Seven reasons to reject Catholic fundamentalism about the arts: 7QT XI, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 25, 2014 • Catholicism & Culture; Seven Quick Takes

 

The Church’s tra­di­tion­al atti­tude toward pagan cul­ture was not to destroy it but to pre­serve it. It was the bar­bar­ians who destroyed Greek and Roman cul­ture; it was monks who helped pre­serve it. And it was good that they did: The Renais­sance would not have hap­pened unless Catholic artists and schol­ars had those Greek and Roman mod­els. In a sim­i­lar way, if a Catholic revival in the arts is to hap­pen again, it may very well rely on what the mod­ern world has giv­en us. Tertullian’s famous “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” was, at heart, a false dichoto­my.

Read more

TurretinFan interprets the lightning.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 24, 2014 • Apologetics

 

If light­ning strikes a tree, how do we know that it is ran­dom; where­as, if light­ning strikes an image of Christ, that is God’s judg­ment against idol­a­try? Per­haps Tur­ret­inFan, who is the lat­est to inter­pret the light­ning, will say that even the tree was not struck ran­dom­ly, and that its destruc­tion was ordained by God before all eter­ni­ty. Mr. X is a Calvin­ist, and Calvin­ists do not blow their nose unless it had been decreed by the God­head. But sure­ly God is not blast­ing with right­eous judg­ment every tree that gets struck.

Read more

Steve Hays and the parable of the Biltmore.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 21, 2014 • Apologetics; sola scriptura

 

Nei­ther Mr. X (who calls him­self Tur­ret­inFan) nor the polem­i­cal rogue (who calls him­self John Bugay) have dared to respond yet to my last arti­cle on sola scrip­tura. Mr. X runs a mad dash through Sacred Scrip­ture, cit­ing any verse that he can bend out of sense, and says, “See! Here! Sola Scrip­tura! Refute that, Roman­ists!” Mean­while Mr. Bugay, who hath no peer for pre­var­i­ca­tion, denies he has to find it at all, and claims that the ques­tion is “dis­hon­est.” Catholic apol­o­gists real­ly ought to shut up if they know what is good for them.

Read more

Through the Year with Pope Francis: A review.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 20, 2014 • Book Review; Pope Francis

 

Through the Year With Pope Fran­cis is a dai­ly devo­tion­al of 365 quo­ta­tions, main­ly from his hom­i­lies and Gen­er­al Audi­ences. If you like devo­tion­als, this is the one for you. Or, if you just want to counter sil­ly claims about the pope’s rad­i­cal views, this is a resource you will want to have. If you like to have med­i­ta­tions to take with you to Eucharis­tic Ado­ra­tion, why not pick up a copy of this book? What bet­ter way to spend time before the Blessed Sacra­ment than to med­i­tate upon the Holy Father’s words and pray for his inten­tions? There’s a ple­nary indul­gence for that.

Read more

Seven quick takes in defense of longhand: 7QT X, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 18, 2014 • Blogging & Writing; Seven Quick Takes

 

Com­put­er crash­es helped me to regain my nor­mal and native san­i­ty about how to write. A time there was, and ever a good time, when I wrote every­thing by hand and raged, raged against the dying of the light. I wrote every term paper in grad­u­ate school by hand, and by hand revised. It felt nat­ur­al thus; and I retained a record of all my corrections.(Which I would prompt­ly show to my stu­dents as an exam­ple of what revi­sion is.) The visu­al does mat­ter; and the star­tling impact of it is lost when com­par­ing an ear­ly, clean draft with a lat­er, clean draft.

Read more

Desperate John Bugay to Catholics: Shut up about sola scriptura.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 17, 2014 • Apologetics; sola scriptura

 

Protes­tant apol­o­gists are cre­ative and tire­less in their efforts to find sola scrip­tura in the Bible. They are undaunt­ed by refu­ta­tion. When told that Acts 17:11, or 2 Tim. 3:16, do not sup­port the doc­trine, they do not attempt fur­ther defense; they sim­ply move on to the next verse. In this way, per­haps Catholics could, in time, get them to run the cir­cuit through every last one. That would be one way to have fun with our sep­a­rat­ed broth­ers. Not only is sola scrip­tura in the Bible; the Bible talks about noth­ing else. Thus has Tur­ret­inFan invent­ed four new proof texts

Read more

Taylor Marshall shows us how not to talk about The Beatles.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 14, 2014 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Catholicism & Culture

 

I have searched, and I can find no one (oth­er than Dr. Mar­shall) who sug­gests that the cov­er has any­thing at all to do with abor­tion. Not one. Unless there are some fair­ly obscure ref­er­ences out there, Dr. Mar­shall is the first and only in fifty years. If the cov­er were intend­ed to “pro­mote abor­tion,” how is it that that escaped dis­cus­sion back in 1966? The Bea­t­les, and their lack­eys in the press, cer­tain­ly did an excel­lent job keep­ing qui­et about it. The Bea­t­les must have been very bad at pub­lic­i­ty. Shh. I am going to pro­mote abor­tion, but don’t tell any­one about it. You are not to dis­cuss this.

Read more

Seven resolutions in search of a blog post: 7QT IX, seriatim.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • January 4, 2014 • Seven Quick Takes

 

It is a New Year, and with every new year come the res­o­lu­tions. The rea­son peo­ple make res­o­lu­tions at the start of a new year is because last year’s res­o­lu­tions failed. Some use that as an excuse not to make res­o­lu­tions: If I’m not going to keep them, why make them? That sounds like a hard-earned wis­dom, but the same log­ic applies in the con­fes­sion­al. Who says, “I do not firm­ly resolve with the help of thy grace, because my last firm res­o­lu­tion brought me back to the same line”? So here, before 2015’s mea max­i­ma cul­pa, are my res­o­lu­tions for the blog while 2014 is still young.

Read more

Waiting in a silent prayer.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • December 22, 2013 • Liturgical Year

 

Let it be to me accord­ing to your word.” That is not just an incred­i­ble act of com­plete humil­i­ty and obe­di­ence, but it is an act of almost unimag­in­able sur­ren­der. If Mary was found with child out of mar­riage, by the law of Israel she could be stoned. And she could have said no, and avoid­ed all that. Instead she said “Fiat,” being under no mis­un­der­stand­ing about what that word could have meant to her, yet trust­ing ful­ly in the God who sent His archangel. But how would you feel to know that you had con­ceived in your womb the Cre­ator of all things?

Read more

Joy of every longing heart.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • December 15, 2013 • Liturgical Year

 

Come thou long expect­ed Jesus! It is fit­ting that, in the midst of all the long­ing and wait­ing and prepar­ing that takes place dur­ing Advent, the Church reminds us to be joy­ful: foras­much as God will not leave us watch­ing and long­ing for­ev­er. The Mes­si­ah has been promised, and He will come. And it is fit­ting — and most impor­tant — that the Church calls to our mind the object of our only true long­ing. We think it is for earth­ly love, but earth­ly love is a fig­ure. We think it is for rich­es, but only the rich­es of heav­en will not become cor­rupt.

Read more

An open letter to Mr. Rush Limbaugh on Pope Francis.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • December 11, 2013 • Media Personalities; Pope Francis

 

Dear Mr. Lim­baugh: No one is try­ing to make you the “vil­lain” in a “soap opera” about the pope, as you claim. Okay, yes, there is a nut­ty left-wing group, pro­mot­ed by Media Mat­ters, who is out there gath­er­ing sig­na­tures for some dumb peti­tion. But all that is street the­ater. They hard­ly speak for the many seri­ous and ortho­dox Catholics who for good rea­sons object to your claim that the pope is a Marx­ist. I have not heard you men­tion them. Now don’t you think that’s odd? You may, for exam­ple, have read my own rebut­tal; I sent it to you.

Read more

The Immaculate Conception, most highly-favored lady.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • December 8, 2013 • Liturgical Year

 

Joachim and Anne must have known. It is the kind of grace that will stand out, if your child nev­er sins. If your child nev­er once talks back to you, it is a good bet you will notice. If your child is nev­er dis­obe­di­ent, if your child nev­er has to be cor­rect­ed, if your child in short behaves in a way no child or per­son has ever behaved, you will be aware. How they must have mar­veled at their daugh­ter, and won­dered at the pur­pos­es of God. I do not know whether Mary’s par­ents may have sus­pect­ed that some­thing relat­ed to the promised Mes­si­ah was the cause of her immac­u­late con­cep­tion.

Read more

Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome IV: A counterblast to Rush Limbaugh on Evangelii Gaudium 54.

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

 

Now, what Mr. Lim­baugh had to say was long, so I’m going to be tak­ing out the key parts of it and giv­ing my own run­ning response. But as you will see, it’s sad — because he makes it very clear that he does not grasp Catholic social teach­ing. Nor (appar­ent­ly) did he read the pope’s words in their orig­i­nal con­text. In fact, he does not seem to have read them at all. At the bot­tom of the tran­script, he cites a sin­gle arti­cle from The Wash­ing­ton Post. So this was all very thor­ough show prep on Mr. Limbaugh’s part. His stack of stuff has grown small.

Read more

The hour for watching, for salvation is nearer.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • December 3, 2013 • Liturgical Year

 

Sacred Scrip­ture is full of ref­er­ences to the dis­ci­pline of “watch­ing”: “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watch­ing dai­ly at my gates, wait­ing at the posts of my doors” (Prov. 8:34); “What I say unto you, I say unto all: Watch” (Mark 13:37); “Blessed are those ser­vants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watch­ing” (Luke 12:37); “But in all things approv­ing our­selves as the min­is­ters of God, in much patience, in afflic­tions, in neces­si­ties, in dis­tress­es, in stripes, in impris­on­ments, in tumults, in labours, in watch­ings, in fast­ings” (2 Cor. 6:4 – 5). “Watch with all per­se­ver­ance” (Eph. 6:18).

Read more

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.

Read more