Knew that there was something special about Brail's...

While I've never dined there myself, have heard good reports from co-workers and clients about the staff's friendliness and cheerfulness in being accommodating; Professor Jacobson notes a license plate observed there this morning.

If the Church proves able to repel the Obama administration's...

Current assault on her liberties and the natural rights of believers, then the next step ought to be to proceed to eliminate the similar regimes that have already been imposed by several (I don't pay enough attention but the number is five or eight or three, depending on the definitions used, I gather) of the states.  For the day, though, Robert Miller's praise of the Bishops (at First Things) is warranted, Professor Paul Rahe's observations notwithstanding.

Update on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 13:22 by Marc

And of course there is the larger question: how can the Catholics of the UK (and presumably the great majority of the European countries), how can their bishops, conscientiously accept that their governments already do what Mr Obama and his people want the US federal government to do? good heavens, those poor people actually directly pay for abortions (Father Finnegan, Father Blake).

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit...

Has made California's constitutional provision for marriage illegal; my supposition would have been that now the full Appeals Court will judge the issues involved but evidently Proposition 8's supporters can take the matter directly to the Supreme Court, which will, an intermediate appeals process or not, prove the final arbiter of the matter.

Update on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 18:43 by Marc

Professor Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy is not persuaded by the judicial rationale in Perry v Brown.

Such a beautiful day...

Here in Eugene. Have been out and about, errand-doing and coffee-drinking et cetera. It's a challenge, squaring my safe and pleasant enough-- if often tedious-- routine with the conflagration that goes on in the wide world, and while I certainly can do my part, inter alia, by the practice of religion, prayer, almsgiving and all of it, it continues to be doubtful, ahem, whether much posting here is a constructive use of my limited leisure. But am sure the itch to scribble away will recur sooner or later. Thanks to those who've written wondering if I'd vanished.

After this week's appalling HHS decision, Mr Obama has the gall...

To "call for a return to American values" in his 'state of the Union' address Tuesday to a joint session of the Congress, according to the Post's David Nakamura. There is a selection of links here; at Mirror of Justice, P Robert Araujo SJ posted on the Roman Pontiff's allocution to the US bishops on the defense of religious freedom on Thursday.

The Most Holy Father:

... At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.

For her part, the Church in the United States is called, in season and out of season, to proclaim a Gospel which not only proposes unchanging moral truths but proposes them precisely as the key to human happiness and social prospering (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 10). To the extent that some current cultural trends contain elements that would curtail the proclamation of these truths, whether constricting it within the limits of a merely scientific rationality, or suppressing it in the name of political power or majority rule, they represent a threat not just to Christian faith, but also to humanity itself and to the deepest truth about our being and ultimate vocation, our relationship to God. When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth, it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey, as the late Pope John Paul II so clearly saw, to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society.

With her long tradition of respect for the right relationship between faith and reason, the Church has a critical role to play in countering cultural currents which, on the basis of an extreme individualism, seek to promote notions of freedom detached from moral truth. Our tradition does not speak from blind faith, but from a rational perspective which links our commitment to building an authentically just, humane and prosperous society to our ultimate assurance that the cosmos is possessed of an inner logic accessible to human reasoning. The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a “language” which enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being, and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral teaching as a message not of constraint but of liberation, and as the basis for building a secure future.

The Church’s witness, then, is of its nature public: she seeks to convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation.

In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society....

Update on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 13:11 by Marc

Carl Olson at Ignatius Press's blog makes an interesting observation about Cardinal-elect Mons Timothy Dolan of New York:

... But recall that it was only a three months ago that Abp. Dolan had said, after meeting with Pres. Obama, that he felt "a bit more at peace [about religious liberty] than when I entered" and that he believed the president to be "very open to the sensitivities" of Catholics about religious liberty. But before anyone criticizes the Archbishop for being played by the POTUS, ask yourself, "Who hasn't he played?" The list is short....

And-- Sunday morning after Mass-- an additional raft of links, again from the Pulpit.

The first snowfall of the year...

Commenced five minutes ago. Brilliant sun in the forenoon, however, for the trek to and from Mass; while this snow has been predicted for a few days-- for today and tomorrow, even--  the temperature at walking level is such that I doubt that there'll be any remaining Tuesday morning, when the workplace will again beckon.

Did I miss the Times's look at Catholic 'theological unease'...

With the LDS? it's entirely possible. Laurie Goodstein's article on evangelical Protestants and the Mormons is here; I particularly enjoyed this quotation:

"That’s just not Christian," said the Rev. Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary, a liberal Protestant seminary in New York City. "God and Jesus are not separate physical beings. That would be anathema. At the end of the day, all the other stuff doesn’t matter except the divinity of Jesus.

Dr Jones would do many nominally Catholic faculties proud.

Update on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 17:59 by Marc

But Terry Mattingly at GetReglion isn't as dismissive as I was. 

Now Mons Bambera will appeal the matter to the Holy See?

The Jesuits at Scranton University have rejected the local ordinary's request that they retract their speaking invitation to a pro-abortion former politician, who will address some of the university community about some nonsense.

Nothing surprising, alas, in any of this; I wonder, however, what the bishop can do now?

I myself would inform the local superiors of the Society that I was prepared to remove their institution's right to the Catholic name, if only as an act of evangelical rhetoric. I imagine that if a sufficient number of bishops did this, then the Holy See might be persuaded to discipline the Society, which, for all the holiness of some of, of many of, its contemporary members, does permit such arrant nonsense, inimical to the Faith, to be spouted from its cathedrae.

Two new minutes of Brahms on the BBC...

On the 21st; to be performed by Andras Schiff, the opusculum was discovered by Christopher Hogwood at Princeton. That being next Saturday, I may get to listen....

Update on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 12:15 by Marc

Of course I forgot about the Brahms; the BBC 3 page for the Music Matters program is here (and there is a link there to the Albumblatt only). Which latter link doesn't work 'in my area'. Why it doesn't but the one to the entire program does, who knows.

Update on Friday, February 10, 2012 at 20:50 by Marc

I stopped following Damian Thompson on Twitter because I had had enough of his patronising malicious gossip about Opus Dei, but didn't go so far as to stop reading the Saturday Telegraph articles; no surprise this evening, then, to see his gratuitous jibe at Mr Santorum-- it was in DC that I formed my own, quite contrary judgments about the Work-- but did appreciate his reporting about what was evidently the actual premiere of the little Brahms Albumblatt, in Seattle last year... not on the BBC.

Am going to man up...

And do the long-needed pruning of the Twitter account this weekend. Am become bored with or bothered by so much Catholic gossip, among other concerns; too much of that sort of nonsense-- without the thin veneer of 'Catholic' interest-- at the workplace.

Update on Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 9:54 by Marc

And I did it, too, ha.  Not easy, either, whether because my laptop's processing speed isn't that great and delays inevitably occur also elsewhere, or because Twitter has designed itself so, I don't know. Facebook gets its attention next weekend....

The Press Office is certainly earning its keep; I don't recall a communique...

Being issued before any other dicasterial notes but of course I may not pay attention as closely as I like to think I do; the text in English is here.

Update on Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 7:36 by Marc

Yes, yes; the English version is here. One reads 'between the lines' and all sorts of vistas open up, involving the exercise of the sovereign power of the Roman Pontiff and the apostolic authority of the excellentissmi reverendissimi domini in the matter of teaching in Catholic schools and the celebration of the sacred Liturgy in parish churches and the removal of the name Catholic from various heterodox institutes and organisations et cetera; I will be enthused when I see these and similar things... happen.

This CPR training video is much more amusing than...

The last one we watched at work; I think we're still 'kissing' although the trainer did mention that the practice of that exercise in frustration was 'under review' by the authorities. Thanks to Mulier Fortis.

On the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God...

What is the most ancient Marian prayer for which there is historical record, the Sub tuum praesidium; the oldest papyrus recording it being from the 2nd c.

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus,
Sancta Dei Genitrix.
Nostras deprecationes ne despicias
in necessitatibus nostris,
sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper,
Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

Anton Bruckner's Te Deum is become...

One of my favorite versions.

Te Deum laudamus, Te Dominum confitemur...

Te Deum laudamus:
te Dominum confitemur.
Te aeternum Patrem
omnis terra veneratur.
Tibi omnes Angeli;
tibi caeli et universae Potestates;
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim
incessabili voce proclamant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra
maiestatis gloriae tuae.
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
Te per orbem terrarum
sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Patrem immensae maiestatis:
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem,
non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo,
aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Iudex crederis esse venturus.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni:
quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.

  Salvum fac populum tuum,
Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
Per singulos dies benedicimus te;
Et laudamus Nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
Miserere nostri Domine, miserere nostri.
Fiat misericordia tua,
Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
In te, Domine, speravi:
non confundar in aeternum.

Twitter is malfunctioning...

Today; there surely is a comment on A D 2011 therein, somehow.

Update on Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 11:45 by Marc

Quite how the post is timestamped at 1603 when I 'published' it from the mobile while I was downtown doing the laundry, before 1030, am not sure. The vagaries of the ethers, I guess.

"Man has ceased to be the slave of time that passes to no avail"...

From the Roman Pontiff's homily at the celebration of First Vespers for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God and the Te Deum in St Peter's Basilica:

... Another year is drawing to a close, as we await the start of a new one: with some trepidation, with our perennial desires and expectations. Reflecting on our life experience, we are continually astonished by how ultimately short and ephemeral life is. So we often find ourselves asking: what meaning can we give to our days? What meaning, in particular, can we give to the days of toil and grief? This is a question that permeates history, indeed it runs through the heart of every generation and every individual. But there is an answer: it is written on the face of a Child who was born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, and is today the Living One, risen for ever from the dead. From within the fabric of humanity, rent asunder by so much injustice, wickedness and violence, there bursts forth in an unforeseen way the joyful and liberating novelty of Christ our Saviour, who leads us to contemplate the goodness and tenderness of God through the mystery of his Incarnation and Birth....

Some of the occupiers have been waving the bloody red flag...

By 'terrorising and intimidating' one of the City Councillors who has been most adamantly opposed to the Occupation. Said acts of terrorism are so far nothing more than being outside Mr Poling's residence being obnoxious at night ("standing shoulder to shoulder"-- is the reporter describing the actual choreography of the comrades, or is he repeating their rhetoric, I wonder); while of course one cannot discount the possibility that some of the comrades are capable of violence, I suspect that this sort of nuisance is as terrifying! and intimidating! as it's going to get. Of course the comrade guardians (is that the term I settled on? or was it 'comrade coordinators'?) have invented for themselves an organisation that is designed to allow them to deny any 'official' involvement on Occupy Eugene's part. The video infra is of the Christmas 'event'; I want to see the more recent one but am not spending more time looking for it....

Am listening to a recording of Handel's Solomon...

Sung by Julian Podger, the Maulbronn Chamber Choir and the Hanoverian Court Orchestra et alii-- it is a rather odd sounding performance, to my ears; not quite sure why. Am only just begun. Solomon's first 'accompagnato' (how that is different from an 'air', I'm ignorant; there appears to be one other in the work, also Solomon's):

Almighty pow'r, who rul'st the earth and skies,
And bade gay order from confusion rise;
Whose gracious hand reliev'd Thy slave distress'd,
With splendour cloath'd me, and with knowledge bless'd;
Thy finish'd temple with Thy presence grace,
And shed Thy heav'nly glories o'er the place.

I don't think that that second phrase has ever caught my ear before. Surely there is a book title there, for someone. How impoverished our language is become!

There was no 'mass confusion' on account of the new version of the Roman Missal...

Anywhere at Christmas, not in Piqua, not in Eugene, Kansas City, or anywhere; Father Martin Fox's splendid denunciation of the maliciousness of the National Catholic Reporter is well worth reading.