I highly recommend the Robert Royal article listed to the left, and I thank whoever posted the link.  The other half of the principle that the unexamined life is not worth living is that the unlived life is not worth examining.  If people lived in accordance with both principles, there would be fewer ivory towers in academia and much less of the solipsism that results when intellectuals treat their often rather trite and narrow life experiences as the “summum bonum” of human nature.  Socrates at least was a combat veteran, which constitutes a greater engagement in the throes of life than most of his self-proclaimed pupils have to their name.  And yet those same academics often pity people who enter the military.  They apparently assume that all men, had they the option, would sit through philosophy classes on the dead, quasi-fictionalized Socrates of literature rather than fight in their country’s wars as the live, actual Socrates of history did. 

Then there is Our Lord.  At the age of thirteen, He demonstrated in the Temple that He could have begun His public ministry at any time he chose.  Instead, He *chose* to return to Nazareth and spend the next seventeen years slaving away as a carpenter.  Apparently this was to His liking.  And then He selected relatively uneducated fishermen to be His disciples.  Were He preaching today, I am sure that the academic establishment would fault His lack of credentials.

You’ve probably all seen the story about St. Paul supposedly being given a philosopher’s face.  That is to say, some modern art historians think that St. Paul was first painted the way he traditionally is painted in Church iconography in order to portray him as a philosopher with a stereotypical philosopher’s face.  See the article here:  http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1339103?eng=y  I started reading the article and then promptly stopped when I read the following, which is one of the premises of the argument: 

“Portraiture was very widespread in Greek and Roman art. But in Jewish culture, human images were forbidden, and therefore it was unthinkable that Paul and the others would have themselves depicted. It was only later that the Church accepted the depiction of figures of the Christian faith.”

This is a heaping pile of fool.ish.ness.  Re-read the “argument.”  St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, the saint most responsible for *dispensing with the customs of the Old Law,* would be so devoted to “Jewish culture” that he would refuse to allow his portrait to be painted?  Huh? 

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Having recently concluded a very minor legal entanglement in which the Doctor and I were involuntarily involved, I was musing on the issue of accident etiquette. This seems to be one of many areas in which our litigation-happy culture is undermining basic considerations of decency.

First of all. We are constantly told that we should never apologize or admit fault after an accident, even if we are relatively certain that it was our fault. I can understand the need for caution in this area, because I know that some people are always inclined to regard themselves as being at fault after an unfortunate incident even if they may perhaps not have been. And of course, as we are repeatedly told, the person who apologizes at the accident scene can find their apology being used against them in court. So caution is warranted, especially for reflexive “sorry-sayers” (that is, those people whose impulse to apologize is so strong that you could whomp them over the head with a rolling pin and their automatic response would be, “sorry!”).

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What is the point of “reducing the number of abortions that take place in this country?” That is to say, what point would there be if abortion were not wrong? I was musing about this today, and I think it’s an interesting question in light of the popularity of the “reduction” line for our esteemed president, and among “abortion rights” advocates generally. The “reduction” line is intended to say, “even though I support the legal slaughter of unborn children, I am still morally serious and have a heart.” In an earlier age we had “safe, legal and rare,” and liberals have always loved the idea that they are really the pro-life ones, because they support all the measures (mostly wealth redistribution in various forms) that will actually minimize abortion. That claim is generally not well supported by the evidence, but even if it were, the question would still remain: why would we want to minimize abortions if abortion were not wrong?

I don’t mean to suggest that there are no remotely tenable answers to this question. In the first place, one might have prudential reasons for wanting to minimize abortions: because the procedure uses medical resources that could be better used elsewhere (but this is surely a minimal concern given the many, much more costly procedures that are regularly being performed at insurance companies’ or the government’s expense), because it eliminates potential members of the future workforce (which really is a serious concern in most Western countries today), or because it has negative physical and psychological effects on the women who seek out abortions. This last, though, raises some further questions, because if abortion is not wrong, at least the negative psychological effects are presumably just the product of misguided sentiment. All the woman needs is to be reassured that there is nothing morally problematic about what she has done. On the other hand, people who admit that emotional trauma is a natural and likely result of abortion ought to wonder a bit why that should be the case, if abortion is not wrong.
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That’s my suggested title for an article examining how Catholics operating within the American political tradition — or at least Catholics living in America — might come to terms with Pope Benedict XVI’s by now infamous call for “true world political authority” in paragraph #67 of “Caritas in Veritate.”  I spent my high school years reading stuff put out by the John Birch Society (whose president is a tertiary of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, btw), so I know that a good number of Catholic rightists are American patriots quite opposed to globalism, either economic or political.  So was paragraph #67 ghostwritten by the Bilderbergers/Trilaterals/CFR/Rockefellers/Rothschilds sitting in the Meditation Room at the UN?  At the same time, there are traditionalist Catholics who hold that America itself is the cornerstone of the masonic One World Government/New World Order.   Hence, our Spirit of ‘76 – liberal, capitalist democracy – is identical with the Illuminati’s plan for world government.  After all, Adam “Spartacus” Weishaupt founded the Bavarian Illuminati in *1776,* dontchaknow?  And then there will be those who demand a new Holy Roman Empire — with “real teeth” this time! – and claim that this is *clearly* what Pope Benedict is calling for.  In that scenario, American exceptionalism is evil and we should look forward to the Great Monarch who will incorporate us into a restored universal Christendom.  

So, why don’t I write the article myself?  I don’t have the time or the interest, that’s why.  But I’m sure I can be coaxed into straining some gnats and swallowing a few camels provided you write some responses to this post in which you put forth your own two cents (does Benedict want a world currency, too, I wonder?) on paragraph #67.  Or even — dare we?! — about the scores of other paragraphs in the encyclical.

And P.S. — I know that some members of this most august Society spend much time each day on Twitter.  Might they spare some minutes once in awhile to hammer out a pithy sentence or two onto our good ol’ blog?  For nostalgia’s sake?

Boy with all of the hullaballoo about the new abortion regime we’re living under, you’d think that Obama had been responsible for something like, oh say, legalizing RU-486.  Do you think that McCain would have reversed that?

Anyone who finds it necessary to write, “Just sayin’!” in the course of a blog post probably isn’t “just sayin.’”  And why would anyone “just say” something?  Are they confessing to writing things without a point?  Personally, I find people who lack ulterior motives to be shallow.

I just heard a song on the radio called “O, Grace” by Magnolia Electric Co.  One of the expressions in the song is, “as lonely as the world’s first ghost.”  It’s a pretty evocative line.  It makes you wonder what it was like to be Abel when he was the first soul to enter the Bosom of Abraham back before Abraham’s great-great-great-grandfather was even born.  It occurred to me that the greatest pain in Eve’s life (after the Fall, that is) must have been when she saw Abel’s dead body.  I imagine that this occasioned the world’s first enactment of the “Pieta,” only the First Eve probably lacked the sublime beauty and resignation of the Second Eve as envisaged by Mr. Buonarroti.  Then a second thought occurred to me:  no, Eve’s greatest pain probably came when she looked upon Cain, the fruit of her womb as much as Abel was, and knew that he was the murderer.   So I think it is with the Blessed Virgin and us.  I imagine that the main pain of the Crucifixion was not that her Son died a painful death He chose but that so many of her adopted children were guilty of choosing that death for Him.  It was the sinfulness — our sin — that made the Crucifixion so awful, more so than the pain or death as such.  A rather trite point, maybe, but perhaps the thought about Eve, Abel, and Cain sheds a new light on the situation.  For what that’s worth.  And please correct me if I’m in error on some point.

One of the great things about living in a northern state is that you come to have a great appreciation for good weather. We’ve had lovely weather these past couple of days, and my husband and I have gone down in the evenings to one of the local parks, where we toss a football around for awhile and then walk along the river. It feels like a real treat. And other people obviously feel the same way, because there are always plenty of others — mostly couples and families — out enjoying the summer weather with us, picnicking or fishing or playing with small children in the grass. With everything green and flourishing, one has the joyful feeling of being surrounded by abundant life.

I love all seasons (though I will confess that, up north where we live, I’m pretty tired of winter by the time it ends.) Maybe someday when I am old, I’ll want a Floridian condo wherein I will never again have to worry about heavy overcoats or frozen fingers. But even then, I suspect I would miss the seasons. Each one has its special magic, and I find too that, in each season, there is a particular time of day that I most cherish. In springtime, mornings are the most lovely. When they’re bright and sunny, the world seems bathed in freshness and hope, and on the wet rainy mornings, it feels that the whole world is being bathed and nourished and prepared for the good things to come. In summer, the evenings are my favorites, when the heat of the day has passed and cool breezes stir the leaves. At that time, the world feels alert and rich and full of life; there is something luscious and almost decadent about a summer evening.

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When things get you down, just remember:  somewhere in the Vatican there is a buffalo hide that Sitting Bull painted as a gift for Leo XIII.  If the world contains pleasant surprises such as this, it can’t be all bad!