2007 March archive at Cornell Society for a Good Time

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Archive for March, 2007

There is no doubt, I think, in anyone’s mind that persecution from the World is simply something that Christians are going to have to deal with in every time and place until the end of this world. “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” was our Lord’s promise at the Last Supper, after all! As unpleasant and odious as this is, it is no intrinsic difficulty to Christian piety. Indeed, our Lord’s example and the cult of the martyrs give us aid, comfort, and guidance in coping with, contextualizing, and even — for the holy — loving persecution.

What I’m curious about is what persecution from within the Church does to piety. Can it be compared with standard extra-Ecclesiastical persecution? And how should we respond to it? Continue reading

Published by Ambrosius March 30th, 2007 12 Comments

Is Slavery Immoral?

Having just had such a scintillating discussion of the moral value of poverty, I thought it might be interesting to consider what position a Catholic ought to take on slavery. I expect our readers may be somewhat divided on the relevant moral questions, so I might as well put my cards on the table from the beginning. First of all, I think it’s perfectly clear that slavery as it existed in the American South before the Civil War is morally indefensible. But secondly, I think that slavery probably can be defended under some circumstances.
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Published by Clara March 29th, 2007 22 Comments

Traditionalists = Modernists?

This guy I know from college, a conservative Novus Ordo Catholic, occasionally forwards articles on religious and political matters to a list of friends and acquaintances. Usually, these emails deal with George Bush, geopolitics, what Catholics purportedly should think about military interventions in the Middle East, etc. This time, the subject of the email was “trading my bombastry for pedantry.” The content was just a forwarded article entitled “How (Catholic) Traditionalists and Modernists Are Alike” by Dr. Jeff Mirus. I recommend you read the article before you read my reply below. Continue reading

Published by Tobias Petrus March 27th, 2007 14 Comments

Remember the sabbath day

I’ve never really been confident that eating out on Sundays is a good thing to do. I’ve heard, however, from at least two F.S.S.P. priests that it’s all right. I think that the reasoning is supposed to be something like this: (1) people have to eat; (2) a tavern or other eatery does what people would normally do for themselves on Sundays in terms of providing the basic food stuffs; (3) and they can’t do it for themselves on some given occasion for whatever reason. If these are really the ideas behind the claim, I don’t have a problem with them, so much as with the frequency with which this “emergency” dining is needed. “Clara,” I say, “I’m about to die of hunger, please pull over the car - ah, look! there’s a Texas Roadhouse!” Then after the Texas Roadhouse has done good business by us, Franciscus has an emergency hunger attack and we pull off the highway a couple miles down the road for Krispy Kreme. Sundays are feast days after all!

We routinely spend four hours in the car on Sundays, and I’m the last person who would want to part from the Roadhouse, Don Pablo’s, and Krispy Kreme. But even we know that we don’t absolutely need these places; we could, for example, make sandwiches and bring them with us; and in the olden days, when there wasn’t a plethora of national chains to cater to our needs 24-7, this is probably what we would have done. Or, better yet, we would have eaten with one of the families in the parish.

Published by Iosephus March 26th, 2007 64 Comments

A Dated Book

It was my junior year in public high school when Y2K swept by, banishing, in particular, the fevered talk of technological doom so peculiar to those days. I was a teenager then, and smirking came more easily than it does now. I must admit, however, that despite my contempt for popular currents of opinion, I used to wish that just one of the disasters might come true. Anything to bring real life one step closer to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, ya know…

Anyways, it was not long after these secret hopes fizzled that I espied a book left out for free on a table in our town library. The title, in serious red, white, and black, was “Spiritual Survival During the Y2K Crisis.” Thinking on what a nugget of cultural history I had found, I pocketed the book, and I’ve kept it ever since. Much cheer has it brought me, when I dredge it out, and read things like this:
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Published by iacobus March 25th, 2007 0 Comments

Padre Pio: Alter Christus

Many remember and adore Padre Pio for being a hardliner. Traditionalists tout Padre Pio’s seeming frustration with Vatican II (“For pity’s sake, end the Council quickly.”). Anti-trads focus upon his humble obedience and claim that he prophesied Archbishop Lefebvre’s fate (“You will tear apart the community of faithful, oppose the will of your superiors, and even go against the orders of the pope himself…”).

Whatever St. Pio’s actual thoughts on Vatican II, his harsh attitude towards unrelenting sinners is refreshing in today’s moral climate. But rather than highlight his reputed sternness, I will share some tender stories epitomizing the alter Christus facet of his life. Padre Pio was unquestionably, another Christ.

Published by Catharina Senensis March 25th, 2007 2 Comments

Controversial sheep

Apparently it’s been raging for quite some time, but I just heard about it: the controversy of the homosexual sheep. A researcher named Charles Roselli, from the Oregon Health and Science University, has been working to discover why about 8% of rams appear to be gay (that is, to prefer the company of other rams and to that of ewes.) Both PETA and a wide variety of gay/lesbian groups started a firestorm of criticism, and sent floods of hate mail to Roselli. Why are they so upset? They imagine, against Roselli’s protests, that he might be attempting to discover the cause of homosexuality so that homosexual human beings could be diagnosed and, possibly, changed.
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Published by Clara March 25th, 2007 7 Comments

‘Dict’s Picks

Lately, there have been a handful of North American Bishop appointments that look promising: Dallas, Texas’s new Bishop, Kevin Farrell, seems solid, as does Toronto’s new Archbishop, Thomas Collins (The latter made an impression at our parish by hopping a street car and showing up, unannounced, for dinner at the Toronto Oratory, with the intent of meeting the Fathers, particularly Fr. Robinson, the Oratory’s founder, whose books the new Archbishop knew and liked).

But in some ways these big Sees, though very important, are a poor guide to how a Benedictine Episcopate will look. After all, these lateral moves are taking well-established “talent” and just relocating it — we’re glad to see when the Pope puts a good guy in, but his options are rather limited. Not so when it comes to the appointment of Bishops in smaller Sees, where the new Bishop will often be making the move from the Priesthood to the Episcopate for the first time. It’s here that we may be able to glean the most about how much care the Pope’s team is taking with its appointments. If so, then the appointment of Mgr. Glen Provost as Bishop of Lake Charles, LA, should be received as very good news for us all!

Published by Ambrosius March 23rd, 2007 9 Comments

A Long Way Gone

I recently finished reading (okay, listening to) a recently released book and I thought it might be worth writing up a review for the benefit of our readers. It isn’t a Catholic book really, but I can make up for that by writing a Catholic review of it. I’ve just discovered that it is also (cringe) a Starbucks book and (double cringe) an Oprah Winfrey selection. Sorry about that. I swear it’s not at all like me to be so trendy; I almost never read new books. This one, though, was purchased by my brother on the Audiobook account that we both share. Part of the fun of sharing an Audiobook account is being able to listen to some of the same books and then talk about them together, and since it was relatively short anyway I thought I’d give it a shot. The book is A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. Beah was a soldier for the government of Sierra Leone between the years of ’93 and ’95. These are his memoirs of his experiences in his country’s civil war. He is currently 26 years old – around the same age as the members of the Cornell Society for a Good Time.
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Published by Clara March 22nd, 2007 4 Comments

Our Lady of the Smile

One of the dearest of our Society’s friends, a perhaps future priest in the FSSP, was known among us as one who could, with remarkable reliability, tell true stories that were so incredible that one could not believe them. Iosephus, in particular, was prone to exclaim, “naw, that can’t be true,” upon the hearing of these tales. Such a story is that of Our Lady of the Smile, which title of our Lady this improbable young man inserted into one of the spontaneous Litanies to our Lady that he was wont to generate at the close of any recitation of the Rosary. This one, too, was disbelieved: but sure enough, Our Lady of the Smile does exist! It refers to the statue of our Lady that smiled on St. Therese when she was healed. There are even prayers composed to our Lady under this title. And so, vindication once again for our friend!

Published by Ambrosius March 22nd, 2007 3 Comments

Blessed Salts

Since I’m staying in a hotel room right now, this little piece from a recent FSSP parish’s bulletin particularly appeals to me:

When You Travel

Another sobering statistic from Bishop Finn’s pastoral letter, “Blessed are the Pure in Heart“: Half of all hotel guests order pornographic movies. These films comprise 80% of in-room entertainment revenue and 70% of total in-room revenue.

If you stay in a hotel room, unless you are literally the first guests, you can be morally certain that there have been serious sins committed in that room. These means that you can be morally certain that there are devils lurking about that room. Yes, you read that correctly: you can be morally certain that there are devils in that room. But no worries! Take a towel and cover the television . . . (and leave it covered!) Then take blessed salt and drop a little pinch in each corner of the room and flick a tiny amount across the room, and then sprinkle a little holy water around.

Published by Iosephus March 21st, 2007 35 Comments

Free Music

keith The world is not crowded with accomplished composers, though few indeed are those whose music lives longer than they. Whether immortality on Earth will be the case for the man pictured here is not for me to judge; however, he is the only composer I have ever known, and recordings of his music are now being offered free of charge, through a website maintained by an acquaintance of mine and a great admirer of the composer in question, Keith Gates. Why not give it a try? You can’t beat the price.

Published by Ambrosius March 20th, 2007 1 Comment

Brief Technical Note

RSS Feeds should now be operational. The entries feed is here, and the comment feed is here. Update: Images + the banner should be showing up now. Gentle readers — those of you who had trouble before — could you please tell us if they are? And tell us what version of Internet Explorer you are / were using? 6 or 7?

Published by Ambrosius March 20th, 2007 14 Comments

Justice and the Prodigal Son

Due to bad weather and a logistical mix-up, the Doctor Asinorum and I were treated yesterday to a Novus Mass (in all the worst senses of that term) at the church up the street from my apartment. (Said the Doctor, “I always forget how bad it really is.”) We heard a homily on the story of the Prodigal Son. The homily itself need not be related in great detail; the main idea was that forgiveness is very good and important, and that we ought to be understanding and not rebuke others. But the debate that took place in a diner after Mass (between the Doctor and myself) did provoke some lines of thought that I found interesting.
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Published by Clara March 19th, 2007 2 Comments

Observations on non-liturgical aspects of Catholic traditionalism

There has been talk recently of a distinction between “tradition” and “traditionalism.” This includes a critique of what some view as non-essential religious, cultural, political, and social positions (baggage?) often associated with Catholic traditionalism. Andrew of the Holy Whapping has proposed alternative models for traditionalism: “To sloganize the idea, think Latin Mass with an Ignatius Press reading list, perhaps. But of course, that’s a very simplistic example.”

This proposal led me to ask, “What are some positions generally associated with Catholic traditionalism, other than devotion to the Latin Mass and traditional liturgy in general, a critical attitude toward ecumenism, and a critical attitude toward the reforms (at least in their implementation) of the Second Vatican Council?” I regard these three as pretty much the defining characteristics of traditionalism, though perhaps not the only ones.

The rest of this post will be a list, not necessarily in any particular order, of other positions/attitudes often held by Catholic traditionalists. Continue reading

Published by Tobias Petrus March 17th, 2007 42 Comments