Ubi Petrus

So I’m sitting here leafing through this catalog I got in the mail yesterday from Ignatius Press. My first thought was “wow”. Then I suddenly realized I had taken on the persona of my five year-old son with a toy catalog – flipping page to page and starting back at the beginning when I reached the end. I have several problems with this catalogue though. My first problem is I simply can’t decide what I’d like to get first. My second problem is I still haven’t plowed through my already-increasing pile of reading material. And third, I simply don’t have enough money to buy all the books that have really caught my eye.

Aside from the books, they also have several different sections for videos, tapes, and gifts. The “From: me To: me” gift that’s currently at the top of my list is their Pieta sculpture. I’ve always loved the Pieta in its various forms, and to find one that won’t completely break my bank makes me even happier.

Oh, and on a totally different note, it looks like I’ve finally convinced my workstation to work with the new modular X configuration in Gentoo. The last package (OpenOffice 2.0.2) finished building some time today while I was at work. As anyone who has ever built OOo on a Pentium system can tell you, that is a long, arduous process. Time to go play and see what broke. While I hope the answer is “nothing”, I’ve worked around computers long enough to have absolutely no expectation to that end.

In his blog today at FIRST THINGS Joseph Bottum proposes a concept that has the unique property of being even more true without its surrounding context than with it. In discussing the recurring massive protests in France, he writes: “It’s tempting to pose this as a general rule: A people who lack any sense of the future will find that the future lacks any sense of them.” As true as it is in relation to those protesting (and hopefully not rioting) it is equally as true throughout the course of human history – any person or group without hope for the future forfeits their ability to truly have an impact on that future. One pauses to think…

So like so many I thought it wouldn’t be hard keeping up with a blog. After all, I’m caught yapping and typing all the time. Heh. Not exactly shall we say. So what has been taking up all my time? Let’s see…

• Watching the World Baseball Classic – yes, it really did turn out better than I’d expected, even though the U.S. didn’t win. Good baseball is always worth watching, no matter who is playing.
• Catching up on my back reading (I’m up to January!) of Billiards Digest, Catholic Digest and FIRST THINGS.
• Trying to figure out how to get my to-be-work system to update its Gentoo installation to work properly with their new modular X configuration. Lesson learned: next time read the whole document instead of skipping ahead. *sigh*
• Trying to keep up with all my friends over at Catholic-Pages.com. The discussions are generally lively and the people are just plain smart. As much as I thought I knew about the Catholic faith, these people continue to amaze me with what’s still to be learned.
• And finally I’ve been slowly making my way through Pope Benedict’s 2005 book, A New Song For The Lord. While it’s not the perfect book, since it’s based on a collection of lectures and interviews, all through the pages I’m finding unique insights and ways of seeing I hadn’t contemplated before.

Since none of that is much of an excuse, I suppose I should at least provide the news local to me. Recently the Diocese of Manchester announced the appointment of a new President and CEO for New Hampshire Catholic Charities. This wouldn’t normally be newsworthy, other than for two facts:

• This is the first time the Bishop of Manchester has not been the active head of Catholic Charities.
• The recent, err, issues concerning the lay leaders of some of the Catholic Charities in areas such as Boston and San Francisco.

Do I think this means anything? I don’t know yet. I only hope that our Diocese is blessed with servants more interested in doing the God’s will than their own, and should that fail to happen, that our Diocesean leadership will be sure to keep them in accord with their Catholic charter. The last thing our Catholic Church needs is any more scandals.

Well now doesn’t this just get interesting? A group that calls itself The National Center For Men has filed suit on behalf of a gentleman named Matt Dubay. At issue? He hadn’t intended for his then-girlfriend to get pregnant and now wants to be able to opt out of paying child support. Their press release is here.

On the surface this gives us one of two responses: 1) he’s just being greedy and trying to have his cake and eat it too; or 2) he was duped by his then-girlfriend and should have every reproductive right she has. Of course, sadly, neither of these responses even bothers to raise into question what really should be the ultimate problem at issue – the modern concept of sex without issues as a constitutionally protected right. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to drag out the time-honored statement: “if they hadn’t been having sex they wouldn’t have this problem”. There. You can stop reading now if you think that’s far too old-school for the modern world.

Now really, if you’re still reading, you understand that not having sex is the only way to ensure you don’t have unplanned pregnancy. Sure, the world has given us birth control methods that have very low “failure” rates. But as a friend once warned me, “it only takes one”.

The question of this lawsuit, however, isn’t settled just by saying “they shouldn’t have done that” because they already did and now there is a life in this world that needs help. No matter how correct you may be, wagging your finger is almost never a solution to an issue. The problem here is both sides are right: the child has a right to support from both of her parents, and the man involved in reproductive issues is denied the same rights as given to the woman.

I’m sadly left, lacking the wisdom of Solomon, to posit that this may well be an intractable problem in our national set of laws and social norms. God has ordained that women carry the baby for nine months while the man effectively has no fixed obligation after those inital moments of pleasure. Note that I said “effectively”; this is not to suggest that he should not, only that it is not impossible for him to simply walk away at that point which stands in stark contrast to the options open to women.

How, at that point, do we say “you, woman, have the right to stop this pregnancy at any point for any reason” and simultaneously say “you, man, now have no more say one way or the other”. After all, it certainly does seem to reflect the physical reality of the situation. But where in our system of laws is it stated that the performance of an otherwise lawful act necessarily causes the actor to lose rights? That certainly doesn’t seem very American, now does it? How does one solve this riddle? Right now I confess I don’t know. But what I do know is that the U.S. court system has yet to show me that it’s the right place to figure this out.

In an effort to get off to a fast and furious start, I should direct you to where Gerald Augustinus has done a wonderful job of taking a look at what kind of abuses are done “in the spirit of Vatican II”. The video is really a work of Hollywood if you stop and think about it – it’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry. And when it’s all over you’ll be scratching your head and wondering, “did I really just see that?!”