I shall try to treat this with the seriousness which it deserves. There are, it seems, some important questions to answer- and I admit I haven't the computer speed or the energy to read the article. Did she wear the traditional habit of her order? [If not, how could anyone know she was a nun?] Who was her superior, and did the Bishop know?
God, now he is smearing religious sisters, one of the most meritorious groups in the USA. Too feminist for him?
This weblog is so SPOOKY -- guess it is time for me to shake the dust from my feet.
In any case, I will henceforth post, if at all, as
Smear gays and lesbians all you like, pb, they are used to it for centuries, but when you start smearing religious sisters you are really base. You have no idea of the generosity and deep spirituality of these women. They have a far greater grasp of the Kingdom -- of the values of justice and peace -- than you, with your prissy Brideshead Revisited outlook, have ever shown or can even begin to grasp. I am
Really you should meditate on the words spoken to the Pharisees by the Matthaean Jesus. "Justice and mercy and faith". You could not smear these holy and prophetic women so casually if you had any conception of these central, overriding Gospel values.
You have been posting here for years and yet you never really touch on any gospel theme.
Again and again you revert to a handful of puritanical obsessions and liturgical hang-ups.
Where is your philosophy? Where is the space for disciplined reflection?
And now you are sniping at nuns because of a single bizarre incident -- you who are a recent convert and have probably little experience of the great goodness of religious sisters.
Of course the real reason is that nuns rattle you, they are too assertive, too feminist ... too prophetic ... too much like Jesus (of whom we hear so little on this site).
Notice the huge gap between the details given in the story and the witheringly cynical conclusions Blosser draws from it about the lifestyles of all American religious sisters. As usual his lack of charity and sneering innuendo are ideologically motivated.
Dearest Darling Disgusted, I am delighted at your discernment. In fact, I have fallen out of my chair yet again, and have just picked myself up off the floor after a bout of hysterical delerium induced by your delectable offerings.
Well, since I am a pretty forgiving chap (pretty is an adverb), I return to my usual nom de guerre as you have returned to jocularity.
I do so because I have been touched by Bishop Gene Robinson's remarks in his sermon at Columbus, Ohio.
The ECUSA, like Joan Chittister and many other great American religious women I have known and admired, have given the churches much to think about by their evangelical witness over the last weeks. If they are punished for this by being made second-tier, while the Nigerians are left free to tramples on the primary gospel laws of justice, charity and non-violence and still be accepted as full-shilling Anglicans, well that was the fate of one banished outside the walls of the city for disturbing the sleep of the righteous.
Father:
Haven't you quite ignored the point of Philip's post? What is a woman vowed to evangelical poverty doing with all this money?
Dear Mr. Garton-Zavesky:
It's pretty obvious *what* she's doing with it ... isn't the question *why*?
Mr. Nonymouse:
The problems with the written language! What I meant was "How did she come to have the money in the first place?"
I take your correction and will try to be more clear in the future.
"I will henceforth post, if at all,"
If at all, IF AT ALL!! Are my prayers being answered!!
Seems not, since 'disgusting' has declared blitzkrieg on this combox as well.
Dearest Darling Disgusted ...
Oh, dear... Seems I really am a Total Ignoramus after all, as Atiyah suggests -- only for altogether different reasons. I hadn't the time to delve into the doubtless noxious den of the already crowded previous combox, so I honestly had no idea who 'Disgusted' is. This combox is the first I recall seeing his name. Silly me. I took him for Ralph Roiter-Doister doing a scintillatingly brilliant parody of Fr. O'Leary!! Oh, shucks. It's only someone else being quite sincere. How boring.
Nuns, nuns, nuns! What makes anyone think I don't love nuns! How idiotic! Why can't we have more of them! Nuns, nuns, everywhere! Real nuns! Brave nuns, like Mother Teresa, who didn't embezzle money to primp her lifestyle, but poured out her life as an oblation to God and for the alter Christus she saw in every dying man and woman in the streets of Calcutta. Brave nuns, like Sr. Prudence Allen in Denver, who's writing a multi-volume work on the nature of women, but isn't taking her cues from Cosmopolitan or People or, for that matter, Commonweal magazine. Not cowardly nuns who tell the world another version of what they get on Oprah, what will play well in VOTF meetings, the pages of NCR, or NOW. Sheesh!
What makes anyone think I don't love nuns! How idiotic! .....
well this perhaps: ..cowardly nuns who tell the world another version of what they get on Oprah, what will play well in VOTF meetings, the pages of NCR, or NOW.
Obviously at the very least you do not demonstrate much respect for Jesus commandment to love ones enemy.
Tell me what exactly entitles you to call this person a coward who just happens to have differing opinion from "Our Lady of Pertinacious Papist" .
Big deal that some Catholics focus more on social justice issues and less on blind obedience. You probably have reasons why you emphazise the things you do - why is it so hard to accept that other folks do the very same - just the things differ.
I would advise you to remove the addresses of the Tokyo prelates from your other posting -- it is very inconsiderate of them -- as is the bullying tone in which you address them. They do not need to be bothered by cranks.
Frankly, I doubt if contacting eminent public figures on the basis of worries about sodomy is the best way to recommend yourself to their attention. Suppose they wrote back to your university, do you think your employers would be impressed by your spooky performance here?
Grega,
You seem to reduce 'love' to acceptance or approval of anything recommended by anyone who disagrees with you. That's rather contentless, is it not? Was that Jesus' understanding of love? Didn't Jesus explicitly link love to content? He said: "He who loves me will keep my commandments."
"Spirit," thanks for your advice. I'm not accepting it. The spooky performance is all yours and that of your cohorts. I have nothing to hide.
I notice what seems to be an unconscious assumption that if you pursue social justice issues, you must sacrifice religious observance, or that one substitutes for the other. That is not the case. It's not a question of choosing between religious observance/spirituality and social justice. It's how you do both.
Pius XI made clear that what he intended with his promulgation of a "new" social doctrine was the sanctification of civil life, so as to bring all of human society (religious, domestic and civil) into conformity with the natural law, and thereby establish and maintain the Reign of Christ the King.
The "Reign of Christ the King" is not a theocracy or a joining of Church, State and Family, but a careful recognition of the special role of each, with each guided by a sound interpretation of the application of natural law to the structuring of the common good.
In civil terms (i.e., as it applies to the State and the rest of civil society), the Reign of Christ the King is probably best conceived as the establishment and maintenance of an economically just society, characterized by full access to the institutions of the common good by everyone.
That is, people should organize (solidarity) and restructure their institutions to conform to the individual task of acquiring and developing virtue, with the assistance and validation by the State, when necessary (the principle of subsidiarity). This restructuring *must* be in conformity with a sound interpretation of natural law, that is, using a Thomist orientation (per Aeterni Patris and Studiorum Ducem).
As an expedient to keep people alive and healthy during the transition to an economically just society (and thereafter for the unfortunate), such things as welfare, living wage arrangements, family allowances, etc., are necessary -- but they *must* not be construed or interpreted as The Solution. Imposed or implemented as a *solution*, they simply make things worse, as de Tocqueville observed in his "Memoir on Pauperism." As a temporary measure to alleviate immediate distress, they are invaluable; as a permanent solution, a disaster.
What inspires us to organize and act directly on our institutions is the virtue of "social charity," which can be defined as the particular virtue that commands us to love our institutions (the concrete manifestation of the common good) as we love ourselves. "Love" does not mean unquestioning acceptance, however, but (in part, at least) the desire to make the object of our love more lovable. (As love applies to God, of course, the desire is to make ourselves worthy of His love, but that's another whole area of discussion.)
Making the institutional object of our social charity more lovable involves organizing with others who share the same principles (again, solidarity), and restructuring that institution so that it conforms to the natural law, that is, so that it fills its role of assisting us in acquiring and developing virtue. This is the act of social justice.
What trains us to be ready for acts of social charity and social justice is our personal and individual religious beliefs and observances. From the Catholic point of view, this is best found in fulfilling our religious duties and obligations, and in spiritual growth within that particular religious society -- the Catholic Church.
This does not, however, preclude any other believers or even non-believers from participating in acts of social justice. The Catholic Church is not the sole interpreter of natural law, merely the best and soundest. The natural law is, after all, "writ in the hearts of all men," thus the Church claims not a monopoly on the truth, but a fullness of it.
Thus, your private religious devotions and participation in religious observances, growth in spirituality, etc., are not a substitute for or alternative to acts of social justice, but a necessary preparation for and accompaniment to acts of social charity and social justice. A "well formed conscience" is an absolute necessity -- that is, you must proceed with the correct principles, or your final case will be worse than the first. E.g., socialism is not the antidote to capitalism, but its antithesis. As I believe Chesterton said, the only thing worse than capitalism is socialism. Socialist measures may be necessary as an expedient, but we must not mistake them for the solution.
All of this is better explained in two (relative) short pieces by Rev. William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., a co-founder of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice, www.cesj.org, both of which, "Introduction to Social Justice" and "A Discourse on Social Charity," can be downloaded for free from the web site. They answer the question Dr. Blosser probably has about how something that is not a natural person can be the commanded object of a virtue.
Oops. That should be "(relatively)" not "(relative)". I get worked up.
Well-stated, Mr. Nonymouse (LOVE that name). I remember when the hue and cry of "social justice" was first raised in the Catholic Church in the 70s and 80s. Things haven't changed too much since then in terms of what animates the far left's exploitative use of the term, which translates to mean: "let us do what we want" (contracept, abort, cohabit, divorce, remarry, fornicate, sodomize, enjoy sexually active same-sex liaisons), and, furthermore, "APPROVE whatever we do."
Viele danke, as the pope would say.
Actually, things haven't changed much since 1931 when Quadragesimo Anno was promulgated ... or 1329 with the Bull Quia Vir Reprobus (or 500 BC and Aristotle's battles with the Sophists). It's an uphill fight, no matter when you're living. Pius XI's "breakthrough," however, gave us a way of being effective against what seems (individually speaking) to be completely hopeless odds. As Father Ferree closed "Introduction to Social Justice" back in 1948,
"The power that we have now to change any institution of life, the grip that we have on the social order as a whole, was always *there* but *we* did not know it and we did not know how to use it.
"Now we know.
"That is the difference."
You can begin to see why, when Father Ferree died in 1985, Rev. Andrew F. Morlion, O.P., Ph.D. (founder of the International University of Social Studies in Rome and a former communist who brought his entire cell into the Church) called Father Ferree "America's greatest social philosopher."
Of course I was not insinuating that you had anything to hide. You are as happy as I am to speak the truth as you see it, loudly, and on all occasions. I myself am always happy to explain my views to bishops and cardinals both in publications and in personal correspondence -- I usually get a more sympathetic hearing that I do from you.
What I think you should reconsider, however, is putting busy churchmen's addresses on your weblog and urging people to pester them with letters. I don't think any bishop like to receives such cranky and threatening correspondence as you are urging (and every bishops receives a lot of it). I think you are being very inconsiderate here.
If I asked your students to send complaints about you to your university authorities, would you not think it was very rude?
On Jesus as mother, see Clement of Alexandria:
Clement of Alexandria:
This is our nourishment, the milk flowing from the father by which alone we little ones are fed . . . Therefore, we fly trustfully to the ‘care-banishing breast’ of God the father; the breast that is the Word, who is the only one who can truly bestow on us the milk of love. Only those who nurse at the breast are blessed . . . little ones who seek the Word, the craved-for milk is given from the Father’s breasts of love for man.The Word [Christ] is everything to His little ones, both father and mother. (from the Paidagogos)
Those guardians of orthodoxy who despise female witness -- from Bp Schori or Julian of Norwich -- may be more persuaded by St Bernard of Clairvaux: "Do not let the roughness of our life frighten your tender years. If you feel the stings of temptation . . . suck not so much the wounds as THE BREASTS OF THE CRUCIFIED. HE WILL BE YOUR MOTHER, and you will be his son."(Letter 322)
Since you find my talk of love and dialogue so spooky, you must really be freaked out by this "Jesus our mother" stuff!
I'm sorry Spirit. I'd rather not suck Jesus's boobs. Nor do I (nor anyone else, but you) want to engage in anal sex.
And that is just that.
(I'll give him a hug. I'll give him a bear hug!)....but no sucking titties. Nope, just not my thing. 
Fr. O'Leary,
Hmmm ... I do love St. Bernard. He is a "Jesus freak" after my own heart, so his witness carries a good deal of weight for me. I would be interested to find online sources where I could check that quote. I don't have ready access to theological libraries.
A Google search for 'bernard clairvaux "letter 322"' only turned up three sources, all very leftward leaning with an inclusive language agenda. Here is a citation from one of the sources (hereticscorner.typepad.com):
'References: Caroline Walker Bynum,Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Bynum also cites "Jesus as mother" references by Origen, Irenaeus, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, The Venerable Bede, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, Mechild of Magdeburg, St. Bonaventure, Catherine of Siena, Martin Luther, and John Calvin).'
Who is Caroline Walker Bynum, and is she a reliable interpreter of these venerable sources?
On the other hand I like stilettoes.
Bynum is very famous.
Go to the library and check the Bernard quote. It is certainly in his style.
See also Vergote, Dette et desir, for the cult of the divine prepuce during the middle ages. Many Cistercian monks practiced spiritual fellation on it. I am not making this up!
I actually think it is wonderful that Cistercian spirituality has room for a wide spectrum of sublimated sexual imagination -- far indeed from the strait-laced world of minor Protestant sects!
I haven't read Bynum but she if the foremost explorer of the cult of the body in Christianity, in the wake of Peter Brown.
On the Kiss
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. [SoS 1:2]
I do not presume to think that I shall be kissed by his mouth. That is the unique felicity and singular prerogative of the humanity he assumed. But, more humbly, I ask to be kissed by the kiss of his mouth, which is shared by many, those who can say, "Indeed from his fullness we have all received". [John 1:16]
Listen carefully here. The mouth which kisses signifies the Word who assumes human nature; the flesh which is assumed is the recipient of the kiss; the kiss, which is both giver and receiver, is the Person which is of both, the Mediator between god and man, the Man Christ Jesus [1 Tim. 2:5].
For this reason, none of the saints presumed to say, "Let him kiss me with his mouth," but "with the kiss of his mouth," thus acknowledging that prerogative of him on whom uniquely once and for all the Mouth of the word was pressed, when the whole fullness of the divinity gave itself to him in the body [Col. 2:9].
O happy kiss, and wonder of amazing self-humbling which is not a mere meeting of lips, but the union of God with man. The touching of lips signifies the bringing together of souls. But this conjoining of natures unites the human with the divine and makes peace between earth and heaven. For he himself is our peace, who made the two one [Eph. 2:14].
Is that Bernard you are quoting?
For the record I never called Dr Blosser an “ignoramus” – that is entirely is own assertion.
Cult of the Devine Prepuce – I have never heard that before so I looked it up:
“Specimens of the Divine Prepuce were in such supply to answer such demand that quality control required connoisseurs to judge it for authenticity. As David M. Friedman put it in his history of the penis, A Mind of Its Own (and as Sims quotes him in Adam's Navel), "The most common of these tests was a taste test" (emphasis Friedman's and let's leave it at that)”
Wow and the radtrad Catholics here probably approve of this stuff.
Sorry, the divine prepuce may not be connected with the Cistercians:
Vergote illustre ses propos avec l'exemple de deux "mystiques érotiques", selon son expression. La première, Agnès Blannbekin, née à Vienne à la fin du XIIIème siècle, se préoccupe de savoir qu'est advenu le "Saint Prépuce". Son confesseur, le franciscain Ermenic, rapporte qu'une certaine année Agnès "sentit sur sa langue une petite pellicule comme la pellicule d'un oeuf, qui était d'une douceur plus grande et elle avala cette péllicule. Après l'avoir avalée elle ressentit de nouveau cette extrême douce pellicule sur la langue comme auparavant, et elle la ravala. Et cela lui arriva bien cent fois. La douceur produite par la digestion de cette pellicule fut si grande qu'elle sentit une douce transformation dans tous ses membres et dans toutes ses articulations". Le seigneur la gratifia encore de nombreux attouchements, tendres et pudiques, par sa main ou par un agneau qui venait de l'autel.
'Many Cistercian monks practiced spiritual fellation on [the divine prepuce].
The "divine prepuce" is Jesus' foreskin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hol...ki/
Holy_Prepuce
My God, you can't be serious.
Yes, that was Bernard on the kiss, a very famous set of sermons.
Sorry, Padre, some of us dumb hillbillies can't read French.
Can you give us a summary in English, please?
Ah I my old friend Lotario Scotti (who I was only chatting with the other day) was called in on the matter and wisely declined to determine the issue.
Through a not-uncommon metaphorically layered exchange, the woman's breasts become the Son's Crucifixion chest wound cum "teat," her milk his blood.(27) While the slippage of bodies and fluids, as well as the hint of greedy desire for more teats, more sucking, may not be unique to Crashaw (as Marcus points out, these lines "merely elaborate a commonplace of baroque religious language. Mary will suck the breast of Christ's wound, a source of sacramental nourishment for all humanity"),(2
theological precedent inadequately accounts for Crashaw's morbid assurance - "Hee'l have his Teat e're long" - which seems even more strenuously than the first line to abrogate both the woman's teats in the poem and the blessing of Mary's paps in Luke, by replacing them with the Son's bloody one, as well as to consign Mary's body and its parts to illiterate, maternal terms by replacing them with the Word made flesh. Two sorts of possession are boasted here. The assertion that "Hee'l have his Teat" envies the all-powerful mother, whose vital breast and milk threaten to be frustratingly withheld; "his teat" reprises as it corrects "thy Teates" along with "the paps which thou hast sucked." But "Hee'l have his Teat" also manifests a fantasy of recompense, as if to say that the Son will at last experience the suckling that ended in or even before the first line; "e're long" raises the retaliatory stakes by establishing a sense of immediacy and inevitability. Several readers of Crashaw have suggested that his use of rich physical description mimics a widespread medieval method of stimulating the individual's affective response to worship.(29) Also increasingly common in the Middle Ages was the biblical figuration of Christ as suckling maternal body, his bloody side giving forth spiritual "milk,"(30) with explicit renderings in St. Bernard, St. Catherine of Siena, Margery Kempe, and Julian of Norwich. Caroline Walker Bynum explains that "[n]ot only was Christ enfleshed with flesh from a woman; his own flesh did womanly things: it bled, it bled food, and it gave birth."(31) Maureen Sabine argues that the imagery of "Blessed be the paps" would have been unremarkable to readers "familiar with Scripture, for it was customary to praise the nourishing breast of God as the epitome of caritas and to describe man, by comparison, as a child craving love."(32) On the surface of its association between the sword-pierced side of Christ and life-giving milk, then, and in its conflation of male and female bodies, Christ's "teat" would recall a familiar devotional trope.
This is all really too much.
Atiyah, this is one trad who wants nothing to do with this Holy Prepuce nonsense. By the way, a Google search for Holy Prepuce turns up no Catholic sources that I can see.
Now to take the good advice that you offered hours ago ...
trans of French. Agnès Blannbekin, 13th century, concerned with the fate of the divine foreskin, "felt on her tongue a little skin like that of an egg and swallowed it. Then she felt this sweet skin on her tongue as before and swallowed it again. This happened at least a hundred times. The sweetness was so great that she felt a sweet transformation in all her limbs and articulations". The Lord gratified her too with numerous touchings, tender but modest, of his hand or of a lamb that came from the altar.
The old "nuns" that Pb likes had a much more colorful affective life that those naught modern "religious sisters". And why not?
naught SHD BE naughty
Sexual fantasy and religious imagination have many subterranean connections, it seems. And again, why not?
Is it a coincidence that the more richly gloriously erotic text of the ancient world is found in the Holy Bible?
I think a deep immersion in medieval mystics would do wonders for Philip, in melting down his puritanism.
Vergote is a good Catholic priest, a professor at Louvain, and Agnes and her confessor were good Catholics; no one impugned their orthodoxy but rather Agnes was admired for her intimacy with the Lord.
I must admit I have rather snubbed the "body" studies of Bynum et al., but now I am beginning to wonder if they might not contain the material to overcome puritan hang-ups and recover the full spectrum of incarnational christianity. Blake and D.H. Lawrence were also inspired by Christian mystical vision (Lawrence talks a lot about the Resurrection -- he combines that Christian theme with Nietzsche). There is lots to be learned here. Among American writers the great explorer of the Body is John Updike -- again there is lots of Christianity in the fabric of his vision.
I expect some squeamish little shrieks form Pb.
The Holy Prepuce itself is one of the most famous relics -- lodged in the Lateran Basilica at one time (near the Santa Scala, which is supposed to be the stairs Christ mounted before Pilate. You can laugh at this if you like, but I think there are still millions of pilgrims that take it seriously, and the Roman authorities do as well.
Here is a guide to the Lateran Basilica that takes seriously the Santa Scala tradition. http://roma.katolsk.no/
giovannil...nnilaterano.htm
I don't see any mention of the foreskin relic, but there is talk of a piece of bread from the last supper and parts of the heads of Sts Peter and Paul.
One of the most amazing relics I ever saw was: THE BLOOD OF CHRIST at Weingarten in Germany. It is in a container under the altar. Sets up an odd dialectic between the eucharistic blood and the relic. This is a highly esteemed Catholic shrine!
Here are some others Here is a guide to the Lateran Basilica that takes seriously the Santa Scala tradition. http://roma.katolsk.no/
giovannil...nnilaterano.htm
I don't see any mention of the foreskin relic, but there is talk of a piece of bread from the last supper and parts of the heads of Sts Peter and Paul.
oops, this is the link http://denisdutton.com/requiem.htm
Please let's have a discussion of this!
Uber-catholic "First Things" has an essay championing Calvin as critic of the divine foreskin!http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/
ft9508/opinion/leithart.html
http://www.firstthings.com/ftiss...n/
leithart.html
Only O'Leary would dig up a First Things piece ten years old, by a PCA minister. no less, and claim it has anything at all to do with his sexually-obsessed world view. Screwtape must be quite pleased this sham of a priest has so hijaked the postings here.
Joe M
So I take it that divine foreskin(s) relics is your thing.
Shucks and you guys try to tell me what you say about homosexuality is timeless.
Needs to be quietly dropped more like
Atiyah, the FT author seems inclined to dismiss medieval relic-obsession as an empty superstition.
I doubt that any Trad on this blog would approve of the "spiritual fellatio" upon the Holy Prepuce that Fr. O'Leary luridly alluded to.
I'm trying to figure out Fr. O'Leary's point in bringing up this strange practice. Does HE approve of it? What do you think?
I'm also still interested to know whether "Mother Jesus" is TRULY part of the patrimony of high medieval theology and spirituality. Has there been a scholarly Catholic reponse to the work of Caroline Walker Bynum? Anyone?
If Jesus is our Mother, is Mary, then, our Father?
I have a hard time imagining Bernard of Clairvaux supporting Schori's "Mother Jesus" theology (which comes across as a very political theology), even if those quotes of his are accurate.
Let's take the quotes from Clement of Alexandria, Bernard, etc. at face value. That is, let's assume that the quotes are accurate. I think that the language used by those theologians is quite obviously ALLEGORICAL. There is simply no way that Bernard of Clairvaux denied the essential maleness of the Risen Jesus. That, I believe, would be heresy.
Schori is up to something altogether different than Bernard. She is suggesting that the Risen Jesus is literally trans-gender. I do not think that she is speaking allegorically. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd be interested to hear other points of view.
"Disgusted" wasn't me. I thought he was Spirit himself, which made his about face a few notes later all the more amusing.
Okay Spirit, we're supposed to think of Jesus as are Mother, and at the same time, have some sort of bizarre devotion to his foreskin?! Okay, Jesus was male, and is male. He had a penis (because of the foreskin), but we're supposed to think of him as motherly? And suck his breasts too!? ......
I think I'll just stick to praying the Rosary daily for now.
Bottom line: the Glorified Body of the Risen Lord is NOT the body of a hermaphrodite, no matter how "spiritually" Schori and those of her school might want to frame the idea. It is heresy pure and simple. Schori is an anti-Christ, that is to say, she is a teacher of Christological heresy and false moral doctrine. The fact that her views are praised on a blog that celebrates heresy (http://hereticscorner.typepad.com/) says a lot.
I do not trust Bynum's reading of St. Bernard and other theologians of the Church.
Atiyah,
Nope, not "my thing." And the Church, not I, am the one who claims to have a timeless word on morality.
I'm still hoping for an answer to my earlier posted question:
'I'm trying to figure out Fr. O'Leary's point in bringing up this strange practice. Does HE approve of it?'
I'm not fishing here, Father. Like I've said, I don't care to hear what you do behind closed doors. Just trying to understand why you would dredge up this bizarre and superstitious practice.
One thing really irritated me re-reading through the comments.
Dr. Blosser seems to 'love nuns' yet could within the same reply not resist to call a perfectly fine nun who happen to sing to a different tone a "cowardly nun" - why?.
Why would any decent and humble catholic use such a strong word so lightly for a fellow believer?
Seems to me another case where the love for ones own agenda trumps the true merciful appreciation for the fellow traveler in Christ.
I certainly wonder how we should call a person that calls himself proudly 'Papist' yet at the one big opportunity in recent year to follow the 'beloved' and admired pope (against ones political point of view perhaps) fails to come through on the claimed admiration.
I expect some squeamish little shrieks form Pb
In your dreams! What you get is a gaggle of giggles. One's got to either weep for your soul or laugh. One can only weep for so long, and then one runs into comments like the following, from Anonymous, which sends us all into uncontrollable laughter (what else can one do but laugh?):
"Okay Spirit, we're supposed to think of Jesus as are Mother, and at the same time, have some sort of bizarre devotion to his foreskin?! Okay, Jesus was male, and is male. He had a penis (because of the foreskin), but we're supposed to think of him as motherly? And suck his breasts too!? ......"
Anonymous nails it. What you're doing with this patchwork of sources is patently absurd! Goiteia. Unmaking nature. To the point of lunacy.
You write:
I usually get a more sympathetic hearing [from bishops] that I do from you.
And do you really imagine for a moment I would get ANY hearing from YOU if the tables were reversed and you had the power to silence me?
Again, you write:
What I think you should reconsider, however, is putting busy churchmen's addresses on your weblog and urging people to pester them with letters.
Father, don't you recall, it was Atiyah who asked for the judgment of someone with canonical authority as to the theological orthodoxy and validity of your interpretations. I'm simply calling his bluff. I don't think he is serious. I don't think he cares at all about the Vatican's judgment as to what is orthodox or heterodox.
You also asked whether I would not be uncomfortable if you asked my readers to contact my school about my opinions on my blog. Not at all. My administrators know about my blog. I'm not disturbed by anyone reading it, because I stand by what I write. It's public information. You're a priest. Your bound by your oath of fidelity to your canonical bishop. These are supposed to mean something. All this is public knowledge. What your write on the Internet is public knowledge. Why should you be uncomfortable with anyone catching wind of what you've written. Why not aim to be another (male) Joan Chittister, a celebrated hero for resisting the 'intransignence' of Church authorities? We could help you in your effort by publicizing your efforts!
Some question here about whether I approve of the old cult of the divine prepuce?
Well, that nun who felt it melt like honey on her tongue again and again was cultivating a spiritual intimacy with the Child Jesus, using her "spiritual senses" (a classic theme going back to Origen). It is only one step up from contemplating Jesus at the different moments of his life (the States of Berulle -- each stage in Jesus' life becomes a topic for timeless meditation). St Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort in his cult of being born of Mary and of slavery to Mary has an equally daring way of cultivating intimacy with Christ and his mother. The devotion to the Sacred Heart also goes for the physical jugular as does St Ignatius -- "Blood of my Savior, bathe me in thy tide"; "Deep in thy wounds, Lord, hide and shelter me".
So in regard to such pious excesses my attitude is one of benign tolerance, rather than warm approval or puritanical disapproval.
Grega, if you examine the presuppositions, it's not arbitrary favoritism based on whimsical biases that leads me and others to celebrate some nuns and criticize others. The criterion is simple: either hardworking fidelity, or hardworking dissent. A nun may be ugly, good-looking, white, black, young, or old, it doesn't matter. What we celebrate is fidelity to the Church and her tradition -- which doesn't mean twisting 'justice' into an embrace of the agenda of the American Man-Boy Association.
I never objected to my bishop knowing my views, and in fact he knows them very well. I have spoken and written publicly on these topics since 1980. I just objected to you encouraging people to pester busy churchmen with crank mail.
It is not I but St Bernard who speaks of the breasts of Christ and of Christ as our mother.
Joan Chittister is a woman -- or have you some "awful disclosure" about her?
Dr Blosser states:
"don't you recall, it was Atiyah who asked for the judgment of someone with canonical authority as to the theological orthodoxy and validity of your interpretations. I'm simply calling his bluff."
Completely untrue.
Actually I think the prospect of radtrad youngins pestering Bishops in Japan over statements on this blog to be ridiculous. I am sure they will be bemused by it should any letters arrive and I suspect that few if any letters will be written actually.
What is far more interesting is whether Dr Blosser himself will write in complaint. He cannot win an argument here and so reaches for authority to settle it – hardly the behaviour of a philosopher.
Interestingly he suggests that his actions are justified because he wouldn’t get a fair hearing at the hands of Fr. O’Leary and thus he concedes the outrageousness of his behaviour really.
Would he get a fair hearing from me? I hope so. But of course I would never wish to be judge and jury. The forum I desiderate is one where Catholics can air the issues in open discussion, much as people in the other Christian churches can. The lack of such a forum is making church life anemic.
Dr. Blosser:
"Grega, if you examine the presuppositions, it's not arbitrary favoritism based on whimsical biases that leads me and others to celebrate some nuns and criticize others. The criterion is simple: either hardworking fidelity, or hardworking dissent."
I have no doubt that you have your reasons to appreciate one type of nun more than the other. My point was more that a word like 'coward' ought not to be used as carelessly as you seem to do in my opinion.
I refered to one occasion were you personally quite literally abandoned the Papal troupes in order to sing the tone of the Cheney's and Limbaugh's of this world - no big surprise - should we call all those that could not bring themself to buy into the judgement of the 'admired JPII the Great', Cowards?
Of course you are not the first nor the last that claims admiration and obedience on paper, yet in praxis fails to come through.
You "respectfully disagree", this does not make you a 'cowardly papist'
neither should it make nuns who happen to similarly "respectfully disagree"into "cowardly nuns" - as you like to call them.
Grega,
Let me put it to you this way: Would you call the character trait that allowed the 9/11 hijackers to run their jetliners into the Twin Towers in Manhattan "courage"? Surely it was something. But was it "courage"? If not, why not?
Dr. Blosser, a little guidance, if you please. What drove the 9/11 hijackers was akin to courage, but it was clearly not motivated by right principles or tempered with prudence, charity, or any of the other virtues, properly understood. Would that make it "foolhardiness," or am I thinking of something else?
I seem to recall Chesterton (or somebody; it usually turns out to be Chesterton or Shakespeare for just about everything) saying something about it's not the suffering, but the cause that determines whether someone is a martyr.
What futile nonsense!
"Spirit" blows in the wind. Atiyah, of selective memory, conveniently forgets his earlier comments to an earlier post in which he challenged our condemnation of Fr. O'Leary's dissent from Catholic orthodoxy by asking what canon lawyer in what tribunal had judged O'Leary heterodox (to which I replied that it was a sad day when lay Catholics had to appeal to CHURCH AUTHORITIES to tell them the difference between orthodoxy and theological nonsense).
Go ahead and fret and fume over the posting of the Papal nuncio's and Tokyo archbishop's contact information. It's a reminder that our religion isn't one we make up as we go along. Unlike any other religion, we have the Vicar of Christ on earth. This means there is someone with authority in the world ("author's rights").
The irony, "Spirit," is that a religion with real authority and immovable absolutes gives us a basis for human rights and tolerance, whereas your open-ended 'forum' is provided with models such as J.J. Rousseau's volente general, which end up being insufferably totalitarian. The problem is that freedom of thought is destroyed by the extension of philosophic doubt to the field of traditional ideals, which includes the basis for freedom of thought. Accordingly J.L. Talmon could aptly title his study of J.J. Rousseau's Social Contract theory The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. What was it that Rousseau said about the minority in the Republic who didn't conform to the 'general will' -- "They must be compelled to be free!" (His words) For him, that included capital punishment, where necessary. Scary.
Traditionally, human rights are based on the assumption that human beings of any gender, color, race (or, yes, sexual disposition) share a common human nature. Christianity traditionally has seen in that nature also the image of God. There is a solid basis for respect in this. Today, you and many others would have us do away with the 'essentialist' notion that human being share a common human nature, because it offends specifying, among other things, what is 'unnatural' and 'perverted.' But what basis for the defense of human rights would you put in its place, then? Rousseau's 'general will'! Who in his right mind do you think would trust that?
its volonte (e aigu) generale (two more e aigus).
Democracy is a great force of evolution. The Church will integrate much of the democratic spirit as it evolves further in the
its SHD BE It's
Dr Blosser
Please don’t blame me for your rash behaviour. It was you who declared Fr. O’Leary to be a “dissident” I merely asked whether this was a term of art or science in the Catholic Church and if it was the latter then which prelate or tribunal had declared him so. It is clear you were using the word as a term of abuse (art) since he has not been declared a “dissident priest” by anybody. I made the observation about you being both the judge and jury in the matter and looking around for an execution.
I don’t know from that how you get from this that I invited you to rark up your readers into making a complaint to these unfortunate Arch Bishops in Japan – that is entirely your own work.
He's a priest that dissents, whats to declare?
Charles Curran calls it "loyal dissent", but I think it could equally be called "a concerned plea for dialogue, and a suggestion that development of church doctrine may be in order".
Not that I would want to put myself in the same category as a seasoned and measured moral theologian such as Curran, who has devoted his life to thinking about such matters in a pastorally sensitive and serenely lucid way. I only know enough moral theology to smash bad arguments and to suggest that no real progress can be made unless one is prepared to give people a respectful hearing.
No, Father, you don't apparently know that much.
OK, tell me one bad argument I have not been able to smash!
RCFC
Labelling people as dissenters on a blog with philosophical pretensions is highly amusing. No one truly committed to the discussion of ideas behaves in this childish manner. And having worked oneself into a state of agitation then to invite others to complain indicates a brittleness.
In this regard Dr Blosser has nothing to declare except a propensity to rash behaviour.
What a truly miserable Catholicism that is displayed here. It is the faith of the drowning man and his life preserver. We’re gonna have to file a missing persons report for a couple of the radtrad youngins who have gone off to prove that usury never meant all interest and slavery is still ok. They would rather this than face the crisis of faith that results from the realisation that from time to time the Catholic Church wisely changes a position in the light of fresh evidence or changes in society.
Atiyah:
What a delight to read your firm voice of reason.
The other day on NPR somebody made the point that we really have nothing to fear from the Taliban’s and Ossamas of this world - these guys offer nothing positive for the average person to aspire to. No hope for economic improvements, no hope to intellectually grow, no vision to truly participate in society, science and technology.
Furthermore the point was made, that it is time to truly utilize our strategic advantage arising from the fact that we offer hope to people to the fullest and usher in the next leap in freedom and progress.
The day will come closer when our own bunch of religious extremist will be bunched together with the Taliban pest of every other religion.
These guys will never be Primetime.
Let them voice their miserable voices of negativity - they have not much to offer to the average person beyond complaining.
If you get to the bottom of it in Blogs like this I tend to find that some of the most notorious voices belonging to those that changed over to our religion for very limited reasons.
Some really can not get over the fact that women are truly equal - and they fool themself into believing that catholic offer a 'oldfashioned' view here. Some can not stand the progress that we all made to truly accepting our SSA brothers and sisters - they think the catholic religion is better position to stop the continue increase in acceptance of gays - they are fooling themselves. If nothing else our priesthood is soaked with perhaps somewhat closeted but wonderful gay Priests and bishops. Some can not stand the future period and rather muse about upcoming monarchies, end of times, the Devil here and there.
Some just like authority period and love to be told exactly what to do.
Conscience? Why bother.
Let them rant and rave and scream and ooze with negativity towards just about everything and everybody modern. In case they have not noticed, the elite of the future are all those that are steeped in freedom of thoughts and creativity.
Theocrats might temporarily run this desert thiefdom or that errant society in despair. Educated modern people will always run circles around these guys and will continue to marginalize them her in our free societies of the West.
IMHO, I am beg. to deplore the frequency of acron. & abbr. I thought "SSA" ref. to "Social Security Administration." I live a very sheltered life.
Good grief, Grega. You have lost your once reasonable and conciliatory tone. We didn't agree on a lot, but at least you seemed to see us trads and fundies as somewhat human. Now this:
'The day will come closer when our own bunch of religious extremist will be bunched together with the Taliban pest of every other religion.' So, traditionalist Catholics are the same as the Taliban. That's nice.
'If you get to the bottom of it in Blogs like this I tend to find that some of the most notorious voices belonging to those that changed over to our religion for very limited reasons.' Hello? Not sure that I follow your syntax here, but it sounds like you are questioning the motives of individuals who have converted to the Catholic faith. Do I understand you correctly?
'Some just like authority period and love to be told exactly what to do.
Conscience? Why bother.' As I recall, Jesus has told us exactly what to do, and it is not reducible to "love one another" in a squishy, relativistic sense. Jesus told his Jewish hearers that they must follow the commandments handed down by Moses -- and then some. I've got news for you, Grega, I don't love being told what to do any more than you do. Yet hopefully I love Jesus more than I love my own penchant for doing what I want.
'Let them rant and rave and scream and ooze with negativity towards just about everything and everybody modern. In case they have not noticed, the elite of the future are all those that are steeped in freedom of thoughts and creativity.' Climb down off of your pretentious high horse, Grega. Do you represent "the elite of the future"? I suppose that you are more "steeped in freedom of thoughts and creativity" than us neanderthals. Lord knows, we don't know how to spell and need grammar schoolmarms like Fr. O'Leary to mark up our typos and rap our knuckles frequently.
'Theocrats might temporarily run this desert thiefdom or that errant society in despair. Educated modern people will always run circles around these guys and will continue to marginalize them her in our free societies of the West.' Oh, pu-leeease. Spare us the melodrama.
What a disillusioning performance.
"at least you seemed to see us trads and fundies as somewhat human. Now this: 'The day will come closer when our own bunch of religious extremist will be bunched together with the Taliban pest of every other religion.' So, traditionalist Catholics are the same as the Taliban. That's nice."
1. Taliban are very human, too.
2. The Vatican allies itself with fundamentalist Islamicist governments in barring human rights measures for gays.
3. It is remarkable that the very unattractive presentation of Catholicism on this and other sites like Pontifications and First Things (to mention only the most intellectual) are the work of recent converts whose main motivation seems to be peevish distaste for the liberalism, and the friendliness to women and to gays, of the churches they have left behind.
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