Birthdays and Snow

Last week, Fr. Jeremy Paulin, OMV (vocation director) and I celebrated our respective birthdays - mine came first and fell during the week, so we decided to celebrate on Saturday. The day of my birthday was pretty normal, with class and study and our common prayer; we also attended a wake in the evening, for the father of Dr. Lang, our in-house philosophy professor. His father's name was Earl - may he rest in peace.

On Saturday, Br. Jerry made some Adobo ribs and pancit - great authentic Filipino food, and I got to use chopsticks, a rare occasion around here. I received several cards from my family and friends; my creative sisters' handmade cards incorporating Latin and Spanish and even a bunch of Gregorian chant certainly stand out, and thoughtful greetings from friends rounded out the bunch. The community card depicted Charlie Chaplin's tramp, captioned "Distinguished yet Youthful," and incorporated some inside jokes and a little Greek. The funniest one, however, was Fr. Tom's card. I managed to decode the binary code on the outside of the envelope - "Paul" - and was feeling pretty good about still being able to do that, sans references, when I pulled the card out. On the front cover was a birthday cake in the shape of a Mac Mini. Then I opened it. And the entire inside of the card was printed in binary ASCII!! In my obstinacy to solve it without assistance beyond myself, I wrote a tool to decode it, though binary translators are freely available online, for occasions such as this.

And as I caught up a bit with friends and old acquaintances on Facebook, I found myself writing, "I'm doing well and enjoying everything, but we could have a little snow," in response to their various inquiries. And today, we finally get some! These pictures were taken about two hours into the snowfall, and it is expected to continue into the night with an accumulation of a few inches. Aside from the decent snowstorm we had the weekend of Deacon John's ordination and the March for Life, and the Halloween snowfall, Boston has not seen snow this winter! About time!

Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca

A Little More About Me

Based on a good friend's comment that my blog is becoming too political and my own mother's comment that she got lost reading my most recent post, I've decided to interject amidst the stream of politically-influenced and charged posts and return to the topic to which this blog was first dedicated - that is, my own journey as a seminarian with the Oblates of the Virgin Mary.

After returning from our awesome retreat, directed by Fr. Shawn Monahan, OMV, currently working at St. Mary's in Alton, IL, we jumped into a few days of class whilst planning for Br. John Luong's final vows and ordination to the Diaconate (I played violin for his vows and served at Holy Cross Cathedral for the ordination). The very next day, we rose quite early to board a bus (of which I became the leader) on a pilgrimage to the March for Life in Washington, D.C. as part of a 500-person contingent from Boston. I was able to meet up with some of my little sister's sisters, of the Congregation of St. Cecilia in Nashville, as they led youth from Tennessee and New Orleans to DC. It was a moving event to attend, amidst light rain and throngs of peaceful marchers from all over the country, and, as usual, secular media barely made mention, save for a few notices of traffic diversions.

Over the week following, we hosted 16 men discerning a priestly vocation, possibly to the Oblates of the Virgin Mary. They were able to share meals and recreation with us and attend some classes. Their stay concluded with a seminar by Fr. Timothy Gallagher, OMV on the rules for Discernment of Spirits. It was great to see such enthusiasm in seeking the Lord's will in their lives and their openness to discovering where such a pursuit may lead them. A couple men who visited are presently applying to the Congregation.

My studies philosophical studies on the meaning of life continue to be engaging, with the renowned Dr. Peter Kreeft at Boston College - we have read Ecclesiastes, Plato's Gorgias, the opening books of Aristotle's Ethics, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, and now Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. Each title has been an engaging look at what makes life meaningful and what makes life meaningless or contributes nothing to life's meaning. What is really remarkable, and what is echoed in John Paul II's encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), is that there is a clarity of partial truth exhibited amidst the shortcomings of each philosopher's explanation of life's meaning, distilled from the multiple proverbial sayings of Lao Tzu, or found among the ashes of the Nazi concentration camps in Frankl's account. The late pontiff and the Church as a whole in her rich tradition has always affirmed these truths found in the thought and tradition of other peoples and has always taken these to be the first steps of their approaching an ever fuller possession of the Truth, who is Jesus Christ himself, the Λογος, the Word made flesh.

And it is precisely such dialogue and awareness that the ecumenical councils of the Church have convened to address since Her founding, as we study in my class on the Second Vatican Council. The documents published by the Holy Father in communion with the College of Bishops are jam-packed full of deep statements concerning our faith and moral life, and we are taking the time to appreciate what a gift to the church this council is.

Our course on the Philosophy of Man (Anthropology)—though up to this point a repetition of the foundation for Ethics that I received last Spring—affords an opportunity to consider again the natural approach to discussing the human person and his constitution, which provides a basis for discussing fundamental life issues challenging society at this time without at first bringing faith into the picture, a dynamic frequently destructive of civil discussion. With our participation in the March for Life and the recent showing of Cardinal Sean's informative message on the ballot initiative in Massachusetts that would legalize physician-assisted suicide, such study was never more relevant!

Our class on Sacred Scripture, at this point emphasizing the Old Testament, is wonderfully enlightening, as we study how the texts that we now call our Bible were first composed and then gathered together, carefully preserved and handed down. We have discussed the literary genres present in scripture, the various cultural traditions whose imagery and expressive style influenced those early writers, and the turbulent historical context in which the first several books of the bible came to be written and preserved. At the same time, my study of New Testament Greek sheds light on the linguistic tools that biblical writers had at their disposal, both the expressiveness that can be lost in translations to modern languages and the limitations of the language at the time that invited the use of descriptive terms in place of the invention of new words. Because both of these classes are taught by Fr. Peter Grover, OMV, director of St. Clement Shrine and STL candidate, they have a wonderful complementarity for me.

Community life continues to be wonderful and vibrant, as we share stories, take walks, play cards, and share our varied interests with one another, whether food, biking, music, or watching and playing sports. I can personally attest to the great supportive spirit of fraternity that we have with one another, as we routinely check in on each other and assist those who fall ill or whose families experience some sickness or loss.

And in my personal discernment, I now explore what the Lord is calling me to do in the coming year. The Oblates will not have a novitiate program next year, though I am ready; rather, the plan is presently to begin forming an Oblate for the work of Novice Master, and to designate a location in which we can support a class of novices, beginning in the Fall of 2013. While I do not feel called away from the community, this certainly presents an interesting crossroads in my formation; rather than simply proceed along the typical program, I must now discern whether to advance to study Theology in the Fall or spend a year working and earning an income to support my studies and family, while living with (or at least close to) an Oblate community.

Thank you to my faithful readers and those who happened upon this post for whatever reason! Please take a moment to say a prayer for me, and know that I pray for you and the fulfillment of all that the Lord desires for your life. Our solidarity in prayer is one of those precious things that the world can never really obstruct, and it is one of those efficacious gifts we have received from the Lord that he desires we use in His service, until at last we may join Him in paradise!

In the Heart of Mary,
Paul

Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca

Politics and Principles: Noam Chomsky & Paul Rosenberg

This post is in response to both Noam Chomsky's essay on the decline of America, the first part of which is posted on Al Jazeera's opinion section, and Paul Rosenberg's essay on the shortcomings of the Republican party's failed case.

On Chomsky... I might agree with the headline that there may be some observable "Decline of America", but in a very qualified way - I think that as a living body of people with values and principles by which we instinctively live and find various policies appealing or repulsive, we are far from a severe decline that would result in a dramatic change of those values and principles (or their priorities) - I think that the "thinking public" as such is more stable than that.

However, the political arena sees wildly different cases day by day that stack votes on both sides - indeed on three sides: decline, stability, and progress. Note that departures from stability (or stagnation?) could be either decline or progress, and both admit of degrees. Note also that progress can only be made from a point of stability, wherever that resting place is. Policies lean now this way and now the other; Obama's change doctrine is devoid of real significance at face value, and actually cashes in with real injustice (called "justice" by its proponents).




I was getting a bit confused reading both articles and crossing their opinions. I attempt to merge the two critics in my own response here.

Rosenberg's understanding of Catholic Social Doctrine (not teaching, as he casually states it) is shallow at best... his reliance on another commentator's analysis of Rick Santorum's deviance from actual Catholic teaching is dangerously analytical and abuses terminology in several cases. In listening to Santorum speak in response to the healthcare and contraception issues, I find him a strong supporter of the Church's position, which includes the interests of religious liberty, protection of conscience of individual Americans (esp. those adherents of Christian faith), and the interest of God's law as evident in nature and open to the human intellect to discover (simply, natural law). On the contraception issue (and several related issues), check out this concise counterpoint. In the Whitehouse's press concerning the contraception mandate, now pushed to insurance companies without any real change in the burden on employers compared to the previous version of the policy, the alleged position of the Catholic church is painfully inaccurate. The statements made by the Catholic Health Association and Catholics United are accurate enough not to bring condemnation from Church leaders, but also politically crafted to render a favorable disposition toward what they keep calling a "step in the right direction," euphemistically settling for baby steps when in reality it's such a small step it's hardly more than a leaning of the foot over the line of scrimmage. Archbishop Dolan's (now Cardinal, as of today in Rome) remarks after the first news broke are harshly critical of Obama's action, and Obama's press conference (along with a very nervous Secretary of HHS and including his far-from-genuine story of working for the Church with the poor of Chicago) is so hard to watch on account of his manner of delivery and the structure (?) of his argument. His appeal to the American people's desire for urgency in the matter might have been laudable for many other issues, but I sincerely think he projected far too much - he claimed to answer a need that really was not there, and the terribly weak statistical foundation he established was so crafted it makes us sick. Enough on that issue.

On Chomksy's assertion that "American decline is real, though the apocalyptic vision reflects the familiar ruling class perception that anything short of total control amounts to total disaster." Philosophically and psychologically, the need for control among the ruling class is ideally minimized in authentically leading (presiding over) the people governed by their principles and values and the particular policies that they agree to be workable in executing those principles and values, together with their relative priorities. Chomsky seems to be saying that we should realize that American decline does not mean American destruction and that something short of total control amounts to something short of total disaster, concisely, that the well or ill-being of a nation is proportional to the quality and accomplishments of its leadership. With this graduated view, I could not agree more - but we need be careful in positing the existence of degrees where the subject does not admit of degrees at all but stands on its own as absolute. Primarily, and most grievously in today's society, we need to recognize that there is absolute truth. Aristotle and so many after him have rightly asserted in both logic and metaphysics that truth is singular, but error admits of degrees - that is, there is one right answer and a boundless accumulation of wrong answers that might be given. This, too, is limited to certain areas, and philosophers distinguish kinds of certitude. There are utterly absolute metaphysical truths, the contraries of which yield an incompatible contradiction. There are physical truths, the contraries of which could only be accomplished by a miracle (understood as divine intercession defying the customary laws of nature [as we have observed and recognize them]). And then there are moral certitudes, about which we may be sufficiently committed to one position or another in order to carry on with our lives, but which do not present the same necessity as the prior two classes. Without these valuable distinctions, clarified and named from ancient times, we still have a sense that we do not cease to exist for having chosen wrongly an apple over an orange or crossing the street now or a second later... some things simply have a lesser importance. And yet this common-sense (intuitions or notions seemingly shared by so many) seems to be nearly lost in contemporary politics.

To return to where we began with my statement of "control" as a more authentic leadership, the real addition that need be made (lest we fall into the heresy of John Rawls, which I studied carefully last semester) is that the people's principles and values and their priorities thereof ultimately come from a divinely-infused sense of right and wrong - of what is constructive and destructive - of what leads to happiness (though possibly through suffering) and what is pain for the sake of some vice. Good leadership should take the power granted it by the people who appointed such a leader precisely to protect against fallible man's deviance from his own ideals, promoting the good and positively discouraging and preventing evil.

To return briefly to the issue of contraception - the president employed the use of some power granted his own office, in the regulatory power of the executive branch, to achieve an end he thought necessary to advance more quickly than legislative process and effective dialogue with stakeholders would afford. This is precisely what he says in his video address (also linked above). This circumvention of the ordinary mechanism in the name of urgency, as an exception to the rule, should be with good reason, interpreting powers narrowly, to avoid the very corruption of the leadership that leadership is designed to avoid for the masses. For the case in point, the reason given is that women are going without so-called reproductive healthcare (especially possibly abortifacient contraceptive means and services, all told). If this "care" is being withheld from women and it is something which our guiding principles and values dictate they are entitled to receive, then such executive prerogative might be in order. But the new policy seems to prove far too much in making this "care" a mandatory offering of all medical insurance providers (in the present formulation) at no ("additional") cost to the insured. And as a fellow blogger points out, contraception also involves male sexual partners both medically and psychologically. In most other areas of health care, what is meant is a professional service seeking to combat various bodily maladies. Whether this is correction of vision, repairing broken bones, diagnosing and removing cancerous tissue, reconstructing tissues after some accident, or otherwise promoting what is seen by medicine as the normal functioning of the human body. The very term contraception expresses a negative notion of a real condition. The real condition is conception ("receiving with"), its contrary, contraception ("against receiving"). The real condition of sight has as its contrary, blindness, which medicine never seeks to achieve. Medicine never seeks to prevent someone from walking, talking, being able to write, digest food, etc. But the legal permission for medicine to kill someone (as in abortion, abortifacient contraceptives and euthanasia) or tamper with the natural functioning of bodily organs is what is in question.

So what do we desire for our governing principles, which the "ruling class" will uphold? And will we charge the three branches of our government with supporting each other where they agree with these principles and holding each other accountable where they do not? Is this not what is in our very Constitution? Let's hope and pray for more principled politics in the very near future, and do what we can to raise awareness of the dilution of the truth that so challenges us all today.


Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca

HHS Mess

FOX News published an open letter that opens with "Unacceptable," in response to President Obama's announcement of his "compromise" or "resolution" to the controversy over the HHS contraception mandate. As FOX notes, the letter is signed by three dozen significant players in academia and public policy centers in various religious groups, though mostly Catholic. The letter goes a long way to explaining the actual substance of what Obama's most recent policy (February 10, 2012) states.

Here are some other related resources:

February 10th President's Press Conference (with a nervous Ms. Sibelius)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2012/02/10/president-obama-speaks-contraception-and-religious-institutions?utm_source=wethepeople&utm_medium=response&utm_campaign=contraception

Official Whitehouse response to We the People petition signed by almost 30,000 Americans:
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/protecting-health-women-while-accommodating-religious-liberty?utm_source=wethepeople&utm_medium=response&utm_campaign=contraception

And the response from Catholic groups and pro-life advocacy groups:

National Right-to-Life Committee response:
http://nrlc.org/press_releases_new/Release021012.html

Then the USCCB statement on these developments, which specifically says in its concluding remarks that no contact occurred between the Obama Administration and the Bishops: http://usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/bishops-renew-call-to-legislative-action-on-religious-liberty.cfm

Just keep the facts straight and stand up for the truth - that's all we ask! Let the truth set you free!


Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca

Catholics and Religious Leaders oppose HHS Mandate

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has spoken out numerous times over the past couple months in opposition to the policy mandate of the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) issued on January 20, 2012 that obliges healthcare providers to supply contraceptives including sterilization and some abortifacients (provided these procedures and products are FDA-approved)

The Nashville Dominicans just sent out a special edition email newsletter standing with the USCCB and pledging to make a novena of prayer and fasting beginning on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, this Saturday, February 11, 2012, making the consecration of the United States of America to the Immaculate Heart of Mary each day.

I invite you to join them in prayer, as I will, and to take advantage of the resources provided to educate yourself on the matter and contact your congressional representatives accordingly. Please share widely!

Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca

Shortened link to this post: http://bit.ly/xP6eUT

Susan G. Komen Foundation withdraws PP Support

Yesterday, we learned that the Susan G.  Komen Foundation (SGK) withdrew financial support it has customarily given to Planned Parenthood (PP), not for abortions, but for breast exams and other diagnostic procedures that PP has provided or otherwise procured for many women over the past decades.

Via some comments on my Facebook posts commending SGK's action, I make the following response:

One chief opposition to the action, which is stated in the LA Times article on the same subject is that early diagnostic services were provided by Planned Parenthood with the Susan G. Komen Foundation's support, and that their withdrawal of that funding will now retract those services from people in dire need.

On the other hand, Planned Parenthood is not the sole provider of these services, and it is quite conceivable that, as it is consistent with Komen's mission, this funding will not buy staplers and paper clips in the wake of this action, but go toward providing the same services through organizations that do not also participate in such morally offensive activity in addition to this good and prudent service.

Planned Parenthood's entire system participates and realizes eugenics, arbitrary choice of life and death exerted over parties without a voice, and encourages promiscuous behavior that threatens emotional health as well as physical health of individuals and society as a whole, threatening the institution of the family by encouraging non-marital and extra-marital relations, and the list goes on. It is an entire philosophy (or misosophy?) that is both novel (at least within the 20th century compared to millenia prior, though instances of infanticide and contraception are seen into ancient times and documented in the bible) and pervasively effective in the corruption of the conscience of "developed nations" and, by the reality that people look to us as an example of prosperity and "progress," the whole human race.

While the SGK Foundation's action will stir up congratulations among pro-life activists, Planned Parenthood's staunch supporters will also rally around its mission and this misstated pity plea. An organization oriented to the real devaluation of the human person should not be left to stand, and any action that hinders its ability to function is commendable.

This action follows upon the lively debate over state-procured healthcare and whether individual providers can refuse certain services at will or whether they are obligated to provide them.

I read a sad quote from a Planned Parenthood employee/collaborator who wondered what they would do instead of participating in their annual SGK walk. How ridiculous that this individual would rather boycott a public demonstration of the pursuit of the cure for breast cancer than consider the mission and values of her own favored organization, whose other activities actually increase risk factors for that cancer and fuel the need for a cure!

For a profound and very real presentation about how flawed the pro-choice and pro-abortion mentality is, please view the 33-minute 180 Movie. In this production, two major ideas are presented: the reality that common language has been twisted to favor the legal and even moral permissibility for a woman to murder the child in her womb (neither of which should be the case), and the reality that so many people have accepted this co-opted language without a second thought, not realizing what they have allowed.

There may be money in abortion and pornography, in fact, tens of billions of dollars flow into these industries annually, but is there happiness and interior peace? And are these not the deepest desires of human persons, and are they not so firmly asserted in the Declaration of Independence?



Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca

Settling in

My impression was that it has been a while (at least two weeks) since my last post, but, in fact, it has been just seven days! These seven days, however, have been absolutely jam-packed with activities and functions as many of our visitors arrived last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and they joined us for common prayer and meals as well as classes and walks around town. Fr. Timothy Gallagher's Saturday and Sunday seminar on the topic of Discernment of Spirits was quite well attended, and we were glad to have the visitors' help to set up and clean up the hall, as well as give all of them the opportunity to attend the talks. This was Fr. Tim's first major speaking engagement since his throat surgeries early last summer; it has been a long recovery, but one that has afforded him time to finish writing the first draft of the new biography of our founder, Venerable Fr. Pio Bruno Lanteri (1759–1830).

Now that our crazy events are over for the time being, we can really dive into our studies and the rest of our formation activities. Dr. Peter Kreeft's class on "The Meaning of Life" at Boston College has been quite entriguing; we have already read the book of Ecclesiastes, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, and Plato's Gorgias, as we seek to unpack the question and begin to see certain philosophers' answers to (or attempts at answering) that quintessential question. On the historical front, in "Introduction to Sacred Scripture," we are going over the geo-political context in which the Old Testament was written, and in "Introduction to Vatican II," we are going over the geo-political dynamics within which the early church councils were convoked.

In the history of the ecumenical councils, it is fascinating to see how those first centuries of evangelization gave rise to increasingly distant (geographically) communities that, in the course of encountering great ideological diversity, required more elaborate explanations of the articles of our faith, in order that these peoples might understand more deeply and in accord with what they already held true.

In other news, we were very happy to read in the news today of Susan G. Komen Foundation's withdrawal of funding toward Planned Parenthood; their contribution has been quoted at less than 5% of Planned Parenthood's annual budget, but what they stand for and their name recognition are great enough that their stance has made big news and evoked great response from Planned Parenthood supporters. At the same time, a critical moment has come in the debate over whether healthcare providers should be obligated to provide for abortions and other procedures deemed necessary or desirable in the category of "reproductive health" that inherently violate the dignity of human life. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published on the broader issue of the weakening of conscience, and provides a convenient method to contact lawmakers in the name of life. The more disheartening aspect is precisely that compulsory aspect - that no medical facility would be exempt from providing such procedures, and that, with federal tax dollars going into this very same market, the American people as a whole are also funding these procedures whose permissibility so many deeply oppose.

In this difficult time, let us unite in prayer and political action, so far as we are able, seeking and striving after the peace that comes with a society that respects the ultimately fundamental value and dignity of every human life. Let us entrust our efforts to Our Blessed Mother, whose consent to life brought us Life itself in human flesh, and with the intercession of her devout disciple and patron of the pro-life movement, St. Maximilian Kolbe (1894–1941), may the culture of life triumph over the culture of death!


Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca