Potpourri of Popery, 1st Sunday of Lent edition

Photo credit: Pope Emeritus BXVI showing reverence to his superior, the reigning Pope. Love! 

I'm as shocked as you are. Didn't know if I'd ever again find time or inspiration for Potpourri, but here we go.

Popery:
To mark his first anniversary as Pope, the Holy Father granted an interview to Italy's Corriere della Serra (link is to English transcript). It's wide-ranging. A few of my highlights:

Hardly the most important thing, but let's just get this out of the way because I KNEW it. People have been passing around stories about the Pope sneaking out of the Vatican in the middle of the night to feed the homeless. It's been all I can do when I see those stories circulating not to become Wet-Blanket Gal and try to fix the internet by calling BS every time one pops up. They make no sense. There are no middle-of-the-night soup kitchens; homeless people also sleep. The articles never have any credible sources, and seem to originate with the kind of person who thinks the Vatican should sell all its art, give up the sacraments and send every priest to the streets -- using Francis as a scourge against everyone else.  I therefore feel smug when I read the Holy Father finds those stories offensive:

I  like being among the people. Together with those who suffer. Going to parishes. I don’t like the ideological interpretations, a certain ‘mythology of Pope Francis’. When it is said, for example, that he goes out of the Vatican at night to walk and to feed the homeless on Via Ottaviano. It has never crossed my mind. If I’m not wrong, Sigmund Freud said that in every idealization there is an aggression. Depicting the Pope to be a sort of superman, a type of star, seems offensive to me. The Pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly and has friends like everyone. A normal person. 

They ask him some good questions -- for example, when he exalts poverty, does he mean "pauperism."? No. "Pauperism" was a medieval mistake, corrected by Francis of Assisi, who put poverty back on the Gospel track. But still: "The Gospel condemns the cult of well-being," and you can't serve God and money.

Does he not recognize that globalization has lifted many people out of poverty?  Of course it has, but it has also condemned people by picking winners, destroying culture and ignoring genuine human flourishing.

The globalization which the Church supports is similar not to a sphere in which every point is equidistant from the center and in which then one loses the particularity of a people, but a polyhedron, with its diverse faces, in which every people conserves its own culture, language, religion, identity. The current ‘spherical’ economic, and especially financial, globalization produces a single thought, a weak thought. At the center is no longer the human person, just money.

Some headlines have suggested the Pope hints at forthcoming changes in Church teaching in this interview. Quite the contrary. I don't we have to go any further than his praising Paul VI's teaching against contraception:

his genius was prophetic, he had the courage to place himself against the majority, defending the moral discipline, exercising a culture brake, opposing present and future neo-Malthusianism. The question is not that of changing the doctrine but of going deeper and making pastoral (ministry) take into account the situations and that which it is possible for people to do

It's clear from this and other passages in the interview no change in teaching is in the offing, but he wants an examination of how to engage the culture -- to encourage young people to marry, to help couples who do marry stay together.

I think the heart of the interview is a question people will probably pass over.  A question begins: "Kindness and mercy are the essence of your pastoral message…"

and Francis interrupts to say:

And of the Gospel. It is the center of the Gospel. Otherwise, one cannot understand Jesus Christ, the kindness of the Father who sent him to listen to us, to heal us, to save us.

When I was in Rome for the Vigil of Pentecost last year, the crowd was shouting at intervals, "Fran-ces-co! Fran-ces-co!" and he commented on it, departing from his prepared remarks:

What is the most important thing? Jesus. If we forge ahead with our own arrangements, with other things, with beautiful things but without Jesus we make no headway, it does not work. Jesus is more important. I would like now to make a small complaint, but in a brotherly way, just between ourselves. All of you in the square shouted “Francis, Francis, Pope Francis”; but where was Jesus? I should have preferred to hear you cry: “Jesus, Jesus is Lord, and he is in our midst!” From now on enough of “Francis,” just “Jesus”!

This is the thing we are all too clericalized (just as he always complains) to understand. Francis doesn't envision himself to have a "program" of his own and isn't interested in advancing his own ideas. He's just trying to live the Gospel in its fullness, and challenging anyone who professes to be Christian to do the same. You will rarely hear him speak of the Church in the formal sense, still less meaning only the hierarchy. He is usually using words in the colloquial sense, and speaking of Church in the broadest possible sense of every professing Christian. (See interview w/ Bishop Morlino below in Potpourri for more on this.)

We see this in his homily at the consistory appointing new cardinals. You're a cardinal, you're a bishop, you have a task, but before you are anything else, you are a disciple.

“Jesus was walking ahead of them…” (Mk 10:32).
At this moment too, Jesus is walking ahead of us. He is always before us. He goes ahead of us and leads the way… This is the source of our confidence and our joy: to be his disciples, to remain with him, to walk behind him, to follow him…
...This is something striking about the Gospels: Jesus is often walking and he teaches his disciples along the way. This is important. Jesus did not come to teach a philosophy, an ideology… but rather “a way”, a journey to be undertaken with him, and we learn the way as we go, by walking. Yes, dear brothers, this is our joy: to walk with Jesus.

It's funny, what made headlines in that homily and that of the concelebration with the new cardinals the next day is not at all what I think is most striking. "The world," if by that is meant secular media, highlighted a line about the College of Cardinals being a call to service, not a royal court. The world interpreted that to mean a call to poverty and humility, but I think instead it was a call to unity.

At the consistory he said:

as we are thus “con-voked”, “called to himself” by our one Teacher, I will tell you what the Church needs: she needs you, your cooperation, and even more your communion, with me and among yourselves.

And the following day, in the line about the royal court, he said:

"May all of us avoid, and help others to avoid, habits and ways of acting typical of a court: intrigue, gossip, cliques, favouritism and partiality."

But the passage closes with:

Dear brother Cardinals, may we remain united in Christ and among ourselves! I ask you to remain close to me, with your prayers, your advice and your help.

He does not strike me as a man (as some would have it) encouraging dissent!

If you'd like to know more about what Francis means by poverty, you can't do better than his Letter for Lent. It really isn't about pauperism, since he identifies moral and spiritual poverty as of deeper concern than material poverty. I'd say what he brings that's new in emphasis is the connection between material destitution and moral poverty -- the former often being the seed of the latter.

The homily for Ash Wednesday is simple and beautiful and challenging and wise. In his daily homilies he beings to emerge as a tremendous teacher of the natural law. He appeals to it constantly, illustrating it, calling it forth -- but in the Lincolnian style, without ever calling attention to it by name.
 
Potpourri:

• Vatican: Pope Emeritus Benedict "speaks": new book interviews him on his relationship with JP the Great; and he makes a public appearance at the recent consistory, at the Pope's invitation. Pope & Curia off to 6-day Lenten retreat off-site (in the interview above he counts this as an important curial reform!) Old news now, but bishops and laity appointed to new Vatican Council for Economy. This is a really encouraging and important piece on the "rehabilitation" of an old liberation theologian. The press ran with the story as the resurgence of LT under Francis. But the real story is how Mueller of CDF has moved the LT guy back into orthodoxy.
• Iceland: the # of Catholics in Iceland doubles -- and not just while ninme & her family were there!
• Iraq: Chaldean patriarch pleas with people not to leave.
• Korea: NorKo to execute 33 Christians for "planting" house Churches. So awful and sad -- but so brave and hopeful, too. Love to think that Christianity is spreading in that hopeless land. The Pope's going to Korea in August to beatify Korean martyrs! Thrilled about this!
• Kuwait & Bahrain: very interesting piece on the growth of Catholicism in Arab lands -- via immigration, not conversion. King of Bahrain has agreed to give land for a Church!
• Sweden: Ulf Ekman, founder of Word of Life megachurch, converts to Catholicism.
• Syria: Kidnapped nuns freed. 
• Turkey: specifically, Istanbul: Orthodox to hold first Council in more than 1000 years.

• Ukraine: Pope appeals for peace. Interview with Ukrainian Catholic Bishop.  Ukrainian Orthodox appeal to Kyrill.
• United States: poor Cardinal George is sick again. Miracle approved, advances Fulton Sheen's cause. Chaput the Great appointed to Pontifical Council for Laity (so much for the Francis appointing liberals meme). Archd. of Philly freezing pensions. Morlino the Great grants terrific interview, largely about Pope Francis, gets it just right. RTWT.

And finally: Alligator okay to eat for Lent.

Thank Heaven for Obedience

Another book-length interview w/ BXVI is on the way: this one on his relationship with soon-to-be canonized John Paul II.  Zenit has excerpts. Of course, good stuff on JP the G, but this is almost chilling. We know Ratzinger tried at least twice to resign as prefect of CDF towards the end of JP's papacy. What I didn't know was how much he didn't want the job in the first place. Refused it once and tried to wriggle out of it the second time:

BENEDICT XVI: John Paul II called me in 1979 to appoint me prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
Just two years had passed since my episcopal consecration in Munich and I thought it was impossible to leave so soon the See of Saint Corbinianus. The episcopal consecration represented in some way a promise of fidelity to the diocese to which I belonged. So I asked the Pope to postpone that appointment […].
It was in the course of 1980 that he told me he would appoint me again, at the end of 1981, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as successor of Cardinal Seper.
As I continued to feel obliged in the affairs of the diocese to which I belonged, I permitted myself to set a condition for the acceptance of the post, which, moreover, I believed was unrealizable.  I said that I felt the duty to continue publishing theological works. I could answer affirmatively only if this was compatible with the task of prefect. The Pope, who was always benevolent and understanding with me, said that if he were informed about this question he could then make up his mind. Subsequently, when I paid him a visit, he explained to me that theological publications are compatible with the office of prefect; Cardinal Garrone, he said, had also published theological works when he was prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
So I accepted the office, very conscious of the gravity of the task, but knowing also that obedience to the Pope now exacted a “yes” from me.

I am trying to imagine my life and that of the Church without the influence of Joseph Ratzinger, future Doctor of the Church.

All I Ask For In A Film

You've heard the rumors that "Noah "will be anti-Christian and about global warming? Hollywood's capable of anything (like a movie where the real terrorists are from 9/11 families), but that seems so preposterous on its face -- what fossil fuels were being burned in antediluvian (and presumably ante-fossil) times?-- that I couldn't credit it. Then a few weeks ago Steven Greydanus did this fabulous piece urging people to chill out since no one knows anything about the script yet -- but more importantly, pointing out the film-maker is Jewish and exploring rabbinical texts about the flood.

Very interesting. But I will be seeing Noah in any case, because it has that for which I principally look in any adventure film:  big honkin' waves.

If Only Those Who Pay Little Attention to the Pope Would Stop Commenting On Him For Lent

A Michael Sean Winters blog post had some folks in my neighborhood exorcised the other day because we're pretty sure it's our parish he's complaining about here -- for the terrible crime of praying the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel after every Mass.

At another nearby parish, the pastor, one year older than myself, also has the congregation recite the prayer at the end of Mass.  This "fashion" is making a comeback with some of our younger priests, and I do not think it bodes well. I am all for a Marian hymn after Mass. But, bringing my namesake into strikes me as evidence of an agenda or, perhaps, an ideology. 

I don't understand the point of the post, which opens by invoking Pope Francis' alleged view that young people liking the Extraordinary Form mass is just a fad but turns into a rant against anyone praying to St. Michael. The connection being, EVERYONE prayed the St. Michael prayer in the old days, so ANYONE praying it now must be up to no good.

I'm not sure what difference it makes if the EF mass or St. Michael prayer IS a fad. So what? It's a big church, people can have the devotions they wish -- that seems to be the Pope's point, no? He doesn't think the EF is going anywhere long-term and he may or may not be right, but he doesn't show any appetite for crushing it either. In any case, why would you stop anyone from praying -- and especially to your own namesake?

What would be the dangerous ideology Winters fears? Belief that the devil is real and should be opposed? (Since St. Michael is invoked against "the snares of the devil.")

My reason for bringing this up, however, is that whatever the Pope thinks of the EF Mass, you cannot invoke him against the prayer to St. Michael, seeing as how last July he consecrated the entire Vatican to St. Michael.

Michael - which means "Who is like God" - is the champion of the primacy of God, of His transcendence and power. Michael struggles to restore divine justice and defends the People of God from his enemies, above all by the enemy par excellence, the devil. And St. Michael wins because in him, there is He God who acts. This sculpture reminds us then that evil is overcome, the accuser is unmasked, his head crushed, because salvation was accomplished once and for all in the blood of Christ. Though the devil always tries to disfigure the face of the Archangel and that of humanity, God is stronger, it is His victory and His salvation that is offered to all men. We are not alone on the journey or in the trials of life, we are accompanied and supported by the Angels of God, who offer, so to speak, their wings to help us overcome so many dangers, in order to fly high compared to those realities that can weigh down our lives or drag us down. In consecrating Vatican City State to St. Michael the Archangel, I ask him to defend us from the evil one and banish him.

So there. If you're going to comment on the pope's doings, at least pay attention to them.

They Lent Me This Picture

No post, really. Just checking out this story. (Update: note to self: the Pope's crozier --the one used by JP the Great and not the one complained of in certain quarters.)

My Spy in Ukraine

I don't actually have a spy in Ukraine, but I do have a Ukrainian friend, and told her I'd love to know her take on events in the Crimea.

As "her take" and that of her contacts in Ukraine, she sent me these two links. This, written by a family friend: The Ukrainian Struggle: Freedom with Dignity Over Corruption & Power.

In perhaps what may turn out to be one of those epic twists of historical irony, Western talking heads will be shocked when Ukraine emerges unified with no real ethnic divisions between Russians and Ukrainians: they will have missed the boat in the same way Western analysts missed the collapse of the USSR. George Bush the elder perhaps best exemplified this myopia in his infamous Chicken Kiev speech before the Ukrainian SSR Parliament in 1991 when he labeled the aspirations of Ukrainians—themselves long-term victims of Russian nationalism—“blood-thirsty nationalism.”
Dignity is not something political scientists can easily quantify or characterize, so in most cases they are blind to the deeper sentiments driving events in Ukraine. Stephen Cohen displays his ignorance of local realities when he misrepresents Ukraine as “two countries”—playing into Putin’s aspiration to grab parts of it if cajoling Ukraine into the Eurasian Economic Union fails.

And this: A Divided Ukraine? from a Russian-speaking Ukrainian.

Many people in Crimea and eastern Ukraine don't want the protection of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But there are some who are afraid of forced Ukraineization because they have been fed propaganda by Russian TV channels for years. The purpose is to convince Ukrainians that we are divided, not one country, and that the safest course of action for Russian-speaking areas is to break away and join Russia.

These ideas have been cultivated since I was a child. I remember when I lived in Donetsk in the '90s, how scared we were that a candidate from western Ukraine would win an election and force us to speak Ukrainian. But when I moved out of the area of aggressive Russian information, I quickly realized I can speak Russian in Kiev or Lviv and no one will ever be upset with me!

Over our 22 years of Ukrainian independence, fears of language or ethnic persecution have never come true. But they were kept alive by Russian propaganda. We understand that Putin is trying to escalate tension and provoke civil war in Ukraine right now. He can't afford for a free Ukraine to succeed: His own people might get an idea that it's possible to overthrow a tyrant and build a prosperous country.

My friend tells me she burns every time she hears someone in the West say Crimea used to be part of Russia so it's no big deal. She wonders how many Westerners recall that Alaska was once part of Russia and are aware that Russian children are taught that America acquired Alaska illegally?

Make of it what you will. Meanwhile, WaPo reports that Crimea has set a referendum on joining Russia, a move President Obama has said would be "unconstitutional."

Ah, so he does know the Constitution!

Maybe Don't Worry So Much About Russia

Last week Paul Rahe brought me considerable calm regarding Russia & Crimea, pointing out that whatever Mad Vlad's aspirations are, he simply doesn't have the resources to pull off his plans, and is in fact depleting his own economy. America isn't Russia's enemy, Rahe argues -- we're not even rivals, since our only interest in Russia at this point is as a trading partner.  Russia does have an enemy, though:

Russia is suffering a demographic implosion. It will be difficult for it to hold what it has. It is, moreover, well nigh impossible to get Russians to move to Siberia. It is not a pleasant place in which to live. The majority of those who live there today are not Russian. Many of them are Chinese who have journeyed north in search of well-paid work; and China, which is just across the border from Siberia, is an economic juggernaut increasingly desperate for resources of the very sort that are found in abundance in Siberia.
Vladimir Putin should think hard about the precedent he is setting in the Crimea. The day may come when China does to Russia in Siberia what he is trying to do right now to the Ukraine in the Crimea. Putin's government piously states that its only concern is to protect the majority Russian population in the Crimea from the Tatars and the Ukrainians there. China, in time, will say the like about the Chinese in Siberia. And when that day comes, he will have alienated everyone of any significance who might otherwise have rallied to Russia's defense.

That rings true to me, as does this:

Our aim for the past seven decades has been to reorder the world in such a fashion as to make war counter-productive. The name of the game is commerce. The weapon we deploy is simple and powerful. Those who agree to leave their neighbors alone and to allow freedom of commerce can profit from a a world-wide economic system that will enrich everyone. Those who buck that system and opt for imperial ventures will be contained, weakened, and defeated.
This is a lesson that France and Germany have taken to heart. But Vladimir Putin is simply too dumb to notice.

Conclusion: this is not good for Ukraine and Crimea right now, but in the long run Putin's only hurting Russia. 

Deep breath, everyone calm down.

That was last week. This morning Rahe has a follow-up that's genuinely alarming. Maybe too much so, maybe it's just alarmist. But read not only the piece but the intelligent comments. The question is what China will learn from Russia's Crimea gambit --and Obama's manifest weakness. Rahe speculates that Taiwan might be in danger. His interlocutors think that's too much, but Japan's South Sea interests might be in real danger.  RTWT.

Scratch A Priest, Find A Soldier

(Photo credit needed. Help?)

Not pretending to fully understand the situation in Ukraine, but any blow to Putin's effort to rebuild the Soviet Union seems like a good thing, so the flight of Yanukov and release of Yulia Tymoshenko seems positive. (Though when Reuters describes the Ukraine turning from Russia and towards the EU, I'm less certain of that. One is a wicked entity determined to stamp out individual cultures and crush institutions and thoughts it disapproves of and the other is run by Vladimir Putin).

What's been impressive in the midst of these protests is the Orthodox priests standing in the breech between the crowds and the government forces. They remind me of my old Prof. Fritz Wilhelmsen's frequent remark: "When you scratch a priest, you should find a soldier." This guy looks like he's straight out of 300, only he's not animation-enhanced. Here's a gallery of such photos --priests with the wounded, priests with the protestors, priests with the cops. Moving.

Why Obama Won

Watch what Michelle says here in response to the second question (roughly minute 1 to 2). That connection with people who have boring jobs they aren't passionate about is why Obama won and why the GOP can't connect -- because, with the exception of Rick Santorum (who is too angry-seeming for national office) and Paul Ryan behind the scenes but not yet too much publicly, no one in the GOP has mastered the language of defending the little guy, even if its self-understanding is being for the little guy. (I thought I wrote a long post about this around the election, but can't find it. Maybe it was a mind-post. Oh, wait, here it is: what about the quiet americans?)

Caracas On Fire

I am not caught up enough on reading to have a handle on the situation in Venezuela, but here are links my spies in Caracas have been posting the past few days. Pray for them, would you? Two of my dearest friends are Venezuelan and through them, I have quite a few Venezuelan buddies, all of whom are involved at high levels in opposition to the Chavezistas and therefore in danger.

The last message I have checking in on people was from a couple of days ago, when one friend was not all that worried, and actually hopeful. He wrote:

Things are going wild down here, but I think it's normal.... Having this mess and nothing happening is really frustrating, so people are finally reacting. This may be the beginning of the end, which doesn't mean that we should expect results soon... Thanks for your prayers!

But that was before last night, when there's apparently been an even more frightening government crackdown, worse than what was already happening.

Here's a good round-up of events, coupled with a "shame on you" to international media for not covering the massive anti-government protests.

A good summary of what's going on, with video of government forces firing into peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. Amateur, made by a Venezuelan expat from footage friends in country sent her, but good. 

CATO institute podcast.

Venezuelan conductor decries atrocities.

If you read Spanish:  Venezuelan police admit "this is worse than we thought."

Also in Spanish, a rather incredible interview the Venezuelan ambassador to the Dominican Republic gave to to DR reporters. I'm told this is what all the Chavezistas are like: ignorant, boorish and macho. He reminded me of Bagdad Bob. He says no one could possibly be upset with the government when 85% of the country voted it in only 9 months ago. It's all stirred up by the United States, intent on a coup. When the reporter says the demonstrations are peaceful and primarily of students, he says students couldn't possibly be protesting because Venezuela gives more handouts to students than anyone else. And then he's just insufferably rude. The reporters finally lose their cool, insult him in return, and end the interview.
 

Strange Ways

Posting this only because as a 7th grader I was somewhat afraid of Gene Simmons. In the '70s, it was kind of faddish among evangelical Christians to fret a great deal about satanic influence in rock music -- lots of allegations about backward masking and such. It was rumored that KISS stood for Kids In Satan's Service, and it was easy to believe looking at their make-up and listening to their sound (and albums with titles like "Hotter Than Hell") that they might all be possessed.

I'm aware that in his old age Simmons has become something of a staid Libertarian spokesman, but I think he's unrepentant of his rock-star promiscuity, so a defense of the chaste Tebow and the way he seems conversant in "Jesus talk" comes as something of a surprise.