Punditry

(AP) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his “700 Club” viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s is justifiable because the disease is “a kind of death.”

During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.

“I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her,” Robertson said. [Source]

Mr. Robertson might not want to let Mrs. Robertson know you can get a divorce if your partner is brainless.

When it comes down to it though, how is Pat Robertson’s position much different from the view of divorce in Protestantism generally? Marrying after a civil divorce is pretty much totally accepted within Protestantism. If a Protestant want’s to get “remarried” there is pretty much no bar to going to any Protestant minister to perform a wedding. Their civil divorce could have been for pretty much any reason. Now of course talking about Protestantism in general means that there is bound to be one group or more that are an exception since practice is so varied.

Sure some will use scripture to defend divorce in the case of adultery, but pretty much once they had one exemption the reality is that there are no exemptions as practiced. There is no investigation into a marriage even for the supposed exemption.

One of the things that attracted me to the Catholic Church when I became a theist was the Church’s view of marriage. As an atheist I saw marriage as a “unto death” kind of thing even if I had nothing in atheist philosophy to build such and opinion on. While some might think that annulments are a form of Catholic divorce, they are founded on a valid principal even if the practice is not perfect. Only the Church treats marriage as seriously as is merited.

When you don’t have a Magisterium difficult cases are what drive the practice and the exceptions made open up endless exceptions. While we can easily see the effect in Protestantism it also applies to Orthodoxy where divorce is more and more accepted.

Archbishop Dolan fallows up on his markers of the faith post with some more reflection on this subject after attending World Youth Day.

…The planners of each Mass — wisely and thoughtfully, when you think about it — printed in the Mass booklet, and even announced before Mass, “Look, it’s so jammed in here, and you are all so hot and tired, why don’t you just stay seated during the Eucharistic prayer.”

Very practical . . . very wise . . . let’s make this simple and a bit more relaxed. Let’s “lighten-up.”

What happened? I’ll be darned, at all four occasions, all the hundreds, thousands of youth still knelt! They wanted to kneel in adoration! They didn’t want it simple or practical! They didn’t mind the challenge! They wanted it!

I realize it’s a trivial example, a little thing. Maybe I read too much into it. But I wonder as well if once again our people — our young people — are telling us something:

“We don’t like ‘Catholic-lite.’ Don’t pander to us! Call us to greatness! Call us to heroic virtue! Remind us that following Jesus calls for sacrifice, and that we long for ways to let ourselves, and the world, know that we are different. Don’t make things simple! Don’t cater to convenience!”

Jesus summoned us to be a “light to the world.” Nothing “lite” about that.

Have we put this lantern under a basket? Have we turned light into lite?

I would say the answer is yes. Holiness does not come lightly and minimum Catholicism results in minimum holiness.

Father Frank Pavone, one of the country’s most visible and vocal opponents of abortion, has been suspended from active ministry outside the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, over financial questions about the priest’s operation of Priests for Life.

The suspension was made public in a Sept. 13 letter from Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to his fellow bishops across the country, but Father Pavone told Catholic News Service that he was returning to Amarillo and planned to continue functioning as a priest there.

“My decision is the result of deep concerns regarding his stewardship of the finances of the Priests for Life (PFL) organization,” Bishop Zurek wrote. “The PFL has become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Bishop Zurek said “persistent questions and concerns” from clergy and laity about how the millions of dollars in donations the organization has received are being spent led to the action. [Source]

Wow its been a tough years for “celebrity priests”. Fr. Euteneuer, Fr. Corapi, and now apparently Fr. Pavone. Though it is almost a relief to see that it was financial irregularity and not something else. Especially considering that two priests that were most involved and visible in the pro-life cause have run into problems. Satan would like to sift all of us like wheat, though I am not surprised if he had concentrated he efforts in the pro-life cause. I say this not to invoke the Church ladies “Satan” as blame considering our free will.

Again a further reminder to pray for our priests.

Update: Fr. Pavone has released a statement in response to his bishop’s order.

As usual time will tell what is going on, but the financial situation is not the loose canon that was Fr. Corapi financial arrangements.

The same attorney who has won public notice for trying to sue McDonald’s on the grounds that the institution is responsible for America’s obesity is now behind the now well-known sex-discrimination lawsuit against Catholic University’s decision to reintroduce single-sex dormitories. Citing District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act, Professor Banzhaf believes CUA’s decision does not qualify for the Act’s exemption of discrimination of any kind outside of “business necessity”: “without such exception [discrimination on the basis of sex], such business cannot be conducted. [Source]”

I don’t know anything about Professor Banzhaf private life, but I think I will sue him anyway.  In fact I am considering a class action lawsuit against him.  For example if he is heterosexual than that means he discriminated against  men in his selection of a possible mate.  This is totally outrageous that he would make any such decision based on sex alone.  If he has same-sex attraction the same goes for his discrimination against women as a suitable partner. Either way he has discriminated against a whole group of persons based on sex alone and this outrageous behavior  certainly deserves that a class action lawsuit should be brought against him.

In some interesting news the movie on the story of Judah Maccabee looks like it will actually happen.  I remember when this movie was rumored to happen not long after Mel Gibson directed The Passion of the Christ.  Mel Gibson along with Catholic convert and screen writer Joe Eszterhas are behind the project with Mel Gibson possibly directing.  Considering Gibson’s drunken anti-Semitic rant and subsequent bizarre behavior you can imagine their will be some opposition to the idea of him doing a movie on a very interesting and less known piece of Jewish history.

So instead of hammering the Jews, Mel Gibson will make a movie on Judah the Hammer.

On an apologetics note it would be quite interesting to have a movie based on the books of Maccabee and really there is great material in them for a movie.  I always found profoundly moving the story of the mother and her children who were martyred rather than to give in to the Greek culture.  We have a equally if not more  pernicious culture today that would force itself on us. Of course discussions/flame wars would erupt about the canon of scripture since Protestants removed these books after the King James was first published and that only some Jewish groups have these books in their cannon.  I say deuterocanonical you say apocryphal.

When D.G.D. Davidson does get around to updating his blog the Sci Fi Catholic it is usually worth waiting for. His latest post Science Fiction and Religion is a case in point.

Over at Grasping for the Wind, Steve Davidson, who may or may not be my evil twin (or maybe I’m his evil twin, bwahaha) has an essay entitled “Science Fiction and Religion, a Marriage NOT Made in Heaven, Nor Even the Laboratory.” That title could lose at least four or five words without harm, but never mind that. Davidson’s argument is that science fiction absolutely must be written by atheists, and must either ignore religion or attack it, or it is not science fiction.

Ah yes the Atheist-Puritans. Don’t want any foul theists polluting the genre. While it is certainly true that so many of the Grand Masters in SF have been atheists or at least secularists it is hard to imagine the number of great books in the genre that would have to be excluded by this definition of science fiction. I guess we should blacklist those who do not conform to this standard and cull the Hugo awardees that dared to be theists and write SF.  It would be equally ridiculous if I decided to read only SF and other books if they were written by theists. I would miss out on so much great storytelling if I did such a foolish thing.  When I read fiction it does not mean that I have to buy into any of the underlying philosophy and I can enjoy a well-written story even as I note those errors. But the Atheist-Puritans or the so-called new atheists demand a ritual purity when it comes to religion – unclean – unclean.  Isaac Asimov was quite upfront about his atheism, but he was no jerk about it.  I think ole Asimov who was my first love as a reader would have also found such blog posts quite odd.  The more I think about the term Atheist-Puritans the more apt I think my term is – that is if somebody else hasn’t already coined it.  To upend the quote of another atheist H. L. Mencken:

Athiestic-Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy being a theist.

The Atheist-Puritan goes through life being offended at roadside crosses, religious symbols in government seals, Christmas Trees, and any decoration or ornament that points to belief in God. And with SF being the scriptures for some atheists of course doctrinal purity must be maintained.

Anyway just go and read  post Science Fiction and Religion.

Atheist trolls are so perceptive.

Earlier today I tweeted “TGIF, Though I thank God for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday Also!”

In reply someone tweeted “why not thank the tooth fairy instead?”

I really appreciate the fact that someone out there is scrubbing Twitter in search of references to God and replying to individuals they don’t know with such important information.

Wow, I never before made the connection between mythical creatures and belief in God. I am devastated – I will have to totally rethink this belief in God thing. After 40 years of atheism how did I miss that connection when I became Catholic. If only he could have tweeted that then and saved me so much annoyances like repenting and all that. After all throughout history people have had equal belief in both God and the Tooth Fairy. Earlier hunter-gatherers after they made up “god” to explain everything followed this up by also inventing the tooth fairy to explain away what to do with children’s teeth. It is a little know fact that after St. Thomas Aquinas went on to to describe five ways of knowing God in the Summa Theologica he then wrote about the  ways of knowing about the existence of Tooth Fairies.

Objection 1. It seems that the Tooth Fairy does not exist because no one has ever seen one and it is quite an improbable creature.

Objection 2. There is inequality in the amount that children receive in monetary compensation for placing their baby teeth underneath their pillow.

On the contrary, The Tooth Fairy exists.

I answer that, Since I already believe in God than subsequently I must believe in all mythical creatures equally with no degrees of discernment whatsoever.

Over at John C. Wright’s blog “A reader I hope is young and not being serious asks:”

Let me get this straight: you, a presumably rational individual who writes science fiction stories for a living, sincerely believes that the creator of our 13.7 billion year-old universe of 70 sextillion stars magically impregnated a human female about 2000 years ago – a woman who then gave birth to a son named Jesus who performed miracles, rose from the dead and served as the creator’s messenger to humanity?

This might make for a mildly interesting, if outlandish, science fiction story, but the source of your belief system? If you’re going to base your life philosophy on absurd myths, why not choose something a bit more interesting? Why not master the Dark Side of the Force or the Golden Path, becoming a Sith Lord or a God-Emperor and strive to rule a Galaxy? Why choose something as ridiculous and wretched as Christianity? I must admit I am rather perplexed…

John C. Wright replies to him in much less snarky tones than would be my initial response to a question put that way. He describes how his conversion from atheism involved a miracle and that of course the response from his atheist friends was basically “Since miracles can’t occur because my philosophy tells me so, no evidence to the contrary be be entertained.”

I then discovered that the Christian world view makes sense of much that the atheistic or agnostic worldview cannot make sense of, and even on its own philosophical terms, is a more robust explanation of the cosmos and man’s place in it, answering many questions successfully that atheists both claim cannot be answered, and then, without admitting it, act in their lives as if the question were answered, such as how to account for the rational faculties of man, the universality of moral principles, the order of the cosmos, how best to live, etc.

At one time I would have used the same level of sarcasm and perplexity about any atheist who became a Christian. My reaction in regards to believers was to pity them for not living a life of reason as I did. The fact that my worldview undermined reason and that I unreasonably expected intelligibility in my atheistic philosophy had not yet occurred to me. My later investigation into Christianity and ultimately the truth of the Catholic Church came first off from the gift of faith which subsequently opened up my intellect to confirm what the gift of faith had given me.

After decades of atheism my newborn faith in God both filled me with joy and  seriously scared me. You might say it scared the hell into me since previously I believed in no such thing. Faith for a lifetime atheist is a scary thing. For one thing you are always testing the claims of faith or at least this was so in much case. I constantly asked myself “am I deceiving myself”? How can I put aside a lifetime of belief for something I could not prove by empirical means? The roller coaster of both faith and having to wait for your intellect to catch up is unnerving to say the least. So I read everything I could get my hands on both to grow in faith and perhaps to find that fatal flaw to faith so I could go back to my old ways. I only wish religion was a crutch and an opiate. Actually acknowledging and repenting of your sins is no fun at all. Each day you wake up and know that repentance is not a one time action and requires growing in virtue and avoiding the occasion of sin. Not exactly my idea of an opiate. As Julie of Happy Catholic quoted in her book “Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that’s a tough call. That’s rebellion.” – Alice Cooper. If I was going to have faith why couldn’t it be a religion where I believed in some mythical creature and didn’t have to change any aspect of my life?

That roller coaster of both faith and serious difficulties in understanding my faith was thankfully relatively short lived. “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.” – Blessed John Henry Newman. As I started to read more philosophy and apologetics these difficulties via the use of reason diminished. I will always be thankful for the “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” by Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald K. Tacelli in that I first really found that not only was the Christian faith reasonable, but that reason itself was not something you left behind. I came more and more to see the symphonic nature of truth in how it multiples itself in every aspect and what seemed to be congruent truths were weaved together in a coherent tapestry for me to investigate. In the last 13 years I have rejoiced in exploring that complex tapestry and to see more details in those threads. This does not mean you never again have difficulties and questions since both the believer and the nonbeliever will always have a tension in the thought “what if I am mistaken?”. Only total arrogance can eliminate such a tension.

So while ultimately atheism is not a coherent philosophy, people are more than the philosophy they might believe. I once pitied believers, but as far as atheists go I only pray that they receive at the minimum the gifts I have received and that they are much less hard-headed than I was.

If I have one regret (leaving aside a thousand failings as a person, husband, grandfather, great-grandfather and friend — and my lazy, slapdash, selfish attitude as an actor) it would be that I didn’t take the decision to become a Catholic in my early twenties. That would have sorted out a lot of my life and sweetened it. (p. 560) — Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography

WASHINGTON — Health-insurance plans must provide birth control and surgical sterilization as “preventive care” for women, with no co-pays, according to a directive issued Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pro-life groups and religious-freedom advocates immediately criticized the Aug. 1 decision, expressing alarm about its narrow exemptions for religious groups, and calling on supporters to back a bill before Congress that would strengthen exemptions for employers who oppose surgical sterilizations and contraception.
“Although this new rule gives the agency the discretion to authorize a ‘religious’ exemption, it is so narrow as to exclude most Catholic social-service agencies and health-care providers,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities. [Source]

Plus of course there is no religious exemption for the individual Catholic who objects to this. With this directive being issued this will pretty much wipe out any health insurance plans that doesn’t yet have this paid for as an option. So much for people being able to shop around for a plan that suit their needs.

As a military retiree in the Tricare system it doesn’t change anything for me since unfortunately the military was already providing pretty much any form of birth control to active duty members along with surgical sterilization’s. Amazing what the taxpayer gets a bill for.

Iv’e seen headlines about “free” contraceptives showing once again the economic ignorance of many. Do people really think that plans that don’t yet pay for this are just going to absorb the coverage? No once again the Obama administration is finding more ways to mandate coverage and force increases to health care costs. If I was a cynic I would think they were doing this on purpose to make people more open to socialist medicine – oh wait I am a cynic.

Though it is a rather safe political move since while some conservatives will object on big government grounds, there is not much actual opposition to contraception and sterilization. Of course even among Catholics that is unfortunately accurate.

Good thing that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is a Catholic – oh wait.

Case in point, Gov. Rick Perry on New York’s same-sex marriage law.

Perry, who is considering running for president, at a forum in Colorado on Friday called himself an “unapologetic social conservative” and said he opposes gay marriage — but that he’s also a firm believer in the 10th Amendment, the Associated Press reported.

“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me,” he said to applause from several hundred GOP donors in Aspen, the AP reported.

“That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business.” [Source]

An argument that was also used when it came to slavery. While generally the concept is correct when it comes to state right’s it does not mean that a state has license to pass what they may. An unjust law is no law at all and New York’s law can be objected to based on the natural law. These types of distinctions are very important and I would have serious reservations about anybody who could not make the correct distinction here. Though to tell the truth I already has serious reservations about Gov. Perry and in fact the whole slate of president wannabes. If New York instituted a form of Romneycare, Obamacare, etc than certainly that would be the state’s right. Redefining marriage is not within the prerogative of any state.