From the "Triumphs of socialized medicine" file



This happened in mainland China ... you know, the home of the damn-near magical Chinese healing arts? The arts the Communists dumped because they weren't based on Western socialist science?

Hauntingly beautiful polyphony

Aggie Catholics has posted their annual pre-Lent resource. Among the various links, they had posted a YouTube clip of the Tallis Scholars singing Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere mei". Alas, it stops just over 2/3rds of the way through. Fortunately, I found another clip that has the whole piece:

"Miserere mei" is based on the Latin text of Psalm 51 (50), which is a part of the tenebrae liturgy of Holy Week. It has two choruses comprising nine voices, with a tenth voice chanting every second or third verse in plainsong. Allegri composed it to be performed in the Basilica of St. Peter's, taking advantage of its marvelous acoustics.

The result is so powerful that, for many years (so the story goes), the Vatican kept only two or three copies under lock and key, and forbade its performance anywhere else under pain of excommunication. The ban was lifted shortly after a fourteen-year-old Austrian freak named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart copied it down from memory after one hearing, listening to it a second time only to correct some minor errors; instead of casting him out, the Pope praised the young Mozart for his genius.

When I listened to it for the first time, "Miserere mei" reminded me of another fine example of Renaissance polyphony that I performed with my high school chorus and with the NMEA All-State Chorus in 1981, Giovanni Gabrieli's "O magnum mysterium". So you get a two-fer: Here's the latter piece, performed by the Tallis Singers of Toronto:

Just a couple more examples of Catholicism's rich cultural heritage and legacy.

Holy Year for Nuns

My friends over in the Auld Country at St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association are trying to start a movement to have the responsible figures—perhaps Himself—proclaim a Holy Year for Nuns. Father Tim Finigan at Hermeneutics of Continuity is onboard already; I could kick myself for not picking this up sooner.

I took both formal and informal logic in college, as well as studied social research methods, so I know the difference between a causal link and a correlation. So I don't believe the successes of the "culture of death" over the last forty years were caused by the collapse of the contemplative orders ... but, as a coworker of mine used to say, "What a coinkydink!"

Tim Drake over at National Catholic Register and Msgr. Charles Pope at the Archdiocese of Washington DC, have looked at the numbers from a couple of studies done by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA); both noted that the 2011 report done for the USCCB "ignores the 'elephant in the room'": religious orders emphasizing orthodoxy and tradition, like the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist featured on Oprah, do much better at recruiting new postulants than do the orders that have long since abandoned habits and Catholic devotions. (The DSMME, since their exposure on Oprah Winfrey's talk show, are exploding with new postulants, and are now looking ot expand to California and Texas.)

We need nuns. We need monks and friars, too. Write to your diocesan chancery, and see whom you need to write to, to request a Holy Year for Nuns. Wouldn't hurt to pray for it, either!

This guy has got to go—priest shortage or not!

The archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Most Rev. John Nienstedt, has a headache. And his name is Fr. Mike Tegeder.

Regardless of where you stand on any social issue, it just stands to reason that, if you're going to be a Catholic priest, you should preach the Catholic Church's message. If you disagree with it, you should either try to "think with the Church" or leave your ministry and (perhaps) find a faith community more to your liking, right?

Instead of performing either act of basic intellectual honesty, Fr. Tegeder has decided to vocally oppose Abp. Nienstedt, on issues like FOCA, homosexual marriage, lay preaching and—not too strangely—dissent.

+Nienstedt's views on dissent are well-known: they echo the words of Jesus to the church in Laodicea: "I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth" (Rev 2:15-16). We also know that +Nienstedt is capable of rapidly squelching improprieties.

So what's it going to take for the good archbishop to spew Fr. Tegeder out of his mouth?

From the "Staying on message" department

Whoever is in charge of Planned Parenthood's Facebook fan page is either a carefully trained electronic saboteur or just really, really dumb, because s/he posted this on their page:

"Your rebellion is a failure! Soon, your pitiful little band of protesters and Forty Days For Life prayers will be destroyed!" Or, to put it another way—FAIL!

H/T to Tom Peters at CatholicVote!



Some things Science can't measure

Scientism is that really odd philosophy which maintains that, if Science can't measure or examine it, it's not real. Of course, this isn't a scientific statement; it's a philosophy, and not real by its own definition (in twenty-dollar words, it's "self-referentially incoherent"). But just to give a taste of how ridiculous the proposition is, let me ask a few questions:

• How long in angstroms is sarcasm?
• What is the specific gravity of justice?
• What's the net present value of the US victory over the Soviet Union team in the 1980 Winter Olympics hockey playoffs?
• What's the parallax of a Kodak moment?

I'm not a trained philosopher—my major was in sociology—but even I know such a position is dumb.

Ask Tony: A dinner-party dilemma

Question:

It's Lent. A non-Catholic friend of yours has invited you and your beloved to dinner at his house on Friday night. When you get there, you find that the entrée is steak. Your friend grills an excellent steak. But it's a Friday in Lent. What do you do?

Answer:

Eat the steak. Enjoy the steak. Thank your host for a lovely meal. Don't bring up "meatless Fridays" unless you can segue to it naturally and charitably from some topic being discussed; better to wait for another day.

Nowadays, with the greater social concern over food allergies and dietary restrictions, it's becoming more common for hosts to discuss preliminary menus with their guests unless they know each other so well that such things are already known. So this situation is becoming less common.

The practice of meatless Fridays is no longer enforced under penalty of sin outside of Lent. However, it's still a very, very good spiritual practice, a minor mortification offered in union with our Lord's suffering on the Cross (cf. Col 1:24). (For a Nebraskan, giving up steak at any time is almost a heroic sacrifice.) It's also one of those culturally distinctive practices that promote Catholic identity.

Having said that, though, even if it were still being enforced under penalty of sin, I would recommend this course. The overriding principle here is charity.

Your host was under no obligation to invite you to dinner; once you committed to the dinner, you committed to the menu. If you'd had reason to suspect that your friend would use the dinner as an opportunity to test your faith, the appropriate response would have been either to suggest Saturday or beg off on the grounds that you would not want to put him out of his Friday steak. As it is, the charitable assumption is that he either didn't know or forgot that you were keeping the practice.

As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions. One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him. ...

Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for any one who thinks it unclean. If your brother is being injured by what you eat, then you are no longer walking in love. ... Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for any one  to make others fall by what he eats; it is not right to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble. —Romans 14:1-3, 13-15, 19-21

Music hath charms ...

Thank you to the Crescat for finding this selection:


There's a definite difference in effect between men and women singing plainsong. With men, it's a more mournful, dolorous quality; with women, it's lighter, more ethereal. Either way, when it's part of a Mass in the Extraordinary Form (Tridentine Latin), the effect on the person attending for the first time must be mind-blowing. One day, I keep telling myself ....

From the "Slow news day in the DFW metroplex" file

The Dallas Morning News had this shocking revelation posted on the front page:

¿En serio? Y pensar que jamás había observado!

From the "How to commit political suicide" file

According to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), abortion is better than being forced to live  "eating Ramen noodles" and "mayonnaise sandwiches". Well, not in so many words. Her argument was that growing up poor and disadvantaged is so bad that young, poor single women ought to have the ability to "opt out" of motherhood.

Ergo, abortion is better than eating Ramen noodles and mayonnaise sandwiches. (You can watch her testimony on Michelle Malkin's blog.)

Of course, dying is always preferable to suffering ... provided, of course, that someone else is doing the dying. This is exactly what happens when compassion is divorced from moral courage and common sense.

Now, all Rep. Moore's next opponent has to do next year is print out a couple hundred thousand signs saying: "According to Gwen Moore, being aborted is better than being forced to grow up eating Ramen noodles and mayonnaise sandwiches. This is Rep. Moore's idea of compassion."

Then watch that district go Republican at the next election.