Better to Have and to Hold
I almost choked to death when I read the letter from Eric Myers (October 2004). (I must remember not to read your magazine while eating.) I wonder how old he is (it must have been better in the “good old days”) or if he is a convert.
A Catholic marriage never required a vow of obedience. The priest from whom I took the required marriage course in 1955–6 told us that vow was added by old, fat Henry VIII to control his wives better.
The priest said this was an excellent reason not to get married in a Protestant church instead of our own Catholic Church.
He also pointed out that such a vow could put a woman in a dilemma with no acceptable solution—a real damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation. Example: Husband demands that wife performs an act that she knows is immoral, illegal, or both (maybe even fattening). Wife took vow of obedience to husband. Dilemma: obey and perform act or break marriage vow and refuse. Think about it, Mr. Myers.
We were all very happy to be young Catholic women. We did not have to take Henry’s vow to love, cherish, and obey—only to have and to hold until death. Big difference, that!
Regina M. Burke, T.O. Carm.
Stockton, California
Hardcore Atheist Haunted by Beauty
I was thrilled to see “The Evangelizing Power of Beauty” by one of my favorite authors, Joseph Pearce, in the October issue.
Pearce’s insistence that truth is Trinitarian was born out in my own experiences as a self-professed atheist just a few years ago. Raised in a nominally Protestant family, I entered adulthood with virtually no knowledge of the historical and theological underpinnings of Christianity. By the time I graduated from college, I had joined the ranks of hardcore atheists. I believed that every event, every phenomenon could be explained scientifically.
Yet two things haunted me: love and beauty. Love, not to mention the sacrifices I witnessed people make because of it, contradicted the logical self-interest of atheism. Beauty—in nature and in art—also spoke to my heart, and its effect disturbed me. There was something inherently transcendent in seeing the trees explode in vibrant blossoms each spring or in watching snow silently waft through the darkness of a velvet winter sky. The poems and music and paintings that filled my eyes with unexpected tears filled my heart with great confusion. Being a strict evolutionist, I could not explain why either love or beauty should be a universal (not to mention inescapable) part of the human experience.
My inability to answer those questions eventually led me to seek the Truth, which I found in the Catholic Church. Ironically, it was not the apologetics of beauty or love that drew me to the faith but the more traditional apologetics of reason. Despite my brief but interesting treks into Buddhism, Mormonism, and Protestantism, the historical, theological, and rational evidence for the Church’s authority was simply too compelling to resist.
Pearce’s call to take up arms in the apologetics of beauty is right on. If a pro-choice atheist like me could be snared by a sunset and a sonnet, anything is possible.
Misty Mealey
Roanoke, Virginia
Good Offensive Move
John Martignoni’s argument in his article “How to Be Offensive” (October 2004) works.
An anti-Catholic e-mailed me claiming that Scripture says, “Call no man Father.” I responded by citing him scriptural references calling man father: “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” (Acts 7:2) and “I became your father in Christ” (1 Cor. 4:15). I asked him if he believes in the perspicuity (clearness) of Scripture. In these examples, does Scripture contradict Scripture? No answer from him so far.
Fernando Matro
Chicago, Illinois
The Naked Truth about Film
I beg to differ with Steven Greydanus on the issue of nudity in film (“Catholicism and Culture,” November 2004).
He gives three reasons for condoning certain instances of nudity: (1) “Positive themes” are not necessarily negated, (2) there is the precedent of classical sculpture and painting, and (3) Schindler’s List and The Mission are included on a 1995 Vatican list of forty-five “important” films.
However redeeming or exalted a film may be, there has to be some limit when it comes to sexual content. The end does not justify the means.
Secondly, one cannot compare the medium of cinema with all of its sound, movement, and use of real human beings to the idealized work of a Rubens or Michelangelo. If nothing else, it is harder to walk away from a film than it is to sidestep an objet d’art in a gallery.
Thirdly, Vatican lists are not infallible. The Catechism of the Catholic Church devotes five full numbers to the subject of Christian modesty, one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Fourthly, I would regard it as shameful were my wife or daughter to be filmed in the nude. How, then, can I support the exploitation of others?
Finally, I believe that nudity is almost certain to be an occasion of sin for a great many viewers, whether or not they fit Greydanus’s definition of “reasonable people.” Is there any hard evidence to the contrary?
Frederick W. Marks
Forest Hills, New York
Full Frontal Smut Assault
For the most part, Steven Greydanus’s article condoning artistic and incidental “nudity, sexual content, obscene or profane language, and explicit violence” in art and even entertainment is correct. Catholicism, unlike Gnosticism, knows creation to be fundamentally good. His encouragement will be helpful for the prude in many of us and the rigorists he describes who would disengage the world for fear of getting tarnished.
But this is 2005, and Puritanism is not the major problem in Christendom. Prudence would be better served if he had balanced the article with a more clear acknowledgment that most current films are in fact filled with smut and should be avoided.
My impression from the article is that a little sex and profanity never hurt anybody. Perhaps this is true in some ways, but clarity is critical so that when granting permission to the scrupulous, false license to bathe in the current cultural swamp is not given to the rest of us during this age of full frontal cinematic assault on our souls. Pardon the pun.
Jonathan Metzler
Lubbock, Texas
Heterophobia?
Jimmy Akin is to be commended for his acknowledgment and perspective that the “gay marriage” issue needs to be reframed (Brass Tacks, November 2004). I would like to add another angle that I feel needs to be addressed and that is more basic than just defending marriage between a man and a woman: What is homosexuality and what does it mean to the person experiencing it? When the debate or discussion is couched in the terms of homophobia or “oppressors,” turn it around and ask whether those who experience same-sex attraction are suffering from heterophobia. Then ask whether, because this condition leads to such negative consequences for the person, it is inhumane to not seek both its cause and its healing.
The fact being ignored on all sides of the debate—except in the Vatican writings on the subject—is that it is a sexual disorder. We do not know much about the process or cause of this disorder as it has not been politically correct since 1973 to study or research it. It is a disservice and abandonment of young people experiencing sexual confusion to tell them that all they have to look forward to is the sexual aberrations that are inherent in homosexual acts. To do nothing, to say nothing, is to contribute to the “leading into temptation” of the innocent and suffering.
If animals of an endangered species refused to breed, scientists would be scurrying about frantically, and it would be seen as an aberration to be fixed or cured.
The mission of Catholics and all educators should be to give the youth of America an honest and complete education about sexuality.
Name withheld
via e-mail
Lowercase Divinity
Regarding Mary Beth Kremski’s review of Discovering the Hidden Reality by Jesuit Father George Maloney (Reviews, November 2004):
Obviously, the reason the terminology unsettled the reviewer is that referring to God as “uncreated energies” is an attack on God as a Person. The reviewer then says, “If this [terminology] were the only bump in the road, perhaps it could be overlooked.”
Whoa! Overlooking God as Person—that is, three Persons in one nature—is the basis for the majority of current heresies. I offer a gentle suggestion that the reviewer place the book in context of this morning’s newspaper to see all the ways God is being demoted.
Easier yet, one only needs to read articles in This Rock to find out that God is not a being Who is above us: Every time a pronoun for God is in lowercase, God is demoted. Shouldn’t an apologetics apostolate differentiate between a human “him” and God?
Mary Helen Klinge-Drucker
Freeport, Illinois
Editor’s reply: We certainly share your concern that the personhood of God be upheld. While it may seem that lowercasing divine pronouns “demotes” God, a more catholic (here meaning “universal”) view dispels that fear. There is no official Church teaching regarding this, of course. You will notice that most Vatican documents do not capitalize divine pronouns, nor do most Catholic Bible versions. The biblical languages originally made no distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters. In the English language, capitalization of divine pronouns was part of an overall printing style, no longer current, that used capitalization for emphasis. So, we see that this is not a theological issue at all but one of printing style, and printing style is decided on the basis of readability.