We're Moving!

Dear readers: Gray Matters is moving! A friend of mine recently set up a new website for this blog, and it is now officially live!
Here is the link to the new website: catholicgraymatters.com. All of the old posts from this blog can be found on the new blog, as well.
I want to thank all of you who have followed Gray Matters over the past year and a half! Your support and readership has been invaluable; may God continue to shower you with blessings!

The Media We Deserve

Many like to talk about how media outlets cover up major stories, like the abuse of drones. There are notable exceptions, but to a large extent, the charge of spiking stories contains an element of truth. For example, the lack of coverage of abortion provider Kermit Gosnell, which by all accounts is a monstrous horror, is truly appalling, and in large part ideologically based.
But the media is a business, which provides what its customers want. And what most Americans want is not cold, hard truth, which is what a free press should provide. Most people want to see celebrities making fools of themselves and politicians saying stupid things. We want news as entertainment: titillating sex scandals and lots of pictures of puppies and other cute animals.
We want from the media, in short, what we get. Our attention spans are too short for serious issues like debt and drones. Too many numbers, too many moral implications. And the media obliges our lack of healthy curiosity, and gives us a nothing cocktail.
It is indeed frightening that media outlets doesn't cover important issues. But what is truly frightening is that they don't cover major issues because our total lack of interest.

The Safe, Legal, and Rare Canard

Pro-abortion advocates often argue that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” In practice, however, they care little for the “safe” and “rare” parts of that catchy and lying slogan. Their treatment of the horrific case of abortion "doctor" Kermit Gosnell is proof of this.

The facts of the Gosnell case practically demand outrage. An abortion provider – butcher would be a far better term for the man – plied his trade of late-term abortions in horrific, disgusting conditions, with help from under-trained and under-aged (One assistant was 15 years old) assistants. Gosnell’s clinic was extremely unsanitary, crawling with venereal diseases, animal feces, and severed baby feet in jars. (No, that last bit is not a typo.)

Gosnell was allowed to operate freely for over a decade, without interference or oversight. Gosnell’s nightmarish clinic was not inspected for 17 years – 17 years! – because of "pro-choice politics", according to a Philadelphia grand jury. Indeed, the horrors of Gosnell's clinic were discovered by accident. Other abortion clinics also are allowed to “self-regulate,” with (allegedly) disastrous results.

And for the most part, the media has been willfully and deliberately silent on the topic. Wikipedia is even considering deleting its article on Gosnell, claiming that the incident is a “local crime story.” Other “reporters” used similar phrasing to justify their lack of coverage. Dishonest abortion advocates claim that pro-life advocates are responsible for the horrors wrought by Gosnell – as though pro-lifers advocate for fewer restrictions on poor, already over-burdened abortion clinics. (Even as Gosnell’s trial is underway, reporters are bemoaning  “strict” new codes proposed for other abortion clinics.)

The obfuscation and silence from defenders of abortion is rather simple to explain. At least two prominent writers have stated that much of the reason for the media’s lack of coverage is due to widespread support for abortion within the journalistic community, and a willingness to look away when their preferred “side” engages in indefensible activity. And until their fellow reporters are willing to open their eyes and expose evil (even done by their side) as evil, abortion will certainly be legal, but never safe and rare. And they will be just fine with that.

Gosnell and America's Moral Crisis

There is little that I can say about Kermit Gosnell, the infamous Philadelphia abortion "doctor" who (allegedly) brutally killed women and born children in a filthy "clinic," that others (including those whom I usually disagree with politically) have not already said. All that remains to say is this: when this house of horrors (warning - graphic descriptions) is buried by activist journalists, then America is undergoing a serious moral crisis of epic proportions, where even the most disgusting treatment of human life fails to stir the consciences of a callous nation.

The Demise of Protestant Fundamentalism

The growing push among the intelligentsia to reject the exercise of religious influence in the public square (which is problematic on many levels) will prove highly detrimental to Catholics in the long run. But from a Catholic standpoint, this current push towards secularism has one silver lining: the death blow to the relevance of Protestant fundamentalism.
For the worldview of Protestant fundamentalists is completely dependent upon the primacy of Scripture. Protestant fundamentalists hold that the Bible is the sole source of revelation about God. Whenever science apparently conflicts with the Bible, Protestant fundamentalism chooses the Bible (or, more accurately, a literal interpretation of the Bible) over scientific evidence.
A fundamentalist belief system can flourish where Judeo-Christian norms are predominant. But the world has cast off Judeo-Christian norms, and the current intellectual climate rejects Scripture as an archaic book of fables. A belief system solely dependent on the Bible cannot flourish in a culture where the very concept of scriptural authority is considered balderdash.
While Catholics do rely on the Bible as a source of revelation, the Bible is not the sole source of revelation for Catholics. We also assert that Sacred Tradition is a source of divine revelation. Tradition allows us to understand how our Fathers in faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, used their reason to come to a greater understanding of thorny theological questions. The existence of Tradition necessitates reason in coming to understand God's revelation. Indeed, we Catholics believe that the moral teachings posited in the Bible are supported by reason; that God's existence is knowable and provable through reason as well as through revelation, and that the Church's doctrines do not conflict with science in any way.
In a culture which sets up reason as its highest principle (even as it rejects its use in practice), it is impossible to appeal to the authority of a centuries-old book, no matter how ancient or beautifully written, as an unimpeachable authority on faith, morals, and matters of science. The use of reason must be deployed to combat secularism in an age where reason reigns, to explain why the truths of the Bible are reasonable. This is why in a formerly Protestant country, resistance to the swelling tide of secularism increasingly takes on a Catholic character. It is also for this reason that Protestant fundamentalism is becoming increasingly irrelevant, since Protestant fundamentalism can only flourish in an already Christian culture.

Ranking the Philosophical Systems of 5 Major Religions

A reader graciously commented on a recent piece I wrote defending the zeal of atheist leader Richard Dawkins. In the course of this conversation, I stated that Protestantism is the weakest of the major philosophical systems that underlie major world religions, and was challenged to explain myself.

This post will serve as an explanation for my assertion, by ranking the philosophical systems underlying five major world religions/belief systems: atheism, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, and mainline Protestantism.
I will not bother with cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which are patently absurd upon even cursory examination. I am not qualified to comment upon Buddhism, Hinduism, or any form of Eastern religion, so this ranking will not include discussions of those faiths.

5. Mainline Protestantism – It will surprise many to think that a Catholic Christian could rank the belief system(s) of fellow believers in Christ so low. After all, most Protestants believe in the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, which none of the other faiths presented in this post, save Catholicism, can claim. 

There are three main reasons why Protestantism is last on this list. The first is the Protestant assumption of sola scriptura. Protestantism holds that the Bible is the chief, if not the only, source of revelation from God. If that is so, how was the Gospel preached before the works of the Bible were written (The Gospel of John was written around 90 AD) and the canon of the Bible was worked out (4^th century AD)? Christianity predates the Bible; the Bible cannot be the sole source for revelation concerning the truths of Christianity.

The second is that personal interpretation of the Bible is inherently fractious. Most sects of Protestantism hold that individuals can personally interpret the Bible. If that is so, then why are there so many denominations of Protestantism (and the chart shown in the link is only the tip of the iceberg), many of which hold contradictory notions of God and whose moral teachings conflict with one another? Does this not contradict the prayer of Jesus for His followers, "that all of them may be one?" (John 17:21)

And the third is that Protestantism was founded 15 centuries after the coming of Christ. What happened to Christianity for 15 centuries after Christ? Were individuals who lived in the Middle Ages damned until Luther came along? 

Protestants sometimes attempt to explain away this objection by claiming that the church was corrupted in its early days, and that true religion survived in the form of various heresies suppressed by a corrupt Catholic Church. There are two problems with this theory: 1) It contradicts Matthew 16:18, where Peter is told that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church, and 2) the heresies of the Middle Ages contradicted each other.

4. Judaism – Judaism is the root of Roman Catholicism. So one might think that that a faithful Catholic would rank Judaism much higher on this list. Indeed, multiple people have questioned me on why I rank Judaism so low.

Protestantism and modern Judaism get so much right about God, yet hold to positions untenable throughout history. The very closeness of Protestantism and Judaism to the truth of Catholicism is the reason that they rank so low on this list – they come close to the truth, but miss the mark because they deliberately reject Catholicism. (Protestantism was formed in protest against the Catholic Church, while Judaism rejects their own Messiah.)  

Judaism is based upon the longing for a promised Messiah who has already come. The Jewish people were the Chosen People of God, who were promised the Messiah, and were given certain signs to recognize the Messiah when He came. A man who fulfilled the conditions of the many prophecies of the Messiah came, and the Jewish people and elders rejected Him because they did not like the way in which He fulfilled the prophecies. And Christianity has risen since His coming, while Judaism has been eclipsed. There have been no Jewish prophets since the coming of Christ; there is only the endless wait in Judaism for a Messiah who has already come. 

3. Islam – Islam ranks above Protestantism and Judaism? Surprisingly, in my estimation, yes. For Islam is not the deliberate rejection of one's own teaching, like Judaism and Protestantism, but a corruption of other teachings.

Islam believes in a God (Allah) of pure will. Allah is the maker of all things, the creator of both good and evil, unconstrained by anything. But if Allah is the creator of evil as well as good, then Allah must be in some measure evil - which would mean that His punishment of evil would be problematic, since evil is His creation. Why would He expect His followers to reject what He Himself created?

(In Catholic theology, God did not create evil; He creates beings with free will, giving them the opportunity to choose Him. If they do not choose Him, that is evil. He may permit human beings and angels to act contrary to His will, but He Himself is not the cause of that evil.)

An Islamic God might be possible, at least in an abstract sense, but He would have to be schizophrenic. There are other (lesser) problems inherent in Islam, such as the fact that Islam believes Jesus to be a prophet born of a virgin while the greatest prophet, Mohammed, was born naturally. Why would God allow a lesser prophet to receive a greater honor than His greatest and final prophet?

2. Atheism – This will surprise a lot of people, since I have written numerous posts attacking atheism. Why give such a lofty ranking to a system which I have spent an inordinate amount of time refuting? The answer is fairly simple: I write against atheism because I respect honest atheists as intellectual opponents, and because secularism is the biggest threat modern Catholicism faces.

It is possible to construct a semi-viable atheistic philosophical system. There are a few caveats: The problem of how exactly the “Big Bang” took place is problematic: how and why did an unimaginably dense mass suddenly explode into the universe as we know it? Atheists have difficulty explaining away certain miracles (the dance of the sun at Fatima comes to mind). However, there is the possibility that naturalistic explanations can be discovered for seemingly supernatural phenomena. Atheists can always point to the possibility of scientists making future discoveries explaining previously inexplicable events. (And I have never been a fan of “look at the sky” type arguments for the existence of God, but more on that in a later post.) 

The main problem with atheism as a philosophical system is the problem of morality. For most atheists argue that morality is a human evolutionary construct. It is perfectly logical to argue that human evolved to develop a system of morality, which prevents them from hurting one another and facilitates the survival of the species.
However, the human species is composed of intelligent individuals who seek to maximize their own self-interest. Highly intelligent individuals recognize that morality is merely a tool to protect the weak from the strong, and that the strict practice of morality hinders their self-interest. If the most intelligent individuals of a species evolve to overcome their genetic hard-wiring, could not evolution be said to be working against itself? An atheistic worldview cannot logically preclude the vision of an amoral superman, who can transcend societal customs to impose his will on the rest of society.

Obviously, the atheistic inability to justify morality doesn't necessarily disprove atheism, per se. It does, however, render the atheistic insistence that morality is an evolutionary construct untenable. 

1. Catholicism – Obviously, I am a Catholic writer - 250+ posts should suffice to prove that! But I am something of a reluctant Catholic. A world without many of the strictures of Catholicism is tempting. And my numerous posts on atheism should indicate at least a willingness to entertain the notion of a world without God serious thought, or at the very least an intellectual hearing. I have given the idea of switching faiths some thought – indeed, I believe that the question of God MUST be answered before any other question is asked, because the question of God's existence has so many implications for the rest of humanity.

I have written a fairly literary defense of my Faith elsewhere, but much of it bears repeating.
Catholicism fuses the desire for the supernatural inherent in every human (and necessary for religion) with a grounding in the natural world and an appreciation for logic. Faith and reason work hand in hand in Catholicism;miracles and syllogisms happily coexist in the Catholic Faith.
Catholicism was founded by a man who claimed to be God and who wrought many miracles to prove His Godhood; a man whose simple yet profound teachings still strike like lightning across 2,000 years.
Catholicism was preached by uneducated cowards who ran away when their Master was killed, yet were so emboldened after their Master's death that all proclaimed His Godhood for the rest of their lives, and all but one were killed by secular authorities for their bold proclamation of their faith.

The teachings of the Catholic faith on theology and morality have not changed, as befitting a Church claiming to be the keeper of the timeless teachings of Jesus Christ; Her customs have indeed changed greatly, as befitting a Church which claims to be the universal beacon of salvation to all men. 

In short, I believe in Catholicism because the Catholic Church dares to claim that She is of divine origin, and 2000 years of history has more than proven Her claim.

Simplifying the Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage Debates (With Flowcharts!)

Political debates consist of highly opinionated individuals screaming at each other and misunderstanding (often deliberately) their opponents' arguments. Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than during debates over abortion and same-sex marriage.
But these debates are surprisingly simple upon careful reflection. Out of the goodness of my heart (and a desire to protect my sanity from increasingly inane slogans and rhetoric), I am simplifying the abortion and same-sex marriage debates down to their barest essentials.

Regarding abortion: Is the fetus in a woman's womb human life or not?

If yes, then abortion should be outlawed, unless you go the Peter Singer or Mary Elizabeth Williams route and argue that terminating human life is acceptable in certain circumstances. 

If no, then abortion should clearly be permitted. 

If a fetus becomes a child at some point within the womb, then you permit abortion before it becomes a child, and outlaw it after that point.
Here's a flowchart explaining the abortion debate...

Regarding same-sex marriage: For secular purposes (yes, I know Catholics like me consider marriage a sacrament, but we don't live in a society where Catholicism is the law of the land), is marriage an institution designed to encourage the procreation of children within stable families, or is it a legal contract recognizing the legitimacy of partners in a consensual relationship?

If marriage is a contract granting legal recognition to a consensual relationship, then same-sex marriage (and, for that matter, any consensual relationship) should be permitted by secular authorities.

If marriage is an institution designed to encourage the stable rearing of children, does the gender of the parents matter in the creation and raising of children?

If so, then same-sex marriage should be banned. If not, then same sex marriage should be permitted. 

To illustrate this debate, here's a handy flowchart.

The New Persecution

Last year, I wrote that a persecution is coming for American Catholics. Others wiser than I have made similar predictions. But the coming American persecution will not take the form of persecutions in previous eras and far-off lands. As a society, America has moved beyond wholesale execution (well, at least wholesale execution of the born). There will not be heaps of corpses left in the streets or arenas full of lions waiting to devour Christians. American Christians will not face wholesale red martyrdom.
White martyrdom is the future of the faithful American Christian. The new persecution will consist of relentless character assassination directed against those Christians who dare to uphold the teachings of the Faith, especially those teachings that conflict with the new morality of modernity (where reproductive freedom trumps all other rights).
This persecution will be severe enough to ruin reputations and careers. The continued media obsession with Catholic clerical sex abuse scandals that happened in the last century (and their utter unwillingness to discuss the epidemic of sex abuse of minors in America) is but a foretaste of the onslaught that will be leveled against faithful Catholics. The Church will be perpetually accused of aiding and abetting crime, scandal, and division. Christian morality will be attacked and blamed for every evil of modernity by a hostile press, no matter how fanciful or contrived the evidence. Christians will be forced to acquiesce in behavior they consider to be immoral (this is already occurring on a small scale), or face crippling fines or government sanction. Christian owners and administrators of charities and businesses will be shut down for failing to comply with the new morality.
Those who fight against the new morality will not face death; they will be branded as bigots and troglodytes and treated with utter contempt and hostility by the elites. Christians will serve as the scapegoats of the state, perpetually defeated but always treated as dangerous threats to the forces of progress. Like Snowball in Animal Farm or Goldstein in 1984, Christians will serve as omnipresent bogeymen, politically and culturally impotent yet somehow responsible for every societal ill afflicting America. Only at the end of this persecution (and most likely not even then), when the failure of the new morality is clearly evident, will government turn its sword against Christians.
But this will not happen for at least a generation, and it will be brief when it occurs. For as they did during all other persecutions, the forces of darkness will overreach, until they collapse under the weight of their own sin. Modern America will eventually follow the lead of other nations and blithely commit demographic suicide. Any society which embraces a culture of death is in the long run unsustainable.
The response of Christians to persecution must be the same as their predecessors' answer: unwavering fidelity to the truths of the Faith, trust in Christ's promise that His Church will not fail, and burning charity to friend and foe alike. Unwavering emphasis on the truth is the only real antidote to lies, constancy the eternal answer to despair, and charity the effective response to hatred.

Card Games: Rules for Veterans of War

No, this is not a post about our military. My brother and I invented a card game titled Veterans of War back in high school. A friend asked me for the rules, so I thought I’d share the rules of the game with my blog readers.

Veterans of War is a simple two player card game involving both luck and strategy. All you need is a regular deck of cards to play the game, which takes about 15-30 minutes.

The object of the game is to remove 13 cards from your deck before your opponent. Cards removed from the deck become veterans of war.

Rules:

      1.       Divide the deck up into two halves: red cards (diamonds and hearts) and black cards (spades and clubs). Each player chooses one half of the deck.

      2.       Each card is ranked by its number or letter. Aces are higher than kings, king are higher than queens, and so on and so forth.

      3.      At first, gameplay proceeds as in the well-known card game War. Both players sides shuffle their deck, and then each flip their top card over. The highest card wins and is set aside in the victor’s pile. The lower card is considered captured and removed from play. In ties, both cards are removed from the board. This process continues until both players go through their hands.

      4.       Players then sort through their victor’s piles, set the order of their cards, and then repeat the process outlined in step 3. Play proceeds until one (or both) players have all their cards captured or killed.  

      5.       If one player has a victor’s pile at the end of the process outlined in steps 3 and 4, the cards in the victor’s pile become veterans of war. They are considered “retired” from service, and cannot be used for the remainder of the game.

      6.       Play continues as in steps 3, 4, and 5, with the exception that veterans do not “fight.”

      7.       Cards must “fight” in one battle to be considered veterans.

      8.       Gameplay is over when one player attains 13 veterans of war.

Tips:

      Aces and twos can never be veterans of war. Use them strategically in later rounds.

      If you find yourself with a larger victor’s pile than your opponent, keep your lower-ranked cards in the back, where they will not run the risk of dying. Having low-ranked veterans is a major advantage.

            Have fun!

The Good Guys Don't Always Win

Humans are trained from an early age to expect the happy ending. In fairy tales and literature, the good guys win, the bad guys are imprisoned (or die) at the end, and everyone lives happily ever after.
But as we grow older, we learn that evil is practically omnipresent on earth. Theft, murder, lying, and laziness are all around us, and evildoers do gain from their actions. And "karma" is a sleepy avenger.
However, even in adulthood, there is a strong human tendency to cling to the comforting illusion that good triumphs over evil on earth; that progress is inevitable, that the "tide of history" that humanity is advancing onward to a new and glorious technological paradise, free of crime, war, disease.
Of course, this is complete and utter nonsense. On earth, evil triumphs over good a lot more often then we care to acknowledge. Murderers go unsolved. Men, women, and children are brutally enslaved. Dictators rule for decades at a time, and never receive punishment. In history, the victory goes to the dark side far more often then we like to think. Those who would seek a paradise on earth are perpetually disappointed.
The 20th century is the ultimate answer to the mistaken notion that progress is inevitable. Russia and China were overthrown by Communist revolutionaries, and their people enslaved under brutal dictatorships with a callous disregard for human life. (In fairness, Russia has had a penchant for brutal dictatorship for centuries, and China's regard for human life is cheap.) Germany elected a deranged dictator and came within a whisker of conquering the world, and managed to kill millions of Jews in its death knell. The world descended into brutal and bloody world conflict on multiple occasions.
One of the advantages of belief in an all-powerful, all-good God is that at the end, there is a reckoning for our deeds. The good are rewarded, and the wicked are punished. Indeed, for Christians all those fairy tales are a reminder that there is ultimate punishment for evil and eternal reward for doing good - just not in this life. As Christians, our hope is in the Lord, not in men.
But we are not in heaven yet; we are on earth, living in this "vale of tears," and the victory of good men is by no means certain What is constant is the never-ending struggle between good and evil - one that we must fight day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment.