a joint address from the two Kansas City bishops to Catholics in their dioceses. The letter was orignally in the Catholic Key, though it has been reformatted slightly for this blog.

In the style of Fr. Z, the letter is reprinted below with my emphases and comments:

KC Bishops on Moral Responsibility, Voting

"Could a Catholic in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports legalized abortion when there is a choice of another candidate who does not support abortion or any other intrinsically evil policy?"

Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann and Kansas City - St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn address that question and more in their Joint Pastoral dedicated on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and released today:

Our Moral Responsibility as Catholic Citizens
Joint Pastoral Letter - September 8, 2008
Most Reverend Joseph F. Naumann, Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas
Most Reverend Robert W. Finn, Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph

Dear Friends in Christ,

With the approaching general election this November, we believe this to be an important moment for us to address together the responsibility of Catholics to be well informed and well formed voters.

Except for the election of our next President, the people of Northwestern Missouri and Northeastern Kansas will be choosing different candidates for different offices in our two dioceses. Yet the fundamental moral principles that should guide our choices as Catholic voters are the same.

For generations it has been the determination of Catholic Bishops not to endorse political candidates or parties. This approach was initiated by Archbishop John Carroll - the very first Catholic Bishop serving in the United States. It was long before there was an Internal Revenue Service Code, and had nothing to do with a desire to preserve tax-exempt status. Rather the Church in the United States realized early on that it must not tether the credibility of the Church to the uncertain future actions or statements of a particular politician or party. (It is easy to think of the "Catholic Vote" being solidly Republican-- but historically, Catholics vote Democrat.) This understanding of the Church's proper role in society was affirmed in the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word: "The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified with any political community nor bound by its ties to any political system. It is at once the sign and the safeguard of the transcendental dimension of the human person."(Gaudium et Spes n.76)

A Right to Speak Out on Issues

At the same time, it is important to note that the Catholic Church in the United States has always cherished its right to speak to the moral issues confronting our nation. The Church has understood its responsibility in a democratic society to do its best to form properly the consciences of her members. In continuity with the long history of the efforts of American Bishops to assist Catholics with the proper formation of their consciences (We're not born with a conscience, we develop it over time-- and people can have well formed and poorly formed consciences), the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) this past November issued a statement: Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. In that document our brother bishops took care to note: "This statement is intended to reflect and complement, not substitute for, the ongoing teachings of bishops in our own dioceses and states."

It is in this context that we offer the following reflections to assist the Catholic people of Northwestern Missouri and Northeastern Kansas in forming their consciences in preparation for casting their votes this November.

Many Issues: Prudential Judgments

Every Catholic should be concerned about a wide range of issues. We believe in a consistent ethic that evaluates every issue through the prism of its impact on the life and dignity of the human person. Catholics should care about public policies that:
a) promote a just and lasting peace in the world,
b) protect our nation from terrorism and other security threats,
c) welcome and uphold the rights of immigrants,
d) enable health care to be accessible and affordable,
e) manifest a special concern for the poor by attending to their immediate needs and assisting them to gain economic independence,
f) protect the rights of parents to be the primary educators of their children,
g) create business and employment opportunities making it possible for individuals to be able to provide for their own material needs and the needs of their families,
h) reform the criminal justice system by providing better for the needs of the victims of crimes, protecting the innocent, administering justice fairly, striving to rehabilitate inmates, and eliminating the death penalty,
i) foster a proper stewardship of the earth that God has entrusted to our care.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

While the above issues, as well as many others, have important moral dimensions, Catholics may and do disagree about the most effective public policies for responding to them. (How true!) How these issues are best addressed and what particular candidates are best equipped to address them requires prudential judgments - defined as circumstances in which people can ethically reach different conclusions. Catholics have an obligation to study, reflect and pray over the relative merits of the different policy approaches proposed by candidates. Catholics have a special responsibility to be well informed regarding the guidance given by the Church pertaining to the moral dimensions of these matters. In the end, Catholics in good conscience can disagree in their judgments about many aspects of the best policies and the most effective candidates.

The Priority of Rejecting Intrinsic Evil

There are, however, some issues that always involve doing evil, such as legalized abortion, the promotion of same-sex unions and 'marriages,' repression of religious liberty, as well as public policies permitting euthanasia, racial discrimination or destructive human embryonic stem cell research. A properly formed conscience must give such issues priority even over other matters with important moral dimensions. To vote for a candidate who supports these intrinsic evils because he or she supports these evils is to participate in a grave moral evil. It can never be justified.

Even if we understand the moral dimensions of the full array of social issues and have correctly prioritized those involving intrinsic evils, we still must make prudential judgments in the selection of candidates. In an ideal situation, we may have a choice between two candidates who both oppose public policies that involve intrinsic evils. In such a case, we need to study their approach on all the other issues that involve the promotion of the dignity of the human person and prayerfully choose the best individual.

Limiting Grave Evil

In another circumstance, we may be confronted with a voting choice between two candidates who support abortion, though one may favor some limitations on it, or he or she may oppose public funding for abortion. In such cases, the appropriate judgment would be to select the candidate whose policies regarding this grave evil will do less harm. We have a responsibility to limit evil if it is not possible at the moment to eradicate it completely.

The same principle would be compelling to a conscientious voter who was confronted with two candidates who both supported same-sex unions, but one opposed abortion and destructive embryonic research while the other was permissive in these regards. The voter, who himself or herself opposed these policies, would have insufficient moral justification voting for the more permissive candidate. (Interesting! While all Americans may have a duty to vote, withholding their vote might also fulfill that duty. After all, voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.) However, he or she might justify resorting to a write-in vote or abstaining from voting at all in this case, because of a conscientious objection.

In 2004 a group of United States Bishops, acting on behalf of the USCCB and requesting counsel about the responsibilities of Catholic politicians and voters, received a memo from the office of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, which stated: "A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

Could a Catholic in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports legalized abortion when there is a choice of another candidate who does not support abortion or any other intrinsically evil policy? Could a voter's preference for the candidate's positions on the pursuit of peace, economic policies benefiting the poor, support for universal health care, a more just immigration policy, etc. overcome a candidate's support for legalized abortion? In such a case, the Catholic voter must ask and answer the question: What could possibly be a proportionate reason for the more than 45 million children (!!!) killed by abortion in the past 35 years? Personally, we cannot conceive of such a proportionate reason. (Really. Is there a more important issue? Consider that the Iraq war has killed 4,155 Americans in 5.5 years. In the same amount of time, an average of 7,071,428 Americans have been killed by doctors. Primum no nocere, indeed.)

Time for Catholics to Exercise Moral Leadership

The number of Catholics and the percentage of Catholics in the United States have never been greater. There has never been a moment in our nation's history when more Catholics served in elective office, presided in our courts or held other positions of power and authority. It would be wrong for us to use our numbers and influence to try to compel others to accept our religious and theological beliefs. However, it would be equally wrong for us to fail to be engaged in the greatest human rights struggle of our time, namely the need to protect the right to life of the weakest and most vulnerable.

We need committed Catholics in both major political parties to insist upon respect for the values they share with so many other people of faith and good will regarding the protection of the sanctity of human life, the upholding of the institution of marriage between a man and a woman as the foundation of family life, as well as the protection of religious liberty and conscience rights (This is a new battleground to me. Some medical students are becoming increasingly upset that they are required to study abortion in med school, but are compelled as part of their curriculum.). It is particularly disturbing to witness the spectacle of Catholics in public life vocally upset with the Church for teaching what it has always taught on these moral issues for 2,000 years, but silent in objecting to the embrace, by either political party, of the cultural trends of the past few decades that are totally inconsistent with our nation's history of defending the weakest and most vulnerable.

Thank you for taking time to consider these reflections on applying the moral principles that must guide our choices as voters. We are called to be faithful Catholics and loyal Americans. In fact, we can only be good citizens if we allow ourselves to be informed by the unchanging moral principles of our Catholic faith.

I think this is a well-written statement to Catholics. America needs more bishops who act as good shepherds for their flock!

Truth is stranger than fiction.

From the New York Post:

MAN SHOT BY 'CRAIGSLIST' GUN TAKES AIM AT SITE
By JENNIFER FERMINO and PHILIP MESSING
Posted: 4:28 am
September 5, 2008

A Manhattan boutique owner is suing craigslist.com for $10 million, claiming he was shot with a gun purchased on the popular Web site.

Calvin Gibson, 50, who was shot six times by his schizophrenic neighbor in the East Village on July 24, believes the classified site is partially responsible.

"But for defendant's negligence in failing to supervise and monitor the content of the ads placed on its Internet service, [the shooter] could never have legally obtained the handgun," according to the lawsuit filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court.

The alleged gunman, Jesus Ortiz, who is being held without bail, "has a psychiatric history and a history of violent crime," Gibson claims in the suit, and could never have qualified for a gun permit.

"New York has an extremely stringent gun law," the suit says.

He claims Ortiz told the cops that he bought the gun on craigslist, and that the suspect's mother told others the same story.

Gibson was shot after he stopped at a deli on East Seventh Street near Avenue D. A teen, Mohammed Islam, 18, was also wounded in the random attack.

NYPD officials could not confirm the suit's claim. A craigslist spokesman could not be reached.

And Craigslist gets sued as a result! Somehow, that's justice.

But I'm down with this. It's about time we restarted the crusades.

The Ordinary Catholic Mass that most Catholics attend every Sunday is going to slightly change. And in my opinion, they are changes for the better. I'm going to get into that more in a later post, but first we need to review how we got where we are today.

Here's the deal (it's kind of complicated):
When the Roman emporer Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313, Christians began to begin to formalize their worship. Prior to this, Christian worship was an event in secret, held in houses and basements under fear of being discovered by the Romans (who would torture them, feed them to lions and sell tickets to the spectacle in the Collesium). American Catholic writes:

Stately ceremonies suitable in a huge church emerged. Processions, courtly movement in the sanctuary, metered chant (composed by St. Ambrose) and sung litanies that galvanized the voices of thousands, incense and bells, kissing sacred objects and the use of genuflections became a pattern to accompany the ancient structure of the Eucharist.

The celebrants wore clothes worthy of a Roman senator. Their robes eventually came to be called vestments, since they were retained long after fashions changed. The simple plates and cups of house worship became elaborate chalices and patens. This was an inevitable evolution due to social acceptance, organizing an empire-size Church and, indeed, ecclesial prosperity.

This era witnessed the rise of extraordinary bishops, known now as Church Fathers, such as Augustine and Chrysostom, whose homilies were rich in theology and pastoral in application.

In the year 590, Pope Gregory I ascended to the papacy. In these days, the Church was going through some growing pains and different forms of the Catholic Mass were circulating around the known world. Pope Gregory codified the liturgies, rearranged them and set the basic format into what scholars basically agree is the real beginning of what you'd recognize as a Roman Catholic Mass. Gregory's work was so important and so influential that was declared a saint by popular acclaim and is one of only three popes of the 266 popes to carry the honorific title "the great". (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pope St. Leo the Great, Pope St. Nicholas the Great are the three. What about Pope John Paul II? Some people call him "John Paul the Great", it's true. There's really no formal procedure for such a title, they have to arise from general use. At this point, there's not enough evidence that the title will catch on. I'd dispute that he earned such a title, but that's more than I really want to get into).

The "Gregorian Mass" still lives today, albeit further developed in history. St. Gregory is the patron of a group that a friend of mine is starting to bring and support the Traditional Latin Mass to Johnson County, Kansas. The group is called The Society of Pope St. Gregory the Great in his honor.

Through the long history of Catholicism, the Mass has endured some ups and downs. By the middle ages (what used to be called the "dark ages"), some problems began to pop up. Basically, people weren't catechized (taught about the Church) very well and started getting confused on what was really going on at Mass. Priests often had crummy country-seminary training and often weren't much better educated than the serfs to whom they were preaching.

These midieval laymen often witnessed the priest raise up the unleavened bread and saying "Hoc est enim corpus meum" ("This is my body") and confused it for the words "Hocus Pocus"-- thus coining the term. It also goes to say that many didn't understand the Mass as much more than a magic trick. Complicated subjects such as Transubstantiation were basically WAY over the head of the regular peasant. These were distant days for Catholics, much of whom who were very removed from their religion. Various Church Councils were called in this time to declare and affirm a number of things, there were five Lateran councils, some in France, some in Constantinople, around Italy-- there were a lot of councils held in a lot of places. These councils had a number of functions like addressing different heresies that people were making up at the time, dealing with the newly re-infamous Knights Templar, making sure that Catholic laity were actually receiving Holy Communion at least once a year, defining the functions (and later, split) of the Eastern and Western Churches, governing politics and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (seriously). Councils decided all kinds of stuff.

About the time of the Renaissance, the papacy was a moral mess. The eight renaissance popes were big benefactors of the newly-rediscovered fine arts, but were really shady characters. You can do your own research on the renaissance popes, but suffice it to say that they carried a reputation for serving themselves before serving God or man.

Then stuff began to change for the better. The biggest council (in terms of impact on the Mass) was the Nineteenth Council one, beginning in 1545. This Council of Trent took place over 18 years, lasted through 5 popes and became bascially the benchmark of Catholic thought for the next 500 years. It was called to address the heresy of Protestantism, to reaffirm the Catholic Mass and to reform the Church.

Trent was a huge deal and can't be overestimated. It was basically a house-cleaning council and truly formalized the Catholic Mass-- which would go substantially unchanged right up until Pope Paul VI would authorize a New Order of the Mass in 1970.

This New Order of the Mass (in Latin, Novus Ordo Missae) is also a big deal.

We all know about the 1960's. We know that was the decade that changed EVERYTHING. Music. Fashion. Technology. Architecture. Science. Drugs. Politics. Culture. Art. Education. The list goes on and on-- and includes Religion (not just Catholicism, mind you)

In the 1950's and building up to 1962, there was a lot of turmoil in the Chuch. The First Vatican Council in the 1868 began to define how a Catholic should address or embrace biblical literalism and how to combat the heresy of Modernism (a problem the Church has to deal with from time to time). But that council was drawn to a quick close when Italy fell into civil war (a problem Italy has to deal with from time to time) and the business of the Council was never finished. By the 1950's, some people would say that a lot of the bishops of the Church had succombed to the temptations of Modernism and were wandering from the lessons of the great Council of Trent.

At this time, Pope Pius XII died and (Oversimplificaton Alert!) the cardinals didn't know who should replace him. It was a heady time in the Church and there was a feeling that Catholicism would be tied irrevocably to the past or wander dangerously to the modern world. Some people saw John XXIII as a "compromise candidate", he was a nice and jovial old man, trusted and old. May I underscore that he was 77 years old-- and that everyone knew that? It is my belief that he was elected to simply "buy time" for the church to figure out what direction to go. He was to be a "placeholder pope".

Well, in 1962, Blessed Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council (commonly called "Vatican 2") as a "Pastoral Council" that was designed to make sure that the nearly-2000-year-old Church was still addressing the needs of a 1960's Catholic. All the bishops of the world were summoned to Rome and there was a nervous energy in the air. They sought out to "open the windows of the Church" and let some fresh air blow in.

I think that Blessed Pope John XXIII's council caught some people by surprise. A lot of people probably wondered if the Good Pope knew what he was getting into.

Then predicably, John XXIII's age caught him and he died before the his great Council could be completed.

I wonder what Vatican 2 would have looked like if he'd been able to see it to the end. But such thoughts are just predicting history, and predicting history is just making up the story the way you wished it happened.

By the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, it was clear that the bishops were going to go beyond the essential pastoral concerns of those latter-day Catholics. And by 1970, we'd have a whole new Mass. This New Order, the Mass of Pope Paul VI would be loosely based on that old Tridentine Mass (Mass of the Council of Trent) that had been the gold-standard for 500 years, based in the Gregorian Mass of the Sixth Century.

I'm not here to pass judgement on the Catholic Mass. I can appreciate both forms of the Roman Liturgy, the Ancient Mass and the Novus Ordo. But the differences are so striking and the change was so swift that Catholics of the 1960s describe it as if they just walked into the wrong church.

It was a time of HUGE upheaval for the Faith. Splinter groups would dig in their heels to resist change, others felt that the change wasn't finished went way farther than the Council and the Church ever intended to change the sacred liturgy of the Roman Catholic church. We saw (and see) people who refuse to acknowledge the authority of popes, who assert that every pope since then is an imposter pope, who say that Pope Paul VI was a grand switcheroo with a kidnapped and secretly imprisoned pontiff... Those were heady days to be a Roman Catholic.

In many ways, these are heady times to be a Roman Catholic, but that's a whole different post altogether.

Before I wrap up this post, I want to make a couple things clear: the Pauline Mass is a legitimate form of the Mass. Some people might tell you otherwise; those people are wrong. The Second Vatican Council was a pretty important event. It produced a number of documents that are to serve the Church in its care to the world. Some assert that the documents are poorly written and leave more questions than answers-- I can't speak authoritatively on that subject and will decline to do so. But the documents are real and you can buy them in bookstores and read them for yourself. Enjoy.

Some councils are more important than others. The First Council of Nicaea (325) was tremendously important, it defined what it meant to be a Christian. The Second Council of Lyons (1274) was a pretty big deal, bridging the Roman and Greek Churches and establishing the format for electing popes.

But pop quiz: what happened at the Council of Chalcedon (451)? How about the Council of Vienne (1311)? Yeah, I thought so.

You know what I feel about the Council of Trent (1545). And presumably, the Second Vatican Council will turn out as one of those councils that left an indeliable mark on Catholicism. But I fear that a little more than the bathwater went out through the Church's newly open windows.

Well anyway, there's some changes going on in the United States in the way that priests offer the Novus Ordo Missae. And in my opinion, they're changes for the better.

So here's your homework: read the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops new translation of the Mass at http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/missalformation/OrdoMissaeWhiteBook.pdf See if you can spot the changes.

We'll get to a little more specific review sometime. Hopefully sooner than later, but it's August and you'll get what you get.

It's August. You get what you get from the newspaper, television and blogosphere. I'm sorry if the posting has been a little weak, but not REALLY sorry.

This post doesn't have anything to do with Catholicism. But it's of interest to me because it's about the feminization of men. I think this is a bit on the decline of late-- men have been trying to reclaim macho (If you don't believe me guys, look at this picture and think about how you totally wished you looked like that), but the damage has been done.

From The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/03/gender.healthandwellbeing

Depressed, repressed, objectified: are men the new women They're less fertile, more weight-obsessed and 'non-essential to parenting'. No wonder men are confused about modern masculinity. Elizabeth Day The Observer, Sunday August 3 2008

If recent research is anything to go by, 21st century man is in a desperate muddle.

In June, men discovered that their libidos are in freefall, prompting a 40 per cent increase in males seeking counselling for impotence problems. Their existential angst worsened in July, when British men discovered that they have the most unequal paternity rights in Europe. According to Nicola Brewer, chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, fathers in the UK are seen as 'not essential for parenting'. The same month saw the publication of a medical study that proved the quality of men's sperm declines to such an extent after they hit 45 that the chances of a partner's miscarriage are doubled.

It's not only their internal biology; men are also succumbing to the traditionally female preoccupation of looking good on the outside, too. Sales of male beauty products have leapt 30 per cent over the past decade. Almost 20 per cent more men are having plastic surgery than ever before while, last year, researchers from Harvard discovered that a quarter of anorexia and bulimia sufferers is male. During the fashion shows, male models had their own equivalent of the size-zero debate. 'Male models look chicken-chested, hollow-cheeked and undernourished' noted the New York Times.

Every week, it seems as if there are new surveys and studies tripping over themselves to paint the grimmest possible picture of modern masculinity. They tell us that men are more neurotic and less fulfilled than ever before; that they are objectified rather than revered; that they are expected to be more in touch with their emotions and yet are criticised for it. Men appear to be confused about what they are and unsure about who they are meant to be. So with more of them feeling disenfranchised, disillusioned and disempowered, is it feasible to think of men as the new oppressed minority? Might men, in fact, be the new women? And, if so, who is to blame for making them feel marginalised?

In the UK, men account for 75 per cent of all suicides. They are twice as likely to die from the 10 most common cancers that affect both sexes and, typically, develop heart disease 10 years earlier than women. Although there is a national screening programme in place for cervical and breast cancer, there is no equivalent for men, in spite of prostate cancer claiming 6.7 per cent more deaths for men than cervical cancer in women.

While women still earn on average 12 per cent less than men and are severely under-represented in top-level corporate roles, men in full-time employment work an average of 41.9 hours a week, compared to women's 37.6 hours. According to the American men's-rights author Warren Farrell, there might be a glass ceiling for women, but there is also what he calls 'a glass cellar' for men. 'What I mean by that is men are both at the top of the economy scale and at the bottom. Of the 25 professions ranked the lowest [in the US], 24 of them are 85-100 per cent male. That's things like roofer, welder, garbage collector, sewer maintenance - jobs with very little security, little pay and few people want them.'

Farrell says that women generally prefer a more flexible work-life balance and that implies 40-hour weeks 'at most'. Often, mothers are able to work fewer hours only because they are financially supported by their male partners. This, he claims, is the real definition of power. 'I define power as "control over one's life". A balanced life is far superior to the male definition of power: earning money someone else spends while he dies sooner.'

It would be easy to dismiss these arguments as anti-feminist but there are some commentators who think this could be a fundamental misreading of the movement's original goal: equality for both sexes, rather than the dominance of one at the cost of the other. Rosie Boycott, who co-founded the feminist magazine Spare Rib in 1971, points out that their first editorial insisted liberation should be for men as well as women. 'It is as much of a trap for a man aged 18-65 to feel solely financially responsible for 2.2 children and his wife, to be entitled to two weeks' holiday a year and to work nine to five, as it is for a woman to be responsible for all the childcare and housework,' she says. 'Men don't feel comfortable admitting that they're taking time off work to take their daughter to the dentist. We need a bigger critical mass of people to make that happen.'

But much of this remains a resolutely middle-class problem. At the lowest end of the economic scale, women are still attempting to shrug off the yoke of oppression and inequality.

Meanwhile for many men, their loss of status in the home and the workplace is twinned with a loss of confidence in themselves. Neil Oliver, the television historian who has just published Amazing Tales for Making Men out of Boys, says that there is a conspicuous dearth of positive male role models. 'I grew up hearing tales of Ernest Shackleton and watching films like Zulu,' he says. 'The world in which I was a little boy was one of clearly defined roles for men and women and we don't have that any more, so men are struggling to readjust. Manly men have been hunted to near extinction in Britain and the concept of manliness has been outmoded. Yet the urge to be a man is a primal thing and still exists in boys today.'

In the classroom, too, boys are at risk of losing out on male role models. According to government figures for 2006, the ratio of newly qualified female to male teachers under the age of 25 was approaching seven to one. The introduction of coursework and modular exams is believed to play to traditionally female strengths - girls tend to be more methodical while boys tend to follow high-risk strategies such as cramming the night before an exam.

Some critics argue that this creeping 'feminisation' has led to girls outperforming boys on almost every level: they use more words, speak more fluently in longer sentences and with fewer mistakes. By the age of 11, some 76 per cent of boys have attained government-set literacy standards, compared to 85 per cent of girls. At GCSE level, 66.8 per cent of girls achieved A-C grades in 2007, compared to 59.7 per cent of boys (in real terms, this means they trail behind their female counterparts by nine years).

Do these statistics have any bearing on the everyday experiences of ordinary men? 'I don't know if I feel oppressed, but there's a sense in which women can talk about us with impunity,' says a 32-year-old male lawyer from London, who does not wish to give his name in case his female colleagues start pelting him with rotten tomatoes. 'I've been in the office on several occasions where sweeping generalisations have been made about the general crapness of men: "Oh, all men are useless, no wonder he couldn't get the job done in time" - that sort of thing. I don't take it all that seriously - at least, not yet - but I know that I wouldn't get away with saying the same things about women.'

For a long time, it wasn't particularly fashionable to stand up for men. Warren Farrell, the daddy of the so-called 'masculinist' movement, has been making his arguments since the late 1970s and frequently attracts outrage. His books -Why Men Earn More and his latest, Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? - seek to redress what he sees as an endemic sociocultural bias against his gender.

In almost all respects, he believes that men are now the weaker sex: 'The problem with feminism is that it saw man as the enemy. When only one sex wins, both sexes lose.'

On a superficial level, Farrell's insistence that men are scrabbling around in the dark searching for their lost masculinity like a mislaid dumbbell seems ill-conceived and borderline offensive. However, over the last few months, several books have been written reiterating Farrell's belief that men are disgruntled with their lot and must fight back against a Western culture that worships womanhood while demeaning masculinity. Apparently, men are stymied by biology as well - human genetics experts estimate that man will be extinct within 125,000 years owing to their declining sperm count and the mutation of the Y chromosome.

So - although women hold only 17 per cent of parliamentary positions across the globe, despite there being only 10 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and ignoring the fact that it is still illegal for a woman to drive a car in Saudi Arabia - it seems that, sometimes, it is harder to be a man.

Just ask Guy Garcia, author of the forthcoming The Decline of Men, an upbeat look at how the American male is 'tuning out, giving up and flipping off his future'. There is, says Garcia, 'a social predisposition to treat men as unworthy parents, betrayers and incorrigible philanderers'. Or there's Michael Gilbert, whose 2007 study, The Disposable Male, does pretty much what it says on the tin. 'Motherhood is immutable,' Gilbert writes. 'Paternity is the social construct. Amazingly, we have been doing everything we can to deconstruct it.'

Nor is it just men who have taken up the cudgel. This year saw the publication of Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care by Kathleen Parker, a pithy stateside newspaper columnist who prides herself on her Coulter-esque capacity to say the unsayable. 'I think men are confused because they are receiving conflicting and often confusing messages from women and culture,' she explains. 'We want them to be providers and protectors - except when we don't. We want them to count our contractions and share baby's midnight feedings, but then we want them out of the picture when we tire of them.'

Parker reserves much of her ire for 'the highly lucrative boy-bashing industry' that views sexual discrimination against men as a form of shared hilarity. So while you can buy T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan 'Boys Are Stupid - Throw Rocks At Them', to claim the same about women would be viewed as an incitement to violence. Discrimination against men increasingly seems socially acceptable. 'When Susan Pinker, the highly regarded psychologist and journalist published her recent book, The Sexual Paradox: Troubled Boys, Gifted Girls and the Real Difference Between the Sexes, she received an email from a colleague asking her to give a comment 'on the difference between men and women's brains - or rather, men's lack of brains!'

'It was a joke no one would make about women,' Pinker tells me. 'When you said you were writing a piece on men, I was just floored because my experience has been that no one cares a whit about men. I think there is a double standard. Because women have been discriminated against for so long there is a hyper-sensitivity about making jokes about them that doesn't exist for men. They are assumed to be fair game because they're on top. There's a notion that it's acceptable for women to treat men as dolts. It's a form of female bonding, as if it's known that men are a bit useless.'

Of course, lots of men are relatively happy with the status quo, but does this make it desirable or just?

There is still a novelty factor attached to the notion of a full-time father and a mother who goes out to work: in many ways, the man who wishes to be a stay-at-home dad can be likened to the woman who wanted to be a surgeon in the 1950s. They both face a similar barrage of sexist assumptions.

'There is a culture of motherhood, a sanctity about it, that is quite strong in the UK,' argues Duncan Fisher, chief executive of the Fatherhood Institute. 'There's a gratuitous exclusion of men and the impression is given that you're left looking over the mother's shoulder. Midwifery services are described as "one-to-one care". After the birth, each mother is given a free magazine called "Mum Plus One". If a woman goes to a job office, she is asked "Are you a mother? Let's see what kind of job you want to do," whereas no one would ask a man if he was a father.

'The guy is just not factored in. That's OK if you're a well-resourced middle-class man who can assert himself. But that's why so many teenage fathers drift away: there's no expectation that they should be included.'

Yet research shows that children with supportive fathers have lower instances of substance abuse, higher self-esteem and higher educational achievement.

Nor is this cheerful presumption of man's uselessness limited to fatherhood. The Advertising Standards Bureau reports a steady increase each year in the number of complaints about the way men are portrayed on television as 'buffoons' or 'idiots'. A 2007 advertisement for MFI kitchens depicted a woman slapping her husband in a dispute about leaving the toilet seat up. 'If a man belittles a woman, it could become a lawsuit,' says Farrell. 'If women belittle men, it's a Hallmark card.'

Tad Safran, a Los Angeles-based scriptwriter and journalist, discovered this to his cost last year when he wrote a scathing piece in a national newspaper about British women's 'unkempt' appearance. 'The hate mail I got was insane,' he says now. 'I was called "Sexist of the Year". Maybe I deserved it, but certainly that wouldn't have happened to the same extent if it had been written about men.' As if to prove his point, a few months later, another British broadsheet published a feature entitled 'Are Men Boring?' Both articles were based on ludicrous generalisations but no one labelled the female journalist sexist.

Does any of this really matter when men occupy an almost unquestioned position of primacy in nearly all walks of life? Are they getting their boxer shorts in a twist about trivialities? And is it patronising to assume that the nagging disaffection felt by primarily middle-class men in the Western hemisphere is shared by men the world over?

Maybe. But, according to experts like Susan Pinker, there is a necessary truth here too: that perhaps our harmless chatter among female friends occasionally carries a deeper significance than we might like to think; that for all the sperm banks and Rampant Rabbit vibrators on offer, men still have a role to play that can complement women rather than limiting them. We might, she argues, end up demeaning our own gender: 'It does us a disservice to gloss over the fact that our husbands, sons, brothers or fathers are all unique individuals. I've never believed in this Mars/Venus division: we're all just people.'

This is interesting to me. In the 60's, women learned to roar. Since then, men have learned to wimper.

The Windsor Hills Baptist Church is the kind of Church that makes Senator Barack Obama pretty nervous.

The Windsor Hills Baptist holds a youth conference every summer that tries to get young people interested in church. According to the website, the youth conference has all the predictable bible teen camp things like preaching, skits, a big country cookout, volleyball, basketball, choirs, and a preacher kids' conference. There's also a drawing for an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

You know. All the typical stuff.

Unfortunately, the gun giveaway has been cancelled. It turns out the head pastor had an some kind of foot injury, so they're not giving away the gun this year. Luckily, someone's loaning the church a shotgun so they can still have the shooting competition.

The Windsor Hills Baptist Church Youth Conference website also contains the complete opinion document of the United States Supreme Court in the District of Columbia v. Heller decision about the right to bear arms. The site doesn't have any word on whether this will be specifically be discussed at the cookout or the preacher kids' conference, but I'd suggest that attendees should bring a highlighted and annotated copy of the Heller Opinion anyway. Organizers will then try to pry it from your hands.

All jokes aside, little events and stunts like this to get young people interested in church usually don't turn out well. For one, they're usually conceived by adults trying to be "hip" and attended by youth who either (a) see right through the adults' charade, or (b) are probably pretty uncool. I'm sorry if the second point above doesn't sound charitable. I don't mean it as an insult, just as informed reporting. I was in category (b) for a lot of my junior high and high school days, so I've been there.

What happened to me is why I'm disinclined to appreciate or encourage young people to get interested in the LifeTeen stuff that some Catholic churches offer. LifeTeen is a format of Mass and Youth Groups that try to incorporate bad Christian Rock and hip preaching to high schoolers who are supposed to be enjoying it. I'll get to that in a moment.

I went to one of these services a couple years ago by accident at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Lenexa, Kansas (yes, the same Holy Trinity that refused to let a Catholic organization use a side chapel for Mass). This is when I was trying to figure out how to be Catholic again and how to rejoin the Church after being away for years. Sunday morning had gotten away from me and I missed all the Masses being offered around town. I found that Holy Trinity had a 5:00 PM Mass on Sundays and set out for evening Mass.

Little did I know.

The lyrics to the Christian rock music were on the overhead projector being shown on the wall right night to our Lord crucified on the Cross. They had a band of about nine gentrifying gray haired old men playing acoustic guitars and swaying back and forth to their own rhythms. About 40% of the people there hadn't been "teens" for at least 40 years--in the spirit of charity, I'll presume they drove their kids to Mass. When Father Tom Dolezal delivered his sermon, he plopped down on the sanctuary steps and sprawled out on the floor and preached from this sprawl for the next 20 minutes or so. It's been a couple years ago, so I don't remember the homily or if it was good, but I do remembering that the whole Mass was a disjointed conglomeration of dippy music and hugging sessions that could best be described as pseudo-Catholic.

And if I were 13 years old and in junior high again, I bet I would have kind of liked it--or at least thought that I should like it. I had a pretty shallow understanding of my faith back then and was kind of scared to challenge myself. It's a long story that I haven't totally sorted out in my head, but I was developing a stunted personal theology that was about to get totally confused by my Catholic High School religion classes that mixed in strange admiration of Buddhism, Protestantism, Secular Humanism, Deism and "diet" Catholicism that didn't make any sense and wouldn't stand up to my own intellectual thinking. I'd eventually talk myself out of God altogether, but that'd be a few years after I was a smiling 13-year-old gluing felt banners for school Masses in the gymnasium.

You know how young children picture God as an old man with a white beard in a chair that sits on a floating cloud? Kids see this bearded God as some kind of genie who grants wishes, called "prayers", whenever they ask. When kids start to get older, they figure out that God is not some kind of magic-making wish-giver and struggle to replace that notion of God with something else. Enter: felt banners and Christian Rock. Some people never get out of this stage in life; I think some of them end up driving their children to LifeTeen Masses.

By the time I went to college, my Catholic thinking had ended up as Moral Relativism and then just outright quitting. I'd had enough. God seemed like a confusing delusion that was a trick for suckers and dupes, the only people that really figured God out were the atheists and the televangelists. Though I'd never say as much publicly, I didn't have much time for the Church as I knew her and wasn't interested in finding time.

In an unrelated path of my life, I'd eventually end up making a mess of myself and my life; it'd take that point for me to pick something else. You know the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? I decided to change what I was doing; the results I had been getting kind of sucked. I don't need to go over this story again, you can read about it in the introduction if you want.

So what does all of this have to do with Baptists and their assault rifles? Admittedly, not much. But seeing youth conferences and teen camps tend to remind me of this story. I wonder if our attempts to cultivate a crop is just casting seed on rocky ground, where the seed will sprout but doesn't develop roots. Of course the flip-side is true too! It'd be hard to tell an eight-year-old about about St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, the sense of loneliness, desolation and abandonment by God that is often considered the hallmark of intensely deep Christian mysticism. Eight-year-olds are still in the felt-banner stage!

But when these Oklahoma City teenagers grow up to be adults, will they still consider the Almighty Lord to be something squeezed between basketball and trap shooting? I don't know. Maybe their conference does a nicer job of addressing these issues than I give them credit. Yet I reserve the right to remain a skeptic.

And not just because it's a Baptist camp and I'm a Catholic! Catholics are pretty good shots too.

I'd like to have a short discussion of vocabulary that people use when discussing religion and Godly issues.

Theism - A belief that God exists. From the Greek word Theos, meaning deity, god or gods. This is where I am. I put it on top because it's the right answer. Thanks for reading. :)
Atheism - A combination of Greek words a- (without) -theism (belief in God). People who fall in this camp are annoyed by religion, but it doesn't "offend" them; it just wastes their time. I understand atheists, I get their point of view; it's an intellectual position that is not challenging to reach.
Anti-theism - A combination of Greek words anti- (against) -theism (belief in God). In a way, this is in-your-face confrontational atheism, also called "new atheism" because it picks fights. These people have read their little Richard Dawkins books and are mad about it.
Deism - A belief that a deity (God) created the world, but doesn't get involved. No heaven, hell, praying, nothing. People who say that the United States was rooted in Christianity have a poor understanding of deism and famous deists. Count the famous American deists. In my humble opinion, this is atheism for people that don't want to talk about it.
Gnosticism - From the Greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge. It's a type of mysticism. A lot of Eastern and New Age hoodoo (including Kaballah) could be dumped into this category, gnosticism comes and goes in popularity.
Agnosticism - A combination of Greek words a- (without) -gnosis (knowledge). These are people who aren't sure if God exists or not. It implies being open but unsure about the idea. A lot of people call themselves atheists when they're really agnostic.
Irreligious - This is a broader category that a lot of people fall into without thinking about it. They're people who lack religion, don't care or are hostile about it. Atheists, deists and agnostics are in this camp. It also includes people who are disinterested or just don't care, as well as people who could be called secular humanists, a common and happy (but ultimately unjustifiable) philosophy. People who were raised religious but stopped when they got out of their parent's grasp fall in this category also.

I bring this up because a lot of people call Paul Myers an atheist--himself included. He's the guy that read all about the University of Central Florida student Webster Cook who snuck out of Mass with the Blessed Sacrament and made (and continues to make) a stink about it when people objected. Myers, a biology professor, promised on his blog:

I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them -- my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure -- but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage... but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart.

Myers calls himself a "militant atheist" and is really big into mocking God and all religions except (for some reason I cannot discern) Islam. So as a matter of definitions, PZ Myers is an anti-theist. He's against theism, not just without theism. This is the case for a new crop of atheists, often called "New Atheists" (how do you have a "new" philosophical position that was conceived around 3000 years ago?)

I've got an opinion on Mr. Myers, however this probably isn't the forum to discuss his antics. But it is time we get the term straight.

Jeff Miller, The Curt Jester notes a story blurbing around the internet today.

A poll conducted by social networking website MySpace has branded the Catholic Church "out of touch" with young people, just ahead of its World Youth Day event in Sydney.

Pfft. A MySpace poll? Wow. Move over, Roper. Tom is in da hizzouse.

RELATED: Good kids use Facebook, Bad kids use MySpace. Just so you know.

It took me a long time to appreciate how important receiving Communion on the tongue was for Catholics. I always figured it was something that only the overly pious people did and that rumors of people snatching the Eucharist were only objects of overblown rumors.

But people who discreetly steal hosts for nefarious purposes are not just characters in fiction.

From Creative Minority Report:

Webster Cook is a student at the University of Central Florida. He is also a top notch jerk.

Last week Cook attended a campus mass. At that mass, he attempted skulk back to his pew with a consecrated host. The extraordinary minister saw what he was doing and blocked his path until he put into his mouth. However, when he got back to his pew he removed the host. A lady from the Church saw what he done and attempted to get the host back from him by trying to pry his hand open. Cook now claims he is a victim.

As always, go read the whole thing.

Two notes:

(1) This could have been easily prevented if the Blessed Sacrament was given properly on the tongue. Such a practice would make abuses like this pretty hard to accomplish.

(2) It's further evidence how a seperation of Church and State benefits not only the State, but also the Church. It sounds like Mr. Cook was planning on making a political point, not a religious one when he says:

"The church feels that I'm the problem here," Cook said. "The problem is actually that this is a publicly-funded religious institution. Through student government here, we fund them through an activity and service, so they're receiving student money."

Some people insist that religion should stay out of government. I'm inclined to agree as long as the reverse it also true.

UPDATE:
I STRONGLY URGE you to send an email to the UCF President and Director of OSRR in protest. This is the email I just sent to:

jhitt@mail.ucf.edu (president) and pmackown@mail.ucf.edu (OSRR).

Dear Dr. Hitt,

I am writing you to express my sincere dismay with a student at the University of Central Florida. I'm sure you've already received a fair amount of email on the subject of Webster Cook. Futher, I'm sure that you understand that this is a serious offence that must be addressed by the University in light of the "Golden Rule" of conduct at UCF. Specifically: Rules of Conduct 2.F.3.a Disruptive Conduct; "An act that impairs, interferes with, or obstructs the orderly conduct, processes, and functions of the University or any part thereof." Furthermore, his actions are a direct slap to the UFC creed tenets of Integrity, Community and Excellence--a creed that, no doubt, the University of Central Florida takes quite seriously.

Mr. Cook is no doubt a bright young man. He serves on Student Government and even started a student run newspaper. But his little stunt is a serious offence against his fellow students and other members of the UCF community and must be addressed by the university in an expeditious manner. It is nothing short of religious harassment, and no public academic institution should stand for such conduct.

Please find this email CC'd to Ms. Patricia MacKown, Director of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities, as per the instructions of the Office of Student Conduct rules section 2; "Alleged violations of the UCF Rules of Conduct shall be reported in writing to the Director of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (OSRR) or designee. The written complaint of violation of the UCF Rules of Conduct shall be made no later than six months following discovery of the alleged violation."

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

UPDATE 2:
I hear that Dr. Hill is on vacation. Nonetheless, he is responding to his emails quite quickly. His blackberry must be getting a workout! Here is his extremely prompt reply:

Thank you for your note Mr. Walberg. I have been told that Mr. Cook returned the consecrated Eucharist yesterday. The university takes this matter very seriously, and it is in the hands of our student judicial system. John C. Hitt President, UCF

I hope that news is true.

If so, it's time to start praying for Webster Cook's repentance and forgiveness.

I'm sure you've heard about the disastrous earthquake and aftershocks that has been inflicting China. This morning, the official death estimate was around 15,000 people, other estimates point north of 20,000 people were killed. That's a lot of people. We're talking REAL TRAGEDY here.

Rod Dreher in his CrunchyCon blog writes:

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a Chinese immigrant friend here in Dallas about China's rise. She told me not to be so sure of that. She said there are lots of bad things going on in China that never make the news -- natural disasters, man-made disasters and so on -- but news of which trickles out through word of mouth and the Internet. She said that the Chinese authorities are terrified of losing stability, and that to believe China is a rising monolith is really a mistake.

To hear that China is just a "paper tiger" means that they are totally unprepared to handle this mass tragedy, even if the country projects that they are strong and capable. They're going to be in a bad way, and may be that way for a very long time. Please take a minute and say a prayer for them-- they're in a Hell on Earth right now.

I took a second to look up who the patron saint is for China. There are 3 generally accepted patrons: Mary, St Joseph, and St. Francis Xavier. Mary and Joseph are patrons of everything, so I took a moment to look up St. Francis Xavier.

St. Francis Xavier is called the "Apostle to the Far East", and dedicated most of his life to preaching the Gospel to the farthest corners of the known world. Born to Basque nobility in 1506 (it seems like a lot of major saints were born rich!), the family castle and wealth was captured in one of the wars that would eventually unify Spain. Francis was ordained to the priesthood in Italy and studied and taught Philosophy at the great University of Paris (again with the U of Paris!). There he met Ignatius of Loyola (and a few others) and founded the once-illustrious Society of Jesus, which we commonly call the Jesuit order.

Xavier would travel the world, teaching around the horn of Africa, on the coasts of India and throughout Southeast Asia. Most Christians in the East have been touched by the history of Francis Xavier. He was asked by King John of Portugal to Evangelize to the people of the East Indies, then largely Portuguese territory from where they would capture slaves; Francis agreed to go, but famously admonished the King, saying "You have no right to spread the Catholic faith while you take away all the country's riches. It upsets me to know that at the hour of your death you may be ordered out of paradise."

His mission trip was a 10-year whirlwind, surviving shipwrecks, disease and infidels, he baptized thousands, ministered to the sick and taught the poor. Tradition holds that he could calm storms, speak in tongues and raise the dead! His reputation as a miracle worker brought thousands to the Faith, to which mankind could turn when the rest of life overwhelmed them.

Gentle reader, life still overwhelms mankind.

These are sad days for the Chinese. Thousands and thousands of homes are destroyed, thousands and thousands of people are dead or missing. People turn to their government to help, but in no one's estimation can the Chinese government help. I doubt that many governments could help if such tragedy was dumped into their lap. Central China is a mix of foreboding deserts and impenetrable mountains, the central Chinese are poor peasants without half the blessings of modernity. These are sad days, indeed.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

I keep hearing that there are more and more people my age finding the church. I'm still pretty fresh in this journey myself, but anecdotally, I'd say they're onto something.

Reuters:

One reason for this search is that many young Catholics were not brought up with a strong sense of religious identity, in contrast to parents and grandparents who were altar boys or procession flower girls, ate no meat on Fridays and thought it was a sin to enter a synagogue or a Protestant church.

"You get a lot of searching. One challenge is that parish life is not as central as it was 30 or 40 years ago," he said.

I won't make a practice of cross-posting things I see on other blogs, but I liked this a lot and wanted to share. Hat Tip:American Papist