HENRY MATTHEW ALT

TO GIVE A DEFENSE

Month: November 2013

Seven things to do for Thanksgiving and Black Friday: 7QT VIII, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 28, 2013 • Seven Quick Takes

Every Thanks­giv­ing it has been a rit­u­al in my fam­i­ly not to say a tra­di­tion­al prayer before the meal, but instead to have every­one at the table name one thing they are thank­ful for. There is far too much com­plain­ing. We live in chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times, but for all of that we are the wealth­i­est and luck­i­est peo­ple in the his­to­ry of the world. What­ev­er chal­lenges we have faced, we have come around to the end of anoth­er year. God has sus­tained us, for He is the cre­ator and the sus­tain­er of all things. Keep in mind how He has sus­tained you.

The Solemnity of Christ the King: The end of all things is at hand.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 25, 2013 • Liturgical Year

He is called “Angry Jesus,” but I appre­ci­ate John de Rosen’s art­work at the Basil­i­ca of the Nation­al Shrine of the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion. I used to belong to the Church of the Warm and Fuzzy Jesus. I used to have an image of a Jesus who did noth­ing but walk around hold­ing lambs and pat­ting peo­ple on the head. But now I’m mid­dle-aged and jad­ed and a Jesus who is ticked off all the time makes more sense to me. De Rosen’s Jesus is Howard Beale in glo­ry. De Rosen’s Jesus is the one who said, “How can you escape the damna­tion of Hell?”

Seven epiphanies that made me Catholic: 7QT VII, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 23, 2013 • Apologetics; Personal Narrative; Seven Quick Takes

My con­ver­sion to the Catholic Church entailed a series of epipha­nies, where­by a man who once under­stood the world look­ing west turned around and faced east. If you’ve stood on your head your whole life, things look very dif­fer­ent when you final­ly stand upright. That can be a dis­con­cert­ing expe­ri­ence; it can also car­ry a great deal of won­der and joy. I am Catholic today because I once under­stood real­i­ty that way, and now I under­stand it this way. I come at life from a very dif­fer­ent set of assump­tions about the way things are.

Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome III: Illinois legislators co-opt pope to promote same-sex marriage.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 21, 2013 • LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome

Rep. Lou Lang suc­cumbed to an ethe­re­al haze in his efforts to chan­nel six­ties’ croon­er Jack­ie DeShan­non: “It is incon­ceiv­able to me in a soci­ety that is so des­per­ate for love and so des­per­ate for close­ness and so des­per­ate for peo­ple to live peace­ably with one anoth­er that any­one can turn their back on this leg­is­la­tion. All this leg­is­la­tion pro­pos­es to do is to let peo­ple be togeth­er in peace and in love and make the world a bet­ter place.” Again, “love” and “peace” are good things. But Mr. Lang fails to explain why same-sex mar­riage is required to achieve them.

Seven more books that changed my life: 7QT VI, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 16, 2013 • Literature; Seven Quick Takes

As I am work­ing on some posts that are tak­ing a very long time to write, and since my last post on books turned out to be very pop­u­lar, I thought I would fol­low it up with a sequel — though this will end up being the only such. This list was much hard­er to come up with than the pre­vi­ous one. When you’re talk­ing about books that changed your life, that’s a strict stan­dard; and a total of four­teen — even after half a life­time of read­ing — is dif­fi­cult to con­ceive. But here the oth­er sev­en are. They run the gamut from Dante to G.K. Chester­ton to Philip Roth.

Peter Leithart founds new Protestant sect: “Reformational Catholicism.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 11, 2013 • Apologetics

Should you be struck by a sud­den impulse to run your fin­ger­nails ’cross your pate, won­der­ing what this odd hybrid “Refor­ma­tion­al Catholi­cism” could be, bear with me through this. Mr. Lei­thart is not talk­ing about the Counter Ref­or­ma­tion. Nor is he talk­ing about Catholi­cism at all — not in any sense that would be under­stood by one who knew that words mean things and the mean­ing of them is fixed. What he is rather talk­ing about (so he tells us at First Things) is “the end of Protes­tantism,” only with­out repa­tri­a­tion to the Church. In oth­er words, Protes­tant Sect No. 50,001.

Seven books that changed my life: 7QT V, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 9, 2013 • Literature; Seven Quick Takes

The French nov­el­ist Jean Malaquais once said, “The only time I know some­thing is true is the moment I dis­cov­er it in the act of writ­ing.” As it hap­pens, Malaquais was a Com­mu­nist; which makes me ques­tion the truth of the obser­va­tion. I don’t know whether the state­ment becomes any more or less accu­rate if I change it this way: “The only time I know some­thing is true is the moment I dis­cov­er it in the act of read­ing.” I like the thought, even if the truth may be less than pris­tine. I sus­pect — or at least I hope very earnest­ly — that there will be libraries in heav­en.

Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome II: Wherein Bishop Bernard Fellay giveth a homily.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 4, 2013 • Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome

On Octo­ber 13, Protes­tant bish­op Bernard Fel­lay, of the Soci­ety of St. Pius X (SSPX), gave a homi­ly, of sorts, in which he insist­ed that he’s Catholic. (I think that nom­i­nal­ism is a mod­ernist error.) The occa­sion was the Pon­tif­i­cal Mass for the Angelus Press Con­fer­ence, at St. Vin­cent de Paul, in Kansas City. The whole thing was mean­der­ing and schiz­o­phrenic, and I have not yet decid­ed what was worst about it. It may have been the many occa­sions Good Bp. Fel­lay (GBF) took to dis­play his own brand of Pope Fran­cis Derange­ment Syn­drome.

A fulcrum and a lever; chiefly on Eucharistic adoration. 7QT IV, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • November 2, 2013 • Seven Quick Takes

I can tell that it has been some time since I’ve been to Ado­ra­tion. The rea­son I know this is because I am tired. I have lacked patience, which nor­mal­ly is one of my rare — exceed­ing­ly rare — virtues. I am out of tem­pera­ment, and morose. As water seeks its own lev­el, so my less fre­quent vis­its to the ado­ra­tion chapel can be gauged by my more fre­quent vis­its to the con­fes­sion­al. I can tell that I have not been to Ado­ra­tion because even the word “water” sounds dry. But I can­not han­dle myself, or my life, as in my male­ness I do oft imag­ine I can. I need Christ; I need to be with Christ.

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