The Adventures of MattDawg

Oh... They've Been Shot!

2009-02-10T12:38:00.000-08:00

Every American high school graduate who managed to stay awake for the 10-15 minutes that the standard curriculum devotes to the history of World War I can tell you who Archduke Francis Ferdinand was, and how his dramatic assassination was (at least according to the over-simplified account usually given) the catalyst that set Europe ablaze. While the high school curriculum for WWII is far more comprehensive, you are far less likely to have heard of King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, whose assassinations¹ contributed to the latter war's prologue .I found out about these historical figures, and their dramatic deaths, only after idly bouncing around from one video search to another on Youtube.

Although the instants of the bullets' penetration is not caught on film, and the ensuing melee prevents the photographer from focusing entirely on the dramatis personae, the footage is nonetheless suspenseful and mesmerizing. The closeup of King Alexander's face after he gets in the car , for instance, shows an uneasy man in need of deep breaths; as if he anticipates his demise and is now striving only to have his final minutes pass with some small measure of regal aplomb. The unscripted raw feeling is impossible to miss.

The unedited footage alone would be food for thought. What I find really fascinating, though, are the editorial perspectives of the Youtube clips in which the footage is set. The first clip is a Bulgarian nationalist propaganda film. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

The accompanying tune is really catchy... and morbid. The lyrics are thus

True and extraordinary but the extraordinary happens, In a far away city of Marseilles there are united autonomists and brother Croatians. Now a king departs on a luxury ship, from the town of Dubrovnik and he sleeps peacefully while he sails the wide ocean and destiny waits in Marseilles. There he is honoured by Minister Barthou and his mighty generals; where they all gather to hold a council of war against poor Macedonia. The people they gather the crowds enormous and they chant "long may he live" but from the crowd a lone voice is heard "Death to tyrants". For there stands also Vlado Chernozemski all the way from Macedonia, he starts to run alongside the automobile in his hand a pistol is seen. King Alexander starts to plead and to Vlado he begs: "please Vlado, don't do this Vlado, don't kill me". to the King Vlado replies proud and true, understand this you tyrant, I've been sent by Vancho Mihailoff himself to deliver our verdict. Now stand up, stand up you Serbian dog I'm going to execute you. the pistol fires the King he expires long live Macedonia! Somewhere it is known, known and remembered throughout all of Europe, that the Macedonians' oppression will not be forgiven Death to all tyrants!

The comments givent in response to this video take the preceding lyrics to heart, to say the least, and make one relieved to know that that neck of the woods is still under intense UN scrutiny.

The other setting in which this footage is found is an old-school WWII-era news reel, shown here.

The melodramatic narrative is typical of news reels of the time, I think. What I find especially lovely is the locution at 1:58 : "Oh , they've been shot!" . One is reminded of "Oh! the humanity!" from the narrative of the Hindenburg disaster. I think the "Oh" is what makes the delivery sound contrived. A more dramatic, and more slowly rendered, "They've been shot," would seem to command more gravity. Afterall, most of the Bulgarian nationalist comments probably could be translated with something along the lines of "Oh, they've been shot! (yay!)"

¹Later forensic investigations would reveal that the death of Louis Barthou was most likely the result of a stray bullet from French law enforcement, a claim rejected by die-hard conspiracy theorists. For more details on this, see the Wikipedia article.

Whereof One Cannot Speak, Thereof One Must Remain Silent

2009-02-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

The following US News and World Report blog entry is quite typical of much of the press coverage coming in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI having lifted a renegade Holocaust-denying bishops excommunication:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2009/2/5/pope-should-excommunicate-holocaust-denying-bishop-williamson.html

For better or worse, you can't get excommunicated for being a liar or a moron, only for heresy (and for other specific nasties, like assaulting a bishop etc.). Denying the holocaust is certainly stupid and insensitive, but it dos not fit into the actually rather narrow class of offenses that canonically entail excommunication.

This whole row illustrates how problematic the secular press's coverage of fairly nuanced internal ecclesiastical matters can be. Here we have a journalist suggesting that he pope excommunicate someone permanently (this is not even permissible.. excommunication is only a medicinal remedy, the purpose of which is final reconciliation) and I somehow doubt Ms. Erbe bothered to crack open the Code of Canon Law. For her to give such sweeping criticism in this case exhibits about as much journalistic responsibilitt as suggesting the impeachment of a civil government officer without bothering to research the pertinent constitutional statutes.

It's time to turn off the hot air and for those who want to chime on this, including Chancellor Merkel, to calm down and do their research. Obviously, the pope's timing in this matter reveals a clear lack of political savvy ( I frankly find how very "human" he is to be refreshing), and certainly there could have been better catechesis put forth for the Catholic faithful (on excommunication in general) and more effective education of the press in this matter. Maybe once people put their critical thinking hats back on they might find some wisdom in Sean Cardinal Omalley's observation to the effect that the more clout the pope has with people like Bishop Williamson more likely he will be able to rein in their nonsense.

I am by no means a model Catholic and I have my own gripes with the church, but I will always defend the Catholic Church (or any other idea or institution) against intellectually dishonest criticism.

Prop. 8: A question of Rights, or winning the Culture War ?

2008-11-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

Prop. 8 appears to have passed by a (significantly narrow) margin. In talking with my gay friends and family members, and following the coverage of the aftermath of the election, I can tell that many (to some extent, my self included), feel that this is a huge setback for gay rights. I know many loving gay couples who epitomize the ideals of domestic charity, and I share the intuition that their bond should be accorded public dignity. I do find myself wondering though, is the prop. 8 question a matter of civil rights, or a matter of ideology ?

This last question will probably annoy many gays. I am asking you though, to put aside the (perhaps warranted) exasperation for just a few minutes, and ponder why people in support of this measure feel the way they do. Are the latter really hate-mongers, who would lynch every homosexual person in the streets if given the opportunity? Some of them are, to be sure. But for most, the concern is not about persons but rather the protection of a concept. It is in this way, I think, that the gay marriage issue differs essentially from the civil iniquities which faced blacks in the last century. The fight over marriage is about a concept, whereas racial oppression occurred in the US because white people disgracefully disdained black people¹. "Marriage'' as a matter of fact is , for the supporters of prop. 8, a sacrosanct contract between a man and a woman. For them, prop. 8 is not a question of rights at all, but a question of nomenclature and definition.

This observation is what led me to vote no on prop. 8 ; not that its passage would rob people of rights but rather that the constitution is not the ideal forum for settling conceptual debates. If I'm not mistaken, this is essentially our president-elect's stance on the matter. For the record, my solution to the whole conundrum can be outlined thusly²:

"Marriage" is a theo-socio-logically loaded term about which many people have visceral, impassioned intuitions
Nonetheless, the marriage concept has civil consequences which effect legal entitlements and privileges.
Committed gay couples, as a matter of fairness, ought to enjoy the concrete civil benefits accorded straight couples possessed of legal marriage status.
Attempts to codify the concept of marriage invariably lead to the perceived derogation of one or another social group.
Ergo. "Marriage" ought to be expunged from the civil legal lexicon (it properly being the province of Catholic Canon Law, or Jewish Talmudic exposition etc. etc. ). From this troublesome concept, the associated privileges and entitlements ought to be distilled and concretely codified in a corpus of law called "civil union", the latter being the only marriage-like institution acknowledged by the civil authorities.

Whenever I propose this idea, people concur that it makes sense and see that it would optimize access to entitlements and offend as few people as possible. But they shy away from it ,saying, "Well it's not practical; no one would go for it. Marriage is such a basic idea, and it belongs in our law and jurisprudence." This sort of response, though, leads us back to square one. Marriage is a "basic idea" , and understandings of such things are seldom changed by dialogue (and especially not by tantrums of righteous indignation).

Very few of my gay friends have paused to think about why so many people on the yes side of prop. 8 feel the way they do. Do we honestly think that 52% of Californians are filled with hate for us? (Apparently some of us do. hence slogans like "No on 8 - No on hate!"). I think many feel simply that a basic and, to them, morally neutral idea is somehow at risk of being officially turned on it's head. Perhaps they feel that there is something to be said for the traditional family; maybe it is not perfect, but it does seem to be the default basic social unit favored by evolution thus far. Reasoning from these intuitions they might conclude that if marriage is to be mentioned at all in our official civic discourse, then these (to them) self-evident facts ought to be accorded some recognition therein. There is nothing hate-filled here, per se. Rather they are trying to come to grips with an intuition they have, just as many of us gays cannot help but have our world view shaped by the fact that our monogamous unions ought to enjoy equal entitlements.

It is my conviction that the prop. 8 debate is fundamentally misconstrued when we cast it in terms of basic human rights (the veracity of the claim that marriage is a basic human right even for straight people is, for me, highly non-obvious... a topic for another blog post). Rather , I think, if all parties were honest, the consensus would be that it is a battle in the "culture war" that need not be fought. There are grave iniquities that face gay couples. I will not pretend to have any knowledge of specifics, but I do know that there is a disparity between the entitlements accorded marriages and civil unions.

So where do we go from here?

Rather than fight over who owns "marriage" (a discussion that ought to be had, but in the university and the coffee-house, and not the legislature or courts), we should focus on specific rights (these are, after all, what we really care about, no ?). All the energy we are putting into fighting prop. 8 should be put into writing a new ballot initiative, perhaps a "civilly unified persons' bill of rights" ? If it is the case that civilly unified parties cannot visit each other in the hospital (is this the case? ) then this initiative ought to include a line-item giving a provision to the contrary. I honestly cannot imagine even the most bigoted fundamentalist Bible-thumper opposing this. The fight over such an initiative (if there were to be any fight at all) , would in fact be a bona fide fight over rights. It is a fight to which I would be wholeheartedly committed and to which I pledge, in advance, to spend tons of volunteer hours passing out literature and getting signatures.

¹I am not making the demonstrably false claim that nobody disgracefully disdains gay people. I am simply attempting to make the case that such hatred is not the operative force here.

²This argument is in fact peripheral to the main idea of this post. I cite it simply to show that reason is of little avail in this matter. What is more, the argument is highly unoriginal, as anyone who read the Supreme Court decision will tell you.

CONTENTIOUS VATICAN DECLARATION: THE POPE IS CATHOLIC

2008-02-08T00:58:00.001-08:00

REUTERS

7 FEBRUARY 2008 - In the latest instance of the Vatican's effort to reaffirm Catholic orthodoxy, Fr. Federico Lombardi (official papal spokesman) announced a proclamation asserting that the Pope is in fact Catholic. Even the most seasoned of Vatican watchers were astonished by the announcement, coming in the wake of the restoration of the old Latin Mass and the Vatican's reaffirmation that the Catholic Church is the one, true church. "We knew an emphasis on the fundamentals of Catholic orthodoxy was to be expected with the elevation of Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy, but I don't think anyone saw this coming," said John Allen, The National Catholic Reporter's Rome correspondent. He continued, " No doubt, many progressives in the church will see this as a clear sign that Benedict is seeking to undo the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Conservatives, however, will view it as a turning point in the authentic implementation of the conciliar documents."

The proclamation, entitled Catholicior quam papam, and referred to in church jargon as a motu proprio (literally, "of his own accord"), was issued by the pope himself after private consultation with many cardinals. Widely considered to be a conciliatory gesture toward traditionalist Catholics, this document has gained guarded praise from the Society of St. Pius X, a schismatic group that broke away from the church shortly after the second Vatican council. An official statement from the society reads, "We welcome this development in our dialogue with the Holy See. The Holy Father's motu proprio is a radical and decisive confirmation of the weight he gives to our doctrinal concerns."

The document, sure to arouse angst among left-leaning Catholics, has not escaped the notice of the Anti-Defamation League. One of its more contentious passages asks that people of the Jewish faith refrain from thanking God for not making them gentiles and from referring to themselves as "God's chosen people", to the exclusion of non-Jews. Fr. Lombardi explained, "This is sort of a quid pro quo for the modification the Holy Father has made to the traditional prayers for Good Friday." Until recently, the Latin Mass included prayers that alluded to the "blindness" of the Jews, and implored God to "remove the veil from their hearts".

ADL chairman Glen S. Lewey claimed, "This could be the fatal body blow to Cahtolic-Jewish relations. First the Pope revives prayers that are manifestly anti-semitic, and offers revisions which are hardly an improvement. Now he asserts that he is Catholic? With one document, he has undone over forty years of progress ."

When asked about the timing of the document, Fr. Lombardi explained, "The Holy Father thought it best to address this question as quickly as possible, in light of recent events." Suspicion that the Holy Father might have converted to Scientology made front-page news last week, after he was photographed having coffee with Tom Cruise at a cafe in Rome.

Why I "Dislike" Barack Obama

2008-02-04T17:16:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton seems to evoke strong personal feelings from many people. That one can "hate" someone else without knowing him personally is a bit juvenile, to be frank. Yet, many claim to find Hillary odious. Now, while I don't claim to hate Barack Obama (or anyone, I don't know personally, for that matter), I do think that in the face of so much vitriol against Hillary, it is only fair that those of us who are not especially impressed by Barack Obama speak up and explain ourselves.

Every time I tune in to CNN and hear BO give a stump speech or address the media in other fora, I find myself wincing. At first I could not put my finger on precisely why this is. And then it hit me, while I was listening to his diatribe about having "the hope stewed out of me" for the 11th time: Anyone who claimeth to inspire me, annoyeth the hell out of me . The fact that Obama is an empty vessel into which people of all walks of life are dumping their hopes and dreams, is not his fault. The guy is charismatic; good for him. What I find revolting are the fact that he pretty much says that people ought to do this and that he claims he will make a good president on account of his ability to"inspire" .

Perhaps I am just cynical, and the hope has already been stewed out of me. I prefer to think, though, that I am quite hopeful. Hope, however, does not live by platitudes alone. Hillary is by no means free of trite rhetoric. But neither does she claim that the latter will make her a good president. I think that if BO is elected, we will be enthralled by his charm for about a year. And then the luster will start to fade. We will ask ourselves the questions we should be asking now. "What made us think he could bring about `change'?" "What kind of change was he talking about to begin with?"

Hillary on the other hand, does not claim to be better than, or above the system. Her presidency will not be romanticized. She won't insist that she inspires me. Instead, she will frighten people with her cackle and get s*** done!

The Holy Spirit by Midnight

2007-11-19T01:14:00.001-08:00

The End of the Holy Spirit,Teodoru Badiu

An Impromptu Meditation...

The office of those awake late at night.
Listen closely as their antiphon-- whispered but intelligible--
goes up in perfect unison.

A visitor is en route to join them in the responsory.
A wise traveler, like the Eliatic visitor of the ancient dialogues.
He turns the tumult to a soft breeze,
and puts wing-ed square circles to flight!

By the time he arrives, they are asleep.
He hesitates, but tucks them in
and anoints them with the oil of gladness;
to be washed away in the morning shower.

I shall stay awake a little later tomorrow night,
keeping vigil with the other tarnished saints;
my anonymous brothers,
scattered throughout the city.

Why SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM is in Keeping With the "Spirit of Vatican II"

2007-11-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

This is an extremely abridged version of an essay I am currently working on. I apologize for the lack of complete references/footnotes. It is a work in progress, so check back periodically to read the latest additions.

Most of the commentaries on Summorum Pontificum, especially those published in the secular press before the document's formal promulgation, seem to focus on its conciliatory aspect¹. That is, from such commentaries the reader would infer that the aim of the motu proprio is primarily on the narrow goal of achieving reconciliation with post-conciliar schismatics , nostalgic for the old days (such as the Society of St. Pius X), and accommodating young anachronists swept away by the old rite's novelty. Such a portrayal, however, gives only a narrow glimpse (and a condescending one at that) of the document's true import, and it does not take any liturgical expertise to see that the Holy Father has a much grander vision in mind. In articulating the correctness of an hermeneutic of continuity, rather than rupture, for understanding the ramifications of the council (with respect to the liturgy in particular), he writes

In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place

The extraordinary use of the one Roman Rite is thus something that ought to be preserved, even if there were no schismatics or nostalgic curmudgeons demanding it. But why is it worth preserving? Below we shall see that the "revival" of the extraordinary use, far from detracting from the spirit of Vatican II, should be construed as both having a basis in the council's teachings and as helping to fulfill the council's mission. These assertions shall be argued from the post-conciliar applications of the principles of inculturation and ecumenism, respectively.

Since the Second Vatican Council, Inculturation has loomed large in the project of liturgical reform. For our purposes, we will loosely define this term to mean an effort to ensure that the cultural riches of the various peoples who compose the church militant are preserved and accorded their rightful place in public worship. Whether or not inculturation is a good thing is a topic for another article. Let us assume,for the moment, that it is beneficial and that it has been one of the successes of post-conciliar reform.

One can find very vivid examples of inculturation even in papal liturgies. John Allen gives, for example an account of the indigenous celebrations that were featured during the canonization of Juan Diego. Such celebrations, I surmise, give those participating a sense of reclaiming their heritage and integrating that heritage with the tradition of their faith. It could be argued, that inculturation rights a wrong; in some cases (as in Latin America), it is a corrective to the cultural genocide that denied the rightful place of indigenous heritage in the salvific work of the church.

If the preceding is true( and I think that many zealous post-conciliar reformers would agree that it is) and if in fact the denial of the importance of indigenous heritage was in some cases a sort of cultural genocide, then the complete replacement of the church's preconciliar patrimony with Marty Haugen's "Mass of Creation" could be described as cultural suicide. It is some how incongruous to suggest that suddenly there is room for native exorcism rites in papal liturgies, but that my heritage is exhausted by innovations made in the 70's.

It might be tempting to think that I am simply asserting that the Tridentine ritual pertains to my "European" heritage the same way that indigenous exorcism rites pertain to native American culture. I am, in fact, asserting a more nuanced claim. In particular, the rites as they developed up until the Second Vatican Council pertain to the culture of he entire Church. This culture is diachronic (and, accordingly, I am here making a theological as well as a sociological argument). Even if the Tridentine Mass had its inception long before the evangelization of a given people, it still belongs to that people, nonetheless, since the accumulated heritage of the Church universal becomes their birthright upon their reception into communion. Accordingly, I claim any argument that can be made to enshrine the cultural riches of a particular culture in divine worship, can be generalized to assert the permanent dignity of the riches that belong to to the Church's universal culture.

¹There is no need for a specific citation here. Simply search for "latin Mass" in Google news and voila

Isabel Peron

2007-11-01T01:44:00.000-07:00

For some reason I find myself irked by much of the coverage of the election of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The linked article, and even the omniscient Stephen Colbert, report that she will become Argentina's first female president.
While it is true that she will be the first elected female president, the honor of "first female president" goes to Isabel Peron, third wife of Juan Peron.

This fact was seared into my mind during a college bowl competition. I was the captain of USD's college bowl team, about to lead my team to victory against Stanford in a close match. With one minute left on the clock, the moderator began his question, "This woman, the first to be a head of state in the western hemisphere..." I tapped my buzzer and immediately answered "Isabella Peron". My heart sank as a three minute time-out was taken and the moderator consulted with "experts" to see if my having added an "a" to madam presidente's given name made the answer wrong. Fortunately they let it slide, and USD went on to victory. Go Toreros!

So I guess I feel like I am now the special custodian of this piece of trivia. No wonder, then, I should be annoyed by the media's oversight.

First Post

2007-10-31T14:29:00.000-07:00

At last I am a "blogger". Be still my beating heart!

I am looking forward to posting all sorts of things here: my poetry, criticisms of trends in post-conciliar Catholic worship, pleas for help with my existential angst, and other lovely glimpses into my peculiar world view.

I am hopeful that hilarity will ensue for readers of all ages!