The Prominent Catholic Fan Club (TM)

Technically, Mark Shea Appreciation Month here at And Sometimes Tea ended yesterday, but I'm going to keep the little links up on the sidebar through the end of this week. If you feel moved to click Mark's Paypal button or buy some books or tapes, please do so!

The reason I'm bringing Mark up again is because of this post he wrote on his blog today, and especially his link to this article he wrote last year. In the article, he mentions a worried note he has received from a reader, and says:

A number of things concern me about this note. But the first and foremost is that somebody's faith could be disturbed by the fact that a Catholic apologist has erred. Sadly, it's not the first time I've encountered the tendency to anoint me or some other apologist as a sort of Alternative Magisterium to the real Magisterium by a "fan base" that is somewhere between a school of disciples and a cheer squad. Indeed, I have found that, in an era where laity have been taught to mistrust their bishops--not only by the media and the culture, but by the shocking incompetence and perfidy of the bishops in the abuse scandal--it's very easy for laity to hive off and anoint new ersatz Magisteria in the form of whatever faction they happen to fancy. For some, the New Magisterium is the advocates for women priests. For others, it's Catholics for a Free Choice. For still others, it's whatever Richard McBrien says is the consensus of Thinking Catholics in the Academy. For some, it's Dan Brown.

But for not a few in the apologetics subculture, it's what I or Scott Hahn or [insert favorite apologist] thinks about X, Y and Z. And that's a very dangerous thing to do, because we apologists are not protected by the charism of infallibility in the slightest. In the case cited by my correspondent above, for instance, the crisis of faith was precipitated by the fact that I misread St. Jerome in an article I wrote years ago for Envoy. (I thought Jerome was defending the Septuagint and the inclusion of deuterocanonical books like Tobit, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees in the canon of Scripture.) I did not misread Jerome wilfully, as Mr. X suggested on his blog, but I nonetheless did make a blunder. That's the breaks. I make mistakes.

I think that some people collect Prominent Catholic Thinkers, Speakers or Writers (TM) the way that others collect baseball cards or antique art glass. That's not an entirely bad thing, certainly not from the standpoint of those Prominent Catholics who in many cases are trying either to earn a living entirely from such works, or else supplement the kind of salary one can be paid in the academic world for being a Prominent Catholic--and in case anyone is under the impression that these sorts of careers lead to fame and fortune, let's just say that there have been periods in the Church when an indulgence might cost you more than these guys (and gals) get paid in a year (adjusting for inflation, and overlooking the fact that payment in that era often came in the form of livestock).

Okay, I'm kidding. But only about the indulgences.

So while people like Mark Shea or Amy Welborn or Dawn Eden or Scott Hahn or countless others are probably quite pleased when people buy their books or tapes, visit their conferences, hire them to speak, or otherwise show some financial appreciation for their labors, I am fairly positive that not one of them would ever want to be mistaken for the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church. To the extent that their teachings or writings are ever authoritative, it is to the degree to which their writings conform to the Magisterium--that is, they teach and write well, when what they teach and write can be demonstrated to agree with various official Church documents, such as the Catechism, the writings of the early Church fathers, the encyclicals of the popes, and other such iterations of authentic Catholic truth.

But, as Mark points out above, it is possible for him, or for any of them, to be wrong about something. It may be some small historical detail, or it may be an entirely erroneous conclusion about an issue, or it may be anything in between. When Catholic scholars or writers or teachers or thinkers find themselves at odds with the ordinary Magisterium of the Church, it is the job of these Prominent Catholics to make a correction--it is not the job of the Church to correct herself for their sakes.

For the fans of the Prominent Catholics, it may be extremely disconcerting to catch an error, or find a point of disagreement, or see one's favorite Prominent Catholic failing to care sufficiently about one of one's own side issues or matters of concern. But falling into that attitude is a clear indication that the fans have, themselves, mistaken the Prominent Catholic for the Church, and not in the "Mystical Body" sense, but in the sense that they really do substitute the thinking, speaking, writing et. al. of this Catholic or these Catholics for authoritative Catholic teaching.

And that's a problem, one which the Prominent Catholics themselves must be acutely aware of. It's a problem for two reasons--one, because it elevates the Prominent Catholics to an office they do not aspire to and cannot hold, and two, because it creates in the mind of the various fans out there the temptation to see one's favorite Prominent Catholic as opposed to the Church--and then to choose the Prominent Catholic over the Church.

We've seen that happen much more on the more liberal side of things, where groups of fans of various progressive Catholic writers, speakers, teachers, etc. have taken their Prominent Catholics words and run with them--all the way to various boats for "women's ordinations," or all the way to Barack Obama for "consistent ethic" misunderstandings, or even in some cases all the way out of the Church, which they come to see as far too deeply flawed to be worth fixing.

But lest anyone think that this is a problem only on the left, that Catholics who veer more towards small "o" orthodoxy or small "t" traditionalism will be immune to it--human and Church history would suggest otherwise, wouldn't they?

Playing a Foolish Game

Last week, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met in the tiny town of Unity, New Hampshire, to celebrate their--er, unity.

And today, Barack Obama decided to talk about patriotism--in Independence, MO:

As for his own patriotism, Obama said he chose Monday's topic in part because of questions raised during the presidential race so far, even though he had always considered his love of country a given, in fact his inspiration for running for office.

"I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged — at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for," he said before a crowd of a few hundred people at the Truman Memorial Building.

"I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign, and I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine," he said.

Laying aside the inconvenient fact that Obama's patriotism is being questioned more because of his wife's words and his own twenty-year membership in a church whose pastor called upon God to condemn America, there's another troubling element emerging from this campaign: the manipulation of the press.

"Unity" in Unity, NH? "Patriotism" in Independence, MO?

Granted, Obama has every reason to suspect that the press is on his side. From near-hagiographical pictures to fawning media coverage to softball interviews, the press has shown itself to be solidly in the Obama camp, so much so that you can forgive the candidate for forgetting that they're not an unofficial, unpaid group in his communications and advertising division.

But the media doesn't like it when their loyalty and partisanship is taken too much for granted. There were already grumbles about the Unity, NH photo-op, in that it was a little too trite, a little too obvious to appeal to the kind of coverage the media likes to offer. In this latest Independence speech, the press has been playing up the "Harry Truman's birthplace" angle and downplaying the name of the city; some in the media are already making fun of the name choices.

In the spirit of nonpartisan friendliness, I'd like to remind the Obama campaign of something they seem to have forgotten: the media doesn't work for you. They may have given that impression, but they don't like it when you take them for granted. You're supposed to leave the inspired headlines and clever regionalisms to them--manipulating the situation to force the press to report from Unity, NH or Independence, MO or, perhaps in the future, Hope, AR or Plain Dealing, LA or Friendly, WV is eventually going to make them show their dislike of the situation.

The media in the United States may be overwhelmingly Democratic in terms of political proclivity, but first and foremost they vote for themselves. If you make them look foolish by scheduling speech after speech in cleverly aptronymic towns across this great nation, they may decide at some point to return the favor: running some less flattering photos, for instance, or openly mocking the campaign's choice of locations as a cheap trick--which, in fact, it is.

So before you decide to talk about our nation's priorities in Askew, MS, or plan a rally in Progress, TX--or ask that a debate with McCain be set in Truth or Consequences, NM--you might want to think seriously about whether, and for how long, the press is likely to put up with such obvious shenanigans.

It would be much better for the Obama campaign to give this up on their own. Otherwise, the national media is quite likely to issue a serious call for the campaign to cut the Crappo, Maryland.

Just Winging It

Today is the last Friday in June, by which time I'm sure all of my homeschooling mom readers have ordered all their books and materials for next year, planned all of their lessons, purchased and organized a year's worth of craft supplies, and are eagerly deciding which of several extracurriculars to pursue with their happy children beginning in late August or early September.

I'm kidding.

If you are that organized, congratulations! Now slow down and give the rest of us a chance to catch up.

If you're like me, and haven't quite finished the grading from the last school year, and looked at today's date on the calendar with feelings of shock, wondering what the heck happened to June, relax! You're far from alone, and many homeschooling moms are in the same bind.

Novice homeschoolers sometimes think that all homeschoolers are like the handful they've met at extraordinary events or read about or even seen on television. You know, the people whose classroom would make a Yale instructor jealous, whose six-year-old is mastering deponent Latin verbs while the ten-year-old has moved on to Greek; the family where the mother has created an entirely new method of teaching math such that the three-year-old is doing differential calculus, all while the family runs a busy and successful home-based business creating and manufacturing home-tapestries for the home liturgical altar. This mom's lesson plans were all completed while the oldest child was in utero, though she admits with a giggle that she fine-tunes them incessantly (the plans, not the children)--and while the television special's camera sweeps across their immaculate home to show the eight-year-old busily crafting toys for the new baby's imminent arrival, the only Latin word you can remember, to your shame, is vomitorium.

In reality, of course, even the TV or magazine homeschooling families aren't that perfect. And a lot of us in the homeschooling trenches are ready, willing and able to admit that quite a lot of the time, we're winging it.

I order my books in mid-July, much to the consternation of curriculum providers. I write up lesson plans only a week at a time--I used to try to plan for a month or so in advance, but one good family-crippling stomach virus was all it took to make us spend the rest of a semester "catching up." I'm not as organized as I should be, and sometimes my most ambitious plans are the ones that crash and burn the most spectacularly.

And despite it all, or because of it all, my children are learning.

They read, and remember. They do interactive games or watch educational television, and somehow retain complex facts. They share interesting tidbits of information with each other, and absorb more than I could ever possibly teach them, no matter how organized or driven I was. They ask to do science experiments, and remind me to pick up the materials. So far two of them have taught themselves hand sewing with only minor instructions--and I think they grasp the whole principle of clothing construction far more than I ever did.

It isn't necessary to be an ubermom, a Superwoman, a paragon of organization, education, and talent to teach your kids at home. The most necessary quality is simply the desire and determination to do it--and the rest will fall into place, over years of practice and habit and experience and the joy of just being there to be a part of it all.

So, I haven't ordered our books or supplies yet. What's the rush? It's only the end of June.

A Personal God

Over at Mark Shea's blog, there's a discussion about one of the many dismal statistics to come out from the Pew Religion Survey: the fact that only 60% of Catholics say they believe in a personal God. He links to this discussion of the matter at Intentional Disciples.

As I said in the comments at Mark's, though, I think that analyzing this statistic has some pitfalls. For one thing, as Mark alludes to, we don't know if people who self-identified as Catholic are active Catholics or people who haven't set foot in a church for a couple of decades.

But another thing is that most of us have overwhelmingly encountered the word "personal" in relation to God when a Protestant friend or acquaintance asks us, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ to be your personal Lord and Savior?"

So seeing that question on a survey may cause a reflexive moment in the mind of a cradle Catholic, where he identifies the question with Protestant Christianity (and especially Evangelical Protestant Christianity), checks the "no" box and moves on. If you were to ask him about the Three Persons of the Trinity he most likely will be able to tell you about them, and if you were to ask whether the Second Person, our Lord, would have endured His Passion and Death just for him, just for any one individual on the face of the earth, he would probably be able to give the correct affirmative.

But that means a belief in a very personal God, in a God Who loved the world enough to send His Son, and in a Son who loved us all enough to die for us, and in a Holy Spirit who loves us enough to remain with us through His Church.

It's just that Catholics don't generally put it that way. We may think about our relationship with God as very personal indeed, when we ask Him for His help in our daily lives, when we examine our consciences before confession to see with sorrow how we've offended Him, and when draw inspiration and strength from the prayers and examples of His good friends, the saints.

In fact, I've started to like the negative British term "Godbotherer" to describe someone who is religious--if my persistent habit of discussing things with God and spontaneously thanking Him for something He did two days ago or asking Him for sudden help in moments of chaos isn't "Godbothering," then I don't know what is.

So Catholics may not be all that familiar with the language of the personal God, and we may need to remedy that. But for many of us I suspect the problem is more one of semantics than reality--that we do see our relationship with God as intensely, even dramatically, personal.

Especially when we see Him, in the Eucharist. Especially when we receive Him, in the Eucharist. Especially when we adore Him, in the Eucharist.

Our relationship with God isn't just personal--it's immediate, and intimate, and tangible. "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord" isn't pious symbolism--it's an imperative and physical relationship with the One Who died to save us.

It's hard to imagine a relationship with God that is more personal than that.

The Darkness Inside

It has happened before, and will happen again: a disgruntled worker enters his place of business and starts to kill people before taking his own life.

A community is left behind, grieving, to ask all the usual questions and seek in vain for the answers. Were there signs? Could something have been done? Did the shooter's girlfriend dismiss his violent threats, and if not, then why didn't she warn somebody? Why did this happen, and why did the innocent have to suffer?

Since the day that Cain in angry hate ended the life of his own brother, mankind has wrestled with these questions. What causes something to go so wrong in the mind and soul of a man, that killing people seems to be the way to solve whatever problems or ease whatever suffering or vent whatever wrath he is experiencing?

Our materialistic culture will seek materialistic answers. We will look into the man's upbringing and home life, history of any trouble with the law, violent outbursts--or sullen aloofness--and at all the sifting details of a short life.

But while some answer may be culled from all that sifting sand, at a level many people don't even admit to anymore we know that we will not find the answers to the problem of evil in such trivia.

There is a darkness at the heart of man, a darkness wholly inexplicable to the evolutionists, who can't possibly explain how man should have evolved to carry within him the seeds of his own destruction. The shooter in Kentucky was not acting out of motives of self-preservation, after all; and what possible evolutionary reason for suicidal and murderous self destruction could there be?

To the Christian, the answer isn't that difficult--man is not what he was intended to be. That shadow that can drift across his soul until all light and goodness is obscured by something so heavy and dark that it chokes off all impulses to love, kindness, peace, happiness, or joy--that tenebrous weight which crushes grace and destroys hope--it is sin. It is, moreover, Original Sin, which stained us by the actions of our first parents, who chose for us all when they chose to turn away from God and seek power at the hands of the enemy.

And that capacity for sin has weakened us; that allure of the enemy's empty promises is more appealing to us than it would ever be, had we the undarkened intellect and will our first parents enjoyed in the Garden.

Whatever the details of the case in Kentucky, disturbingly like so many other things our eyes have seen, we know that the darkness inside is not a murkiness unfamiliar to us. Though by God's grace we may be far from falling to such a horrible depth, it is no merit of our own that we have been so preserved. When we pray "Lead us not into temptation," it is this sort of trial, this kind of test, we are begging to be spared--and God hears that prayer, and places a loving hand of protection over us, to keep the shadow of evil far from our souls. May it please Him to do so always!

Family and Friend

I sometimes hear either directly or on Internet blogs and forums about how isolated some homeschooling moms can sometimes be. Perhaps they live in a rural area or a place where there are few homeschoolers; perhaps the specific circumstances and demands of their lives leave little time to seek out the companionship of like-minded homeschooling moms to share the little slings and arrows of daily misfortune with, and, by sharing, to decrease them.

This is a hard burden to carry. Our world today doesn't value motherhood in itself very much; the question "What do you do?" implies something other than the tasks associated with the caring for, raising, and even teaching of children.

The saddest stories to me are the ones where in addition to having limited contact with friends, a mom also deals with opposition from one or both sides of the family to the choice to homeschool. This can be very demoralizing, and when coupled with relative isolation or a lack of a sounding-board can lead to total homeschooling failure.

I'm one of the lucky ones. Not only do both Mr. C's family and my own fully support homeschooling, but my mom homeschooled most of my siblings and I after a certain point. My oldest sister, the only one who missed out on the homeschooling opportunity because she was already in college when my family started, is now a homeschooling mom herself, and handles the task of raising and instructing her seven boys with considerable flair and energy.

And I have one other homeschooling "sister." Actually, she's my sister-in-law, but she's very much like a sister to me, and I value the friendship we have as one of the most important things in my life.

Maybe it's because our children's ages run pretty close, or maybe it's because we live in the same town, or maybe it's because we have as many differences as similarities--for whatever reason, my sister-in-law and I have become close. We chat on the phone about the little things and the big ones, we call each other up for "direction de-coding" (you know what I mean, moms! It's those moments when even the teacher's manual seems to have been written in Swahili), and we hash over the questions of the day, from who should run our country to what color to paint a room that has the frustrating ability to tamper with paint shades every time the angle of the daylight changes.

And that kind of family friendship is important--especially so, I think, to those of us on the SAHM-homeschooling journey together. There's nothing quite like a moment of contact that involves polysyllabic conversation, commiseration over the fact that a certain religion text's workbook frequently leaves out words on the Word Search pages, the sharing of a new easy dinner idea, and the honesty and unpretentiousness you can only get from family.

My school days would be a lot longer, and my life a lot less interesting, without the friendship of my sister-in-law. She amazes me with her creativity and talents, she makes me smile when we talk, and she's generous with her time and with everything she does and is.

Some of you know her as Matilda. And let me tell you, having Matilda in my family is every bit as wonderful as you might think.

Happy birthday, dear sister!

A Significant Ommision

If you read this story, you'll read about the terrible torture of a five-year-old boy at the hands of his mother, and other women, one of whom is described as a "roommate."

This story says the woman is a "friend" of the abusive mother.

And this story goes a bit farther, calling her a "live-in girlfriend."

But only this World Net Daily story uses the "L" word, calling Starkeisha Brown a lesbian.

Now, child abuse is a terrible crime no matter who's committing it. And the fact that Brown and her lesbian girlfriend, along with a third woman who's so far just being called the "babysitter," made this young boy's life a living hell is horrible regardless of the relationship between--or among--the women.

But in any other case of parental involvement in child abuse, the media falls all over itself telling us exactly how each or both parents were involved. We've seen headlines screaming about husbands who beat their children and wives who drown them, about foster parents who abuse and about grandparents who molest.

Reading the first two articles, especially the LA Times article, the reader learns that the boy's mother was involved in this poor boy's torture--but that another woman or women were also involved, for reasons that remain ambiguous and hidden unless you seek other sources for this sad, sad story.

Why would a California newspaper, one that's been pretty celebratory of all those lesbian weddings since last week, suddenly turn coy and display reserved propriety about mentioning the lesbian relationship involved in this ugly story?

One reason, I'm sure, is because of the media's complicity in the whole gay marriage story--they can't switch from their "yay lesbians!" hat to their "uh-oh, girls behaving badly" hat without highlighting their cheerleader outfits. (HT: Some Have Hats). But another reason is that the media simply can't afford for people to start asking the tough questions now about the potential of harm to children that may or may not come in the wake of widespread gay marriage.

Lest anyone think I'm saying all gay people raising children are physically hurting those kids, I'm not, emphatically. Our Catholic Church does teach, though, that those children are being spiritually harmed by being presented with a model of the family that is completely out of line with God's plan. And while the data is hard to track, there is evidence that suggests that same-sex couples experience higher rates of domestic violence then heterosexual couples. There is no data available on whether rates of child abuse will be higher among these couples--but no one will know, if the rates end up being as hidden as the lesbian status of the partners in this current example of abuse.

The fact of the matter is that no one really cares whether gay marriage ends up hurting kids, literally or spiritually/emotionally/psychologically. Just like no one cares whether gay shacking-up contributed to the harm done to Ms. Brown's little boy. It's politically incorrect even to wonder about such a thing.