Punditry

There is a conference this weekend at the Eastern Michigan University’s Student center entitled “Is Islam a Religion of Peace?” This symposium was coordinated by Al Kresta of Ave Maria Radio.

Featured debaters will be Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch.org facing off against Shadid Lewis, regional director of the Muslim Debate Initiative in the US, on the question “Is Islam a Religion of Peace?”

Muslim columnist for the Turkish News Mustafa Akyol will debate Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center on “Can Islam Support Religious Liberty?

So this is not a one-sided discussion of the topic, but a debate regarding the question.

Only recently has there been really any coverage of this event. Of course most of the coverage surrounds Robert Spencer.

There is an interesting disparity in coverage here to some extent regarding the giddy greeting the book “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” by Reza Aslan has caused.

Nathan Lean from Aslan Media (Reza Aslan) follows Robert Spencer around the country trying to get him banned from speaking. Lean has succeeded on two occasions due to a failure of leadership, but his charges are bogus. He stirs up emotion and fear while painting Robert as a hate-monger. As Ave Maria Radio prepares for its Symposium Debate this weekend Nathan Lane is at it again. He attempted to intimidate Eastern Michigan University, the venue of the event, and us. He has failed. Apparently he believes the Muslims that are taking part in the debates are ill-equipped to defend their religious beliefs – and his. We do not . Join us as we prove that difficult topics can be debated without resorting to mane-calling and intimidation techniques.

Robert Spencer has not got quite the warm attention from the media that Aslan has got, in fact really in attention he gets is to paint him as an “Anti-Muslim bigot.” While really the only headlines calling Aslan “Anti-Christian” mostly come from a rhetorical question in a Time magazine headline that answers the question that he is not.

The very unscholarly methods that Aslan used and the many mistakes he makes only prove that when it comes to Christianity and the media any stick will do.

When Robert Spencer wrote in 2012 the book “Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins” there was a total lack of interest in it by the media. Skeptical scholars often date the books in the New Testament as late as possible (usually after 70 AD, and Aslan dates them a decade after that), it is interesting that we never hear any similar conjecture regarding the Koran. There is currently no collaborating historical information about the life of Muhammad in anything close to the time he was suppose to live other than the Koran. So it is interesting that the doubts that Aslan counts on Christianity as to what the historical facts our that the problem is much worse for the historicity of the Koran. I bring this up only to highlight the disparity in coverage.

Yet for some reason I suspect that Reza Aslan will be banned from entering the UK like Robert Spencer was. Spencer for critically looking at the Koran and it’s history is a anti-Mulsim bigot and purveyor of hate-speech while Reza Aslan is a “brilliant scholar” who just happens to discredit Christianity.

While many would discredit Reza Aslan because he is Muslim, this probably is not actually very relevant in this case. Considering the fact that Reza Aslan accepts as true that Jesus was crucified, which the Koran rejects. Probably more of a nominal-Muslim as his family background also suggests. Still he has an employee that seems intent on shutting down any debate regarding Islam. Now that would be an interesting question for an interviewer to ask Aslan what he thinks of his employees actions to shut down debate? Especially since this employee is editor-in-chief of Aslan Media. I won’t hold my breath on that one.

Here is a typical example of the smear job towards Robert Spenser (who is a Catholic Deacon).

Patricia Montemurri for the Detroit Free Press:

The symposium, which will be held in the student union, will feature pro-Muslim speakers, too. But Spencer’s appearance is controversial. The New York Times reported that Spencer’s comments were cited 64 times by the Norwegian white supremacist who killed 76 people in Norway in 2011. Spencer was banned from the United Kingdom in June for what the British government said was his association with hate groups.

As Robert Spencer notes:

In writing this, Montemurri implies that “the Norwegian white supremacist” was inspired to white supremacism and murder by me. In reality, Anders Behring Breivik’s “manifesto” cites not just me, but many, many people, including Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Thomas Jefferson — who are just three of the many who are never blamed for his murders. Montemurri also doesn’t mention, and probably doesn’t know, since the editor-in-chief of Reza Aslan’s Aslan Media didn’t tell her, that Breivik’s manifesto actually reflects an ideology quite different from mine: so far was he from being a doctrinaire counter-jihadist that he wanted to aid Hamas and ally with jihad groups. Nor does she mention (or know, probably) that Breivik criticized me in his insane “manifesto” for not advocating violence. I am no more responsible for Breivik than the Beatles are for Charles Manson.

And as for the British ban, the fact that Montemurri even mentions it shows how these smears retailed by the editor-in-chief of Reza Aslan’s Aslan Media are self-reinforcing. As a result of smears and defamation from Aslan’s counterparts in Britain, my colleague Pamela Geller and I were banned from entering that country. The Home Office’s letter banning me from entering the country said I was being banned for saying that Islam has a doctrine mandating warfare against unbelievers, which it manifestly and demonstrably does indeed have. A preacher of that doctrine, the Saudi Sheikh Mohammed al-Arifi, was recently admitted into the UK. He has said: “Devotion to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer.” Yet I who advocate no violence or hatred of any kind am not allowed in. This is hardly a blot on my record; it is a blot on Britain’s.

Reference: 14 things you need to know about the new book Zealot

Austria’s Catholic Church is trying a new strategy to attract the faithful: advertising its churches as places to cool off in a record heatwave.

As Austrians sweltered in temperatures close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), Catholic news agency Kathpress surveyed the country’s houses of worship Tuesday to find the coolest one.

“When air conditioning and the cool wetness of a lake or open-air pool are beyond reach, Austria’s churches can provide cool and spiritual refreshment at the same time,” it said.

Vienna’s chilliest church was a mere 24 degrees, with the crypt of St. Stephen’s Cathedral a frigid 14 degrees, Kathpress’s survey found.

(source)

First off I always knew Catholic churches were cooler.

So we have gone from preaching hellfire and damnation to preaching of an available cool climate? Still maybe this is innovative advertising to get them in the church door to be evangelized?

Although I find it rather cheesy and off-putting.

Perhaps some of their rejected ad mottos were:

• Turn the dog days of Summer into the God days of Summer.
• Hell is hot, our church is not
• Why not get both AC and JC?
• Jesus will set you freon.

You know I am really starting to think that Pope Francis does not like the model of the Church being like another NGO (Non-governmental organization).

Here are just some examples:

We may become a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord.

We are not an NGO, and when the Church becomes an NGO she loses her salt, she has no savour, she is only an empty organization.

The parishes, the schools, the institutions are made for going out … if they don’t, they become an NGO, and the Church cannot be an NGO.

A functionalist approach has no room for mystery; it aims at efficiency. It reduces the reality of the Church to the structure of an NGO.

The Church is an institution, but when she makes herself a “centre”, she becomes merely functional, and slowly but surely turns into a kind of NGO.

The Church – I repeat once again – is not a relief organization, an enterprise or an NGO, but a community of people, animated by the Holy Spirit, who have lived and are living the wonder of the encounter with Jesus Christ and want to share this experience of deep joy, the message of salvation that the Lord gave us. It is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church in this path.

These are important corrections to one of the major errors of our time. Of reducing the salvific mission of the Church to just merely social work. Yet this flattening of the Church seems to me to be quite common in so many organizations tied to the Church. A narrowing and political secularization that looses sight of preaching the Gospel. Organizations willing to make compromises in promoting what they now see as their main mission. A loss of the fullness of the Catholic faith with not much both/and-ing going on. An easy temptation to fall into when pursuing a worthy cause and subsequently loosing sight of the larger context of the great commission.

Blessed Mother Teresa put this quite well when she said:

Without out suffering, our work would just be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the Redemption. All the desolation of the poor people, not only their material poverty, but their spiritual destitution, must be redeemed. And we must share it, for only by being one with them can we redeem them by bringing God into their lives and bringing them to God.

This is I think the same problem the Pope identifies in seeing the Church as just another NGO. This is a no go.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain will take on his “other” job next week, flying to Florida as the Vatican’s point man in a bid to make the largest organization of American nuns toe the Vatican line.

Sartain will be present in Orlando for the entire annual assembly of the Leadership Council of Women Religious, and will speak and answer questions at the gathering of approximately 900 women religious. The LCWR speaks for about 80 percent of the Catholic nuns in America.

“We’re going into this assembly knowing that there’s a cloud over our head and that we are being investigated and they are going to be monitoring us,” Sr. Theresa Kane, a former president of the LCWR, told National Catholic Reporter.

Sartain is “showing up and he’s staying for the entire assembly. It’s monitoring. There’s a cloud … and we’re living through it,” Kane added.

Ever see an older car driving along that obviously had not had a tune up for years or emission repair? The driver seems to be oblivious to the semi-noxious cloud spewing from his car and just driving along. This is the LCWR.

In a article like this you don’t have to wait long for a gratuitous Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI swipe coming in 3…2…1.

With the advent of Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has put on a far more friendly and merciful face. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was a former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was informally nicknamed “God’s rottweiler” for crackdowns on theologians.

Although I have to give them props for restraint in not connecting the CDF to the Holy Inquisition, a history lesson often repeated. I do wonder if unsympathetic reporters covering religion have a quota regarding the word crackdown. Perhaps editors reject stories on the Catholics Church unless the word crackdown or slam was used somewhere.

“I think however he (Sartain) presents himself — and especially however he presents what he has learned this year in engaging with LCWR — that will be key: How does he see fidelity to our mission?” Sr. McDermott added.

Ah but the problem is their mission to fidelity.

Sartain can also look around his own diocese and the pivotal role women play in holding it together.

With fewer and fewer priests, there are cases where two Seattle parishes are “twinned” and share a priest, as well as priests in their late 70’s continuing to serve.  Women administrators are running several parishes.

Exactly how is this statement have anything to do with the content of the article? I guess the syllogism goes:

• All members of the LCWR are women
• This is an investigation of women
• Thus all women are being investigated and this is an attack on women.

This is exactly the red herring they always throw in and in this case considering the Bishop it must be at Pike Place Market. It is always framed as an attack on not only women in religious life, but an attack on women in religious life throughout history.

The article ends with another red herring thrown in:

Lately, the Archbishop has received petitions asking that he repudiate a Bremerton pastor who took his parish out of the Boy Scouts after it permitted gay youths to belong.

Still it is interesting to see all the negative comments I have seen by members of the LCWR regarding the attendance of His Excellency J. Peter Sartain.

Still I might suggest tongue-in-cheek to these upset members of the LCWR that Jesus ate with sinners so surely they can put up with an Archbishop. Instead they treat him like the Dean of Faber College after their being put on “double secret probation.”

(Source)

Wow you check the news at lunch and find out that the Church has reconsidered the whole anthropology of the human person and that documents are to be rescinded and a new Catechism issued.

Or at least that is what catechesis by headline would have us believe.

Last week speaking to journalists on the flight to Brazil he said:

It is true that I do not give interviews, but why, I do not know, I can’t, it’s just like that. For me it is quite an effort to do so, but I thank all of you here.

Previously I had commented on this thinking really regardless of the reason this is a good policy since for the most past nothing good comes of these interviews. Mainly journalist gotchas to generate pageviews.

So I was a bit surprised that he did give an informal interview when leaving Brazil.

The part generating the most heat:

“A gay person who is seeking God, who is of good will – well, who am I to judge him?” the pope said. “The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says one must not marginalize these persons, they must be integrated into society. The problem isn’t this (homosexual) orientation – we must be like brothers and sisters. The problem is something else, the problem is lobbying either for this orientation or a political lobby or a Masonic lobby.”

Somehow this has both outraged some within the Church and also became a cause for jubilation within and without the Church.

My first reaction was the Pope should have stuck to not giving interviews for the reasons mentioned above and that his off-the-cuff articulation of this is easily misunderstood. Although he could have read passages directly from the Catechism and from the CDF’s Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons and it would have been misunderstood. Most of the world is unused to both/and thinking. Treating with respect and love those who suffer from same-sex attraction while also condemning homosexual acts as intrinsically evil. This lack of both/and thinking makes everything seem as a contradiction where none exists.

Jimmy Akin as usual has a helpful article on the subject 7 things you need to know about what Pope Francis said about gays.

So mostly my thinking is the press and revisionist Catholics misconstrues what the pope says, in other words the sun rose again today.

One thing I could wish for is that Catholics not use the word “gay” because of all the baggage now associated with it. I try to avoid it myself, but I can understand how it easily becomes a short-hand term for person with homosexual attraction. Looking at the Spanish language report of what he said the Pope used the English word “gay” which I guess has become the same across languages. Much of our language describing this is rather clumsy and even the tern “homosexual person” found in Vatican documents can imply more than it intends by equating sexual identity as the primary focus of the human person.

Watching Twitter over the day I saw some rather odd things. For one a Traditionalist site retweeting Fr. James Martin, SJ in some-what agreement.

“Anyone who says nothing has changed in the church today is nuts. From “No gay priests” in 2005 to “Who am I to judge?” is a sea change.”

Well call me nuts for actually believing the faith hasn’t changed since yesterday.

“But my dear fellow, this is the twentieth century!” It is worth having a little training in philosophy if only to avoid looking so ghastly a fool as that. It has on the whole rather less sense or meaning than saying, “But my dear fellow, this is Tuesday afternoon.“ – G.K. Chesterton ”The Common Man"

This is what happens when you become an agenda Catholic and see everything via a filtered lens that blocks out part of the truth. In Fr. James Martin’s case this is a bit of a hobby horse for him (or is that gay lobby horse?). He often comments on stories regarding homosexuals while letting you read into it his own opinion. He never comes out directly and says homosexual acts are not intrinsically evil, but to me he seems to dance around it a lot.

While a Tweet does not have room for much nuance, his interpretation is purely wishful thinking. Fr. Martin also seems to have a problem with both/and thinking. So again if Fr. Martin thinks that this is actually a sea change (Holy See change?) and that those with deep-seated homosexual tendencies will now be specifically accepted to the priesthood than he just might want to reflect on his “nut-calling.” That he can believe that the same man who in opposition to Argentina’s move to legalize same-sex marriage said:

“Let us not be naive: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is not just a bill (a mere instrument) but a ‘move’ of the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

Or in his first Encyclical approved of or wrote the line “stable union of man and woman in marriage” is now going to approve of homosexual acts needs to check his water supply for contamination.

Moving on, while the media concentrated on the one paragraph there was also many other things discussed in the 80 minute interview.

This is the Google Translate version of a Spanish article on the interview:

Q. You have not spoken yet about abortion or about marriage between same sex. Brazil has passed a law extending abortion rights and another that includes marriages between persons of the same sex. Why has not talked about that?

A. The Church has already expressed perfectly on that, it was necessary to go over that, nor talked about cheating, lying or other things about which the Church has a clear doctrine. No need to talk about it, but the positive things their way to the boys. Moreover, young people know exactly what the position of the Church.

Q. But where you stand on these issues?

A. of the Church, I am a son of the Church.

Funny how “I am a son of the Church” did not make it into headlines or when the Pope reaffirmed the teaching regarding ordination to the priesthood or concerning Communion for civilly divorced Catholics who remarried without a declaration of nullity. We will not be seeing a headline saying “Pope affirms Catholic teaching” anytime soon.

Media coverage of the Pope is mostly good for a laugh. At times it is so awkward when the reporter has no frame or reference or even basic understandings of what is common to Catholicism.

Latest example is from Time in an article titled “Like a Rock Star, Pope Francis Calls For “Disorder” In Rio”

A giant cross—without a Christ’s body—hung front and center.

Surely the words crucifix or corpus or something else could have been worked into that clumsy sounding sentence.

What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses! […] I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!

The English translation of his speech to the young people of Argentina who had travelled to World Youth Day:

Let me tell you what I hope will be the outcome of World Youth Day: I hope there will be noise. Here there will be noise, I’m quite sure. Here in Rio there will be plenty of noise, no doubt about that. But I want you to make yourselves heard in your dioceses, I want the noise to go out, I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable, everything to do with clericalism, everything that might make us closed in on ourselves. The parishes, the schools, the institutions are made for going out … if they don’t, they become an NGO, and the Church cannot be an NGO. May the bishops and priests forgive me if some of you create a bit of confusion afterwards. That’s my advice. Thanks for whatever you can do.

Although looking at Google Translation of the speech as it was delivered in Spanish, the translation into “noise” might tone down the words used.

Regardless the Pope intends that things be shaken up by knowing and living our faith. From the same speech comes a plea to not water down the faith and to realize what that faith means:

Among the Argentine people, I ask the elderly, from my heart: do not cease to be the cultural storehouse of our people, a storehouse that hands on justice, hands on history, hands on values, hands on the memory of the people. And the rest of you, please, do not oppose the elderly: let them speak, listen to them and go forward. But know this, know that at this moment, you young people and you elderly people are condemned to the same destiny: exclusion. Don’t allow yourselves to be excluded. It’s obvious! That’s why I think you must work. Faith in Jesus Christ is not a joke, it is something very serious. It is a scandal that God came to be one of us. It is a scandal that he died on a cross. It is a scandal: the scandal of the Cross. The Cross continues to provoke scandal. But it is the one sure path, the path of the Cross, the path of Jesus, the path of the Incarnation of Jesus. Please do not water down your faith in Jesus Christ. We dilute fruit drinks – orange, apple, or banana juice, but please do not drink a diluted form of faith. Faith is whole and entire, not something that you water down. It is faith in Jesus. It is faith in the Son of God made man, who loved me and who died for me. So then: make yourselves heard; take care of the two ends of the population: the elderly and the young; do not allow yourselves to be excluded and do not allow the elderly to be excluded. Secondly: do not “water down” your faith in Jesus Christ. The Beatitudes: What must we do, Father? Look, read the Beatitudes: that will do you good. If you want to know what you actually have to do, read Matthew Chapter 25, which is the standard by which we will be judged. With these two things you have the action plan: the Beatitudes and Matthew 25. You do not need to read anything else. I ask you this with all my heart. Very well, I thank you for coming so close. I am sorry that you are all penned in, but let me tell you something. I experience that myself now and then. What an awful thing it is to be penned in. I openly admit it, but we’ll see. I understand you. I would have liked to come closer to you, but I understand that for security reasons, it just isn’t possible. Thank you for coming, thank you for praying for me; I ask you from my heart, I need it. I need your prayers, I need them very much. Thank you for that. Well then, I want to give you my blessing, and afterwards, we will bless the image of the Virgin that is to travel all over the Republic. And also the Cross of Saint Francis, which will travel on that same missionary journey. But do not forget: make yourselves heard; take care of the two ends of life, the two ends of the history of peoples: the elderly and the young; and do not water down the faith. And now let us pray, so as to bless the image of the Virgin, and then I will give you the Blessing.

As far as the coverage of World Youth Day goes, it is par for the course. Phil Lawler in his article Invisible people popping up in Rio notes:

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the crowds at World Youth Day (WYD) in Rio are much larger than the mainstream media predictions.

Just last week we were hearing that WYD might be a disappointment. Early registrations were lagging behind expectations. The Brazilian government didn’t want to kick in extra funding. Lots of young Brazilians disagreed with the Pope. Those gloomy predictions didn’t even take into account the spectacularly bad weather that has turned outdoor meeting places into bleak acres of ankle-deep mud.

Doom! Disaster! But wait. When the curtain rose on WYD, there were 500,000 enthusiastic young people standing patiently in the rain. When the Pope made his first appearance last night, 1 million people were cheering and waving banners. If this is gloom, let’s have more of it! How many of the world’s celebrities would be disappointed by a crowd of 1 million?

… Could it be that faithful Catholics are invisible to the secular media? Reporters are familiar with the young people who watch MTV, who love rock concerts, who buy the latest fashions, who go bar-hopping on Friday nights. You’ll see them all in the Style section. But you won’t see the kids who go to Mass, say the Rosary, or slip off to Confession. They won’t be in this week’s newspaper. They’re missing. Maybe they’re in Rio.

Part of the Special world of Pauline Kael syndrome.

Spanish version

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis greeted some seventy journalists aboard the papal plane Monday as it flew from Rome to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for World Youth Day celebrations. The reporters included 10 Brazilians, 10 from the U.S., 9 from France, 6 from Spain, plus journalists from the U.K. Mexico, Germany, Japan, Argentina, Poland, Portugal and Russia.

In a brief exchange with the journalists, the Pope expressed particular concern about the risk of an entire generation of people without jobs.

Pope Francis told reporters “this first trip of mine is to meet young people, (to see them) … not as isolated young people but immersed in their social context, in society. Because when we isolate young people, we do them an injustice: we take away their ‘belonging.’” (source)

I had previously seen references to Pope Francis not normally wanting to give interviews. That this also dates back to his time as a bishop. So while the Pope greeted the reporters he was traveling with there was no question and answer session as with Pope Benedict XVI.

Mostly I think this is a good thing since often those airplane Q&A sessions generated more heat than light since reporters don’t usually ask actual interesting questions, but ones tied to generating a headline. “Can I get the Pope to say something controversial” seem to be the intent of the whole exercise.

On the other hand I also greatly enjoyed Pope Benedict XVI openness to interviews with extended throughout his life and several times into book form. He also said a number of quite insightful things during some of these Q&A sessions while travelling. Yet of course only only the question on something like condom use got any real coverage. Selfishly as a blogger I like the grist for the mill such interviews can generate.

More from the Catholic News Agency

During the pontificates of Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI, it was traditional for the Pope to hold an in-flight question and answer session with the press onboard the plane.

But Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s press office director, explained to journalists at a July 17 pre-World Youth Day briefing that the Pope will instead spend part of the flight getting to know the journalists traveling with him and have informal discussion with them.

Maybe just another case of headline writers aiming for page views instead of accurately summarizing in a title.

Vatican offers ‘time off purgatory’ to followers of Pope Francis tweets

The article itself is not as bad as the headline and at least tries to get some things right.

Still it is rather interesting considering the social media dimension.

Mindful of the faithful who cannot afford to fly to Brazil, the Vatican’s sacred apostolic penitentiary, a court which handles the forgiveness of sins, has also extended the privilege to those following the “rites and pious exercises” of the event on television, radio and through social media.

“That includes following Twitter,” said a source at the penitentiary, referring to Pope Francis’ Twitter account, which has gathered seven million followers. “But you must be following the events live. It is not as if you can get an indulgence by chatting on the internet.”

The actual decree from the Apostolic Penitentiary say in part:

a. – is granted a plenary indulgence, obtainable once a day under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff) and also applicable to suffrage to the souls of the faithful departed, through the faithful truly repentant and contrite, who will devotedly participate in the sacred rites and religious practices which will be held in Rio de Janeiro.

The faithful legitimately impeded, they may obtain the Plenary Indulgence if, by complying with the usual spiritual, sacramental and prayer, with the purpose of filial submission to the Roman Pontiff, to participate spiritually in the sacred functions in certain days, provided follow these same rites and pious exercises while performing, or via television and radio, always with due devotion, through the new means of social communication;

Note: This is via Google Translate since the English translation of this document has not yet been provided.

No word yet if an indulgence is given for retweeting the pope.