The Higgs Boson "God Particle": Of All Things Visible and Invisible
. . . The short answer is "no." Imagine for a moment that you're on an archeological dig on the outskirts of Rome. Standing in your carefully excavated hole, your spade strikes a metal box. Inside you discover a small, worn chisel, and a note written in 16th Century Italian: "Herein lies my favorite chisel." The note is signed, "Michelangelo Buonarroti." Well, if you're an art historian, what you now hold might be priceless. If you're also a person of faith who has viewed the magnificence of Michelangelo's Pieta, you may treasure this forever as one of the tools used to create a work of artistic genius. Your discovery might land on a shelf with your name on it in the Vatican Museum. There will be no doubt that what you discovered is a tool used to create an inspired work of art, but it is not itself the art's creator. . . .
These Stone Walls' Second Annual Stuck Inside Literary Award
. . . We are caught up on this same road. Whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, our entire life as individuals and as a Catholic community comes down to one crucial element: we are either instruments for the proliferation of evil or instruments for its defeat. None of the petty squabbles, devastating scandals, and addictive diversions that muddle us in the muck on this long, long road will come to mean very much in the end. We are instruments, and instruments of what depends entirely on our response to grace. This is the tale of The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R.Tolkien brings his characters again and again to the very brink of hopelessness, only to teach them - and us - that there is always hope. We cannot accept that there was, and is, a Christ without accepting that one true fact. To be without hope means to admit there is no grace at work in the world, and that is simply pointless, and demonstrably untrue. . . .
Help the Knights of Columbus Restore Civility to American Politics
. . . The timing of this movement couldn't be better. According to the website, the Knights of Columbus and the Marists co-sponsored a poll that clearly demonstrates that the majority of Americans - 78% - are frustrated with the tone of the political campaigns now in full swing leading up to the presidential election. 74% believe this negative campaigning is only going to get worse. 64% of Americans say that negative "attack ads” hurt the political process. Major candidates, their parties, and political action committees (PACS) are going to spend a record-setting $6.5 billion on television and cable TV ads in this election year, and that doesn't even include newspapers, magazines, and all those unsightly billboards. A rapidly growing percentage of those ads are negative. Political attack ads draw politics away from the notion of civil service and into the arena of winners and losers in which the former triumph while the latter feel disenfranchised. These attack ads stifle bi-partisan cooperation for the good of all for years to come. They reduce politics to the service of a party or a platform instead of to the service of America and its people. We need to send a strong message before this downward spiral of toxic rhetoric in the name of politics gets any worse. . . .
Indicted We Stand: Penance, Penn State, and Catholic Culture
. . . It should have been a solemn and somber affair. That cheer seemed more a response to a contest in the Roman Coliseum than the exercise of justice in an American court of law. Are there really winners and losers in this story? Like many prisoners, I followed the Jerry Sandusky trial carefully, and I believe justice was indeed accomplished inside that courtroom. But not outside. The cheers and jeers of that crowd had no place in the administration of American justice. I was glad to hear one newscaster say he was embarrassed for his own peers who stood there to focus on the cheers. . . .
The Catholic Press Needs to Get Over Its Father Maciel Syndrome
. . . Most troubling of all - for me, at least - was that David Pierre also submitted his report to many Catholic newspapers and news magazines. They also ignored it, and frankly I had hoped for better. I can only conclude that the Catholic press has failed to cover the story of new evidence in my own case, and the much broader story of Catholic priests falsely accused, because of one individual case. In "The High Cost of Father Marcial Maciel and Why I Resent Paying It," I wrote of the priestly profiling that has taken place in the wake of evidence of guilt - mostly post-mortem - in the case of Father Maciel, founder of the Legionnaires of Christ. . . .
TSW Summer Rerun: The High Cost of Fr. Marcial Maciel
. . . But all is not lost. The post I am working on for next week is actually Part II of something I wrote a year ago. Reading it anew - or for the first time if you missed it last year - would be a good start for next week's post. I also think it was an important post for reasons that will hopefully be clearer next week. Please click here for an encore presentation of one of my more urgent posts for the priesthood in the current climate: “The High Cost of Father Marcial Maciel, and Why I resent Paying It." . . .
Unchained Melody: Tunes from an 8-Track in an iPod World
. . . Joseph likes to stop by to help with my TSW titles. He brags that every recent title that "was a hit" had his hand in it. So when he asked about this post, I told him I wanted to call it "Unchained Melody" after the great love song. "Never heard of it," said Joseph. "Can't you find something that isn't pre-Roman Empire?" I tried humming a few bars. Surely this kid has heard this great song. "Nope!" said Joseph. "Way before my time! That's why you need my help," he insisted. "You're kind of like an 8-track in an iPod world!" . . .
Why Are So Many Catholics So Angry With So Many Priests?
. . . One Philadelphia defense attorney who reads These Stone Walls described this trial as “justice with an agenda." She wrote that few in Philadelphia are now very proud of this "District Attorney with an ax to grind, and a judge who appeared to work for the prosecution." When law is reduced to a lynch mob in this arena of decades-old child abuse claims, the jury is in before the trial even starts. Those who would tritely say today that Monsignor Lynn had his day in court and justice prevailed have no first hand knowledge of the prolific injustices that have permeated our justice system. Just see "Thy Brother's Keeper” for a vivid example. . . .
David v. Goliath: Standing up to Anti-Catholic Bias in the News
. . . Another published letter by Bernice Durbin of Crossville, Tennessee concluded that Catholic priests "don't deserve First Amendment protection." I could not believe I was reading this in the nation's second largest daily newspaper. Could you imagine the backlash if USA Today gave a platform to someone declaring that Jews, or Muslims, or African Americans no longer deserve First Amendment rights and freedoms? As I wrote in “Honoring Father Norman Weslin,” those who have claimed to advocate for victims – some real, but many feigned – have created a whole new set of victims by dismantling the freedoms and civil liberties of a single class of citizens: accused Catholic priests. The outcome of the trial of Monsignor William Lynn in Philadelphia is the result. . . .