Red Rose Writing

This is yesterday’s effort but Blogger didn’t like me then so you can have it today instead…

Those of you who have read my stuff before will know I have a talent (read curse) for attracting odd people when I am standing in queues (particularly when waiting for buses). Well today I don’t have a story about my fellow passengers. In fact I think for about the first time ever I felt something which bordered on friendship with the majority of the bus (not including smelly drunk people) as we held on for our lives and survived to tell the tale.

I’m rather suspicious of the idea, presented in this Catholic Exchange article, that the glory of Vatican II’s marital theology was its rescinding a contractual model in favor of a “covenantal” one — and, consequently, the advancement of the notion of “partnership” in place of a hierarchy which is clearly delineated in the passages from Ephesians V the article cites [it is so concerned with delegitimizing the notion that St. Paul's words justify domestic violence, abuse, and/or tyranny (fair enough) that it neglects to even address the question of whether under the new conception any hierarchy between the spouses exists], alongside advancing “the good of the spouses” as equal in importance with procreation as fundamental ends of marriage [again, in a clear deviation from traditional theology, which holds procreation as primary end, the good of the spouses and the allaying of concupiscence as subordinate ends].

So we got a dress-rehearsal yesterday. Pope John Paul II rushed to a hospital after suffering from the flu for several days: this on top of his being nearly 85 years old, in declining health, susceptible to freak injuries, and thus slowing physical momentum, for over 10 years now. They say he’ll come out of this one OK, but frankly, it’s a harbinger of things to come. That he has hung on this long is incredible enough, but he can’t last forever….

Those of us who don’t quite accept the “John Paul the Great” mythos, and instead fear that he will indeed have much to account for in his long pontificate before the Divine Majesty, have thus all the more reason to pray for him — and the Church — in these, his last days.

The rest of the country will talk about some groundhog in Pennsylvania today, but serious Catholics know that the real significance of this day is its being the Feast of the Purification of the B.V.M., the theme of the 4th Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, when our Lord is presented in the Temple at the age of 40 days — and when St. Simeon, he of the Nunc Dimittis, warns our Lady that her Child will someday be the occasion of deep division in Israel and of incredible suffering for herself.

[After a long hiatus, another installment in one of A9C's irregular series, in which are explored the doings and sayings of those who call themselves Catholics but yet refuse to accept Christ the King's jurisdiction over the political sphere, just like that wicked mob in Pilate's courtyard that said, well, you know....]

Some bishops in Colorado, including the noteworthy Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, affirmed in writing their defense of Catholic hospitals that would be forced to provide “emergency contraception” under a bill that cleared the state House, is expected to clear the state Senate, and will end up on the desk of Gov. Bill Owens, who professes to be Catholic but refuses to disclose his position on the bill.

Well, after more than a month’s absence, a belated Happy New Year to you all. It hasn’t started out quite that way for me, much-explaining the time elapsed since my last post, and as most of you know, I was openly questioning whether this enterprise was even worth it anymore. Only about a dozen readers heeded my call for expressions of their support, but as I have always been one to expound upon “quality over quantity” and the first to advise others not to get sucked into popularity contests, three of these messages particularly persuaded me to leave everything as-is and, eventually, begin making use of this space again.

Other bloggers talk about taking the Christmas holidays off, but since the Annals is so infrequently updated, what would be the point in that? There’s always something to say about something….

So I’m rummaging through the meager Web site of John Vennari’s Catholic Family News, to which I’ve never had a subscription.* One of the few articles it does replicate online is “Karl Rahner’s Girlfriend,” referring to the infamous Jesuit considered the foremost of the Modernist periti of Vatican II and the late German feminoid writer (and aren’t all contemporary German women writers feminoids???) Luise Rinser and the, um, unusual relationship they shared during the Council and for the rest of Rahner’s life (he died in 1984). Well, Vennari reports that she protested that this relationship did not include direct sexual acts….

Tom Pauken, writing in Chronicles magazine of Rockford, Ill., describes the hostility on the part of the Bush-Rove axis to real conservatives in action in Texas politics in the late 20th century — illustrative of how it is that in Washington at the top of the 21st, their act of suffocation continues, as this commentary in the same space by Samuel Francis demonstrates.

I should have been reading this stuff more closely two months ago. Bush didn’t need my vote, after all, to carry Virginia….

I have the understanding that columnist Robert Novak is what’s called a “neo-conservative,” but his work this morning deserves much attention (and has already gotten some from Open Book, whence I found this): pointing out the White House snub of visiting Italian dignitary Rocco Buttiglione, whose nomination to serve as Justice Minister in the European Union was rejected on account of his public affirmations, consistent with his Catholic Faith, against sodomites (and feminoids also, I think).

[Headline in the style of Mark Shea, who has his good points, even though he has no time for the Annals whatsoever.]

I’m not sure much direct comment is necessary to a story detailing a ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court that “Parents can’t monitor kids’ phone calls”, as a result of agitation on some incorrigible 14-year-old girl’s boyfriend’s behalf by the Anti-Christian Licentiousness Union (ACLU). The ruling may apply only to that one state, but as part and parcel of a trend it is all too clear….