Defending the faith...

From time to time I'm asked to defend the Catholic Church.

The questions almost always cover the same old worn out issues...gays, priests marrying, abortion, contraception, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The questions almost always come from fallen away Catholics who are battling some authority...Mom and Dad, Pope, parish priest, nun, yadda, yadda, yadda.

And almost always the questions have been formed by the popular media. Or by the memories of childhood catechism classes and not with the rational (and by that I am not meaning to sound as if the questioner is therefore irrational) facilities of an adult.

This requires the seeking of answers by searching them out in Church literature (catechism, encyclicals, etc., etc.) and NOT by reading the editors of the NY and LA Times or the literature of those who dissent with the Church and who therefore DON'T clear up, or satisfactorily give an answer to honest questions.

So it is almost always, without exception and eye opener for the inquisitor when someone can at least give them something of an answer without seemingly being defensive or dismissive.

Today's question had to do with the dinosaur the Church had become and that it ought to enter the 21st century by sloughing off the detritus of the ages, or it will die.

Yeah, it sounds more like a statement than a question but I took it as a question and tried to give the inquisitor a starting off point for actually seeking out an answer from sources more reliable than myself...

So for this one I like to start off with the notion of the burden of the past. The Church, I normally state, moves ponderously because it has to poll the past not only to answer questions for the here and now, but to also better guide the future.

I point to the social writings of Leo XIII and Paul VI to give some examples of how the Church spoke to the culture, warning us about the headlong rush into some uncharted territory just for the sake of being progressive, without taking into account how the past, how previous cultures, or societies looked at the issues at stake.

I'm not looking to convince...just to open the door a bit to the idea that some of their ideas about the Church might be faulty.

Then I like to point out that Western culture doesn't have this sense of the past. I use an analogy from essayist Richard Rodriguez who was speaking specifically about American culture, but it also applies to the West.

Our culture, wrote Mr. Rodriguez, is a lot like the table at an all night diner. Families come and, for a time, live and play at the table. They laugh and love, make huge messes and then are gone.

Then the waitress comes along and wipes away all traces of those who just left, just in time for another group to come in and do it all over again.

Now often times this is where the inquisitor looks thoughtfully and says something along the lines of "hmmm..I hadn't quite seen it in that light before..."

Which is all I ask for.

Again, I'm not looking to convince, I'm hoping that they seek beyond me and find the truth.

On The Tuner...

Here are the platters making me swoon this month"

10 - Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo
9 - The Pye Anthology - The Searchers
8 - Warsawa - Porcupine Tree
7 - Beneath This Gruff Exterior - John Hiatt
6 - Farm Fresh Onions - Robert Earl Keen
5 - Greatest Hits -Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66
4 - Buddy and Sweets - Buddy Rich and Harry "Sweets" Edison
3 - Cancons Tradicionals Catalanes - Victoria de los Angeles
2 - Live at the Filmore - Los Lobos

and the #1 disc on the list...played over and over again...

1 - I Heard it on the X - Los Super Seven

Opening Day...

I managed to make it out to opening day at Dodger Stadium this year. What a glorious day it was! Dodgers won...and all was right with the world.

But what a lousy time I had.

Sitting in the bleachers has always been fun. Always.

Now, it's Raider Nation in blue.

The most obnoxious, vile displays of humanity were visible that afternoon in the right field box. It was enough to make me yearn for the comfortable, safe, confines of Folsom Prison.

I counted four fights in our section. Four.

One because two guys tried to slap at a beach ball at the same time and ended up hitting each other. One thing lead to another and security was called in.

A Dodgerarian felt it was neccesary to remind a Giant fan sitting in the seat next to him that the "GIANTS SUCK" over and over again, at teh top of his lungs, for a good three minutes. Having had enough he pushed Dodger Nation to the ground. Security was on the scene...bodies ejected.

Two Dodger Nationites couldn't agree as to who had who's seat. One of the two didn't like that the usher was telling him that his seat was in the next aisle so...security was called...Dodger fan took his seat.

Lastly, Dodger Nation 1 had a Dodger dog thrown at the back of his head by Dodger Nation 2 during the 7th inning stretch. Security pummeled said fans with thrown dodger dog.

And beach balls, oi, beach balls!

There oughta be a law against bringing them into a sporting event. But we need to start by going after the suppliers.

That would by the 99 Cent Stores. Every beach ball, save three, had emblazoned on them, "99 Cent Stores."

Two of the other three were shaped like tylenol capsules and had written on them "ROID'S" and "BALCO." Obvious references to Barry Bonds and the steroids issue plaguing baseball.

The last ball wasn't a ball.

It was an inflatable woman. Sigh...

And I swear if I ever hear someone say the phrase "____ SUCKS" again I just might pop someone in the kisser...and I will become a Giants fan. As I live and breathe...I will go over to the dark side.

And lastly...poor Michael Tucker, outfielder for the San Francisco nine, had to put up with taunts, curses and the ever imaginative, middle finger every time he came out to his position in right field. EVERY TIME.

These moronic Dodger Nation people (all men...all sporting tattoos, all wearing long shorts...all looking like extras from the movie "Colors") would stand, en masse, scream at the poor guy and flip him off, both hands, pumping away with boths arms, like pneumatic drills trying to tear a hole in the sky.

It was pathetic.

Luckily the real vermin were carefully cordoned off, deep in the bowels of the bleachers, unable to wreak their special brand of fanaticism on Dodger Nation. All fifteen of them...smoking their ciggies...

I tell you what...I would have given anything to have had those fifteen people sit near me, smoking away, than the 400 idiots that most of us had to endure that afternoon.

This I also will tell you...smoking isn't a crime. Being an asswipe in front of children is.

The fan behavior ruined an otherwise beautiful day at the ball park.

Blue skies, pigeons swooping down into the field, Stealth bomber majestically flying over the stadium...all lost because we have become a nation of rude, flatulent people.

God help us.

Experiencing the beauty of historical times...

I have almost always been able to feel the moment when a historical thing happens. Most are slam dunks of course. Moon landings, pope's dying, etc., etc. But also of the micro-historical, being in a place that 400 years ago people, so much like me, walked here, lived here, made love here, died here.

When I was traveling through my nihilist period I lost that sense, but, believe it or not, regained it at an Oktoberfest while dancing to a never-ending polka. That moment of dancing, with a fetching young woman, the release of energy, the swirling of the world, reminded me of the importance of beauty and the feeling that I was, in a very micro sense, living history, that 50 years hence, someone else will experience, what I just now felt and sensed. Everyday I was alive I was living history, making history and witnessing history. I needed to soak it all in in this tiny time I have on earth. Swear to God...it happened.

Anyway, for all it's ugliness, history is a very beautiful thing. It is to be re-minded of one's ancestors, to read of the exploits of Man, and to live it, is a thing of extreme and intense beauty.

And so it was this morning when the news of a new Pope came out over the radio.

As I was heading into the parking lot here at work the local news had switched to the CNN broadcast and the excited voice of Vatican correspondent John Allen announcing that the curtains to the balcony had opened. I quickly parked the car turned off the engine and listened.

I have read a couple of accounts on the formal announcement of a new Pope and have been thrilled trying to put myself there, in that place, but thanks to the old Marconi, I WAS there, in THAT place, NOW...and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end at the enormity of it. The voice calling out in four languages that a new pope was being introduced to the world shook me and at the ancient words "Habemus Papam" I wept.

To hear the crowd chant, "Benedict, Benedict" as the new pope spoke to them brought me to tears yet again.

This is beautiful history as it was meant to be experienced. I'm going home to share it with my wife and kids...and anyone else who may care to listen...

It has been a remarkable few weeks in the life of the Church. It has gone from mourning to daybreak. The Son is shining...better wear some shades.

Habemus Papam! Pope Benedict XVI

"Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me - a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord," he said after being introduced by Chilean Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estivez.

"The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers," the new pope said. "I entrust myself to your prayers."

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger holds a candle as he celebrates an Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica... The crowd responded by chanting "Benedict! Benedict!"

And so the barque of Peter is handed to a man of sufficient means and skills no matter how simple and humble he describes himself.

Pope Benedict XVI is a man of incredible intelligence, wit and charm and I rejoice. For those who want to know the man go find his books, The Ratzinger Report, Milestones, Salt of the Earth, and God and the World.

The bells are ringing throughout Germany. The St. Peter's bell in the great cathedral of Cologne is tolling on it's own. Significant in that traditionally it does so only for the death of the Pope (as it did on April 2) or for the death of the Arch-bishop of Cologne.

Already, a web site dedicated to Pope Benedict is up and running ( http://www.PopeBenedictXVI.org ) and one that has been up for quite awhile www.ratzingerfanclub.com but it has been having overload problems since this morning.

PLAY BALL!!!

Amidst the sadness of the death of John Paul life goes on.

Happily, baseball is back in full force today so it will be a welcome break from the events dealing with issues of real life and death these past two weeks.

I'm leaving work now, to slide behind the wheel of my auto...slide out the cd...and push the button for the local sports radio show to see what is up in the Major Leagues.

God does work in mysterious ways...Go Dodgers!! (and Nationals, Red Sox, Angels...and Cards)

Amen...

...and with that final exclamation, good Karol Wojtyla left this mortal coil.

In my last post I mentioned that when he was raised to the Papacy, I couldn't have been bothered by the news. It's not totally true. My ears did prick up, back in '78, when I had heard the new Pope was Polish. I remember thinking then that all of Italy was going to be up in arms over the selection. But that was it...another old man elected to an old position in an even older Church that had long since been relevant to my mind.

I started going back to Church in the Fall of 1982 (I had been away from the day I made my confirmation at the age of 12 in '73) after I met the young lady who was to become my wife. She was a regular Church-goer and I rightly assumed that if I wanted to be a part of her future I had to participate fully in this part of her life in the present.

The parish we attended for Mass had available for parishoners various catholic oriented magazines and papers and among those I found a copy of Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man).

I started to read it one afternoon and I was knocked agog when I read the following from the chapter "For the Church all ways lead to Man:"

"This man is the way for the Church-a way that, in a sense, is the basis of all the other ways that the Church must walk - because man - every man without any exception whatever - has been redeemed by Christ, and because with man - with each man without any exception whatever - Christ is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it: "Christ, who died and was raised up for all, provides man"-each man and every man- "with the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme calling."

Now up to this point I believed my self to be lost, forever. But after reading this...I was stunned.

And so...even though I had been taught this, had read this in the Good Book, I had finally heard the Word...I was redeemed whether I liked it or not.

I kinda liked it.

And therefore if I was redeemed, through no effort from myself...then I had a responsiblity to honor that redemption. And to do so I needed to think, reflect, pray, and act with the mind of an adult and not with the nearly lost memory of a pre-pubescent child.

My world spun out of control...I had thought, as many do, that once you lean on the crutch that is religion, you lose your mind...but the opposite happened.

After taking that leap into the abyss that is Faith, my thoughts became clearer. My heart beat wilder and my soul became purer (though some black patches remain).

And I have Karol to thank for helping to nudge me over the edge. I am convinced he became Pope...for me. So that he could tell me once more, about Him.

God calls us in many ways.

Some hear from the moment they can understand. Others hear it from the Bible. Others hear it in the heartbeat of their unborn children, in the crash of the car wreck that almost took their life, in the foxhole...

Others come upon like I did...by the unlikely election of a non-Italian Pope... a chance meeting with a beautiful, pious, young woman...a casual pick-up of a papal encyclical...a once in a lifetime moment of lucidity, when suddenly words had no double meaning and the clarion call was a clear as...

the ringing of the holy bells that told of the passing of a true and faithful servant of God.

Pope John Paul the Great

I prayed this time wouldn't come. But it does. And it appears that the great leveler will be taking this beautiful, bent man to his greater reward. God love you and bless Karol Wojtyla.

Thank you for service, for your light, for your life.

I remember 1978 and the events that took place which brought you to the throne of Peter. I couldn't have cared less. I was a cocky 18 year old who was a nihilist verging on atheism. But a thin, gentle thread kept me from crossing that line. My journey back to the Church continues to this day. This old institution which is scoffed at by the moderns is, as Chesterton wrote, ever new and young again, every day.

And I have you to thank.

By bringing me back to the Church, you opened up Christ to me. And I wept with joy each time He was revealed to me. At the birth of our children, my wedding, the deaths of my ancestors and my father...all a revelation of His love and suffering. And Christ opened me up to His Father. And God, opened me up to my neighbor.

You bolstered my mind with your writings. and rather than lose it, as so many who don't know Christ believe, it was given back to me. The profundity of this gift, this gift of thought, rational, logical thought, given freely to me by the Creator, makes me fall to my knees in deep appreciation at being so unworthy.

And now your suffering makes bright the darkness that is this life of death.

This dark world of ours, filled with voices rejoicing at your demise, is filled with light and they who mock, will scamper back under the rocks they came from...and we who love life, will celebrate your coming and your leaving.

Thank you Heavenly Ftaher, for giving us this good man as our shepard.

God love and keep you Karol.