PIPE DREAMS

Achk! Christmas Eve is tomorrow!

And in a completely irresponsible way I blew off part of Tuesday on a fun errand. The reason for the trip will be explained in the New Years Eve bulletin for the parish. (You can go here to read bulletins, read about the parish, hear our homilies, etc. . .)

I was window shopping the way someone who doesn’t really need a car goes and looks at cars. I was invited by the Schantz organ company to come look at their facility. As I left St. Sebastian I said, “Shucks, I forgot my camera,” and the first thing they said when we got there was, “Take as many pictures as you like.” I wanted to share the trip with you pictorially but . . .

According to the documents of Vatican II, Musicam Sacram, para 62, “The pipe organ (my note: notice, not the electric organ that sounds like a pipe organ) is to be held in high esteem in the Latin Church, since it is the traditional instrument, the sound of which can add a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lift up men’s minds to God and higher things.

“The use of other instruments may also be admitted . . .” Clearly the pipe organ (after the human voice) is the first among equals. And wonderfully so. One person like a spider at the center of a giant web can, by using every available limb, mimic the sound of an entire orchestra. And unlike its electric counterpart, worthy as it may be and helpful when the means to obtain a pipe organ are not available, it is more earthy, more organic. It just doesn’t SOUND like what it is supposed to be, it IS what it is supposed to be. Air is pumped into a giant pressurized lung, and when the organist pulls out a certain stop (or channel) for the air and then presses a key, the air rushes through tubes until it reaches a pipe of metal or wood, blows across an opening or vibrates a reed which starts the pipe resonating sending a sound out into the nave of the church.

The technology for making organs, like making stained glass windows, has not changed much over the centuries. The organ company makes their own metal by combining lead and tin in different proportions depending on the sound they desire and pours them out in sheets. Someone then cuts out the parts of a pipe (there are more than you might think) so that they are laid out in flat pieces much like they might look if you cut them out of construction paper before assembling them.

They are then rolled and soldered, their constituate parts added, then they are brought to the sounding room where they are set up on a work organ so that they may be tuned with all of their brothers and sisters. They are then cleaned and stored.

While this is going on, the carpentry shop is making the wooden pipes as well as the console and the other wooden components. The whole thing is then assembled in the assembly room before it is taken apart again to be ready for shipping. We saw part of one being constructed. It would contain about one quarter of the pipes of a gigantic organ that the company was working on for a Jesuit parish somewhere on the east coast. This piece was three stories high and big enough for a small family to live in.

During all this time another department is making the blowers that supply the wind to the instrument. This is of course a major step forward from the days when some altar boys would have to spend the Mass pumping giant bellows to make the instrument sound. Then there is the pipe – like steam pipes in your house for heat, that take the pressured air to the instrument from a separate room (it would be too loud to have in the Church) to the organ and all of the separate notes in as complicated on a very large scale as a computer chip board is on a tiny one.

Finally the whole thing is shipped out to its home where it is installed and every pipe and note must be tested again for tuning and proper air pressure to make sure it blends will not only within its rank, but the overall organ as well as the space in which it will live.

Quite an undertaking! Quite an instrument! Quite a lot of talent and old word craftsmanship!

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CLXLXIV (ON WEDNESDAY)

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND: “People are losing the ability to enjoy Christmas by indentifying it with enjoyment. When once they lose sight of the old suggestion that it is all about something, they naturally fall into blank pauses of wondering what it is all about. To be told to rejoice on Christmas day is reasonable and intelligible if you understand the name, or even look at the world. To be told to rejoice on the twenty-fifth of December is like being told to rejoice at quarter past eleven on Thursday week. You cannot suddenly be frivolous unless you believe there is a serious reason for being frivolous.” from G. K. Chesterton’s, “The New War on Christmas.”

IN OTHER NEWS:

Sorry for the late post – Tuesday being posted on Wednesday yet! Well, Christmas is almost upon us and I had an all day meeting yesterday that I thought was only going to be an hour. Sorry. I’ll try to post over the next two days but no guarantees!

FURTHER NEWS:

Some of you asked for a better picture of the rug mentioned on Monday. Apparently this picture was not sufficient:
Here is the actual rug as it appears in the chapel of the rectory:
Thanks to Miss Linda here is a some Christmas cheer:



A friend of Fr. Pf's was flying over the parish in the Goodyear blimp and took this picture of St. Sebastian Parish.

From the Diocese of Cleveland Enewsletter: "The Diocese of Cleveland, Department of Communications has assembled the following TV Mass schedule for the Christmas and New Year season." Read more here.

From the same source: "Did you know, you only have one more month to experience the "Treasures of Heaven" exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art? This exhibit of Medieval European religious art is open now through Monday, Janaury 17, 2011" Read more here.

And I'll end it there so that you get a post today!

MONDAY DIARY: THE EVILS OF POOR PENMANSHIP

This is the story of how this past Friday I obtained the second most expensive object that I own.
This is the most expensive thing that I own. I told you this story a couple of years ago.

The story of how I obtained the second most expensive thing that I own began about half a year ago. There are people in my parish who sing in the Akron Symphony Orchestra Chorus. Occasionally they give me one of their complimentary tickets. Sometimes my parochial vicar goes with me, sometimes my sister, and sometimes I go all by myself. So at one of these concerts that I attended all by myself I was standing in the lobby at intermission and trying to stay out of the way. Somehow that place was in front of a table selling raffle tickets to raise funds for the chorus.

“This is a very nice rug isn’t it?” I turned around and looked at the rug and it was indeed a very nice rug. It was $4,000.00 worth of nice rug and so I said, "Yes, it is a very nice rug."

“Would you like to buy a ticket?” I did until he said that they were twenty dollars. “It sure would be swell of you. Tickets sales have been a little slow lately.”

Well what was I going to do? I got in for free for heaven’s sake and I do like to promote the arts. So I got out my twenty dollars, said goodbye to it and exchanged it for a ticket stub that promised fame and fortune if I should be so lucky.

Jump ahead six months to Friday last. I am at the Christmas pops concert and enjoying it immensely until I look at the program. The second half involves a sing-a-long.

I loathe sing-a-longs.

If I wanted to sing along, I would join the chorus. So I decided that I would quietly sneak out at intermission but ran into so many parishioners that by the time I could escape it was time for the second half to begin so I stayed.

To kick off the second half they brought out representatives of the corporate sponsors (one of which was my bank! Good going bank!) And just before they walked off they said, “We have one more bit of business to which we need to attend. Mr. Bank Person, would you please draw the winning ticket of the $4,000.00 rug?”

He did and handed to the speaker who said, “And the winner is . . . I knew this would happen. I can’t read it. Can you read it?”

Nobody wore their glasses so one person gave it their best shot. “Jooooooooooooooooohn Vaaaaaaaaalenskull. Anyway, it’s number 44. Please come to the table after the concert.”

“John Valenskull”? That’s almost “John Valencheck.” And I DID buy a ticket in the mid forties. And I DO have very poor penmanship (especially when I think the effort futile). I think I just won! Should I clap or make a Woohoo noise?

And then I thought, “Now there is the possibility that there really IS a John Valenskull who bought a ticket in the mid-forties. That could be very awkward.”

So I kept quiet.

But I DID sing with much gusto at the sing-a-long.

After the concert I went to the table and said, “I bought a ticket in the mid-forties, I have VERY poor penmanship, AND my name is John ValenCHECK, not SKULL. I would like to check and see if I am the winner.”

They produced the ticket and there indeed was my name: Rev. John Valencheck. There were congratulations all around and apologies: My apologies for not writing more neatly and their apologies for not having the foresight to have at least one person on stage with their glasses on.

So I walked through E. J. Thomas Hall with a giant rug on my shoulder. People would call out, “Hey! It’s number 44! Valenskull! Congratulations.” Most people were happy save for those that I accidently whapped with the rug.

I carried it half way across the University of Akron campus and stuffed into my car. At home Fr. Pfeiffer helped me put it down in the rectory chapel were nobody would walk on it. Nobody is going to walk on the second most expensive thing that I own even if it is a rug.

And that is the story of how I obtained the second most expensive thing that I own.

THE END

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: O YOU BEAUTIFUL DOLL . . .

Happy December 17th! Every year the Church switches the emphasis of advent from preparing for Jesus’ second coming to His immanent coming in the manger at Bethlehem. Today we begin the “O” Antiphons. These antiphons are the one sentence introductions (and conclusions) to the Gospel Canticle that is part of evening prayer or vespers, in turn part of the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayers of the Church. Each day they proclaim one of the titles that the Old Testament uses for the coming Messiah. Tonight’s will be “O Sapientia,” or “Oh Wisdom.” You know these from the advent song, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” The proper verse for today would be, “O come now wisdom from on high, who orderest all things mightily . . .”

DON'T SETTLE FOR WARMED OVER STEW

A friend of mine has a pond. In midsummer we looked out and saw these gigantic fish. “See those fish,” he asked me, “when we got them they were quite small. You put them in your pond and they eat the ‘seaweed’ that grows in there. As little tykes they eat voraciously, but when they get that big they barely eat at all because they are not growing like they were. So they lazily swim around all day not accomplishing much of anything.”

That can happen in the faith life too – personally, on a parish level, even in religious communities. Grand goal being met the individual or the institution enjoys the beauty it has created but with no new goals being developed become “fat and lazy” spiritually. Many a pastor has contemplated burning down the parish church to get people motivated toward a cause once again. (Not that I recommend that – there are more constructive things to do!)

Are you excited about Christmas for a “birth of the Savior” standpoint or is it an established ritual that you go through without much thought? Don’t settle for anything less than being excited. It is glorious. Don’t let it be something you get used to. Set a new goal, achieve something wonderful. Bring life and a new understanding to Christmas.

A DOG WILL LOOK UP TO YOU, A CAT WILL LOOK DOWN ON YOU, BUT A PIG WILL LOOK YOU IN THE EYE AND TREAT YOU LIKE AN EQUAL

Sorry, computer problems made today's post late!

At the last Chesterton meeting we came across this line from his essay entitled Dogs, “If the dog is loved he is loved as a dog; not as a fellow-citizen, or an idol, or a pet, or a product of evolution.” I am not entirely sure that this is a universally accepted statement. In fact, I know that it is not.

Two of my favorite people in the world have a couple of dogs that they love all out of proportion, at least according to Chesterton. I was invited to a birthday party for the dogs once and the mother of the people with the dogs gave me some tips about attending. 1) They are not to be referred to as “the dogs” but “the boys.” 2) Do not show up without a wrapped present. 3) And most importantly, do not say anything about this being the least bit strange.

Being a good Catholic boy I followed the rules flawlessly and must say that I had a very good time. The boys went to play in the backyard with their new toys (including my boy that I brought with me) and the adults sat in the living room and drank human drinks out of human glasses held in hands. To tell the truth I did not mind this a bit. The “parents” are lovely people and they perform their parental role with just enough tongue in cheek to let you know, “We know this is a tad over the top,” and just enough tongue out of the cheek to say, “but don’t ruin it.”

There are those however who with tongue entirely out of cheek and flapping quite wildly who believe that dogs, and indeed all animals are on par with humans – or even somehow superior. They have taken a noble and even godly position of caring for the welfare of animals to an extreme desiring animals to have the rights under the Constitution as do human beings.

Not only is this not good for animals, I dare say that it is not good for human beings either. If we are going to give animals such recognition, it also requires something back from them, something they are not capable of giving. Sure, they are affectionate, helpful, and beneficial to human beings in many ways, but in the end they remain animals and to expect more of them is to put undue pressure and expectations on them. I hardly thing an bear that makes its way into a downtown area can be expected to be good citizen or that geese will start observing hygienic laws around city parks.

To lose the essence of what animals are is to lose an understanding of who we are. If a snake (an animal like any other) should crawl up to a baby, I will not have a debate about which has a better right to be there. I will take my shovel and beat the snake senseless. And if the baby were going hungry I would have no qualms about serving up snake-kabobs. A human being is, after all, a being with a unique and superior dignity.

But the opposite is also a huge blunder. The mal-treatment of animals is below our human dignity and the dignity of the animals that God gave us. When He handed Eden over to Adam it was not to do with as he pleased, but to tend it and nurture it

C. S. Lewis said, “When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” If we understand that humans have a superior dignity, then that does not mean that animals may then be treated willy-nilly. It means that man has a greater responsibility in tending to the welfare of these beings because we have a greater capacity for it. Understanding nature and the proper order of things will allow us to love animals as they should be loved – not as superior beings completely incapable of sustaining such a lofty position, nor as nothing more than objects to be used as we will. When we act like animals or gods, it is the animals that suffer and in turn, so does our human dignity.

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CLXLXIII

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND: “John Paul II drew great attention not because he got faith to align with society, but because he challenged society.” Fr. Benedict Groeschell CFR

QUOTE II: “In Church one Sunday I realized that being a Lutheran meant more than simply attending services. Ultimately, it meant believing everything that the Lutheran Church believes and teaches, and I simply couldn’t accept the changes in its teachings. They implied that individual judgment takes precedence over authority; that no Pope, no council, and certainly no Church can dictate how a person should live. Therefore, if need be, I was free to create a religion to suit myself. I realized that Luther had done just this; and because he had, I could no longer remain a Lutheran.” by Tim Drake in the book “Surprised by Truth 2”

IN OTHER NEWS:

Those of you in town: On Friday, December 17th, the WALSH UNIVERSITY CHAMBER SINGERS will be performing at St. Sebastian at 7PM. "Sing Angels, Kings, and Folk" Admission is free.

This was sent in by Lynn. In is not particularly religous in anyway but worth a gander. They may look like they are goofing around but there is an incredible amount of talent going on here.


The Diocese of Cleveland Enewsletter reports, "Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon uses his address to the First Friday Club of Cleveland as a teaching moment with a message for youth on the Catholic view of particating in God's plan." Read more and see the video here.

From the same source: NEWS TO ME!: "Did you know, this year on the feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8) apparitions of Our Lady in Wisconsin have been given official diocesan approval? Reading from his decree at a special Mass on December 8 at the Champion, Wisconsin shrine, Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay stated..." Read more here. "Our Lady of Wisconsin?" That will take some getting used to.

Not Catholic but inspiring none-the-less. Sent in by another Lynn! Thanks.


There have been some updates at Living Faith Network - helping bring faith the workplace.

If you need a laugh, CK sent this in. It helps to have and love dogs. I was snickering in my office for some time over this one. Thanks CK.

MONDAY DIARY: WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE . . .

I did not expect to write to you until much later today. It was supposed to be a very busy morning. But instead it turned out to be rather more relaxed.

Yesterday was a whirlwind day not ending until about 8:30. Today I have a funeral but was in no state to write something thoughtful by the time I was able to find time to write last night. So instead I set my alarm clock early and thought to wake and write this morning.

So the alarm reached over and whapped me on the head and I got up surprised not to see St. Augustine staring at me from the church as he is want to do in the winter when it is dark outside and the lights are on in the church and his image glows seeming to be staring at me through my bedroom window. Odd, I thought and went to the window. It was not snowing nor was Mull Avenue particularly covered with snow.

I woke up the house, turning on the lights, the coffee pot, feeding the dog and gathering materials for writing a homily – one of the few hours when the house is quiet and can walk around in my bathrobe and not fear running into anyone. Information and writing utensils in hand and steaming mug of jo I sat in my sitting room and thought of what to say for a family who lost their father who retired from this life after living for 89 years.

Half way through writing I noticed there were no lights coming on over at the school. Curious. Was I up too early? It had been a habit of mine for a while to DREAM that my alarm clock went off and so get up and get ready for Mass before realizing I had another hour or so of sleep coming to me. So I consulted TWO clocks and then looked outside again at what appeared to be a wintery but not so terrible day. (I had yet to actually go out in it.)

Another few minutes go by and there are no lights, no cars, no commotion. “IT’S A SNOW DAY!” Before the funeral there was to be school confessions and so a very packed morning – but not now! I finished the homily I bundled up, grabbed Sebastian and went to play in the park for a little while. He had a number of friends there to play with – others had the same idea including L.B., off from school and walking Fluffy Molly and they tore around the park kicking up snow as they did so.

After a little while out there it became apparent why school was cancelled – but I am looking forward to the after lunch constitutional with Sebastian just the same.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THEY ARE NOT AS THEY HAVE BEEN

Occasionally one of the complaints lobbed at the Catholic Church is that she uses and celebrates things that were of a pagan nature. (“Were” being the operative term.) An extreme example is those who do not celebrate Christmas because the date at one time was the pagan celebration of the winter solstice. But as I was recently reminded at one time even the Cross was a pagan tool and symbol and now is the most central of Christian symbols.

The Christmas wreath was once too an ancient pagan symbol. In fact, our choices of symbols and dates are rather finite in this world and I bet you could find a pagan equivalent for just about every Christian one. The wreath once symbolized everything from the petition for the spring weather to return to an honor to the sun god. Evergreen and olive branches symbolize life and immortality. These too have been baptized into the Christian symbolic dictionary.

One way this happens is seeing the wreath placed at center of the Cross. Because evergreens symbolize immortality they are often placed either alone or at the cross beams of the Cross at graves. Readily associated with Christmas the wreath prepares us for the coming of Christ . Often interspersed with holy leaves the sharp edges look forward to the crown of thorns that He would wear and the red berries the blood that He would spill thereby encompassing much of the salvific actions of Christ.

STOP THE INSANITY

There was a fight in a local sacristy recently. “Stop wishing people a Merry Christmas,” one priest said, “It’s advent!” The other priest stepped out into the sanctuary and said over the microphone, “Once again, Merry Christmas everyone!”

For many people advent is like a black hole, a void, and our celebratory nature abhors a vacuum and so Christmas gets sucked into the advent season and we have most of our Christmas parties, put up our decorations, and sing our Christmas songs. Unfortunately the end result is that once Christmas comes we are so tired of it that we start packing it up just as the Church is just beginning to celebrate the season.

So how does one “celebrate” advent? There are few things one can do. There’s prayer and extra Masses. There is always that advent calendar of course and the advent wreath. A Jesse tree is always appropriate. There are the holy days to observe and celebrate during this season: St. Nicholas Day being one with the most traditions attached to it. But by and large advent is about NOT doing anything. It is about cutting back, it is about waiting, it is about being in a moment of silence before the noise of celebration begins. (That’s why we don’t sing the Gloria during advent.) It is like waiting for the apples to ripen on the tree in the summer sun – wait – wait – wait – and then just as it’s time for perfection – a deer comes and eats them – er – I mean you get to eat a great, ripe, fresh apple. The waiting makes it all the more special. If you can eat it every day, it loses something.

So what can you NOT do to celebrate advent? If you must put out your manger scene, wait to put out Jesus. Then when someone asks, “Hey! Where’s Jesus,” you have the opportunity to say . . .

Don’t put out ALL of your Christmas decorations. Don’t leave your tree lights on all of the time. Hold the three kings back. Hold back on the best treats at least for yourself. Try wishing “Happy Advent” to people – at least those who won’t think you too strange. (And when they ask you, “What did you say?” . . .) I used to send advent cards. No, you can’t find them – you have to make them. In any event, try to find ways to build the anticipation so that when Christmas hits and the wrapping paper is all over the house it is not the case of, “Well . . . that’s over. Now what?” It is rather, “Now we begin the celebration!”

PRIORITIES

Do you remember your definition of a sacrament? It is something close to this: “An outward sign instituted by Christ to give us grace.”

Do you remember your definition of grace? It is something close to this: “Any divine help we receive to bring us closer to God.”

Lastly, do you recall what the angel said to Mary in greeting? “Hail full of grace!”

Mary was fully open to God. Unencumbered by the baggage of sin, jealousies, insecurities, vengefulness, lustfulness, impatience, intolerance, etc., God was able to burst forth from her into the world in a most dramatic way. God walked among us!

Today we get to honor Mary as patroness of the United States. She is our model and guide, and what a perfect example for us as a nation. Like her, the fuller of grace that we can become, the more God can break in on the human scene and establish his kingdom.

Grace builds on grace. Try to make it to Mass today on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. You, your family, your parish, and you nation are enriched by your worship today.

Remaining Masses at St. Sebastian: 5:30 extraordinary form (Latin) and 7 PM.

TUESDAY QUOTE OF THE WEEK CLXLXII

FINDING TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND: “The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.” from G. K. Chesterton’s, “Introduction to the Book of Job”

QUOTE II: “For when once people have begun to believe that prosperity is the reward of virtue, their next calamity is obvious. If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue. Men will leave off the heavy task of making good men successful. He will adopt the easier task of making out successful men good.” ibid.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Just a friendly reminder: Tomorrow is a holy day of obligation!

Want to read more on the Immaculate Conception? Go here.

Awesome 2 minute video:



The Villanova School of Business has an interesting site for their Center for the Study of Church Management. Here is their website.

The next Chesterton Society meeting is coming up quickly. This is the last meeting before we begin "Orthodoxy." Click on the picture of Chesterton to the right for more details.

For those of you who wanted to see it:

The Diocese of Cleveland Enewsletter asks, "Did you know, the USCCB has launched an extensive new website dedicated to the new book Benedict XVI: Essays and Reflections on His Papacy, which was published this fall?" Click here and here.

From the same source: "The Catholic faith community will celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 2010. This holyday of obligation is especially celebrated by Catholics in the United States.

"Under this title, the Bishops of the United States formally placed the country under her patronage. On Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. an extra Mass will be celebrated at the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist so the Catholic faith community may gather to celebrate Mary's feast." More here.

MONDAY DIARY: CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN

Apologies to you that there was not a post on Friday. We were so swamped here at St. Sebastian that there was simply no time for such things. It was one of those (couple of days) in which there was little free time to do much other than parish duties. Sunday was pretty much like that too. This can be the cause of ending up in pretty interesting outfits.

Of course we were dressed for the Mass schedule and so I had on my cassock. Under that was a formal white short and collar with cufflinks and such. It was donut Sunday and PSR Sunday morning confessions among other things so by the time the 1:00 Mass rolled around we had been so busy that Sebastian had not gone for a walk and he is acting pretty desperate. It was snowing quite hard so I did not want to go out in my nice shoes so I substituted my cowboy boots (complete with spurs) for my dress shoes and we headed out. When we got back there was still a half an hour to go before the Mass was to be finished. Both Fr. Pfeiffer and I had obligations later in the day and would be away, but the Christmas tree had to be brought in that day so that it would relax enough to be decorated for the staff party on Tuesday. I took off my cassock (they are hard to get off with spurs on by the way) but did not want to change completely out of clerics for I would need them again in a short spell. So I grabbed an apron out of the kitchen to keep the white shirt clean and pair of gloves for the moving of furniture and the bringing in of the tree.

Of course when the furniture was moved out of the way the carpet had to be vacuumed first (it was a mess) so there I was in formal clerics and cufflinks, cowboy boots, cooking apron, and work gloves pushing a vacuum around. I actually didn’t think much of it until my parochial vicar who shall remain anonymous came in, laughing at me and taking a picture with his phone.

It may sound strange but it was immensely practical. When we were done, taking off the apron and gloves, changing shoes, and putting the cassock back on I looked the very picture of a Sunday morning pastor.

So if you should knock on the door of your rectory and find your priest oddly dressed, there is a chance he is not insane but trying to keep pace with the clothing demands of his day in the most economical way possible.

NEVER STOP THINKING IT THROUGH

A little bit of marketing goes a long way. Putting the right spin on a topic may sway public opinion in any direction on any particular topic. Just for example, in many circles the Church is labeled as being more restrictive in rights of human beings such as in the case of abortion. Some ways in which this is done is by portraying the teachings of the Church in this matter as being the whim of white haired old men in Rome forcing their morality on women and the rights that they should have over their own bodies; rights that those cranky old men retain while taking them away from women. “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries” is a common slogan.

It is proposed that pro-abortionists are more compassionate because they care about women and extending such rights to them; rights which “the Church” wishes to curtail. The two sides can then be separated into “pro-women” and “anti-rights” camps. If nobody bothers to think beyond these first salvos of the argument it seems to be pretty clear who cares more about women, rights, and freedom.

But is this the case? The Church puts forth that far from being more limited in extending rights that individuals should have over their bodies than the pro-abortionists, the Church casts a far greater net, includes more people, grants more freedoms and protects more rights. Human dignity, the right to life, the right to integrity of one’s body is preserved not just for those who can speak for themselves, not just for those with power, money, or influence, not just for those who can be seen, not just for those who have developed enough skills, not just those protected by law, not just those who are seen as productive to society, but all human beings, men and women alike, old and young, capable and challenged. No, the Church, the teaching of Christ are not more restrictive than Pro-Choicers, it is far more generous. And of course it will not seem so to those who wish not to recognize human life as human life and who feel restricted in their choice to end a human life that is not desired by them for one reason or another, but it cannot be argued (at least I think) that their net of human life to which they extend protection and integrity of life is far smaller than the Church – interestingly enough this is so even with those who are aborted who are female.

WHAT WON'T PEOPLE BELIEVE?

So there’s a big brouhaha over atheists putting up signs about not believing in God. After the story in the paper there was a rush to condemn the behavior and then a backlash of letters saying these are just good honest folk “coming out of the closet” so to speak. Of course, if they were simply stepping into the light and announcing themselves in a non-antagonistic way they would not have called themselves, “Freedom from Religion” but something along the lines of, “Freedom in Atheism.” But clearly the title leads one to believe that this is a movement against something rather than for something – ironically the very thing they proclaim to hate about believers.

I have run into this same phenomena between Christian denominations. At my first assignment there was a Protestant Church that used to sneak into our parish church and leave tracts condemning Catholics to the everlasting fires of hell, worked at converting Catholic children at school, and spent, according to various reports, an incredible amount of time in their worship services proclaiming, “Catholics are going to hell. We are not Catholic so join us.” (This done we were informed because they love us and want to save us.)

Now I do not have a problem debating someone who says that they have a better message. “Here is what we believe, we believe it better, more true, whatever, so give it a shot.” But I do have a problem when converting others is based on burning everyone else’s house down in order to make theirs look good.

Among the letters to the editor there was of course the usually diatribe about how faith is the cause of war throughout the ages. It is a tired, old and almost lame horse whipped out of the barn and forced to trot around the paddock. And even if evidence is presented, very little analysis is brought to bear on it. It can’t be for it would show itself to be the broken down old gelding that it is – unable to carry any weight on its sagging back.

There is the idea that man would have a natural instinct to build a much better society if it were not for religion. If there were no such thing as faith in God and a religion to protect, many argue, we could go about the task of building a utopia. Unfortunately there is little to no real evidence of that at all. There is evidence however of faith doing so. If I might quite G. K. Chesterton on the matter:

Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, "I will not hit you if you do not hit me"; there is no trace of such a transaction. There is a trace of both men having said, "We must not hit each other in the holy place." They gained their morality by guarding their religion. They did not cultivate courage. They fought for the shrine, and found they had become courageous. They did not cultivate cleanliness. They purified themselves for the altar, and found that they were clean. The history of the Jews is the only early document known to most Englishmen, and the facts can be judged sufficiently from that. The Ten Commandments which have been found substantially common to mankind were merely military commands; a code of regimental orders, issued to protect a certain ark across a certain desert. Anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity. And only when they made a holy day for God did they find they had made a holiday for men. (The Flag of the World)

Considering Christian Church and the horrors attributed to her in the world, I would say she was responsible for none of them. Rather I would say that it was precisely when men did NOT follow her that we ended in trouble. Christianity may not stop man from destroying the world, but neither will atheism. In fact, with atheism there is theoretically even less holding one back. Even if a Christian should destroy half of the world there is at least the chance that if his faith prick his conscience he will feel guilty and have some fear before God and leave the other half.

Christianity is a cure for what ails the world. But it neither forces men to act in a certain way nor prevent them for doing dastardly things in its name if they so choose.

Here is an example of what is both the down and upside of the Christian Church. Years ago I was working in a theater when a couple of young men walked in wearing the Catholic high school jackets. They created a bit of mischief in the restroom and I overheard a couple of adults commenting not on those to ruffians, not on those high school boys, not on those Catholic high school boys, but on those CATHOLIC boys. Where they living the Catholic faith at the moment? Of course not. But by identifying themselves as Catholic did they bring harm to the faith? Yes. But, they are also identified as Catholic and as a member of the Catholic community and I can bring some pressure to bear. “That is not the way Catholics act,” I might say to them. I could also go back to the community and say, “We need to do something. A couple of our Catholic boys are acting up. We need to start preaching and teaching about . . .” We may not prevent a fire, but we can set up a water brigade even as others fan the flames. Faith is about helping us see that dousing the flames is best and faith gives us the courage to go out and convince others, both Christian and none Christian alike, not just because the action is Christian, but because not burning is the correct thing to do – is truth.

The last word on this I will give to our friend Chesterton again who said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”