Punditry

A couple of months ago I listened to an interview of Michael Pakaluk by Al Kresta about his new book The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark. The subtitle “A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark” gives you a basic summary of the book. This is both a translation and a commentary.

The title of this book is taken from St. Justyn Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho 103” where he mentions the “memoirs of Peter”. While it is not certain that his reference is to the Gospel of Mark, it certainly fits as so many early sources reference Mark being with St. Peter in Rome.

This book goes through each chapter of the Gospel of Mark and after each chapter offers a commentary. Sometimes his translation choices are spelled out in the commentary, which I found useful. Especially in the limited cases where a translation choice is generally different than I am use to.

I certainly found it worthwhile and reviews/blurbs of it by people such as Scott Hahn, C.C. Pecknold, and Thomas L. MacDonald certainly indicate that.

I listened to the Audible version of this book. Thinking back it was an odd choice for me to choose a translation and commentary in audio format. I think it was the fact that when I went to Amazon to pre-order this book I saw that there was an Audible version. There is such a paucity of books of this type or specifically Catholic content on Audible with some exceptions.

Now I am happy that I got the Audible version since it makes me more likely to go back to this in the future. Next time I will probably try listening to just one chapter with commentary a day.

Earlier my parish’s Latin Mass Community started to meet occasionally after Mass to talk about the community and efforts to continue it.

Currently there is one priest celebrating most of the Latin Masses and he is a contract Navy Chaplain serving a couple of local bases. His alternate is another Navy Chaplain serving NAS Jacksonville.

We also have a young parish priest who was ordained just last year and grew up in this parish. Rev. John Sollee showed some interest in learning the TLM. So as a community we sent a letter to our Bishop and our Pastor to request that he get the training. This was approved and so he was trained by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Petter (FSSP) this year. Today was his first public Latin Mass.

I have been very impressed with our diocese’s seminarians and newly ordained priests that I have encountered. This is especially true of Fr. Sollee. I also love it when I hear him preach. He has the ability to introduce more technical terms and then explain them and put them into context. Taking his obvious wealth of knowledge and bringing it all down to earth. His love of the Church and scripture is so obvious. He also made the wise decision when preaching on the Trinity to not introduce any analogies. So I quite enjoyed his homily today and how he said his first Latin Mass. He will be praying the TLM with us once a month.

Last week our Latin Mass community had a milestone. It was the tenth anniversary of the return of the Latin Mass to St. Joseph. After Pope Benedict XVI released Summorum Pontificum there were a couple people who did a lot of work to bring this Mass to St. Joseph. Oddly, I first heard about this via Fr. Z’s blog since there was some pushback from a priest in the Diocese concerning the infamous “stable group” interpretation in the Apostolic Letter. Regardless it obviously went forward. My parish has two churches. The main church was built in 1999. We also have a historic wooden church built in 1883. This is still actively used and is where the Latin Mass is held. The acoustics of the church are quite wonderful.

I am very happy how my diocese has accommodated the Latin Mass. The downtown parish I came into the church in has had the Latin Mass since the indult was granted by Pope John Paul II in 1984. This was when celebration of the TLM had to be approved by the diocesan bishop. Another parish celebrates the TLM on first Saturdays.

So overall I am very appreciative of our Latin Mass Community and the large range of people it attracts. This also goes for the choir and the hymn selections which often includes Gregorian Chant. So much to love. Although I am also appreciative of the Ordinary Form of Mass I attend in this historic Church along with the ones I attend at the adjacent Eucharistic Chapel.

The other day on Twitter I was hearing positive things about tweets from the USCCB Twitter account @USCCB. Had I fallen into an alternate universe where the bureaucratic USCCB were able to engage in Twitter? What happened? Mostly I wondered who was the person and team behind it.

So I was certainly interest when CNA published this story Who’s responsible for the USCCB’s Twitter?.

Baltimore, Md., Jun 13, 2019 / 04:40 pm (CNA).- Over the course of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ spring general assembly, questions arose online: what was going on with the suddenly-chatty USCCB Twitter account? Did they give an intern, or perhaps a particularly hip young priest or enthusiastic new convert the password? Had the account been hacked?

As it turns out, none of those were true. The account is run by Connie Poulos, a 31-year-old content and marketing coordinator at the USCCB. She’s not an intern – and has worked for the conference since 2017, originally as a digital media specialist – and she’s not a convert, and she’s definitely not a priest. She’s married, and she and her husband are in the process of adopting a son from China.

Poulos sat down with CNA during this week’s general assembly to discuss what prompted the USCCB’s new online persona. Apparently, this strategy was part of a larger plan to attempt to present a more humanizing look at the bishops of the conference, and better to engage with the account’s 156,000 Twitter followers.

“When I first started in 2017, we didn’t engage on this level, but we did engage,” she explained. “Then, McCarrick happened.”

The article showcases some of the tweets and the amount of engagement when the account asked “If you are a young Catholic who is still Catholic, what has made you stay?”

Many of the replies encapsulate a way forward. They were certainly not a cry for watering down the faith.

Still I was annoyed by one thing. The @USCCB account replied to many of the tweets answering this question. Yet if someone mentioned, the TLM – no reply. I saw a lot of such tweets and mostly they were not from people just trolling the USCCB, but young people impacted by the Latin Mass. They should not have been ignored as if they were lepers.

Update: On my Facebook page, Connie Ann Poulos replied to this specific paragraph:

You know, it’s interesting. It was pure human error on my part and now it’s become a thing. I tried to click “like” on each one, but that doesn’t show up. I think if I were to go in and seek them out now it might be obvious. I know there were some that I was like “awesome!” or “amen” or “thanks for sharing” but we literally had a complete tidal wave of TLM responses so it was hard to keep up.

I do see how they would have felt ignored, though, and I am sorry about that. Maybe I can find a way to do something.

Now just waiting for them to ask us older Catholics, “what has made you stay?” Although I sure the answers would have some of the same range as answered here.

I often enjoy books that are meant to be read daily which are focused on writings from a specific author, topic, or theme.

Generally these books have short enough entries to be able to be picked up and read during any time of the day.

There is also a sub category related to liturgical seasons for daily readings during, for example, Advent and Lent.

I am usually reading through two or more of this genre during the year.

So here is a list of some of my favorite daily readers.

Co-Workers Of The Truth by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

After reading through this collection of Ratzinger’s essays and other writings over the year, I started from the beginning again. There were just so many times I highlighted quotes from this collection or otherwise was struck by something he wrote. No doubt I will be returning to this book.

A Daily Defense: Apologetics Lessons for Every Day by Jimmy Akin

As the title shows, this covers a short lesson in apologetics for every day of the year (including and extra day for leap years). This is not just common apologetic fare, but very interesting takes on common to more uncommon apologetic topics.

The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C.S. Lewis

This is one I have been reading this year and have greatly enjoyed the selections taken from his apologetics works and his novels. The curation of these selections is excellent.

A Year with the Church Fathers by Mike Aquilina

Anything by Mike Aquilina is bound to be excellent. That holds true here. Every single entry is pretty much gold. So often I find myself reading one of the selections and really reflecting on it. They hit me hard.

A Year with John Paul II: Daily Meditations from His Writings and Prayers

Saint Pope John Paul II’s writings could be rather dense. Mostly the selections try to pull from his more accessible writings. Very worthwhile.

A Year With the Saints: Daily Meditations with the Holy Ones of God by Paul Thigpen

The strength of these style daily compilations are dependent on the author. In this case Paul Thigpen’s selections are what makes this one of my must haves. Just a joy to read. The Imitation Leather version of this book is also worthwhile.

A Year with Mary: Daily Meditations on the Mother of God by Paul Thigpen

Another compilation by Paul Thigpen and another one I greatly recommend. Also the Imitation Leather version enhances the daily reading.

Here are some suggestions for some that are daily reading for Liturgical Seasons.

Advent

• Prepare Him Room: Advent Family Devotions by Amy Welborn Excellent and deep reflections and a bargain at $.99
• Rejoice! Advent Meditations with Mary, Journal by Fr. Mark Toups
• Advent with Saint Teresa of Calcutta: Daily Meditations
• Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas This is a collection of writings from various Catholic and Protestant writers. Mostly the selections are very good, some are total duds.

Lent

• Meditations for Lent from St. Thomas Aquinas I go through this every Lent.
• The Cries of Jesus from the Cross: A Fulton Sheen Anthology While this is not technically a daily reader. I used it as one during Lent. The selected essays are exceptional.
• Reconciled to God – Daily Lenten Devotions by Amy Welborn Pure gold.

Over the years I have watched time and time again publishing sites descend into total click-bait madness. This is especially true of sites that try to cater to religion.

You can see the original good intentions of providing channels for different religious groups and even the irreligious. Originally I think of BeliefNet which set these channels up and then worked to attract writers who were blogging on their own. Part of the draw was promising a share in advertising. Was never much of a fan of BeliefNet which I always thought of as “UnbeliefNet”. Still they did draw some solid talent for a small period of time. Now BeliefNet is pretty much all ads and click-bait articles.

Then I saw the rise of Patheos which is pretty much BeliefNet under another name. Again an attempt to create various channels for churches, denominations, and atheists. Sharing advertising dollars to try to draw talent. This model is appealing for writers that they don’t have to mess with working with advertisers and are given a ad-sharing publishing platform. Patheos also had channel managers. This was generally a good idea as these managers could deal with drawing good writers for the specific channel and provide a more consistent and higher quality experience as far as writers go. I think specifically of Elizabeth Scalia who ran the Catholic channel for Patheos for a period of time. During her time there was a good stable of Catholic writers with a variety of viewpoints.

Patheos always had a problem with their intrusive ads which were often quite inappropriate. So many ads that it was almost like looking through a periscope to read actual content. So I pretty much always turned on some version of a Reader View, services that strip out ads and concentrate on text.

This of course is a major problem with finding a way to pay writers through ad revenue without overwhelming the reader with ads. Ad revenue and click-throughs are so low that it pretty much means that the number of ads have to be increased. A case of diminishing returns as the balance is always towards more intrusive ads.

Aleteia is a Catholic attempt to provide news, articles, and essays. It was created by the “Founder Foundation for Evangelization through the Media (FEM)” in France and has some approval by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. It operates in six different languages. It was fairly promising at the start and once again we had Elizabeth Scalia involved, this time for their English version. At first it was a pretty good balance of quality writing, good layout, and non-intrusive ads.

After Elizabeth Scalia left, so did some of that quality. So much is now click-bait, listicles,and top ten lists. These top ten lists are created just to multiply page clicks and so often were factually incorrect. Click-bait headlines drive me crazy and a recent one set off me writing this post.

“Can Our Lady of Mount Carmel teach us to “dress for success”?”

Really! Now the article itself is not as bad as the headline and the writer of the article probably did not write the headline itself. It is hard for me to understand how somebody thought this was a good headline. Maybe I am too sensitive about this since I am so drawn to Carmelite spirituality. But that headline was hate-bait for me.

To be fair though, Aleteia has not descended to the levels of BeliefNet and Patheos. I still use Aleteia as a source in my RSS aggregator since I can still find good pieces there. Plus sometimes click-bait headlines amuse me or the train-wreckedness of top ten slide shows.

Still sometimes you can embrace click-bait and the worst of Buzzfeed and somehow not be awful.ChurchPop is such an attempt and one I find mostly successful. They have fun with these headlines and short informative articles. Plus the headlines are actually indicative of the article.

There are obviously problems with the revenue generation model for publishing sites on the internet. Nobody wants to pay for content for the most part. The idea that information should be free and that we want unlimited access to the fruit of other’s work. So can we really complain that “we get what we pay for?”

It would seem that Catholic publishing just will never be able to go the Wall Street Journal route of paying for access to content. Yet maybe this is not totally true. I have seen a interesting movement towards a patronage model, especially regarding Catholic podcasting. My Patreon bill has only been going up over time as I have been willing to provide monthly contributions to my favorite Catholic podcasters. This is certainly an area that is growing.

One of the podcasts I donate to is Matt Fradd’s Pint’s with Aquinas. He has totally moved to supporting his family via Patreon for the most part. So this is a rather interesting development. This model is rather interesting is that often the content available is available free to everyone. Sometimes some content is made available to paying subscribers, but mostly the content is available for everyone. There are some perks for subscribers such as behind the scenes information and ways to participate. I see this as a pretty positive step forward in avoiding the problems with ad revenue while being able to support content you want to have available to others.

So while this has caught on with Catholic podcasters to some extent. The same has not been for writers. There are probably other examples, but I can only think of Fr. Dwight Longenecker who has a subscription model to support his podcasts and his writings. Most of the podcasts and his writings are available to everyone.

I have also seen some mixes such as Patrick Coffin’s Coffin Nation where most content is for subscribers along with some YouTube video’s for everyone.

It will be interesting to see how these models develop and if similar models become more common for Catholic writers. There are certainly some caveats such as where Patreon is involved. Jordan B Peterson left Patreon since they are more and more stepping into determining who is allowed to use their service. I only see true Catholic content as getting more and more seen as controversial. Everything is so politicized as we have seen multiple media companies weighing in on Georgia’s “Heartbeat Bill.”

As a widower, the thought of “what now?” is often on my mind. What in the world is my vocation now? What is God calling me to do? Discernment sucks. I have to try to clear out what I want from what God wants for me. I want to be able to say “Thy will be done” without flinching. Saying “May your will be my will” is what I am aiming for, but the emphasis is weighted towards “my will.”

I am not sure if this post is self-indulgent or a reflection on discernment. I think my motive is to help others with the same difficulty. Knowing others have the same struggles can be very helpful. I found this especially true being involved in the Christ Renews His Parish process.

Being sixty and alone was not something I was prepared for. After being married for over 36 years, it is not something you prepare for. So I, of course, feel that lack of companionship leading to loneliness. Sure I keep myself busy and spend my time being involved in my parish, reading, studying, and playing guitar. Have always been one to keep myself amused and not saying “I’m bored.”

So I could easily keep up this state of involvement and amusing myself without second thoughts. I am highly suspicious of this state as I have always been prone to a self-involved life more selfish than giving of self. Introversion has been my excuse for maintaining this state of affairs. So it dramatically annoys me in scripture to see time and time again — God dealing with the excuses his prophets put up against him. I know I am doing the same.

I certainly think about one day being married again. The line that it is not good for man to be alone resonates with me. Anything that is now good about me, was really brought about by my late wife. As a selfish, arrogant jerk, I did so much damage to our relationship — especially the years of my atheistic materialism. I feel our marriage was also rather selfish as far as benefits go. I benefited from knowing her and finally acknowledging and repenting of my many sins. Her part of the bargain was putting up with me. Seems pretty one-sided to me now, although I suspect I am possibly too harsh on myself. I don’t want to paper-over how bad I was.

There is another aspect of marrying again that makes me suspicious. Having grown up on dirty jokes and pornography, I have always tended towards the objectification of women. Something that for most of my life, I did not struggle against this. After my conversion, it just became a struggle I wanted to overcome. There are some aspects that it is only through the grace of God that I overcame. He probably knew I would never overcome this on my own and was given the grace in this regard – something I seriously consider miraculous.

Still, I am hyper-aware of women and find it so easy to objectify them based only on appearance. Some years I have felt that I have received an Easter grace that would mitigate this somewhat for a time. This Easter I have felt this same grace. To fight off that lingering stare. That second or third look to take them in visually. A constant fight indeed, but I don’t want to be that creepy old guy. The only positive thing in this regard is that this level of objectification is not turning to thoughts of lust.

So I am suspicious of my desire for marrying again. I don’t want a one-sided thing where I am a user. I do believe that I am genuinely seeking companionship, and even a corny “walks on the beach”. Someone I can talk to. I don’t fully trust myself that I am escaping my self-absorption and giving of myself. These self doubts certainly make this harder along with being such an introvert does not precisely open up opportunities in this regard.

Plus it could merely be the case where God is calling me to something else that I should be looking for opportunities of self-giving instead.

My current aspirancy as a Discalced Carmelite Secular Order is part of this discernment process. My time daily before the Blessed Sacrament and engaging in contemplative prayer moves me out of my self-orbit and towards supplication and being love at the heart of the Church. My thought processes are usually too abstract; I need this to turn these prayers into concrete acts. So I am now spending more time praying for others, a step in the right direction.

I recently read To Quell the Terror: The Mystery of the Vocation of the Sixteen Carmelites of Compiegne by William Bush and published by ICS Publications.

Recounts the dramatic true story of the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Compiegne, martyred during the French Revolution’s ‘Great Terror’ and known to the world through their fictional representation in Gertrud von Le Fort’s Song at the Scaffold and Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites.

As you might expect, the actual story is much more amazing than any fictional accounts. The more familiar story and opera introduce characters that are ahistorical, which is par for the course.

What I found most interesting of this very well researched book, is just how much these Carmelite nuns and others associated with this Convent were preparing themselves for this eventuality. This slow march towards the guillotine developed over time as the French government animosity towards Catholic priests and religious ramped up over time.

The back story also includes a prophetic element where one of the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Compiegne who lived a century before these events, left writing that they later interpreted as predicting their martyrdom. A prediction included the number of people associated with the Convent who would not be part of this martyrdom.

This element became an exciting dynamic in how they were responding to these events as they were evicted out of their Convent and worked to stay together despite the wish of the government. The author has brought out a good deal of information on these women and their various backgrounds.

The story of Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, their prioress, is especially intriguing. The extent she went to, to protect them and keep them together. The tension of both protecting these nuns from a possible martyrdom and preparing them for it. She was willing to give her own life to protect her charge, while also questioning her own motivations in this regard.

This review is all the summary that I want to provide to keep myself from spelling out everything I loved about the story and how it told. You, of course, know ahead of time how it all ends, and yet I felt so involved in the story from start to finish.

The background of the Reign of Terror and the so-called enlightenment places the context of these events. There are so many disparate tensions with an anti-Catholic fervor in the name of enshrining reason – which they tried to do more than just figuratively. This background information enhances the telling of this story, yet like many actual events are stranger than fiction.