From Burke to Kirk and Beyond...

Musical saints

2009-11-08T20:01:00.002-05:00

St. Charles Borromeo, November 5

2009-11-08T19:49:00.003-05:00

Saint Charles Borromeo (1538-84) was once called the “Second Ambrose.” Just as St. Ambrose was the Bishop of Milan whose witness converted St. Augustine of Hippo in 385, St. Charles Borromeo was Bishop of Milan and Christian witness to many great saints including Philip Neri, Aloyius Gonzaga, and Edmund Campion. He was advisor to Popes Pius IV, Pius V, and Gregory XIII as well as King Phillip II of Spain, King Henry III of France, and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Sometimes the Church is reformed from the bottom up, e.g., Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s life and example, but other times, the Church is reformed by a powerful “insider” who is full of the Holy Spirit. Charles Borromeo was born into a prominent Italian family. His mother was a Medici. His uncle became Pope Pius IV. Charles became abbot of a monastery at a young age, something not uncommon in those days for the sons of the well-born. But Charles was not weak in the least. His entire life was given to fighting corruption, worldliness, and lack of discipline in the Church.

In 1562, as Archbishop of Milan, he pressed for the resumption of the Council of Trent, which was the most important Church council in a thousand years. France wanted a weak papacy. Spain wanted a strong papacy. The national kings wanted to control Church lands as well as the local bishops. Charles pressed for genuine reforms despite the vested interests of lazy clergy and avaricious kings. He pressed for independence for the bishops, holiness on all levels, a new catechism, renewed and strengthened liturgies, improved music, strict discipline for seminarians, priests, monks, and nuns, and the establishment of what we now call “Sunday schools” at parishes. These reforms occurred during the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, and the Continent was full of neo-pagans, schismatics, occultists, priests with mistresses, libertines, complacent clergy, rogue liturgists, and intemperate nuns. Charles’ life was threatened on several occasions. His enemies published lies about him and intrigued to clip his powers. He was even shot by an assassin, though the 16th-century firearm failed to kill him.

Almost everyone knows that the Church today is not nearly as corrupt as it was in the 16th century, but most of us do not know why. It is because of the holiness of Saint Charles Borromeo and others like him, who loved the Church and her purity more than they loved wine, art, power, connections, the status quo, and the approval of men. Charles worked closely with perhaps the most prominent saint in Italy at the time, Philip Neri (1515-95). He served First Communion to a young man now known as St. Aloyius Gonzaga. He was visited by a young Jesuit named Edmund Campion, one destined to be martyred in Elizabeth I’s England. St. Charles Borromeo shows that even a man of noble family and worldly influence can be holy, and moreover, lead others to holiness. His life and work show that the Holy Spirit can reform the Church even in her darkest hour when many of her clergy have become unfocused and sinful.

Perhaps it is not surprising that one admirer of St. Charles Borromeo is none other than Pope Benedict XVI.

Yoani Sanchez arrested in Cuba...

2009-11-08T19:33:00.002-05:00

She was apparently released, but Cuba does not know what to do with a fearless blogger.

Here is my old post, "Christmas in Cuba." She put up with Cuba's revolution her whole life, but when she had a child, she decided she could not teach him the same lies herself.

Out of respect for her, I am going to mirror her post and provide the link to her blog, Generacion Y:

'Near 23rd Street, just at the Avenida de los Presidentes roundabout, we saw a black car, made in China, pull up with three heavily built strangers. “Yoani, get in the car,” one told me while grabbing me forcefully by the wrist. The other two surrounded Claudia Cadelo, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, and a friend who was accompanying us to the march against violence. The ironies of life, it was an evening filled with punches, shouts and obscenities on what should have passed as a day of peace and harmony. The same “aggressors” called for a patrol car which took my other two companions, Orlando and I were condemned to the car with yellow plates, the terrifying world of lawlessness and the impunity of Armageddon.

'I refused to get into the bright Geely-made car and we demanded they show us identification or a warrant to take us. Of course they didn’t show us any papers to prove the legitimacy of our arrest. The curious crowded around and I shouted, “Help, these men want to kidnap us,” but they stopped those who wanted to intervene with a shout that revealed the whole ideological background of the operation, “Don’t mess with it, these are counterrevolutionaries.” In the face of our verbal resistance they made a phone call and said to someone who must have been the boss, “What do we do? They don’t want to get in the car.” I imagine the answer from the other side was unequivocal, because then came a flurry of punches and pushes, they got me with my head down and tried to push me into the car. I held onto the door… blows to my knuckles… I managed to take a paper one of them had in his pocket and put it in my mouth. Another flurry of punches so I would return the document to them.

'Orlando was already inside, immobilized by a karate hold that kept his head pushed to the floor. One put his knee in my chest and the other, from the front seat, hit me in my kidneys and punched me in the head so I would open my mouth and spit out the paper. At one point I felt I would never leave that car. “This is as far as you’re going, Yoani,” “I’ve had enough of your antics,” said the one sitting beside the driver who was pulling my hair. In the back seat a rare spectacle was taking place: my legs were pointing up, my face reddened by the pressure and my aching body, on the other side Orlando brought down by a professional at beating people up. I just managed to grab, through his trousers, one’s testicles, in an act of desperation. I dug my nails in, thinking he was going to crush my chest until the last breath. “Kill me now,” I screamed, with the last inhalation I had left in me, and the one in front warned the younger one, “Let her breathe.”

'I was listening to Orlando panting and the blows continued to rain down on us, I planned to open the door and throw myself out but there was no handle on the inside. We were at their mercy and hearing Orlando’s voice encouraged me. Later he told me it was the same for him hearing my choking words… they let him know, “Yoani is still alive.” We were left aching, lying in a street in Timba, a woman approached, “What has happened?”… “A kidnapping,” I managed to say. We cried in each others arms in the middle of the sidewalk, thinking about Teo, for God’s sake how am I going to explain all these bruises. How am I going to tell him that we live in a country where this can happen, how will I look at him and tell him that his mother, for writing a blog and putting her opinions in kilobytes, has been beaten up on a public street. How to describe the despotic faces of those who forced us into that car, their enjoyment that I could see as they beat us, their lifting my skirt as they dragged me half naked to the car.

'I managed to see, however, the degree of fright of our assailants, the fear of the new, of what they cannot destroy because they don’t understand, the blustering terror of he who knows that his days are numbered.'

Matthew Kaminski interviews Adam Michnik

2009-11-08T19:18:00.002-05:00

Michnik is one of Poland's elder dissidents who has been arrested countless times since 1968.

Here is the most Kirkian part of the interview:

'Beginning early in the transition to democracy from communism, Mr. Michnik has militated on behalf of what he calls "gray democracy." By that he means that messiness is preferable to perfection, disorderly freedom in a state bounded by law to the orderly strong hand of a populist leader who ignores the law.

'Along with the former Czech President Vaclav Havel, Mr. Michnik wanted their free and united Europe to strive for constitutions and institutions and abandon the dream of utopias that invariably lead back to totalitarianism. This view has its roots in his influential 1985 "Letter from Gdansk Prison," written after he, Lech Walesa and hundreds of other Solidarity activists were imprisoned by Poland's communist strongman Wojciech Jaruzelski. "Solidarity has never had a vision of an ideal society," he wrote. "It wants to live and let live. Its ideals are closer to the American Revolution than the French."'

"Three Decades of Subsidized Risk"

2009-11-07T18:52:00.002-05:00

A piece linked all over the blogosphere by Charles Gasparino.

"Too big to fail" is not new. The federal government has been coddling the biggest investors for decades.

Who predicted the Great Depression?

2009-11-07T18:50:00.002-05:00

Ludwig von Mises.

Deafness not yet fully known...

2009-11-07T18:46:00.002-05:00

Peggy Noonan diagnoses a case of political deafness among our political elites.

Watching Iran...

2009-11-07T18:42:00.004-05:00

Caroline Glick is, and to a lesser extent I watch Iran too, but that does not make up for the fact that the President Barack Obama's administration is going to have to see a mushroom cloud before it takes seriously the threat Iran presents.

Sgt. Olaf Schmid, requiescat in pace

2009-11-03T23:24:00.002-05:00

Michael Yon honors one of Great Britain's finest soldiers.

He left a wife and a child. He was the competent and fearless chief of a bomb squad, and he disarmed or destroyed more bombs (especially "improvised explosive devises") than just about anyone in Afghanistan and thereby saved hundreds of lives. His courage and resourcefulness were legendary.

"Healing the Family Tree"

2009-11-03T23:18:00.002-05:00

Another interesting post by Fr. Dwight Longenecker.

A Prayer for England...

2009-11-01T18:25:00.003-05:00

Jeffrey Steel, an English blogger I just discovered, posts a lovely prayer. He was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism just a few months ago. His blog contains the wonderful insights of an Anglican who persevered to cross the Tiber River and gave up everything to do so.

He says:

'I speak as a very new Catholic convert but as one who I believe has had a radical conversion to a Catholic way of thinking in a very short amount of time due to some of the hardest days in my Christian life of struggling to come to terms with what was happening in my head and in my heart. If I were to give any word of encouragement, I think it would be that my former Anglican colleagues around the world must deeply consider what it means to have a complete conversion to a Catholic way of life. I believe a real head and heart conversion is absolutely necessary in order to submit to the Magisterium with a joyful submission.For instance, it is quite easy for us to say we are submitting when we agree or we are not being asked to make serious sacrifices of our own desires. Submission, I believe, is really tested when what we might or might not have wanted is being asked of us and we respond in a joy-filled desire of obedience. I think people are really fooling themselves to believe that the Catholic Church will bend on her requirements on issues of morality, contraception, divorce and remarriage etc and disappear behind an Anglican party that might wish to grow out of personal opinions. What must be asked of all Anglicans who are considering this step is what Benedict XVI calls all to ask when being called to communion.'

There are those who think the Holy Father's initiative towards the Anglicans is some ploy to "steal sheep," annex some conservative priests, and perhaps gain some pretty buildings. Those who write these things do not understand that the Catholic Church is not a club and is not going to become a voluntary association of like-minded people. The Catholic Church is God's family built on the ultimate sacrifice of God Himself and submission to her authority. He says:

'The need for our formation is not to be underestimated; Rome was not built in a day, and neither can Catholic priesthood be put on like a coat.'

Jonah Goldberg on Left and Right

2009-11-01T15:06:00.005-05:00

Those of us who do not like the term "conservative" thrown around without nuance should not throw "liberal" around with "Marxist." Perhaps you will notice that I try to avoid using loaded terms when I can. I identify most closely with the traditional conservatives as exemplified by Russell Kirk. However, my family's participation in America's foreign adventures and wars (from the Philippines to Panama to WWII to Korea) pushes my views of foreign policy well out of the isolationist camp and more towards an understanding of America as the world's reluctant policeman (yet recognizing that we stand on a very slippery slope of our power).

Jonah Goldberg notes in National Review conservatives have offered quite stinging critiques of capitalism that fall closer to those of the Marxist than to the liberals. Perhaps we should remember that the radicals of the 1960s hated the liberals.

"The Tenacity Question"

2009-10-31T08:49:00.002-04:00

Enough about President Barack Obama's brilliance, likeability, empathy, and sophistication. What millions of people between here and Afghanistan want to know is whether he has Lincoln's or Churchill's tenacity to stick to a difficult war come hell or high water.

David Brooks writes in the NYT:

'They are not worried about his policy choices. Their concerns are more fundamental. They are worried about his determination.

'These people, who follow the war for a living, who spend their days in military circles both here and in Afghanistan, have no idea if President Obama is committed to this effort. They have no idea if he is willing to stick by his decisions, explain the war to the American people and persevere through good times and bad.

'Their first concerns are about Obama the man. They know he is intellectually sophisticated. They know he is capable of processing complicated arguments and weighing nuanced evidence.

'But they do not know if he possesses the trait that is more important than intellectual sophistication and, in fact, stands in tension with it. They do not know if he possesses tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and confusion. They do not know if he possesses the obstinacy that guided Lincoln and Churchill, and which must guide all war presidents to some degree.'

Our ruling class...

2009-10-30T08:47:00.002-04:00

'We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on.'

I wish I had time to comment more on Peggy Noonan's column.

I feel helpless, that my own generation lacks any sense of personal responsibility and is failing to create anything for the next generation besides unfunded entitlements and a sense of victimhood.

"Why Isn't Anyone Famous For Whistling Anymore?"

2009-10-28T07:07:00.002-04:00

Ann Althouse asks the question.

I know of only one famous whistler:

Andy Offutt Irwin.

More here.

Discovering the office was not all it was supposed to be...

2009-10-27T07:57:00.004-04:00

Just a year ago we were told that the world would be a better place as soon as George W. Bush was retired in Texas and the anointed one was inaugurated as President of the United States.

The Bush administration cooperated fully with an incoming administration that had shown nothing but contempt for everything it had done. The Bush administration had made a thorough policy review of Afghanistan which closely reflected the views of President Barack Obama's later hand-picked commander there, General Stanley McChrystal. President Obama, however, cannot decide whether to fish or cut bait. He is making us worry that Hillary Clinton's commercials about the 2:30 a.m. telephone call were right.

Oddly enough, he is making a similar mistake the Bush administration made in Iraq in 2005-06. President Bush's advisors were so concerned about casualties and public morale that they neglected to implement a counter-insurgency strategy for what had long been an insurgency. President Bush did not awake from his slumber until Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House.

James Shinn reports on what our options are in Afghanistan and discusses the common rumors circulated by wishful thinking.

"Sanity and Sanctity"

2009-10-26T21:00:00.001-04:00

Fr. Dwight Longenecker makes the point that saints are the only ones who are truly sane.

The Catholic-Anglican alliance?

2009-10-26T20:54:00.002-04:00

Ross Douthat makes a good point in the New York Times.

Too busy for Berlin?

2009-10-26T20:18:00.004-04:00

For people Barack Obama's age and mine, the Fall of the Berlin Wall was a transformative event. Tyranny crumbled, and no one in the West that I know of cried a tear of regret. It was simply the triumph of good over evil, and the even the Left west of the Elbe River understood the event in such terms.

I hope he changes his mind, but right now President Obama does not plan to attend the 20th anniversary ceremonies on November 9. (Arthur Chrenkoff, retired blogger, writes a nice piece.) That is one party I would not miss if I had access to Air Force One or any lesser craft. Nothing would symbolize America's commitment to liberty than a appearance by the President. Peter Fechter and others who gave their lives trying to escape should be so honored.

Here is a 1962 documentary film about the Berlin Wall. I remember looking at the Berlin Wall in 1984. More so than at Dachau, which was by then a memorial to evil, I knew I was looking at evil itself.

Anglican clergy discuss Pope Benedict's initiative...

2009-10-24T14:14:00.003-04:00

Forward in Faith, an organization of Anglo-Catholics, is meeting this weekend in Westminster, London.

If you click on the link, you can hear articulate opinions of men trying to fulfill their vocations as priests. The Holy Father's initiative is a great invitation, but there are many issues.

One thing I will say about my own conversion: The Episcopal Church- USA's governance, based upon a House of Delegates and a House of Bishops, both dominated by liberal activists uninhibited by the history and practices of the Christ's Church since Jesus walked with us, is a major reason I became Catholic. Historically, the Holy Spirit seems to work more clearly and effectively through the Holy See and the Roman Curia, despite all their problems, than through the schismatic bodies of Christians independent from Rome.

[Photo of St. Michael and All Angels, Hartlip, Kent, England]

"The Chicago Way"

2009-10-23T10:25:00.002-04:00

I have to agree with Kim Strassel that the administration's heavy-handed way of threatening opponents is already old. President Barack Obama's use of power is based upon a mandate he does not have and a one-party system that does not exist in Washington, though it is a given in Chicago.

"It's His Rubble Now"

2009-10-23T10:22:00.002-04:00

The honeymoon is over, and the American people will hold Barack Obama accountable for our messes, here and abroad. Blaming George W. Bush is no longer an option.

So says Peggy Noonan.

Pope Benedict's Anglican initiative and America

2009-10-23T09:20:00.008-04:00

Usually my blog posts link to insightful articles. I seldom reflect on a topic without linking to thoughts which reflect, refract, or contradict my own.

My wife just came to me, however, and expressed a vision she has, a vision of Pope Benedict's pastoral care for those of us in the English-speaking world. Our bishops, God bless them, too often reflect the determination, high achievements, and organizational skills of corporate executives rather than the counter-cultural and sacrificial commitments of martyrs and monks. Pope Benedict wants the Church to worship God in spirit and truth, and he is appalled at how the lowest common denominator of worship tends to crowd out liturgies and music that bring us closer to God. The independence of American bishops is also frustrating to the Roman curia. It is easier to herd cats.

But what if The Book of Common Prayer, that English magnum opus which has informed the thoughts, prayers, theology, political economy, moral philosophy, and worship on the North American continent since Jamestown, Virginia was settled in 1607, what if it became, with some revisions, a Catholic prayer book for the English-speaking world? Pope Benedict is too smart to try to force it upon English-speaking Catholics by ecclesiastical fiat, but what if American Catholics had some internal competition from not just one, but two traditional and beautiful liturgies?

The Tridentine Mass is now allowed and unhindered for Catholics all over the world. This news was greeted with hostility in a few circles, with enthusiasm among traditionalists, and with a yawn among most Catholics. What if bishops in the English-speaking world found a traditionalist Catholic competitor within their cities and towns which was under Rome's supervision and not under the American bishops?

It appears that Pope Benedict understands his duty to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, including American Catholics. To build the Church in America requires the cooperation, as well as the competition, of disparate elements:
(1) traditionalists who love the Latin Mass and can bring this ancient strength to a nation that scorns tradition;
(2) those "calcified" Catholics in older ethnic neighborhoods who have parochial schools, beautiful parishes, and low birthrates;
(3) the charismatics, especially those among the Spanish-speaking Catholics, who have energy and zeal;
(4) Asian and African immigrants from places such as Vietnam, Korea, and Zaire whose Catholic identity includes recent memories of martyrdom;
(5) what I call "JPII Catholics", those younger people who found their faith and live it by the example of a great and very visible witness to hope.

But what if Pope Benedict could forge another major force for Catholicism in the English-speaking world, what if he could harness the very English language in its beauty and strength to bring the world to Christ's truth and teachings?

Thus, this week's dramatic initiative to integrate Anglicans into the Catholic Church takes on greater significance. If The Book of Common Prayer, scorned and neglected by Episcopal church leadership, but beloved by Anglican traditionalists and part of the cultural bedrock of every English-speaking nation, becomes a primary book of Catholic worship, then Pope Benedict would have regained much of the ground lost since 1534. (Pope Benedict measures the Church's strength by the quality of its liturgy rather than the number of people in the pews.) The Protestant Reformation in England will end not with a bang but a whimper. The language of English worship will be fully captured by the Catholic Church. The poetry, prose, and songs of England will be fully integrated with Catholic liturgy.

As for my wife and me, we can unite our fractured family histories of worship. We both have English and Irish heritage. As Catholics, our English heritage was in some ways inaccessible because our English (and Protestant) relatives were historic foes of what we had come to believe. This is a tremendous healing for us and the opening of a new world. The hijacking of England's Christian faith and the English language is ending. The snow is melting in Narnia.

[Photos above: Little Gidding, as written about by T.S. Eliot, and Saint John Fisher.]

Theology v. Sociology

2009-10-23T08:46:00.006-04:00

George Weigel discusses why the ecumenical talks between the Bishop of Rome and the Archbishop of Canterbury after Vatican II did not lead to any sort of larger merger:

'As both Anglicanism and Catholicism sought to find their way through the cultural whitewater of late modernity, however, the theological premise on which an era of good feelings had been based—that Anglicanism and Catholicism both affirmed the binding character of apostolic tradition, which in turn led to a common understanding of the priesthood and the sacraments—began to seem less a given than a hope. The tensions were evident more than 20 years ago, in a historic exchange of letters among Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Robert Runcie of Canterbury, and Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, the veteran Dutch ecumenist then leading the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

'The pope and the cardinal asked Runcie to explain the reasoning that had led certain parts of the Anglican communion to ordain women to the ministerial priesthood. Runcie replied in largely sociological rather than theological terms, citing women's changing roles in business, culture, and politics. By the end of the exchange, in 1986, a parting of the ways had been reached: the highest authorities of the Catholic Church believed that apostolic tradition, not misogyny, precluded ordination to the priesthood, which Catholics understood in iconographic terms as a sacramental representation of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Archbishop Runcie and those whom he represented believed that contemporary human insights into gender roles trumped apostolic tradition and necessitated a development of both doctrine and practice.'

I remember attending a large Episcopal parish in the 1970s when the ethos of the 1960s had taken over. It was all about being "with it" and "keeping up with the times." More so than in all but a few Catholic parishes, the Episcopal church embraced meliorism fully. Theology of the ages was supplanted by sociological generalities. Each associate priest newly ordained had an even worse agenda than the last.

The backlash, not just from the old fogies, but also from younger folk who did not want to see the Episcopal church embrace all the follies of modernity, took root fairly quickly. My mother was less interested in the traditionalists as she was in the charismatics. The charismatics, unlike the liberals, were interested in rediscovering Christian worship as found in the Book of Acts. Thus, on a bad day, the charismatics were better than those who want to wear a Roman collar while amalgamating Christianity, Buddhism, Transcendentalism, Hinduism, and selected pagan beliefs.

But the center could not hold. I knew it. The centrifugal forces upon Anglicanism were too great. Anglicanism's promise of finding unity in the post-Reformation world was false. What resulted was a journey that took me dozens of places before I swam the Tiber River.

"The Pope Lets a Thousand Liturgies Bloom"

2009-10-23T08:40:00.003-04:00

Francis X. Rocca discusses the Pope's Anglican initiative:

'Benedict is hardly permissive when it comes to liturgy. The Neocatechumenal Way, a growing international movement that the pope has long praised for its vigorous work in evangelization, was forced to modify some of its most distinctive practices—such as taking Communion in the form of a large loaf of bread shared around a table—before receiving final Vatican approval last year. The pope has also warned against liturgical dance that turns the Mass into a form of entertainment and has made clear his preference for tradition when it comes to music (Gregorian Chant) and the distribution of Communion (on the tongue while kneeling, rather than the more recent practice of receiving the host in the hand while standing).

'Yet according to the theologian Tracey Rowland, one of the pope's most informed and accessible scholarly interpreters, Benedict is a genuine "liturgical pluralist," ready to countenance any rite that "can be traced back as an organic development of apostolic provenance." The key concept, Ms. Rowland says, "is organic development. What he's really against is your parish liturgy committee getting together and saying, 'let's do something different.'"'

Pope Benedict XVI is showing himself to be the worthy successor of John Paul II.