Being! Or Nothingness

Deus Caritas Est

::UPDATE::  It's here . . . though you've probably heard.

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The encyclical is coming out soon.  Matter of hours.  Everyone will be talking about it, probably faster than they can read and understand it.  I'm excited.  Seriously.  I eat this stuff up like the Medjies eat up locutions and apparitions. 

Posting like a Ghost

I'm pretty absent lately, been busy.  But I have two posts that I've been working on and just haven't gotten around to.  I will be posting them over the next couple of days.  First, I was in Boston over a week ago for the National Diakonia of Communion and Liberation.  I had a great time, and want to share what struck me.  Also, I participated in the March for Life with my kids from Indiana, some of the GS kids, and a couple from my parish.

Way Back When . . .

You know that former Wheaton professor, Joshua Hochschild, that everyone is talking about lately.  The one who was fired from the philosophy department at Wheaton because he converted to Catholicism.  Yeah, well . . . he was my Philosophy 101 professor at Notre Dame.  You see, he got his PhD at Notre Dame.  He was an Anglican when he was with us.  Or something like an Anglican.  I used to think he was Catholic . . . in fact once he said something to me along the lines of "You really should take this stuff your Church teaches more seriously."  It was my young and foolish "We are Church" days (oh, yes, I once went to a Call to Action conference and everything . . . I was soooooo liberal!  Ha!) and I remember thinking "this non-Catholic guy believes more than I do!  What's wrong here?"

Anyway, I liked him.  He was a good teacher and interested in our understanding and loving philosophy.  I'm glad I had him.  I didn't really create much of a relationship with him, though now I wish I had.  Not because he's all the fuss lately in the Wall Street Journal, but rather because he was really the reason that Philosophy was even on the radar for me.   After I took him I took Prof. Fred Freddoso and soon enough I was a Philosophy major.  So, Wheaton's loss is St. Mary's gain . . . but I promise you this isn't the last you've heard of Prof. Hochschild . . . or maybe it will be the last you've heard of him, but I think St. Mary's is too small a pond for this guy.  He's really good.

Generating Traces

Ladies and Gentlemen, hold on to your socks.

Eppler has a blog.  I want to be like Mike and now he's blogging . . . check out the links, because a new category has been born with his entry into the blogosphere:  Movers

Major Jones, Sharon, Santi, Jack, Alex, Jim, and now . . . Eppler.

My prediction:  By years end, statues in cities across America will begin bleeding beer and whiskey, and I will lead the pilgrimage to drink from each one.

Italy's New Catholic University

I was struck by this interview with the rector of Italy's new Catholic university, the European University of Rome, run by the Legion of Christ.  It is apparently only the third Catholic university in Italy and the first built since World War I.  I think it's interesting that the Legion of Christ, which is to my understanding interested in educating the lay faithful to transform the world through the lay vocation, is always busy building new clerical institutions.

I'm not saying that there is no place for new Catholic institutions, especially in the world of higher education, I just think it's odd that this is the emphasis of a group that is interested in the lay vocation.  I guess, to be fair, Regnum Christi is the lay association and the Legion of Christ is a religious order, but I wonder why there is no interest in encouraging the best and the brightest Catholic scholars to be the best and the brightest within the institutions that already exist.

It seems to me that the lay vocation is to be leaven, that is, to bring our encounter with Christ to the world in which we live and transform the world not by our escape from it, but by our presence in it and love for it.

I guess I'm of the opinion that the world doesn't need more Catholic Universities or Catholic Hospitals or Catholic Law Firms, rather it needs professors, doctors, and lawyers who, moved by the encounter with Christ, live this encounter out as the best in their fields in the institutions that are already looked at for excellence and seriousness.

“I live on the threshold of death, and I am filled with inexplicable joy”

Those words, spoken by Anne Vercors in Paul Claudel's The Announcement Made to Mary begin for me a re-thinking of the anti-abortion movement in this country, and in particular, they serve as the beginning of forming a judgement on the March for Life.

Why do we March?
This year I will participate in my 7th March for Life.  I missed the last two years because I was in Texas, but I have been to 6 previous marches.  This is the first time since I began to take seriously the claim Christ has on my life that I have begun to ask myself "Why?"  This year also represents the first time I have marched since my encounter with Christ in Communion and Liberation (actually, I went to the March the same year I met the movement, but I wasn't very serious yet)

Has my encounter with CL changed my perspective on the March for Life?  Absolutely.  But I'm not quite sure how.  In fact, what I am trying to do is form a judgement on the March.  This is what has changed.  When I marched in previous years it was simply out of an ideological "this is what I'm supposed to do, I'm pro-life".  This year that isn't enough.  I will March, mostly because I'm a Youth Minister and this comes with the territory of the particular parish I'm working at, but also because I have friends who are coming and expecting to do it together with me.

But I want to have more clear for myself the reasons why its valuable (whether its valuable?) and most of all I want to be in a position of tension, of expectation in front of this March.  I want, like Anna Vercors, to live on the threshhold of death and be "filled with inexplicable joy."

Help me to judge this . . . read From Utopia to Presence with me and give me your thoughts on the pro-life movement, the March for Life, and what it means to be a Christian presence in the world . . .

Alito, from one who knows

Conor Dugan, a graduate of Notre Dame Law School, clerked for Judge Samuel Alito and shares what he learned from the man in this great article:  A law clerk's view of Alito

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from Judge Alito was the need to strike a balance between work and family. In Judge Alito, I saw that legal excellence and excellence in family life can coexist.

The judge never shirked his duties as a federal judge. Yet he made sure to be present to his family, taking his son on visits to prospective colleges, attending his daughter's swim meets and doing domestic tasks such as buying the groceries and taking out the trash. (He once joked that he wasn't called judge when asked to take out the trash.) He also coached his son's moot court team to a championship during my clerkship.

All these lessons are combined with my other good memories of Judge Alito. I remember his concern for me when I was dealing with some medical issues. I have appreciated his humorous and sage advice about marriage and fatherhood. I have benefited from his willingness to mentor me as I begin my legal career, including advice he gave me before my first oral argument.

I am convinced Judge Alito's experience, humility, decency and integrity are a great gift to the nation. The criticisms of his record miss the mark by misunderstanding the role of a judge and failing to grasp the sort of man Judge Alito is.

Thankfully, while these misunderstandings hold some sway in our nation, they have lost much of their power. And, thus, we can hope that a large majority of our senators will vote to confirm this good, decent, humble and wise man as this nation's next Associate Supreme Court Justice. To do otherwise would be a great loss for our nation and a great shame for our political system.

Sts. Cosmas, Damian, and Luke

Those are my patron saints for the year on Being! Or Nothingness.  Someone pointed me to A Catholic Life Blog which was offering to select your patron saint through some unkown process (and the more unknown the better . . . I'd hate to think that it was something completely ridiculous, like "they were next on the list", at least this is mysterious).

So, since I know jack diddly squat about these guys I will have to do some more learning.  Luke was a doctor, as were Cosmas and Damian, and obviously Luke is an Evangelist, so we'll see what comes up.  Either way, props to the "Three Saints of Being!" and gratitude for their patronage.

CL Goes to Boston

Communion and Liberation will be in Boston this weekend for the National Diakonia of Responsibles.  In most organizations this would be something akin to a conference for managers and executives.  However, since CL can't exactly be called "organized" and with a strong Italian influence we will (thankfully) be spared any of the American tendency to "committee-ize" the universe, the result is a meeting that is quite beautiful and helpful to everyone in the movement.

For those of you near Boston I encourage you to try to attend the public presentation on Education on Saturday, January 14 at 4 pm in Fanueil Hall in Boston.  The presentation will be a free panel discussion with Archbishop Sean O’Malley, Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, Henrik Hertzberg (senior editor of The New Yorker), and Fr. Jose Medina of Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School.

Something is happening that has never happened before. What is in crisis is the capacity of a generation of adults to educate their own children.  For years, from the new pulpits—schools and universities, newspapers and television—it has been preached that freedom is the absence of ties and of history.

Reality itself has been denied, as has the hope for a positive meaning to life, and we risk raising a whole generation of young people who feel like orphans, without parents or teachers, forced to walk as if on quicksand, bored and led along only by fashions and power.

But their boredom is the child of our own boredom, their uncertainties the child of a culture that has demolished the conditions and the environments of education: family, school, and Church. It is possible and necessary to educate, to introduce people to reality and to its meaning.

Join us as we face this crisis in education and take up our responsibility for our children and the future of our society.

Albacete on the Net

Msgr. Albacete has been popping up in video format on the web recently.

Meaningoflife.tv (an outpost of Slate) has a good interview with Albacete on many different issues all related to the relationship of the Mystery to human life.  It's quite good.  There are other interviews with other notable folks, but really, none of them are half as interesting as Alba.

Also, Washington National Cathedral has an online archive of lectures given in the Spring of 2004.  Albacete is there talking about the problem of evil, but there is also a lecture and interview with Helen Whitney who was the producer of a PBS Frontline Documentary on September 11 (which also includes Albacete as an advisor and interviewee).  They are excellent lectures and I encourage you to check them out.