Apparently praising the aesthetic qualities of a battleship is some kind of warmongering.

Y'see, calling an instrument of death beautiful is wrong, at least in the eyes of some Catholics who are qualified to judge morality.


Now, they do have a point. After all, no matter how shiny a garbage truck is, it's still used for carting garbage around - and no matter how beautiful a war machine is, it's designed for killing people, many of whom land in Hell as a result. And a lot of people (most notably those in France, Germany, and the areas between) praised the beauty of their weapons to hide the fact that they were growing too warlike (to use a mild phrase)...


Then again, praising the looks of this weapon...


...doesn't mean you approve of how Francis Macomber died in Hemingway's story.

...or, "Much ado about nothing"

Diogenes is generalizing here, but it's true.

My guess is liturgical tomfoolery is mostly inspired by people who sit around thinking, "You know, modern Americans live a crude, ugly, uninspired life. No matter how wonderful their characters or how wild their adventures, they have to do them within the confines of ugly buildings and unflattering "practical" clothes. Perhaps we should allow them to do something poetically and expressively, the way folks did back in....[here they suppress their urge to mention the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when being a lackey at the Holy Mass was worth the bother]...the early Church."

Of course, it doesn't convince them to make beautiful churches or splendid outfits for their altar servers, but that doesn't matter. What matters is they're mostly interested in the "experience" of the Mass. Of course, most Catholics view Mass as a sort of large grace-dispensing machine, where they pay an hour of time and get various graces in return (and, if they bother to pray during the Mass, some actual spiritual growth). When these groups meet, you get the typical church: a bevy of altar servers/choir singers/performers who try to please indifferent people who are mostly just waiting for Communion. And a priest, we can't forget that.

In Keeping with my tradition of not having anything to do with important cultural issues...

I present to you this question: Did Moses have horns? (I don't know what Daniel Mitsui's authority on this matter is, other than that he's at least a well-informed amateur student of religious art, and sells his own religious art.)

On the one hand, you'd expect someone who spoke with God to shine, not sprout horns. On the other hand, not all horned creatures are evil - unicorns, for instance. (I'd argue that, if Moses had horns, it would refer to the ram which God sent to Abraham, since both were God-given gifts which prevented the Chosen Race from getting exterminated.)

Of course, it doesn't help matters that this statue of Moses makes him look like Zeus in the process of having Athena pop out of his head..

I got the reference...and I'm praying for EegahInc...

Then again, what's wrong with being a freak, anyway? Gooble, gooble, gooble, gooble, gooble...

Go ahead and pray for EegahInc too.

This I find quite disturbing....

These two websites (Catholic News Agency and Catholic News Service) give two conflicting reports on the same story. The CNA article, it seems, doesn't mention something the CNS article does.

I'm just so confused....which one is right, and which one isn't?

UPDATE: Here's more on the issue, from Australia and England respectively.

While dredging the Web, I found this:

"There's no energy on the non-zealot side of the cultural debate."

Some quotes - like this one - are just too exquisite to pass by. And so, taking a page out of G. K. Chesterton's book Tremendous Trifles, I will attempt to parody its style.

• There's a disappointing lack of Republicanism in the Democratic Party nowadays.



• Unfortunately, there's little sympathy for OU's football team among UT fans.



• Surfers, oddly enough, don't like to live in Nebraska.



• Saladin didn't actively support Richard the Lionheart's cause.



• Fish adamantly refuse to take part in marathons, despite a major publicity campaign aimed at getting "FINS ON THE ROAD!"

In more current news...

The Pope, for some reason, is "bypassing" Boston in his upcoming visit - point of fact, he's only going to New York and Washington, D.C. This, I suppose, proves beyond a doubt that Boston is now flyover country.

I think a lot of people are regretting the decision to let China have the Olympics. They're putting cell phone towers on Mount Everest, prohibiting Olympic athletes/attendees from having bibles...something tells me they'll next put a huge statue of Mao Zedong holding the Olympic Rings in Beijing. (By the way, the word "Beijing" is a blight on the eyes. Unlike "Peking" which had a tasteful clearness and lack of dots.)

In Venezuela, "reforming" a constitution apparently means creating a dictator and eliminating freedom of the press. Maybe they meant "reforming" in the sense that this is "reforming" a birthday cake.

Oh, and D.G.D. Davidson and I are doomed to MORTAL COMBAT!

On one side, the veteran of countless archaeological encounters and international Sharp Trowel Expert, on the other, a veteran of The Simplification with world-renowned prowess in blunt weaponry...

In the case of , um, this blog going dormant, I'll just say I don't much regret what I've done with my life (except the one time I used my sister's copy of Persuasion as tinder....and the time I ate Tabasco sauce straight....and some other things...)

Over and out.

I don't have time to think tonight...

So I'll just fling some links at y'all.

From the InsideCatholic.com blog, a post on how looks matter in tasting wine. (Not in the sense of the wine having no visible grape skins in it.) A distressing line in the post: "Forty experts said [a particular wine] was worth drinking..." Now, I could say that a wine is or isn't worth buying, but isn't any unadulterated wine worth drinking?

From the same website, a column about Muslims, aesthetics, and the Blessed Sacrament.

Since our house doesn't have TV, the recent TV writers' strike hasn't affected me much- but I have read quite a bit about it. The best perspective on it that I have seen is here, on a post written before the strike actually began. I like the closing line of the post.

From Darwin Catholic, a post on the problem of evil. I have to admit, I don't really worry much about why God allows evil in the world, since from early childhood I have been taught that

1. Good things come from God, and
2. If something is bad, it's because mankind/the Devil messed it up.

My sister is preparing to resort to armed coercion to make me go to bed mow, so goodnight, everyone!

Music...

I attended Saturday evening mass at a nearby parish, where for whatever reason the responsorial psalm resembled the song, "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie, The Old Grey Goose is Dead." Couple that with a communion hymn ("I Am The Bread of Life," to be exact) which completely lacks even the suggestion of poetry, and a Kyrie Eleison remniscent of a marching cadence, and you have a delightful instance of music getting in the way of mass.

After the mass, my dad asked, "Is there a patron saint of bad liturgical music?"

I don't think there is.

Fr. Tim at the Spirit of Vatican II "Catholic" Faith Community has an awesome sermon up.

How can you get better than that?

Concerning the recent hullabaloo about Mother Theresa....

So what if she said "I have no faith?"

It's not as shocking as this.

Just in case my dad didn't notice....

"What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent;

or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

A very important moral question is answered here

So now you'll know what to do.

On a related note, here are some important quotations from my summer trip:

"Can I have your earring again?"

"Can a dog be happy?"

"I know that I do not know that I know that I don't know."

(Two of these originated with your good author. Guess which one didn't.)

On Patriotism

Since I won't be posting tomorrow, I figured I mind as well put this up. I was about to give a little dissertation on patriotism, but lo and behold! the Catechism of the Catholic Church reared its head.



Read the whole article - it places patriotism in its larger context, namely in the Fourth Commandment. After all, it is accurate to call our country "fatherland," even when describing the country in feminine terms.



ARTICLE 4 - THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

Well, it's here, and I for one am not unhappy

I am willing to use any excuse to load myself with champagne.

Seriously, I wonder (a) if my rather cynical interpretation of the situation has been disproved by this, or (b)whether this means some high-profile schismatics are about to return to the Church or yield a point to the Magisterium.

I have only been to one Tridentine Mass in my life, coincidentially the wedding mass of the Former Babysitter. I have but one complaint - it was hard to hear the priest even when he was speaking out loud.

I kind of like the idea of Novus Ordo for ordinary Masses and Tridentine for extraordinary. Especially if (a)they use 20 or 30 servers who belt out the responses and (b)lots of incense.

Forget Cambodia.....

I feel like invading the whole Middle East.

More practically, it might not hurt to offer refugee visas to any Iraqi Christians who might want it - America is a 99 percent terrorist-free nation.

Blithely unaware of their having sold out to the Loony Left....

The Vatican gets solar power.

Of course, it's probably motivated by strictly economic motives. With which I have no problem. I'd prefer less of my donations to the Vatican to go to electric bills and more to go to worthwhile projects like feeding the poor and commissioning some decent musicians for new hymnals.

Mr. Hitchens, I am a "Great Mammal."

Pope John Paul II was a great man.

I think we ought to make a Great Mammal crest for the Pope. Or appropriate Harvard's Great Mammal Hall for a John Paul II display.

Now, this is a great mammal.

The man, of course, is a man.

Australians re-enact Matthew 21:34-41

"When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants 28 to the tenants to obtain his produce.
But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, 'They will respect my son.' "

Whether or not your bishop and priests are intelligent, prudent, or holy, you have to respect them. No garden-hosing, no sticking uncalled-for statues on the altar, and no misuse of the Eucharist - it's just not moral.

Well, well, well.

The Catholic presence in America was negligible until 1830. Yet we have a half-dozen saints.

Brazil was majority-Catholic since 1700 or thereabouts....and it's only had its first saint canonized.

I ascribe it to geography. The nearer you are to Rome, the more likely you are to be canonized, and Brazil is further from Rome than the USA is, at least in practice (easier to go through the North Atlantic than the doldrums, even now.)

Hawaii: Land of Martyrs

Now it's a place to pilgrimage, folks! Next December, remember to buy plane tickets!