My Casa Is Not Necessarily Your Casa

It's with regret that I say I've come to a similar conclusion as Fr. Bryce Sibley's A Saintly Salmagundi that a fellow named "Don" won't (hopefully) be commenting here on the Dossier any more. Looking over his comments, which had nothing to do with the subject at hand, nor anything to do with reasonably engaging another mind in conversation, I just don't feel like putting up with his habit of relentlessly crowding four, five, six, or more diatribes into the comment boxes on my blogs. If this were a message board it would be different, but this isn't a message board. Sorry, Don, but your right to free speech doesn't extend to my internet living room. You've got your own website on which to display your monomania and, just to show there's no hard feelings or hostility to freedom of speech (on one's own nickel, of course), here's the link (courtesy of Saintly Salmagundi) for anyone who's interested: Donny Cavazos' Website.

A Common-Sense Holocaust

Courtesy of Rerum Novarum we read: "Saying "life begins with the mother's decision," the retired general [Wesley Clark] told the Manchester Union Leader he would never, as president, appoint a pro-life judge." Since Herr General's statement is true, one might be tempted to think that it's beneficent and unarguable. I mean, you really can't deny it -- human life does begin with the mother's decision. For voters who can't think past sound bites and slogans, the Feldmarshall's apparent common sense might make him an attractive Kanzellor President. Unfortunately, however, things get scarily interesting when we start examining the different views of when and how "the mother's decision" gets made

Suppose a mother decides the child is human during the second month of her pregnancy. According to Herr General that makes the child human. But suppose that she decides to change her mind during the third month of her pregnancy. Now, also according to Herr General, that means the child is no longer human. The only time at which the pro-abortion St rmabteilung will allow the humanity of an unborn child to be a fact (as opposed to an open choice) is the time after which the political order has forbidden the mother to have an abortion. So, for them a being must be respected as human only if the mother chooses to regard it as human and, secondarily, only when the political order chooses to accord it the human right to life. Achtung! General Clark has just earned his jeweled baton, and all the young ladies who're thrilled by his belief in their power just earned Bund Deutscher Maedel aprons! Don't worry, that doesn't mean we have to be "anti-family". We can always award Mutterkreuzen to women who've chosen to make their babies human. But we must keep saying, over and over again, that it can't happen here. And of course it can't, because "it" can only happen to the Jews and, well, we've chosen to regard them as human. For now, anyway.

One of the great ironies of the abortion Holocaust is how the Sturmabteilung has managed to successfully tag Christians with the "Nazi" label. When we point out that "the mother's decision" to bring human life into existence is made when she has sex with a man, and demand that the result of her decision be respected by law as a human being, we're accused of destroying freedom just like the Nazis destroyed it. They say we're turning women into brood mares, just like the Nazis did. They overlook a tiny difference. We oppose abortion because it ends a human life, and we believe this because God has told us so. Yes, the Nazis appealed to God, but their idea of God was a metaphor for themselves -- they referred to God when they meant their own ability to choose who was human and who was not. Our God will not allow that. Our God demands that we respect unborn children as human persons whether or not they're Jews -- or the "product" of rape and incest. You know we're guilty when we contradict what our God tells us. It's a funny thing, how difficult the world finds judging the German people's guilt for the Holocaust but how easy the world finds judging a German Christian's guilt.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "We cannot profit by the fruitless modern pretense that the question of religious sanction for law is whether the laws will serve God. The question is, was and always will be: Which god will the laws serve?" Herr General and those who follow him are idolators. "Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community -- however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things -- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds. Mit Brennender Sorge, ¶ 8 (1937). May God have mercy on us if we elect Wesley Clark.

Tim Enloe Makes My Head Hurt Again

Tim asks: I have a question for non-polemically driven (i.e., non-apologist) Roman Catholics (especially Shawn M. and SecretAgentMan!!!): His words in blue, mine in black.

Years ago some Catholics told me that it was historically demonstrable that "every heresy involves a magnification of one particular point of doctrine out of proportion to all the rest."

I think that's a good point about heresy, although I don't know what the fellow meant by "historically demonstrable." The Catholics with whom you (regrettably) seem to spend most of your time employ history the way your solo scriptura Protestants employ the Bible. Sometime I hope to have a discussion about whose perspective is producing that phenomenon. :)

Well, if that's a true maxim, then doesn't it hit the target those Catholics were aiming at -- the ultra-rigid Reformed understanding of the Gospel -- and the entire Roman Catholic concept of the Papacy?

You mean the entire concept of the Papacy? Everything -- from priest as alter Christus through conferral of the pallium to the independence of the papal states right up to infallibility and universal jurisdiction? I can't see how, but say on . . . .

That is, RCs appear to magnify their peculiar doctrine of the Papacy out of all proportion to everything else.

Over at your blog a fellow named Puritan Divine commented, "what they really mean (and the ‘They' could apply to either the R[oman] C[atholic]'s or the Reformed's you've been talking about) is: ‘[E]very heresy involves a magnification of one particular point of doctrine out of proportion to all the rest as long as you aren't talking about our system of doctrine, which is already flawless.'" I quarrel with his use of the word "flawless," inasmuch as I find the "rule of disproportion" valuable and since I don't think it requires me to say that Catholic doctrine is "flawless" by any possible standard. I do have to say it's flawless by some standard, but not by any possible standard. The qualification is especially neccessary, I think, once one realizes that "system of doctrine" refers not only to dogmatic propositions but also to a host of collateral areas such as (a) theological estimates of a dogma's impact on other, as yet unsettled, issues, (b) the praxis of catechesis or homiletics, etc.

That having been said, I think Puritan Divine's put his finger on an important issue. To identify heresy according to some characteristic disproportion (as opposed, for example, to the much-simpler method of referring to an authoritative condemnation of the proposition in question) one has to have a thorough understanding of the dogmatic system that forms the exemplar by which "proportion" can be gaged. That's hard enough when addressing fellow communicants; witness the internal (and interminable) debates between Sedevacantists, Traditionalists, "Liberal" Catholics, "Conservative" Catholics, etc. But when someone tries to take the "rule of disporportion" and apply it across confessional lines -- especially as part of an apologetic that tries to demonstrate the errors of another confession -- the rule becomes so excruciatingly difficult to apply that most attempts result in verbal hurricanes of incomprehensibility.

So when you say that "RCs appear to magnify their peculiar doctrine of the Papacy out of all proportion to everything else," you're speaking across confessional lines and I'm entitled to ask "what's everything else?" Does it include the "sola's" rejection of a discrete mediating and magisterial priesthood within the Body of Christ? If it does, then of course one can say that "the Papacy is being magnified out of proportion to everything else." But if "everything else" includes a discrete mediating and magisterial priesthood . . . . you see the problem. Whose idea of "everything else" do we start with? That's one of the reasons I keep saying that the differences between Catholics and Protestants are fundamental, which makes those differences more, not less, difficult to understand. It's not as though we're debating whether priests should be allowed to say the Novus Ordo in Latin. That kind of dispute can be (relatively) easily resolved on a theological level according to existing mutual commitments to identical principles. (The political level is another matter, as it always is). When Catholics and Protestants discuss Christianity, they're pitting so many inconsistent theological/philosophical/cultural "sub-systems" against one another that most of the conversation tends to be rash and dominated by mutual caricatures.

Doesn't this condemn them by the terms of that slogan? I mean, when I have some Catholics tell me that if they were to find out that the present RC concept of the Papacy's nature and role in the Church was not true, they might have to abandon Christianity altogether and become agnostics, am I supposed to believe that Catholics have all this really wonderful perspective on Christianity that Protestants don't have?

Tim, one of the problems here is trying to employ informal apologetics discussions like ours (discussions which are already plagued by the problems noted above) as though they were high-value theological and historical exchanges that satisfy the need to study another confession as a prerequisite to identifying its errors. Not having participated in your discussion with those Catholics, I have no idea what they meant. They might have meant that they value the papacy so greatly that if it were thrown down they'd leave Jesus behind in the wreckage. That's disproportionate, but having identified the disproportion, can we conclude without more that it's inherent to Catholicism rather than a manifestation of a particular flaw in those Catholics' understanding of the universe? Even if we take disproportion as a sure mark of heresy, we're still left with the question of whether a given disproportion proves that the individual is a heretic or that his (ostensible) confession is a heresy. Shawn at Rerum Novarum alludes to this when he writes: "There is quite the possibility that the Catholic doctrine of the papacy -- emphasized apart from coordinating doctrines -- can lead to heretical outlooks. In fact, I *know* it can so I will not merely note that it is possible.

I think it's likely that those Catholics meant something very similar to what I heard from a Protestant over on Gary Hoge's board. If I remember correctly, she said that if sola scriptura were proven false, so many things she's learned about Jesus would be called into question that she could no longer be sure about the truth of anything. Now I don't think that lady made an idol out of the Bible, or that she inflated the Bible beyond all reasonable proportion. I think she was using sola scriptura as a shorthand term for a kind of "Christian gestalt," a commitment and an experience which can't be summed up by a distinctive, but which can nonetheless be identified by means of a distinctive. It's quite possible that the Catholics with whom you were speaking used the papacy (which is, so far as I'm concerned, the Mother of All Distinctives) in that fashion. That "human factor" is another pitfall in using apologetic debates as though they were a source of calmly- and systematically-presented theology.

I have about ten unfinished posts to you. One of them involves a comment you made awhile back to the effect that Catholics are always going on and on like dentists' drills about how "interconnected" and "organic" all of our theology is when, in fact, that's not really the case at all because our theology obviously contains a lot of discrete distinctives jumbled atop each other without any necessary pattern. Among the many half-finished things I had to say was that this is far too rash if only because the natural tendency of the human mind is to impose order on chaos. If a system of theology lacks an intrinsic integrity then, so long as the willed commitment to uphold it remains, people will damn well make it have integrity, and people are pretty good at doing that. Just ask Steve Ray about William Webster, or William Webster about Steve Ray -- they'll unanimously agree that people are good at forcing theological propositions into semblances of integrity and organic unity that can be so difficult to deconstruct that one must often refuse to debate the appearance on its own terms and instead demonstrate how much mendacity was involved in creating the appearance. No one's got time tonight to hear (or write) a Grand Explanation of How the Papacy Fits Into It All (or, as Tim would have it, How It All Fits Into the Papacy), but this is worth going into because this basic, natural human tendency strongly argues for reading a claimed necessity of believing in distinctives like sola scriptura or the triple tiara as shorthand for a real necessity of believing lots of other things as well.

Talk all day long about how it's the Papacy that guarantees all the important doctrines don't get messed up, but how is this any different from a radical SOLO Scriptura Protestant who convinces himself that there is no Church at all in the absence of exquisitely defined propositional understandings of justification and the ordo salutis?

I think Shawn's reply suggests one difference -- namely that submission to the papacy involves simultaneous participation in independent theological and human realities which persist in time, whereas the solo scriptura Protestant's conception is disconnected (on its own terms, no less) from the stream of human experience. At least the Catholic can get jerked around by someone else, which (as any married person will tell you) can be a traumatically-beneficial experience, whereas the solo-scriptura Protestant is a Church of One -- he needn't act until he satisfies himself about the necessity of action. I think the questions you might really want to ask are: How is the Pope's understanding of Catholicism different from a solo scriptura Protestant's -- and if it isn't any different, and if Catholics have to do what the Pope says (gross oversimplification on my part) why aren't all Catholics effectively solo scriptura Protestants on the Pope's example? And here I realize the need to finish the last installment of Orestes Brownson and Homosexual Bishops which directly addresses that question.

Returning from a Vanity-Driven Google Search . . . .

I feel obliged to point out that I am not the "SecretAgentMan" who posts on the "We Will Beat Bush" website. Nor do I have anything to do with the "SecretAgentMan" game based on the DaVinci Code.

I am, however, happy to say that I've made it, since I've been mentioned by Irish Elk -- and on a "manly" subject, no less!

Pastoral Failures Regarding Homosexuals? Undoubtedly, But Whose Failures?

Recently, the National Catholic Reporter told us about a number of priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago who penned a letter of "protest" about the Church's teaching on homosexuality. The Reporter's story can be found here, and the text of the letter can be found here. I've also quoted the letter below in blue, and responded to it in black. The letter does a very good job -- albeit unintentionally -- of pointing out where the problems lie in presenting the Gospel to homosexuals.

"As Catholic pastors, we have become increasingly disturbed by the tone and, in some cases, content of documents and statements from the Vatican, bishops' conferences and individual bishops on issues categorized under the heading of "homosexual" or "gay/lesbian." We respect the teaching authority of the Church. Because of this, we find particularly troubling the increase in the use of violent and abusive language directed at any human person. Such language is inappropriate. This is especially so when addressing members of the community of the faithful. These divisive and exclusionary statements from the Church are contrary to sound pastoral practice.""

Well, that depends on the objectives of pastoral practice. I certainly think the language of the Church regarding homosexuality is contrary to some possible objectives, but not to all of them. Unfortunately, it will be seen that the fathers' letter leaves us very confused about their pastoral objectives.

"The life journey in faith is unique and sacred, including the personal integration of sexuality and spirituality. Condemnations leveled at sincere Catholics attempting to make sense out of their journey are inappropriate and pastorally destructive.""

The validity of this observation depends on the approach to integrating sexuality and spirituality being considered. If one believes that his sexuality must be conformed to a divine revelation, he will propose different terms for this "integration" than if he believes divine revelation has already been given in the form of his sexual preferences. There are, for example, any number of sincere people who deny that lifelong monogamy is part of human "nature," and they can deny it quite plausibly using evidence produced by every relevant area of social study. But if suppose we examined all this this evidence in the context of the Fall and Redemption of man; the sincere case for "natural" promiscuity becomes not only less persuasive, but actually irrelevant to our decisions about what marriage is. When marriage is viewed in that light the Church, when she points out the realities of man's fallen nature and describes repentance and grace as the necessary conditions of marriage, is the only voice in the dialogue that actually makes sense about man's journey toward sexual and spiritual fidelity.

I agree that the Church's clergy would be faltering in their mission if they confined their teaching on homosexuality (or human sexuality in general) to narrow legal categories of licit and illicit acts without any further exploration of and ministry to the human condition. But even in these deeper and more nuanced discussions we can't escape the fact that some human paradigms and sentiments -- however sincerely held -- are unable to sustain a harmonious friendship between man and God. The priests' letter, however, is ambiguous because they don't seem to understand this fact. They entirely fail to acknowledge that sound pastoral guidance rooted in the Church's teachings will inevitably condemn some sincerely-held and contradictory beliefs, and that one can perfer the Church's teaching over the views of dissenters for reasons that have nothing to do with bigotry.

The fathers' ambiguity is even more disturbing when one notices their implicit assumption that all homosexuals address Church teaching in the same way. From the letter's viewpoint there are no actual human differences among prelates, priests, or parishioners. They can all be neatly separated into two groups, "the hierarchy" which says such-and-so about homosexuals and "homosexual brothers and sisters" who all predictably and identically react the same way to what the hierarchy says. It's astounding to see the degree of ideologized naivete required for this dichotomy present among men who have spent decades in the rough-and-tumble of parish life. Does anyone know Catholics who can be so neatly sorted? Someone might think he does, but if so let him say the word "sinful" in connection with the death penalty or progressive taxation, or ask another Catholic whether he can (or should) vote Republican or Democrat. He will soon find out that the uniformity of Catholicism has a very odd way of producing an almost infinite variety of human responses. Even what follows isn't a comprehensive description of Catholic responses to Church sexual teaching; but it's enough to point out that the fathers have some very straight-jacketed views of the Church and their flocks.

There are homosexuals (and heterosexuals) who accept -- and even love -- the Church's teaching on sexuality, however burdensome and sorrowful it must be for them in this life. These men and women unite themselves to Jesus Christ in a special way, for He too knew burdens, lonliness, and sorrow. What our country, awash in sexual depravity, has gained in God's mercy as a result of these men and women's fidelity is likely beyond description this side of the Last Judgment. There are also homosexuals who (like many Catholic laymen) suffer from varying degrees of ignorance, confusion, or rebellion over teaching which they abstractly know must be accepted but which they still can't always (or even largely) make into a solid framework for their lives. There are also men and women in the Church who, regardless of their sexual orientations, have absolutely no interest whatsoever in conforming their sexual/romantic lives to the Church's teaching, and who instead brashly demand that the Church "integrate" herself into their sexuality and spirituality by contradicting her own treasure of divine revelation. They demand a specific contradiction in which the Church abandons God's revelation about the unhappiness of a sexuality lived without reference to His law, and therefore, without the benefit of His grace. Even more dangerously, they demand general contradiction which substitutes man's present, fallen condition for God's revelation in the order of priorities which should govern Christian thought about sexual morality.

Knowledge of these very human experiences doesn't appear in the fathers' letter, which instead gives us a trite and stereotypical division of Catholic humanity into an imaginary power group and its constituency of fungible homosexual units. Authentic pastoral concern cannot be realized in such a myopic and ideologized framework. Authentic pastoral action must find ways to affirm saints in their fidelity, encourage strugglers and doubters to persevere, and provide a clear diagnosis of spiritual ills and an unambiguous direction to the rebellious. None of that can be done effectively without "condemning" some things in some ways that have specific, meaningful consequences for the lives of Catholics.

The letter's inability, one might even say studied unwillingness, to address these facts causes some justified sense of skepticism about the pastoral abilities of the priests who composed and signed it. One wonders if they're not unintentionally operating as "managerial" priests, mid-level ombudsmen whose function is to smooth over any perceived conflict between an organization's priorities and a constituency's perceptions of ill-service. Ombudsmen always risk straddling their respective fences whenever that task means reducing unhappiness with a product that is, in fact, not what the consumer wants. Within that situation one can easily understand an urge to create a happy obfuscation, to ply the consumer with saccharine assurances of eventual satisfaction while upbraiding "corporate" for putting its foot wrong by making inopportune and counterproductive statements.

Seen in that perpsective, the priests' ambiguity makes a kind of sense, although it would also mean they're willing to entertain the appearance of schism if not its actual existence. It would also mean that the fathers see themselves as "triangulators," men whose positions and actions are not grounded in a fixed internal sense of orthodoxy but instead merely react to external factional pressures which have to be constantly juggled and cajoled in order to "keep the lid on." One need only imagine an actual shepherd dealing with his sheep in this fashion to become very concerned about the quality of "pastoral guidance" which these priests are providing and equally cautious about accepting their criticisms of their fellow (and superior) shepherds.

"As priests and pastors we are speaking out to make clear that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are all members of God's family, brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus and deserving of the same dignity and respect owed any human being. Recognition of the inalienable dignity of the human person is the only path toward justice and reconciliation. We affirm the goodness of all homosexual persons."

But this isn't entirely true. Human dignity and the concomitant obligation of personal respect aren't man's property; they are God's gifts to mankind, freely imparted in His act of creation and Redemption: "The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God; it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude."[1] The Church steadfastly refuses to make human dignity and respect contingent on the will of men; that's why she condemns (and can condemn) racism, abortion, and the entire Culture of Death -- all those evils depend on making human dignity the outcome of political judgments and social conventions rather than what it should be, the foundation of those judgments and conventions.

We must respect human dignity as a irreducible gift God has entrusted to man's stewardship just as He's entrusted all His other gifts to us. Fundamentally and properly understood, respecting human dignity is not a "right" men assert against one another. It is a continual obligation men owe to the eternal God who has created human dignity in us and enjoined us to respect one another because we respect Him. So did Jesus Christ identify a link between the commandment that we love God with our entire persons and that we love one another as we love ourselves: by recognizing and honoring the expression of God's divine love in ourselves and our neighbors, we recognize and honor God Himself and thus move closer to the purpose of human life and the true source of human happiness.[2]

A continual obligation to God means a continual obligation to do what God wills. One can't do God's will by endorsing or accepting things that are contrary to His will, His call to human happiness in the divine beatitude. Doing that in the name of "respecting human dignity" divides God against Himself. It means accepting some of His gifts while rejecting other things He has given us so that all our gifts might be enjoyed and brought to fruition in Him. Our ability to think (in whatever degree) must be respected as a part of our God-given dignity, but God didn't give us intelligence so that we could seduce each others' spouses or devise the perfect murder. Elevating the idea of "human dignity" above the God-given conditions in which that dignity is realized transforms Christ's commandment to love one another into accepting and approving of human choices without asking about their conformity to His will. That doesn't just try to make God into a non-entity. It tries to make Him a conspirator and accomplice in every crime we might commit.

So when the fathers say, "[w]e affirm the goodness of all homosexual persons," they're encouraging a very dangerous obscurity in our contemplation of homosexuality. If the fathers mean to affirm the goodness of homosexual persons as bearers of the imago Dei, heirs to the kingdom of Christ, that's well and good. We should affirm the goodness of every human person because each of us (however sinful) bears the image of God and the hope (however remote) of divine beatitude.

But if the fathers meant to say that, they shouldn't be so angry about the Church's calling a homosexual orientation intrinsically disordered in relation to God's will, or homosexual acts intrinsically immoral because they are against God's will. We can't divide God against Himself, accepting some of His gifts (like the imago Dei in homosexual persons) while rejecting other things He has given us (like His teaching about our sexuality). By suggesting that the Church must affirm the goodness of homosexual persons and not use pejorative (or even ugly) words to describe what they may choose to do, the fathers are implicitly elevating the dignity of homosexual persons above the God-given moral conditions in which that dignity has to be realized.

No one with an authentic pastoral concern for the growth of homosexual persons in the Catholic faith can let the need to affirm the dignity of human persons become a commandment to regard what a homosexual person may do, say, or believe as inconsequential, unobjectionable, or irresistible. The Church has to talk about the morality and immorality involved with homosexuality for the same reason the Church has to talk about the morality and immorality involved with all of our choices -- our human freedom means nothing unless we use it to come away from evil and draw closer to God.

"We root ourselves in the U.S. Bishops' statement "Always Our Children." Additionally, we re-affirm the understanding of the goodness of the human person as put forth throughout the papacy of Pope John Paul II. Further, we want to state clearly that ministering to and with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters is mutually beneficial, as is all ministerial activity. Pre-judging where any believer's journey will take them is inappropriate. Walking with them, as we do with our heterosexual brothers and sisters, is the appropriate Christian response."

This is well said, considered in and of itself. But the letter's ambiguities about the morality vel non of homosexuality continue to plague our understanding of what the fathers mean. When they say we should walk with our homosexual brothers and sisters "as we do with our heterosexual brothers and sisters," do thet mean that we can't make a distinction between homosexuals and heterosexuals in any case? I can heartily appreciate a truly-pastoral unwillingness to pursue the intricacies of scholasticism in order to find justification for imposing a harsher penance on a homosexual who has committed fornication than on a heterosexual who has committed adultery. Sin is sin. It is always wrong, always ugly, and always being committed somewhere, sometime, by someone; we have little reason for sorting our pew-seats among tacitly-identified cliques of righteous and unclean parishioners.

The fathers' anger at Church teaching about the wrongfulness which attends homosexuality is confusing; apparently, they think the "appropriate Christian response" of "walking with our homosexual brothers and sisters" means acting as though the place of heterosexuality in Church teaching can be interchangeably occupied by homosexuality, and this without the need for any special or additional moral commentary. The Catholic Church has never considered homosexuality something to be "walked with" as though it were an inconsequential variation on the pattern of Adam and Eve. If the "appropriate Christian response" is Church in which homosexuals are "walked with" no differently than (or "as though they were") heterosexuals, then Catholicism is not authentically Christian. If that's true, the fathers needn't have troubled to write so much: They could have announced their resignation from a ministry dedicated to an inauthentic realization of the Gospel in one sentence. The fathers' unwillingness to recognize this fact, and to make honest choices as a result, is disturbing. If they can't do that, how are their parishioners going to accept the truth and make honest choices about their sexual -- or confessional -- identity?

"In the recent past, individual bishops, bishops' conferences and the Vatican have assumed a tone of such violence and abusiveness toward these sons and daughters of the Church, we can no longer remain silent."

This is nothing but hyperbole. Still, if you have a point to make, hyperbole can help. I have no cause for complaint here.

" Has any other group of people within the Body of Christ been so assaulted and violated by such mean-spirited language?"

This is a classic example of a leading question: "Have you ever beaten your wife as badly as you beat her today?" Christian invective can get pretty fierce. One reads St. Peter referring to some people within the Body of Christ as "unlearned and unstable." [3] The Marcionites fell, at least by implication, under Polycarp's description of their founder as the "firstborn of Satan."[4] "The axe of the Gospel," wrote St. Jerome, "must therefore be now laid to the root of the barren tree, and both it and its fruitless foliage cast into the fire, so that Helvidius -- who has never learnt to speak -- may at length learn to hold his tongue."[5] The word anathema, used throughout Church history for groups which were (until then) within the Body of Christ, can be fairly described as "mean." That all points out the limits of the fathers' hyperbole: They beg careful questions such as whether language that can be called "mean" and "violent" can at the same time be appropriate, and even charitable.

It also highlights the continuing presence of the fathers' ambiguity about what homosexuals ought to expect from the Catholic Church. If one thinks human dignity means a right to a high regard of one's own goodness, any statement which suggests the presence of badness will be easily mistaken for "mean-spirited" sinfulness. Of course the fathers need not have violated the commandment against idolatry to create this ambiguity; the simple belief that homosexuality is intrinsically good would justify their sentiments, however incorrect that belief would be. But since neither idolatry nor sloppy presentations of Church teaching are sound pastoral practice, we again have to wonder about the source of the problems these priests' parishioners are experiencing.

"Examples from the most recent Vatican document show all too clearly the demonization of these children of God, referring to homosexuality as a "troubling moral and social phenomenon," "a serious depravity," "the spread of the phenomenon," "approval or legalization of evil," "grave detriment to the common good," "harmful to the proper development of human society," "intrinsically disordered." Does anyone consider this vile and toxic language invitational?"

We've seen that the fathers' letter maintains a studied ambiguity about whether homosexuality can be lived by the laity and "walked with" by the Church as though it were morally identical to heterosexuality. It's therefore extremely interesting to see that the fathers' sweeping and histrionic indictment of the magisterium is actually focused on just one Church statement -- the recent condemnation of "homosexual marriage" by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ("CDF") titled Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons (hereafter, "Considerations").[6] Given the content of Considerations, it's difficult to see why the fathers express so much outrage.

Catholic priests and bishops have been insisting (with varying degrees of charity) on the impossibility of homosexual marriages since before Eusebius of Caesarea preached in 319 A.D. that God had "forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men."[7] The constancy of this prohibition, merely repeated in Considerations, cannot have been a surprise to these priests; one wonders if, instead, Considerations hasn't come as a surprise to their (now angry) parishioners. Ombudsmen always take risks whenever they try to reduce unhappiness with something that is, in fact, not what the customer wants. Is this priestly rebuke of Considerations an attempt to ply dissatisfied parishioners with suggestions of eventual and satisfactory "change" while upbraiding "corporate" for putting its foot wrong by making inopportune and counterproductive statements? That the question can be plausibly asked indicates that these priests are not as conversant with arts of pastoral guidance as they suppose; true pastoral guidance leaves no doubt about its inspiration or its goals.

It's instructive to examine the terms taken from Considerations which the fathers say are "demonizing children of God" merely because they are attracted to their own sex:

" . . . troubling moral and social phenomenon . . .

Homosexuality is a troubling moral and social phenomenon -- even in those countries where it does not present significant legal issues. Considerations, ? 1

" . . . a serious depravity . . . intrinsically disordered . . ."

Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts "as a serious depravity . . . (cf. Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered". This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition. Id. ?4

"". . . the spread of the phenomenon . . . approval or legalization of evil . . ."

Faced with the fact of homosexual unions, civil authorities adopt different positions. At times they simply tolerate the phenomenon; at other times they advocate legal recognition of such unions . . . [or] favour giving homosexual unions legal equivalence to marriage properly so-called, along with the legal possibility of adopting children. . . . Where the government's policy is de facto tolerance and there is no explicit legal recognition of homosexual unions, it is necessary to distinguish carefully the various aspects of the problem. Moral conscience requires that, in every occasion, Christians give witness to the whole moral truth, which is contradicted both by approval of homosexual acts and unjust discrimination against homosexual persons. Therefore, discreet and prudent actions can be effective; these might involve: unmasking the way in which such tolerance might be exploited or used in the service of ideology; stating clearly the immoral nature of these unions; reminding the government of the need to contain the phenomenon within certain limits so as to safeguard public morality and, above all, to avoid exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality and marriage that would deprive them of their necessary defences and contribute to the spread of the phenomenon. Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil. Id., ? 5

"grave detriment to the common good"

If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible form of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good. Id., ? 8

"harmful to the proper development of human society"

Not even in a remote analogous sense do homosexual unions fulfil the purpose for which marriage and family deserve specific categorical recognition. On the contrary, there are good reasons for holding that such unions are harmful to the proper development of human society, especially if their impact on society were to increase. Id., ? 8

Of these five quotations, three aren't talking about "homosexuality" at all. While the fathers point to the CDF's use of the word "phenomenon" so as to strongly suggest the CDF is making a kind of grotesque analogy between homosexual persons and plague bacilli, they do so at the price of appearing moronic, if not deceitful. When one reads the CDF's references to "the phenomenon" in the context of paragraphs 5 and 8, one easily sees that they don't refer to "the phenomenon" of same-sex attraction but to the "phenomenon" of same-sex "marriages" which are either irregularly formed or regularized by the secular law. Only by tolerating confusion between what homosexual attractions and what can be done with respect to those attractions (a tactic which certain critics of the Church delight in using when and as it suits their purpose) can these passages even possibly be read as referring to every homosexual person.

More to the point, the word "phenomenon" is neutral. It's certainly more neutral than the terms of Biblical judgments about homosexuality. No doubt some of the fathers would argue this fact alone justifies their rebuke of the CDF. By using neutral language, they would say, the CDF has rendered homosexual persons into objects, denying their human dignity and legitimating a brutal disregard for their rights and souls. Very well, then we may ask them: If the magisterium is not to use pejorative terms like "depravity" or "disordered" in referring to same-sex attraction, and if the magisterium is not to use neutral terms like "phenomenon," when referring to it, what sort of word will do? Why, they must answer, favorable words like "commitment," "friendship," and -- (why not?) -- "love such as David had for Jonathan." The agenda would then be a little more clear -- the Church errs when it describes homosexuality (either the attraction or anything done in furtherance of it) on other than favorable terms. But even without that confirmation, the fathers' uproar over Considerations' language indicates that they either haven't sufficiently thought through the implications of what it means to "respect the teaching authority of the Church" or that we must think about what the fathers apparently mean by "respect" and "authority."

Unfortunately, it is we who must do the thinking; it is the word of God Himself which these priests have called "vile and toxic":

Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. Romans 1:26-27 (NAB).

**********

We know that the law is good, provided that one uses it as law, with the understanding that law is meant not for a righteous person but for the lawless and unruly, the godless and sinful, the unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the unchaste, practicing homosexuals, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching according to the glorious Gospel of the blessed Lord, with which I have been entrusted. 1 Tim. 1:8-10 (NAB).

**********

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Cor. 6:9 (NAB).

For this reason, the Catechism says that "homosexual attractions and acts" -- not homosexual persons -- "are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life."[8] Non-Catholics are free to conjure all sorts of variant bibilical interpretations, readings which allow not only what some imagine to be David's love for Jonathan but also the love any David can have for any Jonathan. Priests who claim to "respect the teaching authority of the Church" do not have this imaginative liberty. The fathers' description of Scripture and the Catechism as "vile" and "toxic" is either the product of an unstable judgment or a direct challenge to Christ Himself. Either prospect should inspire a good deal of caution about accepting these priests' judgments about what is and isn't "pastoral."

Considerations' remaining references are unobjectionable if one has accepted Jesus Christ as the divine teacher of mankind and the Holy Catholic Church as His divinely-appointed servant. If that's true, it follows that one must consider the legalization of homosexual marriage an "evil" in the same way one must consider our divorce laws' legalization of serial polygamy an "evil." For the same reason, one should hope to restrict the spread of attitudes which promote the foundation of human communities on homosexual relationships just as one would hope to retard the legal/social conventions by which children are prematurely and improperly sexualized via television and public education -- both "phenomena" are "grave detriments to the common good" and "harmful to the proper development of human society."

The fathers archly inquire if anyone would consider the language used by God, the Catechism, and the CDF to be "invitational." I certainly do. I find it odd that priests who are, as they themselves protest, concerned for the development of homosexual persons within the Catholic faith would somehow find the Church's "invitational" language obnoxious. The only reason I can see for their disgust is a belief that anything the Church says about homosexuality and homosexual actions should be taken as a complete description of a homosexual person's "being." The Church, of course, says otherwise:

"The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."[9]

*****

Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts "as a serious depravity["] . . . This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." . . . Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies "must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided". They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity.[10]

Why should anyone, let alone a priest, be offended by this language? It's what the Church says about everyone: "[H]uman nature . . . is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called 'concupiscence'."[11] Are we supposed to be "offended" by the notion that we have disordered inclinations? If so, it's small wonder that people almost killed Jesus a number of times before Calvary; his "invitational" message of a disordered humanity which must repent of its depravity and follow Him must have seemed unutterably "vile and toxic."

The fact is that God calls everyone -- God invites everyone -- to abandon our particular brands of disorder, shamefulness, perversity, and unholy lust so that we can receive life in the Kingdom. Only a frightened and arrogant glutton would insist that he can accept God's invitation without changing anything besides the teaching that says his fondest affections are actually disordered vices. But critics of Church teaching on homosexuality do precisely that whenever they insist, as the fathers have done, on ignoring Catholicism's distinction between a homosexual person, a homosexual attraction, and a decision to engage in homosexuality. The only reason anyone would want to ignore that merciful and wonderful distinction is if he believes that the celebration and fulfillment of a person's homosexual inclinations is such a divine and vital part of human life that the teaching of God's Church must be judged against it rather than the other way around.

"For many gay and lesbian Catholics, this most recent series of attacks has forced them, out of self-respect and self-love, to withdraw from active participation in the Church and question how they can remain members of a Church they experience as abusive."

The "abusiveness" of Church language about homosexuality is no more "abusive" than the Church's description of anyone else's intrinsically-disordered inclinations to evil. This rebuke is, therefore, a very odd one from priests who, one should expect, are dedicated to helping us triumph over our disordered inclinations rather than helping us cherish a particular species of disorder. Other than the managerialism mentioned above I can't think what might prompt a priest into such cosseting unless it's a very misplaced idea of Christian sympathy.

I remember when the Holy Father condemned lust in marriage. One didn't see many heterosexual married Catholics perceiving that as an "attack" and leaving the Church from self-respect and self-love. Granted, few people understand the Church's teaching on sex within marriage. But then few people (including, apparently, the priests who wrote this letter) have grappled seriously with the Church's teaching on homosexuality. Where one finds parallels with homosexuality, I think, is with people who are "forced" by "attacks" on the idea of dissolvable marriages to leave a Church they experience as "abusive" because self-respect and self-love require them to marry, divorce, remarry, divorce, etc. More poignant is the plight of people who hear the Church say that what they were originally told were valid marriages (often of long duration and sometimes accompanied by large families) were actually not valid marriages in contradiction of their own sincerest beliefs and desires. No doubt some of these people are simply angry over the Church's refusal to spite their partner by refusing him or her permission to marry another, but the varieties of human experience counsels that not all (or even many) of them become angry from such unworthy motives.

It's difficult to identify the point at which one should no longer be sympathetic with people in these situations; it must be especially difficult for priests whose hearts are rightly consumed with affection for their parishioners. But I think sympathy must end when people begin speaking and behaving as though the Church has no right to trammel upon -- or even destroy -- their temporal happiness. The entire concept of discipleship depends on abandoning one's rights to dictate the terms of one's own happiness. "If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26-27 (DRV). The Church calls men in this world to destroy many things which are delightful to them. She calls on industrialists to destroy unacceptable sources of wealth. She calls on governments to destroy intrinsically-evil means of power. She demands that artists forego opportunities and experiences which are as attractive as they are ultimately destructive of human dignity.

The Church does these things because she knows that industrialists, presidents, and artists -- like homosexuals, like all of us -- suffer from intrinsically-disordered orientations: "[H]uman nature . . . is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called 'concupiscence'."[12] Granted, homosexuals do not have the kind of temporal power enjoyed by industrialists and governments and so homosexuals are susceptible to Church discipline with a particular and disparate immediacy. That is one of the reasons some homosexuals clamor for the Church to recognize in them same kind of institutionalized power which she must recognize in states and industry. Still, the redemption of the human person through the teaching, prayer, and sacraments of Christ's own Body isn't contingent on the similar redemption of every other, or any other, group or person. "[H]e said to another: Follow me. And he said: Lord, suffer me first to go and to bury my father. And Jesus said to him: Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." Luke 9:61 (DRV).

We can't expect corporate industrialists to obey the Church and forego exploitative methods of making money if we claim for ourselves the right to disobediently dictate the terms of our own happiness. We can't demand that our governments heed the Church and stop inflicting the death penalty in ways that violate human dignity if we claim an independent right to decide the meaning and purpose of our lives. Sympathy must stop when war is, however tacitly, declared against the Church's ability to rule over us. For a Catholic, indulging fantasies about an individual's superior right to interpret and apply God's teaching about anything, most particularly about ourselves, is not discipleship. It's hypocrisy, and these priests are unintentionally making it into a virtue. By all means, let the Church be held to herself, and her leaders' actions also be measured by her rule. But once we take "self-love" and "self-respect" as things sufficient in themselves to justify rejection of Church teaching as "abusive," we've turned our backs on God altogether no matter how much we might pat Him on the head occasionally and trot Him out as a metaphor for our own choices.

"It is not possible to minister to and with the needs of our homosexual brothers and sisters with language of this tone as a foundation."

This is not a straightforward and reliable criticism about anything, because the fathers' criticisms can't be honestly understood as being confined to simple complaints about style and rhetoric: They themselves admit their criticisms are also directed at the "content" of Church teaching. If there is something about the "tone" of Church teaching on the evil of concupiscence manifested in homosexuality that can be changed while clearly and forcefully conveying the content of Church teaching, surely the fathers ought to be able to explain what that is. I doubt they can do so, and they themselves don't even try. If there's a way to tell someone that his most intense glimpse of human happiness is contrary to the goodness, beauty, and holiness of God without the risk that your message will be experienced as "toxic," "abusive," and "vile," no one's found it in 2,000 years. For that reason alone one ought to expect a little more moderation and a little less hysteria in the fathers' appreciation of how the CDF and God have handled the same dilemma.

Still, the fathers are probably right as to the impossibility of ministering to some, perhaps many, of their homosexual parishioners. "Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard; and who can hear it?" John 6:60 (DRV). It must be very difficult to minister to someone if your ministry requires standing for things that will be perceived -- however charitably or neutrally they are in reality -- as "toxic," "vile," and "abusive." Here are other burdens for these good priests to carry, for the Church has trammeled on what would otherwise be sources of their own happiness as pastors. Like the widow who wants to know if her husband is in Heaven, these priests' homosexual parishioners cannot be told what they most deeply (and understandably) desire to hear; they cannot be told things which any decent and compassionate priest would love to be able to tell them.

There is a cost to discipleship, intimately connected to the very purpose of discipleship -- to become something that is unexpected and, at times, distinctly uncomfortable. "If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." John 15:19 (DRV). No doubt a ministry to a corporate boardroom or the guest list at Playboy Mansion would be impossible given the "tone" of what the Church has to say about capitalism and sexual license. But a Church which has only positive and assuring words to say about capitalism and orgies wouldn't be worth following. It wouldn't be able to protect man from himself, a necessity which should also cause us to be wary of "affirming the goodness" of people without making any distinctions about how they can be good and how they can be bad.

"The Catholic Church is most catholic when it is inclusive and embracing, and least reflective of the gospel of Jesus when it is exclusive and rigid. For this reason, we also want to affirm the many pastoral and positive statements by certain bishops and bishops' conferences (e.g. "Always Our Children")."

This confuses the Church's call to evangelism with a criteria that judges the Church by human standards, as though "catholicity" were a matter of demographics. Catholicity can't be judged according to how many diversities of opinion or lifestyle are spared contradiction or rebuke. If it were otherwise, being "catholic" would only mean "having a pulse." The Church of Christ is not "most catholic" when it allows anyone to think and do anything. The Church of Christ is only "most catholic" when it's universally preaching the universal truths of God to the universe.

That's why the priests' repeated appeal to "Always Our Children" (hereafter "Always"), a pastoral statement of the United States Conference of Catholic bishops to the parents and priests of homosexual persons, is so bizzare. After reading the fathers' vilification of the CDF's statement prohibiting homosexual marriage, one would expect that the fathers praise "Always" because it somehow contradicts the CDF. To the contrary, the texts of the documents match almost perfectly. In "Always," the bishops note that "our total personhood is more encompassing than sexual orientation," which directly contradicts the priests' own assumption that describing a homosexual orientation as "disordered" or as an "evil" somehow denies the dignity of the homosexual person. Like the CDF and the Catechism, "Always," makes a distinction between a homosexual orientation and sinful choices to express that orientation in sexual acts: "By itself, therefore, a homosexual orientation cannot be considered sinful, for morality presumes the freedom to choose." (There is no statement by the CDF or the Catechism that a homosexual orientation is, by itself and without any choice on the part of the person who has it, a sin).

The bishops go on to say that a homosexual person has the power and freedom to use his sexuality for "evil." Homosexuals are reminded that "the chaste life is possible, though not always easy, for it involves a continual effort to turn toward God and away from sin, especially with the strength of the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist." They say that this continual conversion requires realizing two truths:

First, it is God's plan that sexual intercourse occur only within marriage between a man and a woman. Second, every act of intercourse must be open to the possible creation of new human life. Homosexual intercourse cannot fulfill these two conditions. Therefore, the Church teaches that homogenital behavior is objectively immoral, while making the important distinction between this behavior and a homosexual orientation, which is not immoral in itself.[13]

If the CDF must be rebuked for saying that homosexuality is "objectively disordered," it's difficult to understand why these priests don't rebuke the NCCB for saying that acting on that inclination is "objectively immoral." If the CDF must be censured for saying that Catholics should oppose the spread of homosexual marriage, it's difficult to understand why the NCCB shouldn't be censured for directing parents and priests of homosexual persons to counsel them to live chastely. If the CDF is to be castigated for attempting to deny homosexuals' rights to marriage, the NCCB should be condemned for explaining that the Church will rightly "deny public roles of service and leadership to . . . homosexual[s] . . . whose public behavior openly violates its teachings."[14]

The only reason I can see for the priests' favorable attitude about "Always" lies in a criticism of the document by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz:

[T]his document fail to take into account the latest revision in the authentic Latin version of The Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality, but it juxtaposes several quotes from the Catechism in order to pretend falsely and preposterously that the Catechism says homosexuality is a gift from God and should be accepted as a fixed and permanent identity.[15]

Bishop Bruskewitz refers to this section of "Always":

A deep respect for the total person leads the Church to hold and teach that sexuality is a gift of God. Being created a male or a female person is an essential part of the divine plan, for it is their sexuality ? a mysterious blend of spirit and body ? that allows human beings to share in God's own creative love and life. "Everyone...should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2333).[16]

Bishop Bruskewitz's criticism is inaccurate. Paragraph 2333 is directed at men and women, who are told to accept their sexual identity and realize that manhood and womanhood are complementary and "oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life." But "Always" also identifies the gift of sexuality as the gift of being created a male or female person. The real problem is the USCC's tagging the quoted sentence of the Catechism onto the paragraph in such a way as to render the document vulnerable to heterodox suggestions in the reader's mind that homosexuality is a third identity given by God to be celebrated and approved like masculinity and femininity. But this kind of vulnerability is as far as "Always" goes; the document certainly doesn't establish an "alternative" teaching that contradicts the CDF's description of our obligations to oppose the phenomenon of homosexual marriage; withhold approval and celebrity from the phenomenon of homosexual orientation; or regard homosexual acts as depraved and evil.[17]

The priests' appeal to "Always" is one of the most disturbing things about their letter. If the fathers are to read "Always" as contradicting Considerations, the Catechism, and Scripture, they must first make "Always" into a toybox of vague phrases, statements ripped from contexts, and plastic suggestions vulnerable to heterodox manipulation. In short, they would have to accept the truth of Bishop Bruskewitz' rash criticisms, which do set "Always" in opposition to the CDF and the Catechism -- except that, unlike the good Bishop, these priests would be approving of what Bishop Bruskewitz (wrongly) found in the document. Astonishingly, one of the letter's authors tells us that this is precisely how the fathers read "Always":

A principal drafter of the letter, Fr. Richard Prendergast, pastor of a suburban parish, said he was moved to take action in part by the experience of a lesbian couple in his parish. They had adopted a baby from an orphanage in a foreign country. She was considered developmentally impaired when she arrived in the United States. Prendergast said that now, 18 months later, the couple has "loved her back to a normal level" of development. "To call their loving of that child an abomination is outrageous," he said. [18]

The problem with these hyperventilations is that neither Fr. Prendergast nor any of his colleagues will be able to point out where, exactly, the Catechism or the CDF has ever said that loving and caring for a child is an "abomination." One can make that leap only by intruding the morality of a lesbian marriage into the scene, like a drunk allowed into an art gallery, and then complaining about how everyone admires painting and tolerates drunks but no one wants to appreciate the beauty of ripped canvas. It's very difficult to understand Fr. Prendergast's comments outside of a commitment to rewriting the Gospel so that homosexuality and heterosexuality become equally-magnificent expressions of God's love. That's a frightening prospect, because it would mean that Fr. Prendergast and his colleagues have effectively been betraying their parishioners' pastoral rights to authentic Church teaching.[19]

"The Church's theology, including her moral teaching, is always in dialogue with the broader lived experience of her members, which shapes and rearticulates the ancient deposit of faith. We encourage a new atmosphere of openness to dialogue which includes the lived experience of many Catholic members. We recognize the blessings of countless homosexuals in a variety of relationships. We believe their experiences must be listened to respectfully."

Yes, of course, but to what end? Are the fathers arguing that we can profit from the lived experience of homosexual Catholics to "rearticulate" the Church's authentic and immutable teaching on human sexuality, or do they want us to "rewrite" that teaching? The fathers' earlier ambiguity on this point continues.

"While we do not know the reasons for the increasingly violent and abusive language, we deplore it as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ and ask that it stop immediately."

As noted, the fathers have done nothing to explain why the Church is using "violent and abusive language" when it describes concupiscence manifested in homosexual attractions as "intrinsically disordered" or homosexual actions themselves as "intrinsically immoral." That being the case, one can only read this request as either nonsense or an request that Church to stop teaching mankind about sexuality.

"Furthermore, we request that all those in official positions of teaching authority in the Church refrain from any more statements directed AT the gay and lesbian members of the Body of Christ, and instead begin an earnest dialogue WITH those same members of the Body of Christ."

This entirely ignores the fact that Considerations, like the Catechism (or, for that matter, the Bible) isn't directed "AT" gay and lesbian people any more than it's directed "AT" the rest of the human race. The Gospel being the Gospel, what sort of "dialogue" is the Church supposed to have with homosexuals that doesn't involve talking about the disordered nature of their inclinations and the immorality of homosexual acts? Apparently the Church isn't to have any such kind of dialogue, because it would be castigating homosexuals with language that the Church refuses to use with murderers, pimps, and drug-dealers.

Another signer, Fr. Robert McLaughlin, also a suburban pastor, said, "It seems so simple that you don't talk to anyone the way the church talks to lesbians and gays. We don't even talk to mafia dons that way. Can't we respond to people in pastoral language?"[20]

Fr. McLaughlin has managed to be absolutely correct and entirely wrong at the same time. The Church doesn't talk to homosexuals the way it talks to mafia bosses:

USA TODAY -- Pope John Paul II was on an anti-mafia crusade through Sicily Sunday as he paid tribute to magistrates killed by the mafia. He urged young Italians to have the courage to reject organized crime. "God once said, `Don't kill.' Man, any man, any group of men, the mafia, can't change and trample this most sacred law of God!" the pope said as he lashed out at mafia bosses, warning they face the wrath of God unless they forsake their ways. The pope reportedly spoke in a voice shaking with rage and his outburst - at the end of his second visit to Sicily in his papacy - was the Roman Catholic Church's strongest condemnation of organized crime. Before returning to the Vatican, the pope met with the parents of murdered Judge Rosario Livatino. The mafia is believed to have ordered Livatino's slaying after he refused to let the mafia sway him in issuing a sentence.[21]

*****

NAPLES, Italy, MAR. 22, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Calls for justice and democratic participation were among the antidotes proposed to challenge the mafia, as Italy marked a day of commemoration for its victims.

The Sixth National Day of Remembrance and Commitment in Honor of Victims of the Mafia, celebrated Wednesday, was an initiative promoted and coordinated by Catholic clergy.

The idea was launched in 1995 by Father Luigi Ciotti, with the foundation of Libera, a network of 700 organizations, to struggle against the mafia by teaching respect for law.

On Wednesday, three events took place to highlight the anti-mafia struggle. One was in the context of the 4th Congress of Sicilian Churches, being held in Acireale. Another was at Torre Annunziata, a city near Naples, where the area?s mafia, the Camorra, is dominant. The third was in Palermo, capital of Sicily and symbol of the Italian mafia.

At Acireale, the Catholic Church of Sicily remembered the numerous Catholic laymen and priests who were killed by the mafia for opposing its regime of terror and "culture of death."

Priests and journalists met to honor the memory of the dead and agreed that activities must be promoted so that their sacrifice will not be forgotten. The dead also will serve as models to combat the mafia through education and respect for the law, the priests and journalists said.[22]

The Church doesn't sponsor a Day of Remembrance and Commitment in Honor of Victims of Homosexuals in which the people are exhorted to "oppose homosexuality," and homosexuals are described as forming "regime of terror and 'culture of death.'" One doesn't see the Pope (or any bishop) "shaking with rage" as he threatens active homosexuals with the wrath of God unless they live chastely, and one can search Considerations and the Catechism in vain for such thundering language. No, the Church definitely doesn't talk to (or "AT") homosexuals the way it talks to mafia bosses.

What the Church does do, as Cardinal George of Chicago pointed out in response to the letter, is use "philosophical and theological language in a society that understands, at best, only psychological and political terms."[23] These priests are experiencing pastoral problems because their Church is speaking rationally and reasonably to people who are too uneducated, too selfish, or too unstable to realize that their "rights" and their "feelings" aren't the center of the universe. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Cardinal George says this theological language "does not help us in welcoming men and women of homosexual orientation." He's probably right. The purpose of the CDF and the Catechism isn't to make men and women of homosexual orientation feel "welcome" in the Church or, for that matter, to feel anything at all. Their purpose is to clearly and accurate describe Church teaching, and this brings us back to a "pastoral" perspective.

Welcoming sinners into the Body of Christ is a job for priests. Priests shouldn't be fanning fears and nursing grudges in their homosexual parishioners by translating the Church's theological/philosophical statements into personal psychological rebukes and nightmare persecution scenarios ("Does anyone consider this vile and toxic language invitational?"). Fr. McLaughlin, Fr. Prendergast, and their colleagues ought to know better than that. Their insistence on a course of action which must, as a necessary by-product, torture parishioners with lunatic descriptions of Church teaching (that, for example, the love of a child is an abomination if you're gay; if you're gay you're altogether and unredeemably sick and disordered; if you're gay you have to be excluded from all human society) is a form of pastoral abuse as ugly as anything which they try to lay on Cardinal Ratzinger's doorstep.

The Church isn't to blame because God chose to design men and women so that homosexual attraction isn't "objectively ordered" and homosexual marriage isn't "objectively moral." When the Church points out what God has done, she's not talking "AT" gay and lesbian people any more than she's talking "AT" heterosexuals when she condemns fornication and adultery. It's quite normal for someone to wish that the Church wouldn't talk "AT" them. I've certainly wished that the Church wouldn't talk "AT" me when it condemns the sins to which my disordered inclinations lead. No less a saint than Augustine experienced irritation at God's talking "AT" him about his sins: "But, wretched youth that I was . . . I had entreated chastity of thee and had prayed, ?Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.' For I was afraid lest thou shouldst hear me too soon, and too soon cure me of my disease of lust which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished."[24]

The Church should have no objections to beginning an earnest dialogue with homosexual Catholics about why homosexuality isn't good, isn't normal, and why homosexual attractions are invitations to a life plagued by misery and mortal sin. But the priests' letter, together with their comments in the National Catholic Reporter, leave little doubt that this isn't the kind of "dialogue"[25] they have in mind. They seem to want permission for their flocks to live Augustine's wretched youth, knowing that something's wrong but not having the courage to do anything about it. The fathers forget that Augustine's youth was wretched because of his fear (itself a product of the Fall) that God really wanted him to be miserable and unhappy. Watching priests wholeheartedly encouraging that same tyrannous fear in their flocks, calling for a "dialogue" that really is nothing more than a conspiracy to resist the truth, is a miserable spectacle. If one wants to identify a major cause of needless suffering among homosexuals in the Catholic Church, one need look no further than priests like Fr. McLaughlin, Fr. Prendergast, and their colleagues.

"For our part, we pledge to treat all who seek to continue their faith journey with us with respect and dignity, regardless of their sexual orientation."

This pledge, unfortunately, suffers from the ambiguity which dominates the fathers' letter. If they're pledging to comfort their parishioners with promises of God's love and the resulting possibility of wholesome chastity then they're good priests. But if they're promising to perpetuate an anti-Gospel that describes Scripture's message about homosexual acts as "vile" and "toxic" they're not exactly tributes to St. John Vianney's legacy of pastoral concern. Cardinal George made an apt, if understated, comment about the signatories when he said: "If you yourself cannot resolve that tension between welcoming people as they are and still calling them to leave their sinfulness . . . or if you yourself do not accept the church's moral teaching on the use of the gift of sexuality, it would be all the more important for us to talk."[26]

"We join the countless men and women, heterosexual and homosexual, who seek justice, mercy and compassion in and through the Catholic Church."

Yes, that's fine with me, although I might wish for "truth" to have been included in the list. Without truth, justice cannot be known, mercy cannot be asked, and compassion cannot be shown.

"We extend an invitation all who share our concern to duplicate this letter, sign it, and send it to their pastor, local bishop, National Bishop's Conference or the Vatican."

Again, for what purpose? Having read what I've read, I can only surmise that the fathers want positive proof that Gresham's law is applicable to theological and pastoral discussions.

*******************************

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, ? 1700.

[2] "And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him: Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets." Matthew 22:35-40 (DRV).

[3] 2 Peter 3:16.

[4] "[W]hen Marcion, after whom the Marcionites are called, met the holy Polycarp on one occasion, and said 'Recognize us, Polycarp[?]' he said in reply to Marcion, 'Yes indeed, I recognize the firstborn of Satan.'" The Letter of the Smyrneans or Martyrdom of Polycarp, J.B. Lightfoot, trans. The entire text can be found here.

[5] St. Jerome, Against Helvidius, ? 1. The full text can be found here.

[6] The full text of Considerations can be found here. Henceforth in the notes, the document will be referred to by that shorthand title.

[7] Eusebius of Caesarea, Proof of the Gospel, 4:10. I am aware that Christians of other confessions might dispute my identification of Eusebius of Caesarea or any other early-Church personage with the Roman Catholic Church. Since, however, I'm dealing with Roman Catholic priests writing to Roman Catholic Bishops about the nature of Roman Catholicism, I think I may be pardoned for failing to include apologetics on this subject.

[8] Catechism of the Catholic Church, ? 2357.

[9] Catechism of the Catholic Church, ? 2358.

[10] Considerations ? 4.

[11] Catechism of the Catholic Church, ? 405.

[12] Id.

[13] National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Marriage and Family, "Always Our Children: A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children and Suggestions for Pastoral Ministers." The full text can be found here.. As in the text, references to this document will be to "Always."

[14] Id.

[15] Bp. Fabian Bruskewitz, "On Always Our Children." The full text can be found here.

[16] NCCB, "Always."

[17] Bishop Bruskewitz's response is filled with hasty condemnations that do his magnificent (and deserved) reputation little justice. He contends that "Always" is "wicked to counsel parents not to intervene, but rather to adopt a ?wait and see' attitude when they find their adolescent children ?experimenting' with homosexual acts. Parents have a grave moral duty to prevent their children from committing mortal sins when they can." But that's not what "Always" actually counsels:

The second way to communicate love is to seek appropriate help for your child and for yourself. If your son or daughter is an adolescent, it is possible that he or she may be experimenting with some homosexual behaviors as part of the process of coming to terms with sexual identity. Isolated acts do not make someone homosexual. Adolescence is often accompanied by anxiety or confusion about sexual identity. Sometimes the best approach may be a "wait and see" attitude, while you try to maintain a trusting relationship and provide various kinds of support, information, and encouragement.

I think the fairer reading of "Always" is that a parent is to "wait and see" if a child's homosexual behavior is a transient attraction that can be healed and replaced by a more mature and developed sense of sexuality and faith before reacting as though it's really a deeper and more permanent problem that requires a lifelong familial coping process.

Further, Bishop Bruskewitz would have us read "Always" as addressing "experimenting with homosexual acts" such as intercourse, which is mortal sin, when the document's actual phrase ("some homosexual behaviors") may involve things (like saying "I love you" to a friend of the same sex) that might be disturbing in context but whose sinfulness is far more difficult to determine. Bishop Bruskewitz likewise overlooks the fact that the performance of a parent's "grave moral duty" to "prevent sin" by children (of any age) may be limited to "providing various kinds of support, information and encouragement." Assuming that this means helping a child live paganism's dream of responsible and fulfilling homosexuality rather than using catechesis, prayer, and urgings to faithful chastity is -- regardless of our justified suspicions about the NCCB's enthusiastic fidelity to the magisterium -- a rash judgment.

Sometimes Bishop Bruskewitz's criticism of "Always" borders on the nonsensical. He writes, "[t]he document says to parents, ?Do not blame yourselves for a homosexual orientation in your child'. Many scientists and psychologists say that the orientation is likely and often due to certain parental defects, which are usually unconsciously present, and proper therapy requires that these matters be confronted." Yes, indeed, but since Bishop Bruskewitz himself says these parental defects are "usually unconsciously present" and since sin requres knowledge, assent, and voluntariness, it's difficult to understand why the NCCB erroneously suggests that a parent shouldn't judge his failings as though they were blameworthy sins. It's also worth noting that the same paragraph of "Always" says: "Do everything possible to continue demonstrating love for your child. However, accepting his or her homosexual orientation does not have to include approving all related attitudes and behavioral choices. In fact, you may need to challenge certain aspects of a lifestyle which you find objectionable."

[18] Robert J. McClory, "Priests Protest Language on Gays," National Catholic Reporter, 1/9/04. The full text can be found here.

[19] "Lay people have the duty and the right to acquire the knowledge of Christian teaching which is appropriate to each one's capacity and condition, so that they may be able to live according to this teaching, to proclaim it and if necessary to defend it, and may be capable of playing their part in the exercise of the apostolate. " Code of Canon Law, Can. 229 ?1 (1983).

[20] Robert J. McClory, "Priests Protest Language on Gays," National Catholic Reporter, 1/9/04. The full text can be found here. Henceforth "Priests Protest."

[21] USA Today, "Pope Strongly Condemns Mafia Durign Second Visit to Sicily." 5/10/93. The article is only available by payment. I have quoted it in full.

[22] ZENIT, "A Day to Rally Support Against the Mafia," 3/22/01. The full text is available here.

[23] "Priests Protest."

[24] St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk. VIII, Ch. vii, ? 17.

[25] For a very good explanation of what "dialogue" actually means, see I. Shawn McElhinney's essay on the subject, On the Intricacies of Dialogue

[26] "Priests Protest."

I Just Want To Be Sure that Everyone's Seen . . .

Peter Shulman's War.

Huh, whaddaya know?


What Classic Movie Are You?

Even More Movies for Reb . . . .

Category: Rip-Roaring Adventure

Continuing our list of recommended movies for Reb, we turn now to lighter fare, the swashbuckler (and variations thereof). For those who have emailed me complaining about the absence of some of their favorite films, please note that I'm not trying to compile a definitive list of the "greatest" movies. Raiders of the Lost Ark isn't here, for example, even though it's a great adventure movie. It's absent because everybody already knows Raiders is a rip-roaring adventure film, one of the best ever made, while I'm trying to recommend some (possibly) lesser-known movies. So, without further ado:

The Challenge (John Frankenheimer, 1983). Scott Glenn (Urban Cowboy, The Right Stuff) plays a washed-up boxer hired to return a Japanese samurai sword, lost during World War II, to its rightful owner. Upon his arrival in Japan Glenn finds himself embroiled in a modern-day war between two rival Japanese clans who claim the right to own The Equals, a perfect pair of samurai swords passed down through generations. One clan, which holds to the old and traditional ways (and is, of course, the rightful owner of The Equals), is headed by a character played by the legendary Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, Tora, Tora, Tora). Another, headed by a forgettable (at least by me) actor who nonetheless conveys proper amounts of malice and strength, has chosen the corrupt path of modern industrial life. Glenn becomes embroiled in the conflict and redeems himself by following bushido ("the way of the warrior") wherever it leads -- in this case, to a climactic, exciting, and brilliantly-choreographed duel inside the evil clan's corporate headquarters. If you want to see the film that was really plagiarized by The Last Samurai, this (and not Dances with Wolves) is it.

Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1953). William Holden (one of my favorite leading men) plays Sefton, an American aviator who lives well inside a WWII German prison camp by trading for contraband -- often with the Germans themselves. Amidst a plethora of great character acting, Sefton gains the camp's hatred and then admiration as he clears himself of suspicions that he's spying on the prisoners for the Germans. This film inspired the long-running television comedy Stalag 13, but the film's war-time earnestness and intriguing mystery is to be greatly preferred over the campy televised cartoon.

The War Lord (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1965). IMHO, this film and Lion in Winter are the only really good movies Hollywood's ever made about the Middle Ages. (Until, that is, my prayers are answered and Mel Gibson makes a film about Charles Martel and the Battle of Poitiers). Charlton Heston plays Chrysagon, one of the indomitable Norman nobles who wrote so much of the age's history. Guy Stockwell (Dean's brother) plays Draco, Chrysagon's hot-headed and irresponsible brother. As a reward for years of faithful service, the two are given a small fief in the Saxon marshes, slightly reviving the brothers' fortunes after their family bankrupted itself to ransom their (decased) father from captivity. Chrysagon falls in love with a Saxon maiden and, unable to control himself after years of deprivation and hardship, determines to exercise his "rights" under prima nocte on her wedding night. All goes without incident, except on the morning Chrysagon cannot bring himself to part with her, causing the enraged Saxons to ally themselves with the marauding Frisians to rescue the girl with predictably thrilling results. Great battles ensue as the barbarous Frisians and Saxon villagers try to storm the nobles' tower. Richard Boone gives one of his patented "I'm so rough sandpaper would say ‘ouch'" performances as Bors, Chrysagon's loyal retainer. One of the reasons I like this movie is that it portrays human life in a barely-Christianized Europe, something which many people (like the authors of a "complete" history of Christian missions I read recently, who begin their history of Christian evangelization in 1517) never really think about. Unfortunately, this is achieved in no small measure by the inclusion of a dithering priest played by Maurice Evans (Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes). Prima nocte is "Sir Priest's" idea and he's more than a bit cowed by his Norman overlords, but that's not a fatal flaw since such monks did in fact exist.

Farewell to the King (John Milius, 1989). Nigel Havers (Chariots of Fire) plays a British officer sent to recruit a tribe of natives on Borneo to fight the Japanese during WWII. Upon his arrival, he finds that the tribe is ruled by "Rajah," an American sailor played by Nick Nolte who deserted from the U.S. Navy. Havers' character, a thinly-veiled immitation of T.E. Lawrence, goes through internal conflicts between his duties as a British officer and his increasing loyalty to Rajah and the tribe. The tribe fights the Japanese, but only after "Rajah" concludes a treaty via Havers' character with Douglas MacArthur. Nolte delivers some wonderful lines for us second-amendment fans during the negotiations for the treaty. "What do you want? Freedom. And what else? Guns -- so they can't take our freedom away. Anything else? Grenades, mortars and artillery so they can't take our guns away!" The war takes a bitter turn when the Japanese, in desperate retreat, devastate Rajah's village killing (and eating) the women and children; the tribe's "army" sets out on a gruesome mission of extermination. The movie features some very haunting battle scenes as the Japanese, led by a menacing officer who rides an eerie white horse, are dogged by the vengeful tribesmen who've been taught the stirring Irish "Rising of the Moon" by Nolte's character. The bittersweet ending should not be revealed. For people who, like me, love to spend time in John Milius' world this film is one of the best ways to burn a few good cigars.

The Wind and the Lion (John Milius, 1975). John Milius' purpose in life was to direct all the great adventure films that went to earlier men like Michael Curtiz and Cecil B. DeMille. In this movie -- made, it should be noted, at the zenith of disco, in the year South Vietnam finally fell, and just a few months before that peanut-farming sillypants from Georgia flopped into the White House -- Milius takes a small incident from U.S. history and turns it into a leonine hymn to America, simplicity, manliness, and the warrior virtues. In the real Pedicaris Incident, an insignificant satellite of Morocco's U.S. Diplomatic community was kidnapped by a quasi-prophet called the Raisuli; Teddy Roosevelt's Republicans cried their famous phrase, "This government wants Pedicaris alive or Raisuli dead!" and promptly sailed back into office (after paying Pedicaris' ransom). The film, of course, is a great improvement over reality. In Milius' hands Pedicaris becomes the recently-widowed Mrs. Pedicaris, fetchingly played by the beautiful Candice Bergen. The Raisuli, played by Sean Connery, becomes a patriot longing to protect the old desert ways of the Riff from the corrupting influence of European society. Teddy Roosevelt, played to the hilt by Brian Kieth, is the fiery apotheosis of an Awakening America determined to bypass European dithering and assert the inviolability of justice by rescuing the fair widow. Thus are we treated to one of the greatest chest-thumping, flag-waving, heart-pounding scenes in American cinema, as the U.S. Marines land in Tangiers and shame the decadent Europeans by taking the situation well in hand. But the character of the Raisuli is too charismatic to remain an enemy, and Milius' film soon has him allied with the Americans in a desperate struggle against European duplicity! If you, like me, are the kind of fellow who's memorized George C. Scott's opening speech in Patton, you're gonna love this film: Chauvinism just don't get any better than this.

The Naked Prey (Cornel Wilde, 1966). Based on the famous story "The Most Dangerous Game," Wilde plays a member of a safari expedition which refuses to pay off the natives and gets massacred almost to the last man. The last man is the white hunter/guide, played by Wilde, who is sufficiently respected by the tribe that they give him a chance to save his life. He's stripped naked, given a knife, and allowed a head start equal to the distance of an arrow fired from a native bow. The rest of the film is a series of hairs'-breadth escapes and brilliant tactics, as Wilde desperately attempts to reach the safety of his own civilization. One of the finest things about this movie is that it tells a riveting story with hardly any dialogue at all.

Hell is for Heroes (Don Seigel, 1962). This film teeters between a WWII adventure story and an earnest commentary on bravery. Steve McQueen plays an outcast soldier thrown into a unit of outcasts who are detailed to hold a large section of the Allied lines against a superior German force. There's a lot of trickiness and anxious moments as the Americans try to convince the Germans that they're occupying this captured bit of the Siegfried line in strength. Part of that effort is a young Bob Newhart, who puts his comic talent at portraying one side of a telephone conversation to good use by pretending to talk to headquarters on a landline the Germans have tapped. ("Uh, sir, it's about the morale film you sent us . . . . Yes, sir, I know there are other priorities. It's just that the battalion's seen that movie ten times. They're becoming surly.") Eventually, the Americans have to attack the German positions anyway, with the alienated loner McQueen in the lead.

The Hunter (Buzz Kulik, 1980). Steve McQueen plays a character "based on" the real-life Papa Thorson, a legend in the bail-agent community. While he's out catching a series of oddball bail-jumping bad guys (his cornfield-chase scene with a, uh, dynamic, pair of fugitives is a lot of fun, and was filmed in the actual field where the real event took place), one of his former captures is stalking his pregnant live-in girlfriend thereby providing us with the climactic episode. This is not great cinema by any means. In fact, it really doesn't have a plot -- just a series of conflict-resolution episodes. The acting's not that great either -- LeVar Burton plays a young kid who Thorson takes under his wing with all the gusto of a serious valium habit. But the good guys win with style and McQueen's wizened presence makes it a great way to down a few beers.

The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979). This film is about a very small New York City gang which travels to a kind of gang United Nations in Central Park, there to hear the ominous Cyrus (leader of the city's most powerful gang, the "Riffs") explain his plan to take over the city. But just as he's on the verge of uniting gangland in a jihad against the established order, Cyrus is killed by a maniacal member of another gang who puts the blame on the Warriors. Stranded miles from their "turf," the gang has to fight its way back across the city to reach the safety of its Coney-Island home. Most people I know don't like this movie because it glorifies gangs, lawlessness, and bad manners. They're right, it does all those things. But I watch it as a kind of parable on Romans 2:14 because the gangs, having not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, thereby becoming a law unto themselves. The film's ridiculously over-the-top, glorified depiction of gang life shows these fellows having some attenuated relationship with loyalty, bravery, crude ideas about justice, and even a primitive sort of chivalry. In fact, without those things the story can't happen at all, and yet the whole morality play occurs in a realm that has already declared its secession from civilization and the social order. So I like to think of the characters showing the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another. But then, I'm a really weird person.

Flight of the Phoenix (Robert Aldrich, 1965). Jimmy Stewart plays a veteran desert pilot carrying a bunch of travelers across the Sahara desert. A sandstorm forces the plane to crash, and the survivors (played by an assortment of great actors including Richard Attenborough, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Peter Finch, and the unforgettably-faced Ronald Fraser) have to find a way to reach civilization or die. They have a minuscule amount of water, and are surrounded by hostile nomads. One of the group, played by Hardy Kruger, claims to be an aeronautical engineer and persuades the men to build a jerry-rigged airplane out of the crash's debris. As they struggle to complete this desperate project, dehydration and stress begin to tear them apart. Wonderful character acting, coupled with a number of unsentimentally-resolved sub-plots (like the conflict between Kruger's technocratic engineer and Stewart's cranky seat-of-the-pants veteran pilot), make this a fascinating and entertaining film. The cinematography is wonderful -- you feel hot and thirsty even though you're equipped with a 32-ounce mug of cola and have the AC on full. Great family movie, if you have older children. Unfortunately, it's being remade into a "new, improved" version starring Dennis Quaid (ugh!); the new release will undoubtedly be superior. They've put sultry blonde Miranda Otto in the cast in order to thwart sexism (and, no doubt, to film some sex scenes), and it's been set in the Mongolian Desert this time (thus simultaneously avoiding insulting the Arabs with the earlier film's references to hostile tribesmen while, at the same time, finding a place where it's safe for Americans to shoot a movie). I can't stand remakes. They're always about "rescuing" the original from some social/artistic evil.

The Prisoner of Zenda (Richard Thorpe, 1952). From the 1894 novel by Richard Hope, the film follows the adventures of Rudolph Rassendyll (Stewart Granger) who, while on vacation in the quasi-Balkan country of Ruritania, is noticed to bear a distinct likeness to Ruritania's King, Rudolph V. Turns out the Rassendyll's are the "bar sinister" branch of the Elfburg family who provides Ruritania with its royalty, and every fifth generation or so the Elfburg features adorn a Rassendyll's face. With the help of some crafty nobles, Rassendyll masquerades as the King in order to thwart a coup attempt by the evil Duke Michael. James Mason plays Duke Michael's chief henchman, Rupert of Hentzau. Mason is really at his best in this movie -- he plays the evil and decadent Rupert with enough charm so that you like him even when you should be hissing and throwing popcorn at the screen. In fact, when you end up throwing popcorn and hissing you realize you like him even more! Lots of plots, counter-plots, close calls, Sigmund-Romberg uniforms, horseback chases, castle-burgling, and sword fighting. To cap it all off, the movie has a (and bed-less) romance between Rassendyll and King Rudolph's fiancé, Princess Flavia, played by the wonderful Debrah Kerr which ends the only way it can when people do the right thing. I think this is a great family movie.

The Four Feathers (Zoltan Korda, 1939). The best of all the "Four Feathers" movies (1915, 1921, 1977, and 2002) -- although the 1977 made for TV production starring Beau Bridges, Jane Seymour and Harry Andrews isn't too bad, either. John Clements plays Lt. Harry Faversham who is, not to put too fine a point on it, a yellowbacked coward who resigns from his regiment before it's sent to war against the insane Khalifa. Faversham's friends -- and his fiancé, Ethne -- each give him a white feather, a token of their disdain. Ashamed, Faversham tries to win back his honor by following the regiment in mufti; he saves each of his three friends and returns home to win back Ethne's love. This is a wonderful story, because it doesn't have the soft, easy morals of modern tales. In a modern movie, Faversham would be the only noble character and it would be the others who must repent of their sinful judgmentalism. Why is this better than the 2002 movie? Well, Miklos Rosza wrote the score (I've got every Rosza soundrack I can lay my hands on), and you can't beat C. Aubrey Smith refighting his old battles on a tablecloth with walnuts and wine glasses.

The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975). John Huston tried to get this movie made for decades. Finally, Sean Connery played Daniel Dravitt and Michael Caine appears as Peachy Carnahan, two British soldiers who've decided to desert and take over the legendary kingdom of Kafiristan, which lies somewhere to the north of Afghanistan across the Khyber Pass. (Christopher Plummer makes a nice appearance as Rudyard Kipling). Their original plan is to awe the natives, find the gold, and scoot. But in a battlefield accident Dravitt's life is "miraculously" saved when a native arrow can't penetrate the dog tags under his tunic; the natives begin to think he's the reincarnation of Iskander, the mythical God-King of Kafiristan (who grew out of Alexander the Great). Like Alexander, Dravitt becomes king of Kafiristan and falls in love with a beautiful native girl (played by Shakira Caine, Michael's wife thank you very much Sandra Meisel now go debunk the DaVinci Code or something.). He and Peachy almost end their friendship since Dravitt wants to remain and rule Kafiristan while Peachy wants to enjoy the good life their new-found riches will buy them back in India. I can't say more without spoiling things, except to note that one of the distasteful features of the film is its warm and wonderful depiction of Masonry as a bond of universal brotherhood. But the film has something that almost makes up for that, a really neat hymn sung by the two friends; it's a combination of the tune of "The Minstrel Boy" with the lyrics of "The Son of God Goeth Forth to War." Here it is:

The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood red banner streams afar:
Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink his cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below,
He follows in His train.

That martyr first, whose eagle eye
Could pierce beyond the grave;
Who saw his Master in the sky,
And called on Him to save.
Like Him, with pardon on His tongue,
In midst of mortal pain,
He prayed for them that did the wrong:
Who follows in His train?

A glorious band, the chosen few
On whom the Spirit came;
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew,
And mocked the cross and flame.
They met the tyrant's brandished steel,
The lion's gory mane;
They bowed their heads the death to feel:
Who follows in their train?

A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Savior's throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the steep ascent of Heav'n,
Through peril, toil and pain;
O God, to us may grace be given,
To follow in their train.

Try singing it. Better yet, try singing it during the recessional as the rest of the parish wheezes through some trendy AmChurch "fluffenlieder." You'll like it.

K2 (Franc Roddam, 1992). Michael Biehn plays Taylor Brooks, an arrogant, ego-centric mountain climbing attorney. (He's the kind of jackass who lets you know that his life's philosophy is drawn from Sun-Tzu's Art of War). Matt Craven plays Harold Jameson, Taylor's unassuming mountain-climbing partner. When Taylor and Harold save a mountaneering expedition from diaster, they intrude themselves (courtesy of Taylor's pushiness) into the expedition's attempt to scale K2, the second-tallest mountain in the world. Taylor's selfish, devil-take-the-hindmost drive and Jameson's cooperative, solid competence eventually bring them to the summit after everyone else in the expedition has either died or stayed behind to care for the ailing team-leader. Once at the summit, disaster strikes and Taylor must choose between certain personal survival and a chance to save Jameson's life. Predictable and cliched? Yes, but only if the last movie you watched was filmed in 1955. Set against modern culture, Taylor's choice represents a breathtaking, shocking moment of moral clarity (which is why the film was reviewed as "predictable and cliched" by everyone). Although the only force impelling Taylor to goodness is mere "buddyhood," it's still worth watching -- and letting your kids watch as well.