Good-bye

This is a very sad day for me, Loose Canon’s last boom. No, I wasn’t chased out by those cantankerous mini-boards!

I made the painful decision to give up Loose Canon. I have a book due at the end of summer; that is a tight deadline; something had to give. I’ve been in denial about this for weeks, dreading getting up on Monday morning without the prospect of making some mischief as Loose Canon.

There have been three Ash Wednesdays, two Easter Sundays, the death of one pope and the election of another since I began this gig. And I have the distinct feeling that I changed not a single mind. Perhaps I was too abrasive, or not abrasive enough.

Perhaps I should be concerned about the volume of rancor I generated on the mini-boards. Indeed, I have had, from time to time, the fleeting and disconcerting feeling that, like poor old Bridey Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited, I might not be the best apologist for the faith. It is after Bridey has made some particularly annoying statement that Charles Ryder says to him: “D’you know, Bridey, if I ever felt for a moment like becoming a Catholic, I should only have to talk to you for five minutes to be cured. You manage to reduce what seem quite sensible propositions to stark nonsense.” “It’s odd you should say that,” Bridey replies. “I’ve heard it before from other people. It’s one of the reasons I don’t think I would make a good priest.”

If the Church reaps a rich harvest of souls among Beliefnet members in coming weeks, I’ll know why. At the risk of delaying the influx of converts, I do want to make a few observations. One of the most hotly debated recent issues addressed on Loose Canon concerned pharmacists: Should they have the right to refuse to fill a prescription they regard as morally repugnant? In a society that puts a premium on the primacy of individual conscience, most Beliefnet posters said, no, a pharmacist should not have this right. The right to the “morning after” pill trumps all other considerations. First, they came for the pharmacists.

I was surprised that my posts on the cartoon jihad didn’t generate more conversation. Resurgent Islam of a fundamentalist variety is the big story of our age, and it is painful to me that so many people do not value our own country and our own magnificent civilization enough. There are many blots on Western civilization, among them slavery, but for so many the perfect is enemy of the good. We will have to value our civilization if it—and we—are to survive. But our civilization has been going on a long time, and its surprising regenerative powers have amazed throughout history.

But let me climb down from my soap box and bid farewell. I want to thank the fine editors at Beliefnet, most especially Steve Waldman, who offered me this chance, and Rebecca Phillips, who put up with my foibles longer than anyone should have to. She is a deft hand at editing and was tactful and soothing during the many food fights in which Swami and I engaged. I also owe many thanks to Beliefnet members, often fractious, frequently angry, but always interesting, for reading and responding to my posts. I shall miss you all. No, I swear I will. Be of good cheer.

Flunking History

"End of History" author Francis Fukuyama, who believed that the world was headed toward liberal democracies, was one of the hottest intellectuals of the 1990s. Now, the Fuke has a new book out, "America at the Crossroads," in which the most prominent defector from the neo-con ranks talks about his second thoughts on the Iraq war.

Christopher Hitchens demolishes Fukuyama and his arguments:

"The three questions that anyone developing second thoughts about the Iraq conflict must answer are these: Was the George H.W. Bush administration right to confirm Saddam Hussein in power after his eviction from Kuwait in 1991? Is it right to say that we had acquired a responsibility for Iraq, given past mistaken interventions and given the great moral question raised by the imposition of sanctions? And is it the case that another confrontation with Saddam was inevitable; those answering 'yes' thus being implicitly right in saying that we, not he, should choose the timing of it? Fukuyama does not even mention these considerations. Instead, by his slack use of terms like 'magnet,' he concedes to the fanatics and beheaders the claim that they are a response to American blunders and excesses.

"That's why last week was a poor one for him to pick. Surely the huge spasm of Islamist hysteria over caricatures published in Copenhagen shows that there is no possible Western insurance against doing something that will inflame jihadists? The sheer audacity and evil of destroying the shrine of the 12th imam is part of an inter-Muslim civil war that had begun long before the forces of al-Qaida decided to exploit that war and also to export it to non-Muslim soil. Yes, we did indeed underestimate the ferocity and ruthlessness of the jihadists in Iraq. Where, one might inquire, have we not underestimated those forces and their virulence? (We are currently underestimating them in Nigeria, for example, which is plainly next on the Bin Laden hit list and about which I have been boring on ever since Bin Laden was good enough to warn us in the fall of 2004.)

"In the face of this global threat and its recent and alarmingly rapid projection onto European and American soil, Fukuyama proposes beefing up 'the State Department, U.S.A.I.D., the National Endowment for Democracy and the like.' You might expect a citation from a Pew poll at about this point, and, don't worry, he doesn't leave that out, either. But I have to admire that vague and lazy closing phrase 'and the like.' Hegel meets Karen Hughes!"

Earthquake in Canada

"Once upon a time, they might've been boiled in oil, drawn and quartered, hung by the neck and, if their luck held out, swiftly guillotined," a Canadian news outlet notes of the 19 Roman Catholic priests in the province of Quebec who defied the Vatican on gay "marriage" and ordaining homosexuals in an open letter published in Montreal's La Presse newspaper. Ah, but those were better days. (To those readers who are poised to comment in outrage: This is a joke. Or, on second thought, maybe not: One definitely wants more from her bishop than the statement that dissent on this scale and in this matter is "not an earthquake." It is.)

The National Catholic Reporter's Vatican correspondent John Allen had this to say in an article about the renegade priests:

"I am not sure what the scandal is," Allen, author of "The Rise of Benedict XVI" and a new book, "Opus Dei," told The Gazette.

"These 19 signatories are the usual suspects. There is no name on that list that would just shock you. There is nobody of any rank on that list that would surprise you that they would sign such a letter."

Having covered dissident Catholics for the National Catholic Register, I am sure they are the usual suspects. But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. These priests will claim to speak for the Church--some true, non-hierchical Church that exists in their imaginations--and people will believe that, indeed, what they say is what the Church teaches.

Catholic blogger Diogenese sums up this problem:

"What about the naive Catholics who presume that, when they visit their local parish, the homily will faithfully reflect what the Church teaches, and what they need to hear as they work toward their own salvation?"

John Allen gets that point, too:

"But there is an expectation that if someone is teaching, preaching or publishing in the name of the Church, they should not add to the confusion of what Church teaching actually is.
There's one time-tested method of ensuring that parish preaching matches Catholic orthodoxy. It's called a bishop--that is, one who accepts his responsibility."

One of these paragons of priestly virtue appears to have had quite the career before he entered the priesthood--indeed, one might ask: What was his vocations director thinking? Not that there's anything wrong with this, as Seinfeld would say.

Ash Wednesday, 2006

Ash Wednesday is one of the truly beautiful days in the Christian year--even though it is all about sin. In his Ash Wednesday audience, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the Christian's duty to "oppose evil with good, lies with the truth, and hatred with love." I wasn't there, of course, but the scene in Rome appeared to capture the beauty and solemnity of the day:

"The Holy Father presided at a traditional Roman observance of Ash Wednesday, leading a penitential procession from the church of St. Anselm to the basilica of Santa Sabina, for Mass and the distribution of ashes. In his homily he said that the Lenten season reminds Christians that spiritual life is a form of combat 'in which the weapons of prayer, fasting, and penance must be used.' The ascetic life of the penitential season should be followed 'with humility and patience, generosity and perseverance,' the Pontiff continued. By developing an interior attitude of humility and self-sacrifice, he said, Christians become 'witnesses and apostles of peace.' "

I hate it when preachers try to tart up some ancient idea by relating it to something modern, which can turn out to be trite if the preacher hasn't really thought it through.

At the risk of being trite, here goes: How is Ash Wednesday like a contemporary 12-step program? Both ask people to face the truth, or hit bottom. In the case of Ash Wednesday and Lent, the awful truth we must face is that we are all sinners. The Misere me, Deus in "A Penitential Office for Ash Wednesday" in the old Episcopal Book of Common Prayer captures the awesome nature of our sins:

"Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness; * according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences. Wash me throughly from my wickedness, * and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my faults, * and my sin is ever before me. Against thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; * that thou mightest be justified in thy saying, and clear when thou art judged. Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, * and in sin hath my mother conceived me. But lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts, * and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly. "

But the amazing thing is that, if we allow ourselves to face our sins, we don't have to rectify the situation on our own. We ask God to "Turn thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned."

Ash Wednesday is about turning to God and allowing ourselves to be turned by Him. God bless, and have a nice Lent! [Just for the record, you weren't conceived in sin because sex is evil, but because we all inherit the taint of original sin--the one Christian dogma, some wag once observed, for which there is empirical evidence. In Lent, we try to build on nature and become better--with help.]

Baghdad Isn't London of the Blitz

Swami recently asked why Loose Canon never writes about the war in Iraq. But I have repeatedly made it clear that I support the war. Perhaps he means the civil war that is said to be emerging?

Here is a quote from a column from Iraq by military affairs expert Ralph Peters that might help explain my reticence:

"The reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.

"Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

"Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business—and everyday life in abundance.

"Yes, there were bombings yesterday. The terrorists won't give up on their dream of sectional strife, and know they can count on allies in the media as long as they keep the images of carnage coming. They'll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn't London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11."