The Dish

A visual guide.

One of the more intellectually alive of modern Christians, Peter Rollins talks of truth:

"Look, when I was fighting against my own president, whether we needed more troops in Iraq, or … spending was completely out of control, then I was a maverick. Now that I'm fighting against this spending administration and this out-of-control and reckless health care plan, then I'm a partisan," – John McCain this morning.

A must-read for Sunday: Hans Kung's devastating indictment of his former theological partner, Joseph Ratzinger. It's an open letter to the bishops. Money quote:

Missed is the opportunity to make the spirit of the Second Vatican Council the compass for the whole Catholic Church, including the Vatican itself, and thus to promote the needed reforms in the church.

This last point, respected bishops, is the most serious of all. Time and again, this pope has added qualifications to the conciliar texts and interpreted them against the spirit of the council fathers. Time and again, he has taken an express stand against the Ecumenical Council, which according to canon law represents the highest authority in the Catholic Church:

He has taken the bishops of the traditionalist Pius X Society back into the church without any preconditions – bishops who were illegally consecrated outside the Catholic Church and who reject central points of the Second Vatican Council (including liturgical reform, freedom of religion and the rapprochement with Judaism).

He promotes the medieval Tridentine Mass by all possible means and occasionally celebrates the Eucharist in Latin with his back to the congregation.

He refuses to put into effect the rapprochement with the Anglican Church, which was laid out in official ecumenical documents by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, and has attempted instead to lure married Anglican clergy into the Roman Catholic Church by freeing them from the very rule of celibacy that has forced tens of thousands of Roman Catholic priests out of office.

He has actively reinforced the anti-conciliar forces in the church by appointing reactionary officials to key offices in the Curia (including the secretariat of state, and positions in the liturgical commission) while appointing reactionary bishops around the world.

Pope Benedict XVI seems to be increasingly cut off from the vast majority of church members who pay less and less heed to Rome and, at best, identify themselves only with their local parish and bishop.

I know that many of you are pained by this situation. In his anti-conciliar policy, the pope receives the full support of the Roman Curia. The Curia does its best to stifle criticism in the episcopate and in the church as a whole and to discredit critics with all the means at its disposal. With a return to pomp and spectacle catching the attention of the media, the reactionary forces in Rome have attempted to present us with a strong church fronted by an absolutistic “Vicar of Christ” who combines the church’s legislative, executive and judicial powers in his hands alone. But Benedict’s policy of restoration has failed. All of his spectacular appearances, demonstrative journeys and public statements have failed to influence the opinions of most Catholics on controversial issues. This is especially true regarding matters of sexual morality. Even the papal youth meetings, attended above all by conservative-charismatic groups, have failed to hold back the steady drain of those leaving the church or to attract more vocations to the priesthood.

You in particular, as bishops, have reason for deep sorrow: Tens of thousands of priests have resigned their office since the Second Vatican Council, for the most part because of the celibacy rule. Vocations to the priesthood, but also to religious orders, sisterhoods and lay brotherhoods are down – not just quantitatively but qualitatively. Resignation and frustration are spreading rapidly among both the clergy and the active laity. Many feel that they have been left in the lurch with their personal needs, and many are in deep distress over the state of the church. In many of your dioceses, it is the same story: increasingly empty churches, empty seminaries and empty rectories. In many countries, due to the lack of priests, more and more parishes are being merged, often against the will of their members, into ever larger “pastoral units,” in which the few surviving pastors are completely overtaxed. This is church reform in pretense rather than fact!

And now, on top of these many crises comes a scandal crying out to heaven – the revelation of the clerical abuse of thousands of children and adolescents, first in the United States, then in Ireland and now in Germany and other countries. And to make matters worse, the handling of these cases has given rise to an unprecedented leadership crisis and a collapse of trust in church leadership.

“God was that dog I held today.” Wrenching. Real. Painful beyond words. But pointing toward something true. We’ve posted this before – and I should warn any dog-owners it’s wrenching to watch – but it’s an exquisite insight into how God is always a part of our lives, in the strangest places, where some refuse to see His presence. It is about grace through suffering.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

(Hat tip: Zak)

Pivoting off a good column by Peggy Noonan, Dreher reflects:

I think future historians will observe a near-catastrophic "epistemic closure" in key institutions of this era. The Church leadership's inability to grasp the true nature of the situation, and their role in the crisis. One thinks of the political leadership of this country through most of the 2000s, and how it got into terrible trouble because of the same epistemic closure (a fancy way of saying "living in a bubble"). I am once again reminded of my friend the top investment banker, who, roundabout 2004, looked around him at a banker's summit and saw his colleagues behaving like spoiled princes at a bacchanal — and concluded that their privilege insulated them from any sense of reality, which would lead to disaster. As it did.

The first of ten segments from a revealing, and recently released, 2003 interview. More here.

Why I can't join, despite having a great deal of sympathy for their alleged small government support.

In case you had any doubt:

The Courier-Journal reports the 2008 Republican candidate for vice president mixed stories of personal struggles and calls for women to be good mothers and good citizens with criticism of President Barack Obama – although she did not mention him by name.

Palin asked the women to provide a "prayer shield" to strengthen her against what she said was "deception" in the media.

She asserted that America needs to get back to its Christian roots and rejected any notion that "God should be separated from the state."

She also spoke about turning to God after learning she would have a child with Down syndrome, saying that "choosing life may not be the easiest path, but it really is the right path."

They may have been Todd's grandfathers. They sure aren't Sarah's.