Rebuilding

[via FutureShorts]



[YouTube link; Vimeo link]

For more about it: The Madman and the Cathedral

To An Impossible Situation That Shouldn't Last Forever

I'll give the pope some credit here. He's certainly right that getting men to stop cheating on their wives en masse - as is the custom in many African ethno-linguistic groups, especially those in which having sex with a nursing mother is a cultural taboo - would certainly abate the spread of HIV. As would ending the practices of polygamy, marrying off twelve-year-old girls, and the use of rape as a weapon of war.

But the pope doesn't know what he's talking about. Only someone who's never set foot in an African hospital would claim that condom use doesn't help fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Because it does. It works. When a country increases access to information about and reduces the cost of condoms, its HIV rate goes down. This is not in dispute. It works especially well when you hand out condoms in conjunction with campaigns that encourage teenagers to abstain and husbands to be faithful to their wives. But access to condoms is a key part of the strategy.

...The reality of the situation pushes aside ideals and pontifications from on high. It forces an immediate, imperfect response to an impossible situation.

It would be great if the pope's vision of fidelity replaced the need for condom distribution in much of sub-Saharan Africa. The cost-prohibitive nature of all forms of contraception and disease-prevention mean that these programs are almost completely dependent on donor financing. That money won't last forever. There will have to be long-term, local solutions to these problems. But those kinds of cultural changes take a lifetime to implement. Given that there is no evidence that condom distribution increases promiscuity - or the HIV/AIDS seropositive rate - in sub-Saharan Africa, it's ridiculous to claim that these programs do more harm than good. And the at-risk people of Cameroon and Angola and Kenya and the Congo can't wait for norms to shift. I wonder if the pope thought of that. {full post}

[via Texas in Africa]

"Is The Meaning Lost?"

Halloween? Reformation? Which is it?

[vika Kevin Powell]

Lowered Standards

There is a great similarity between the Monarchists of post-Revolutionary France, and the conservatives in America in 2008, who intend to vote for Third Party Candidates. The Monarchists were holding out for a theoretical, potential future return of the Monarchy. Third-Party voters are holding out for the theoretical, potential true-conservative candidate. It is possible that, had they not obeyed the Pope, had the French continued to abstain from voting or running for office, one day the Monarchy would have been brought back to France. There is also a remote possibility that Third Party voters may, one day, bring about the nomination, in America, of a true conservative. And yet, and here is the point Pope Leo XIII made, Catholics are bound to live in the concrete reality in which God places them today. While not perfect, the good that would be accomplished by the French Catholics and the American conservatives, is at risk of not being done because of the pursuit of theoretical, potential, utopian possibility of perfection.

[via Taliban Rising]

Wouldn’t it be great if we valued peace as much as we value freedom? -Howie Luvzus

The problem with summers is that there are precious few holidays–especially in the United States. You’d think that we’d be able to think of a reason to celebrate during the summer. Especially in July. June is a time of spring weddings and a time when students get out of school. August is filled with anticipation–a time when folks go on vacation before autumn busyness crowds the calendar.

What we need is a holiday in July. A day of celebration to give us pause during the height of summer. Today, July 4th would be an excellent day for that holiday!

Thanks to Michael Iafrate at catholicanarchy.org, I now know that today is a day worth celebrating. You see, the 4th of July is the Feast Day of St. Elizabeth of Portugal, the Patroness of Peace. {continue...}

[via Jesus Manifesto, HT: Howie Luvzus]

Multiple Superheros

April 18-20: New York Comic Con
April 18-20: New York Papal Visit
Coincidence? We think not.

The Vatican knew exactly what they were doing. It was their attempt to make a full-scale frontal assault on American popular culture. Faced with a decision between comic books and holy scriptures, multiple superheros and a single savior, action figures and crucifixions, graphic novels and encyclicals, between the greatest artist in comic book history (Stan Lee) and the second most popular pope of the last four years (Benedict XVI), who did they expect us to choose? {continue...}

[via Wittenburg Door]

Religious Order Continues to Blend In, Make No Real Difference in Community

[via catholicnews.org]

The Greatest Offense

A week from Friday is Good Friday, a most solemn day for Christians. It is also a problem day for Jews, and for the evident Christian majority which is (or wants to be) sensitive to the sensibilities of Jews. For centuries the most painful element in the Roman Catholic liturgy came from the Good Friday litany in the Latin Rite, which began: "Let us pray for the perfidious Jews: That Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord..." There was also reference to "Jewish faithlessness" and "blindness." In 1960 an offended and thoughtful Pope John XXIII deleted "faithless" (perfidis); in 1970 the prayer was radically altered. So far, so good.

Last summer Pope Benedict XVI allowed for reversion to the world and words of pre-1970, to a 1962 Missal version of the liturgy. This act was received ambiguously by American Jewish leadership. The American Jewish Committee expressed "appreciation" for some of the papal steps forward, but the Anti-Defamation League called the pope's action "a theological setback" and a "body blow" to Catholic-Jewish relations. On February 6 the Vatican announced an emendation of the 1962 Missal. Tradition-hungry Catholics will now pray this revision: "Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men…grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved…"

Recently I conversed with a Jewish professor of New Testament at a largely Christian theological school, and expected her to speak of "setback" and "body blow." To my surprise, she said that while all such prayers make Jews uncomfortable, given the painful history we inherit, she thought that the notion of one faith-community praying for the spread of its faith to others was not the highest offense. "Many do it." OK. {continue...}

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Infallibility For Everyone

A Vatican has announced that this year's Christmas message to the world's faithful from Pope Benedict XVI will be released in a novel new format....

"His Holiness thinks this breakthrough could silence centuries of criticism about the Catholic church's authoritarian structure, bring a breath of fresh air into the Vatican and-- as an incidental side benefit --confer Papal infallibility on everyone... at least those with Internet access."

Visit Pope Benedict's wiki at vaticanwiki.wikispaces.com/

A sample wiki of the encyclical from last year has been provided to give the faithful some practice in expressing their views. Go ahead -- indulge yourself. Ex Cathedra.

[via The Wittenburg Blog]

But Where's The Conspiracy?

Knights Templar win heresy reprieve after 700 years

[HT: ThinkChristian.NET]

Open Discussion

Muslim leaders around the world have addressed an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian religious leaders -- including David Coffey, President of the Baptist World Alliance. The first of its kind letter, entitled "A Common Word Between Us and You," is designed to promote understanding between Muslims and Christians. {more}

[via Mainstream Baptist]

Moreover,

The question for Catholics is how the pope will respond. There is another significant anniversary coming up, that of B16's Regensburg speech that deeply offended many Muslims because of his association of Islam with violence. This letter is an olive branch, and the Holy Father would do well to hang on. And it is significant for the number of its Muslim signatories: Islam has no centralized authority, but the dozens of scholars and muftis have tens of millions of followers.

[via The Examined Life]

The Heart of the Dilemma

From Violence, Truth, and the Perfection of Allah -- Pope Benedict's Dilemma by agnusdei:

More than this, the Pope has a deep appreciation for the fact that the entire culture of Muslims is saturated in faith and devotion to God. In that sense, Muslim society -- Muslim culture -- resembles the Church, or at least -- a church. A community of people that follows God shares in the perfection of God. And this is the heart of the dilemma of the Pope's speech at Regensberg.

Pope Benedict, with his enormous grasp of the history of the Church, went all the way back to the 12th century, to a conversation between a Christian and a Muslim, to raise the issue of violence in the supposed adherence to God. The conversation was about the differences between Christianity and Islam, but Pope Benedict was interested in one aspect in particular. In honing in on the part of the conversation dealing with violence, the Pope honed in on the very question with which he, as Cardinal, had previously grappled: can a religion steeped in God act wrongly? ....

What is really unfortunate isn't that Pope Benedict reached back to a flawed and bigoted 12th century conversation in order to have a context for speaking about religious violence today. What is unfortunate is that he had to. For centuries, the West refused to talk to Islam at all, because we didn't share the same faith. Now, we've lost even the ability to talk to Islam, and we've lost that ability because we don't share a belief in faith itself -- a belief that is central to Islamic culture. Unless we reclaim the ability to talk about faith without sneering, we will insult Muslims at the very core of their culture, at the very core of their existence. In that state of insult, there can be no peace.

What Pope Benedict is saying, is this: It is the insistence that faith has no part in a modern and rational world, that is the hobgoblin of little minds.