The Catholic Herald

Book discussion at Salzmann, May 30

Salzmann Selections — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:59:45 +0000

Hello everybody. I apologize for the long delay in between blog postings - I hope you find it in your hearts to forgive me. I do not foresee another delay like this happening.

I’m using today’s blog to tell you about the upcoming Salzmann Selections book discussion, to take place Thursday, May 30th starting at 6 p.m. The book that the group will be reading is “Rafael, Cardinal Merry del Val,” by Marie Buehrle. It is an older book, written in 1957.

This book looks at his life and the influences he had in the Vatican during his time there, and also shows a little background into some of the processes of deciding a new pope, granted decades ago. Here is a short summary of who Merry del Val Cardinal Rafael was:

Rafael Merry del Val y de Zulueta (10 October 1865 – 26 February 1930), Servant of God, was a British-born Spanish Roman Catholic cardinal. Before becoming a cardinal, he served as secretary of the conclave that elected Saint Pius X, who is said to have accepted his election as Pope through Merry del Val's encouragement. Pius X later appointed him as the Cardinal Secretary of State. Merry del Val composed the Litany of Humility. A cause for his canonization was opened in 1953. (information from Wikipedia).

We hope to see you there.
Also, two of our patrons are looking at setting up another book discussion as more of a weekly or biweekly event, with Pope Benedict’s “Introduction to Christianity” as the first book. They are thinking right now of doing a chapter or two each discussion in order to break down the book and reveal the teachings hidden within. If you are interested in that, please leave a comment on the blog or contact me, my email address and phone number are listed below.

As always, if you have any ideas and comments for things I could change, please let me know. If you have any books that you have read or have read the books I mention, please leave a comment. We here at Salzmann also want to know what people are reading. Comments are always appreciated - anything I can do to make this better I will strive my best to accomplish.

Here is some basic information about the library:

• Our standard hours are Tuesdays, Thursdays, 12 to 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Our address is 3257 S. Lake Dr., St. Francis, WI 53235, right next to Henni Hall, due west of the South Parking Lot.
• The library’s phone number is (414) 747-6479. If you would like to contact me through email, it is mschrauth@sfs.edu.
• There is free Wi-Fi available.
• "Like" us on Facebook – Salzmann Library.
• The library catalog is available online.

1 book dishonors Chesterton; 1 offers complex view of Nouwen

Tracy Rusch — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:30:05 +0000

"The Complete Thinker: The Marvelous Mind of G.K. Chesterton" by Dale Ahlquist. Ignatius Press (San Francisco, 2012). 264 pp., $17.95.

"Genius Born of Anguish: The Life and Legacy of Henri Nouwen" by Michael W. Higgins and Kevin Burns. Paulist Press (Mahwah, N.J., 2012). 176 pp., $17.95.

Dale Ahlquist is an excellent guide to the writing of the G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936). He is the president of the American Chesterton Society, the host of an Eternal Word Television Network show ("The Apostle of Common Sense") and has written several other books about Chesterton.

Every page of his book, "The Complete Thinker," illustrates Ahlquist's deep knowledge of Chesterton's prodigious writing. The excerpts are organized thematically, from broad (early chapters include "Truth and its Discontents" and "The Problem of Evil") to specific topics ("Law and Lawyers," "Buying and Selling," "War and Peace").

"The Complete Thinker" is not so much an introduction to Chesterton's work as it is a hagiographic presentation of him as the consummate Catholic apologist. But the book is flawed by its lack of historical context.

There is no denying that Chesterton was an accomplished apologist, but he was an apologist before the Second Vatican Council, a member of a triumphalistic pre-war English Catholic Church. Vatican II opened the church to a rich scriptural, patristic and liturgical spirituality, sources that Chesterton would not have known of. Ahlquist mistakenly acts as if the church is still the church that was so attractive to Chesterton, and which he in turn made so attractive to others.

Ahlquist claims that Chesterton "is always the opposite of arrogant in his defense of the truth." Maybe. But Ahlquist is not. He uses Chesterton's words to bludgeon people and ideas with which he disagrees. This angry and aggrieved litany includes toleration (which masks "the modern hatred of religion") and relativism, feminists who are "riled up with resentment, and utterly joyless," the "obscene defiance of militant homosexuals," colleges and universities "mocking tradition and praising innovation, tripping over themselves to be progressive" and "a National Health Care program passed in utter defiance of the public will."

This is a wearying, mean-spirited and contemptuous book. Chesterton deserves better.

Fr. Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) was also a prodigious and still-popular writer, one who appeals to a much different audience than Chesterton. A companion volume to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio series, the book is co-written by Michael Higgins, Fr. Nouwen's official biographer, and radio producer Kevin Burns. The Dutch-born priest's "life and legacy" is explored through interviews with family members, friends and colleagues.

"Genius Born of Anguish" is not a whitewashed portrait, but a sympathetic and empathic reading of Fr. Nouwen's paradoxical life. He taught at Yale and Harvard and was a pastor at Daybreak, a L'Arche community outside of Toronto. He spent time in Cistercian monasteries, lived in barrios in Peru and Bolivia, and befriended the Flying Rodleighs, a circus trapeze team. He was depressive, deeply lonely, conflicted by his homosexuality, and afflicted with an incessant need for affection and affirmation.

We see ample evidence of Fr. Nouwen's "emotional volatility, his thin-skinned nature, his sensitivity to any gesture or comment that he perceived as undervaluing his work." But we also see his fidelity to his friends, his vocation and his lifelong effort to discover the freeing mercy of God.

He was both self-absorbed and remarkably compassionate, emotionally needy but exceptionally generous in accompanying people in their suffering and joys. He was faithful to his religious vows, maintained an integrated prayer life, and refused to engage in "the cultural and ecclesiastical politics of the post-Second Vatican Council era."

Carolyn Whitney-Brown, a Daybreak colleague, noted that Fr. Nouwen "says that some people try so hard to have no sins that they end up with no virtues either. You have to take the whole package we call life; you have to live with the whole thing." That is an apt summary of the man who is so lovingly and clearly portrayed in this book. "Through painful transparency, he wrestled with his sexual identity, acknowledged his furiously buried failures of heart, experienced the leveling honesty of intensive therapy, and tried with near heroic fortitude to pave a road to holiness through the loneliness and abandonment that were his steady companions."

Linner, a freelance writer and reviewer, has a master's degree in theology from Weston Jesuit School of Theology.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Tracy Rusch — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:53:00 +0000

NEW YORK — The original fans of the long-lived "Star Trek" franchise may be getting older; the TV series that started everything off, after all, first hit antennas (remember them?) nearly 50 years ago.

But director J.J. Abrams continues to keep the perennially appealing characters of this sci-fi stalwart young with his second chronicle of their early professional lives, "Star Trek Into Darkness" (Paramount).

In following up on his 2009 reboot of - and prequel to - Gene Roddenberry's mythos, Abrams crafts a snappy adventure on a spectacular scale. And the story - penned by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof - carries an ethically respectable thematic cargo.

Still, the parents of teen Trekkies will need to weigh the profit of the film's positive central message against the debit of some sensual imagery and vulgar talk.

You'd have to have been living in a dark cave on Kronos since at least the Johnson administration not to know that Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is dynamic and impetuous. But just in case, early scenes confirm that he hasn't changed his ways.

Neither has his seemingly emotionless half-Vulcan, half-human first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto). Spock's devotion to pure logic endures, so too does his exactitude where regulations are concerned.

Despite their apparent oil-and-water chemistry, of course, the two share a deep bond. They also collaborate successfully in providing leadership to the intrepid crew of the Starship Enterprise. This United Nations-like ensemble includes such familiar figures as Communications Officer Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Medical Officer McCoy (Karl Urban), Chief Engineer Scott (Simon Pegg), navigator Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and helmsman Sulu (John Cho).

The Enterprise's current quest involves a high-stakes, sometimes morally fraught crusade against Starfleet officer-turned- intergalactic-terrorist John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, oozing elegant evil). Kirk and company are helped along the way by a new crew member, fetching auxiliary Science Officer Carol Marcus (Alice Eve).

Marcus pushes Kirk's buttons even as she steps on Spock's toes (science being Spock's traditional bailiwick). But neither she nor Harrison, it turns out, are quite who they initially appear to be.

To solve at least one of these mysteries, Kirk will have to resist both his own impulse to wreak revenge on Harrison - one of whose victims was someone close to Kirk's heart - and the orders he's been issued to eliminate the fugitive without trial.

As Kirk struggles to be true to his own better nature, with sage encouragement from Spock, the script issues a warning against employing immoral means to overcome evil - an admonition that registers as both scripturally resonant and timely. Other, equally weighty, subjects touched on include friendship and even death.

In connection with the latter topic, it cuts somewhat against the grain that McCoy manages to produce a deus ex machina-style plot reversal by means of a chemically engineered resurrection. Christian viewers may be willing to dismiss this as either trivial or desperate. But it doesn't help matters that Spock, at another juncture, flatly denies the possibility of miracles.

Perhaps only a great theologian like St. Thomas Aquinas could work through such a contradiction. A saying attributed to him holds that everything that happens has a natural explanation; and everything that happens is a miracle.

Many youthful viewers may lack the angelic doctor's far-seeing wisdom, and may also be edged out of the appropriate audience for "Star Trek Into Darkness" by the elements listed below. But at least some adult guardians may consider the picture acceptable for older adolescents.

"Star Trek Into Darkness" will be shown on both Imax and conventional screens.

The film contains much bloodless battling but also occasional harsh violence, some sexual content - including a trio glimpsed waking up together and scenes with skimpy costuming - a few uses of crude language and a half-dozen crass terms. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III - adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 - parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.

Brazilian court: Rancher convicted of nun's 2005 murder gets new trial

Tracy Rusch — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:45:02 +0000

SAO PAULO — Brazil's highest court has annulled the trial of rancher Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, convicted of masterminding the 2005 assassination of U.S.-born Sr. Dorothy Stang.

The Supreme Court ruled that Moura's attorneys did not have enough time to prepare for the 2010 trial. This was the third time Moura had been tried for ordering the murder.

In 2007 Moura was sentenced to 30 years in jail for masterminding the assassination. In Brazil, if a person is sentenced for more than 20 years, he has the right to be retried with a new jury.

During the 2008 trial, Moura was declared innocent of the charges.

In 2009, the verdict was annulled by the courts of the state of Para, and Moura was tried again in 2010. He was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years. His retrial date has not yet been set, but the Supreme Court has ordered that he remain in jail until the new trial.

The Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission said "the regrettable decision by the country's highest court serves only to intensify the land conflicts and deaths in Brazil's rural regions."

Sr. Dorothy, a naturalized Brazilian citizen, was a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and a native of Dayton, Ohio, but had lived in the Amazon region for nearly four decades. The 73-year-old nun worked closely with the Pastoral Land Commission in favor of land rights for the poor and for sustainable development in the region.

The other four men involved in the murder are in jail, serving sentences that range from 17 to 30 years.

Mature Lifestyles, May 16, 2013

Tracy Rusch — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:12:41 +0000

Pat Farrell always had time - 40 years of it - for students
Retired principal embraced 'Memorial Way'

Quilter creates patchwork of service
After 58 years, Sheboygan woman not ready to put away needle

Sr. Kathleen O'Brien wins Sacagawea Award
Recognized for 'trailblazing' in women's education

Graduation season is time for reminiscing
Out and About, Gene Horn

Dad's ring is sign of hope, promise
The Whirl, Marge Fenelon

Reunions renew friendships, memories
Expanding Horizons, Joan King

Neighborhood party leads to lifetime of parish involvement

Cardinal Stritch University chancellor celebrates 90th birthday
Hundreds gather to honor Franciscan sister's accomplishments

Photos: Prom in paradise