Christ is Risen!

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Below, you will find a video of the Exsultet (also known as the Easter Proclamation) being chanted.  (Here is a translation.) The Exsultet is an ancient and beautiful hymn, celebrating this holiest of days. It perfectly conveys the glory and majesty of this day - the holiest day of the Church year, the anniversary of Christ's triumph over death itself. 

Readers, have a blessed Easter!

A Good Friday Meditation

Today is the anniversary of the day I, and every single one of us, killed God.
Oh, I did not personally hammer the nails into the cross of Christ, or wield the whip that scourged Jesus Christ, or demand of Pontius Pilate that He be crucified. None of us now living were even born during His Passion and death. But I am every bit as responsible for His death as those that hammered or scourged or jeered or spat at him.
For I (and every single one of us) am guilty of sin. And Scripture is clear: "the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) We humans were barred from heaven because we chose to do evil. We chose death, and faced the consequence of eternal separation from our Creator.
But God loves us infinitely; He wants us to be with Him forever. And to pay the death sentence that by rights we should have suffered, Christ chose to die for us in an incredibly painful, excruciating manner.
This is how He died:

In an act of perfect love, Christ sacrificed Himself to open the gates of heaven and to pay the penalty that was the punishment for our sins. This is the same God who keeps us in existence in a continuous act of creation, without whom we could not exist for even a second. While He kept creatures in being, His creatures were killing Him. We murdered our Maker; He died to save those who killed Him.
Good Friday is the celebration of that unfathomable mystery of God's love, of how a deity who already gave us creatures our very being gave even His life to save His murderers from being punished for their crimes against Him.

A World Without Discrimination, and Other Fairy Tales

Eliminating government discrimination is an undesirable impossibility.
In an ideal world, people would agree to defend a specific list of rights. That way, individual conceptions of what constitutes "rights" would not conflict with one another, and the charge of discrimination would be impossible to make. Of course, it isn't an ideal world, and in practice, functional governments must practice some discrimination in some form.
Governments do not and indeed cannot outlaw personal discrimination in a world where people disagree on what constitutes a "right." But governments can and do choose which actions to discriminate against. Certain groups of like-minded individuals will always have the applications of their views limited by government.
Some forms of government discrimination are obvious and necessary. Obviously, governments discriminate against those whose belief systems encourage evils such as ritual murder, by not allowing those individuals to put their practices into action. Belief systems promoting actions harmful to life, liberty, and property are discriminated against by government.
There are other belief systems that are not directly harmful to life, liberty, and property that also face widely accepted government discrimination. Racism is a perfect example of a belief system that is (rightfully) discriminated against. Before the Civil Rights Era, a web of laws discriminated against people of color. Now, the shoe is on the other foot - businesses cannot, by law, discriminate against people because of their race.
Racist business owners could validly complain that they are being "discriminated against" by government. Their freedom to act in a manner which unfairly judges others based on the color of their skin would indeed be limited by law. And 95% or more of the US population would rightfully ignore their complaints, viewing discrimination based on race as detrimental to society.
Questions of discrimination are still being resolved in other areas. The members of the same-sex marriage movement are rapidly coming into conflict with defenders of religious liberty; the supposed "freedom to marry" is clashing with religious freedom.
These two freedoms cannot coexist peacefully. Society will be therefore forced to choose between upholding the old freedom of religious liberty, as outlined in the First Amendment, and the new "freedom to marry." And in making this choice, society must necessarily practice discrimination against one of these two groups. Either individuals in homosexual relationships will not have the freedom to marry, or the members of religious institutions will be forced to facilitate actions they oppose on religious grounds.
When government is forced to choose between two conflicting conceptions of rights, the defenders of at least one of these conceptions of rights will complain of discrimination.

Palm Sunday Meditation

Today is Palm Sunday, and we are now (finally) nearing the end of Lent. The holiest time of the year is upon us. As such, the liturgies held during this time take on even more meaning than normal.
In Catholicism, there are two Gospel readings read on Palm Sunday. Every year, these same readings are read, and every year, I find myself meditating on a new reflection from these readings.
The first, shorter Gospel passage read today recounts Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, with the people of Jerusalem waving palms to welcome Him to their city. The second, longer Gospel passage tells of His betrayal and death just five days later, while the crowds mocked Him and called for His brutal crucifixion.
Today I found myself holding a palm during the long Gospel reading recounting Jesus's Passion. And then I, with the rest of my fellow parishioners, cried out: "Crucify Him!" while holding that very same palm. This was indeed fitting: in less than a week's time, those same people who proclaimed Jesus the Son of David called for his death, and I found myself in their number, calling for His demise while holding the very instrument of his welcome.
Of course, this was during the liturgy, during a scripted passage. But how striking it is that the same people who called for Jesus' death were those who proclaimed Him as their savior less than a week earlier! The Church wishes us to reflect on our own role in the death of Christ, and how we who claim Him as our King turn on Him every day through our own sin and selfishness. In a very real sense, I do turn from Him when I sin, and call for His death - He whom I claim as king.
Humanity is indeed fickle, raising men up to absurd heights in their hour of triumph and then turning on them instantly when they fall from power. And this quality of fallen humanity manifested itself during the period of Jesus's Passion 2000 years earlier, and still is all too familiar to us today.

In Defense of Dawkins

Longtime readers of this site know that I am not impressed with the work of Richard Dawkins and his fellow atheists. His arguments against God and religion, to put it politely, are not very convincing upon even cursory inspection.
But he takes a lot of flak from many Christians for his virulent opposition to Christianity in particular and religion in general. For this strong opposition, it is hard to fault him, at least from a logical standpoint.
For if there is no God, then religion is a damnable lie - a lie that keeps millions in thrall to a non-existent God and enslaved by an absurd cocktail of rules. At the very best, religion serves as a money sponge to make gullible individuals people feel better - an expensive type of homeopathy of the spirit, so to speak. At worst, religion is an organized racket which causes millions to deny themselves pleasures for no purpose, allows unscrupulous individuals to wield arbitrary power over millions, and wastes countless hours of time and energy that could be spent in more valuable pursuits. If religion be wrong and contrary to reason, then it should indeed be destroyed.
And Dawkins and his fellows understand this better than most Christians. They have staked their souls and their reputations on the assumption that their is no God, and from their worldview religion truly is an evil which must be destroyed at all costs. If they believe that, they have every right to do all in their power to destroy religion.
Obviously, I believe they are wrong (this blog would look much different otherwise), and feel it is my duty to duel them. But they have the admirable courage of the conviction of their beliefs all too often lacking among Christians. There is a quote from the poet William Butler Yeats that describes them admirably: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are filled with passionate intensity." Would that Christians possessed so much zeal for their far worthier cause!

Should the Church Sell Her Artwork?

There is a common tendency among dissenting Catholics and opponents of the Church to criticize the supposed wealth of the Church. Many complain "If the Church would simply sell Her artwork, basilicas, and vestments, give them to the poor, and return to the simplicity of Christ, then I might be more inclined to listen to Her teachings!" This atrocious sentiment is apparently even shared by a certain disgraced Church Cardinal.
Those who believe this poor excuse for an argument exhibit extreme gullibility. It is naiveté bordering on deliberate self-deception to believe that those who criticize the Church for her poverty would simply convert en masse if She sold all Her artwork, vestments, and other beautiful possessions. (As an aside, shouldn't those who would buy the artwork be helping the poor instead of spending money on supposedly useless art?) Would the Church's critics, who mock or willfully distort practically every doctrine of the Catholic Church to suit their own ends, suddenly convert if the Church were to give all Her goods to feed the poor?
Not likely. Especially since the solution the Church's critics propose to end to poverty appears to consist of free birth control for everyone, having no children, and instituting higher taxes on others to fund government programs of questionable efficacy. (The willingness of the Church's critics to give away their own possessions to assist those in need is also questionable.)
Their complaints echo those in the Bible who complained against a woman washed Jesus's feet with expensive perfume in the Gospel. (Mark 14:1-10) Her detractors complained: "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." Jesus rebuked them for their false concern, and reminded His followers that "the poor you will always have with you," but that He would not always be with them.
The Church is not foolish enough to sell off Her beautiful artwork in order to satisfy the hypocritical taunts of Her loudest detractors. In fact, She already does far more than any of Her critics for the poor. Her mission of service is not compromised by the beautiful gifts She owns. Besides, merely selling off all the Church's patrimony would not solve the plight of the poor; there are millions of poor individuals on this earth, and the money that would be gained from selling off the Church's artwork would prove to be at best a temporary solution (and more likely, not even that) for the plight of the poor.
But more importantly, the art and the decorations that the Church "owns," so to speak, are fashioned to reveal the glory of God. Artists labored to reveal the glory of God through their work. Their work is a foretaste of the beauty of heaven, and quite literally leads people to God.
And the Catholic Church generously presents this art to all. Most of the art She "owns" is located in churches open to the general public, available to be viewed free of charge. If the Church's art were located in private collections or even in museums, the poor would be unable to view the beauty contained within because of their poverty.
There are two paths to Christ and the truths of the Faith: intellect and beauty. The first path is the way of the intellect. But few are reachable by reason; the way of the scholar is not attractive to the common man with little time to think of the mysteries of heaven. And intellectuals are often led away from truth by their own arrogance and stubbornness.
The second, far more commonly taken path is the path of beauty. Yes, the example of good men and women serves as a spur to sanctity; the example of the saints inspires many to take on the sweet yoke of Christ. But beautiful objects which people create also can evoke a salutary wonder which can lead people to Christ. And the wonders of the liturgy, the glory of the basilicas, the spiritual messages of the artwork - these inspire men and women to think of a sublime God, and to think on higher things.

Update: After this was originally posted, a friend pointed out to me that the art in Catholic churches is available for all, including the poor, to view freely, whereas most museums charge for entrance. The Church makes Her beautiful art available to the public in a way that most museums do not. I have accordingly updated the post. 

The Price of Relevance

The eyes of the world have been upon the Catholic Church since She chose Her new leader. Many of these eyes (especially in the press) have proven to be hostile to the new Pope Francis; highly speculative (at best) articles have already been written of the former cardinal's supposed indifference to sex abuse scandals and his supposed silence in the face of genocide. (Dr. Edward Peters has destroyed this last absurd charge.)
The intense media focus on the new Pope is to be expected, of course. Even before the conclave, speculation was thick and fast about who the new Pope would be. Journalists descended on Rome in droves. All prying eyes were shut out from the conclave which elected Pope Francis, so the products of a technologically advanced age found itself reduced to staring at a chimney, discerning the Pope's election through the color of smoke.
A Church which perpetually accused of being behind the times and irrelevant certainly receives an absurd amount of attention from the prophets of the new (im)morality of modernity. It is hilarious to watch the powers-that-be demand that She change Her doctrines to suit the modern age, as though acts of appeasement could satisfy the insatiable piranhas seeking Her destruction or Her alteration beyond recognition.
For Her implacable foes in the secular community know that She is their only opponent who could possibly halt their seemingly inexorable march to hedonism (and demographic suicide). Other sects of Christianity have doomed themselves to fracture into eternal oblivion. Other faiths (save Islam, but Islamic countries are choosing the same suicidal path as the secular world) pose no threat to their order. And the secular world despises Her for Her firm opposition to its brave new world.
The price of relevance is eternal hatred. This is why the Catholic Church stands apart from every other faith. She is relevant in a way that no other faith can or will be; a sign of contradiction in a troubled world, a conscience to a world which has mocked the very concept of conscience.
And those whom She must oppose will seek to destroy Her in any way imaginable. This is the reason that Her trolls levy constant filth at Her. It is the reason why the chattering classes so insistently demand She change. It is the reason opponents have chosen to rewrite history to denigrate Her. Unchanging in doctrine, She stands as the only viable challenge to those who would drive the world to suicide.