Over at the Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett has blogged the negative comments of Polly Toynbee in the Guardian about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Not only does it seem to be the case, as Ms. Toynbee points out, that the English public can no longer understand artistic references to "agony in the garden", "deposition", "transfiguration" or "ascension," but in the person of Ms. Toynbee, who does not like the reference to Aslan as a lion, preferring only the lamb imagery, they also seem to have lost all sense of such literary biblical references as "the lion of Judah," a reference that Christians have for millennia taken to be a reference to Christ:

1And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

2And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?

3And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.

4And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.

5And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

6And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

7And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.

8And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

9And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

10And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

11And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;

12Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

13And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

14And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever.

Revelation 5

That a writer writing in the land in which Handel's Messiah was written could not pick up on Lewis' allegorical reference to this allegorical passage in the book of Revelation is astounding. ("Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.")

Ms. Toynbee appears completely tone deaf to the paradox-religion of Christianity, captured in Chesterton's poem about the Incarnation entitled Gloria in Profundis. One stanza of Chesterton's poem that captures what Ms. Toynbee fails to see is:

Who is proud when the heavens are humble,
Who mounts if the mountains fall,
If the fixed stars topple and tumble
And a deluge of love drowns all-
Who rears up his head for a crown,
Who holds up his will for a warrant,
Who strives with the starry torrent,
When all that is good goes down?

And he finishes it with this stanza:

Glory to God in the Lowest
The spout of the stars in spate-
Where thunderbolt thinks to be slowest
And the lightning fears to be late:
As men dive for sunken gem
Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,
The fallen star has found it
In the cavern of Bethlehem.


"Glory to God in the Lowest!"

Christ is both the lion and the lamb. We usually think of the lion sitting down with the lamb, and take that to be an image of pacifism, where we are to see it as a biblical moral about warring human parties sitting down together in peace, and it surely is that. But it is also a reference to the meeting of the Lion and the Lamb already achieved in the Incarnation of Christ uniting the two natures--God become man, so that man might become God. Notice the identification of the Lion with the Lamb in the passage from Revelation--it is only the Lion who is worthy to open the Book of Life Who is the Lamb sacrificed. A lamb sacrificed is merely pathetic. (See Nietzsche's metaphor of the Bird of Prey and the little lamb. "Nothing is tastier than a tender lamb."(Passage #13)) But a lion become a lamb sacrificed is redemptive. The war between heaven and earth has already been ended by what Chesterton describes as the event in which:

There has fallen on earth for a token
A god too great for the sky.
He has burst out of all things and broken
The bounds of eternity:
Into time and the terminal land.

The Lamb has already sat down with the Lion in the womb of Our Lady, and it is the Lion who will die as the Lamb of God on the Cross, arms extended to welcome all of creation in peace into that heavenly banquet, a banquet in which all will be kings, as Revelation has it. (Again, that a writer writing in the Guardian in a land that still has only one king or queen objects to a picture in which all will be kings is striking. But then I'm Irish.) It is this banquet that Lewis also refers to in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the voyage in search of the seven lost lords (seven lost lords who must be found, seven seals that must be broken.) It is of course as a foreshadowing of that table in the Voyage that Lewis has the Lion die as a Lamb on a table in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Indeed, we learn that the stone table of the last island in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with the stone knife set in its center, just is the same stone table and knife used to sacrifice the Lion-Lamb in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The Lion becomes the Lamb so that the altar of sacrifice may become the table of communion.

Most striking is Toynbee's inability to recognize that as an allegory, the triumphant battle at the end over the White Witch and her minions is not a triumph over real persons, but a triumph over our own sinfulness, brought about by the sacrifice of the Lion-Lamb. Tolkien may not have liked the Chronicles because they were allegorical, as he thought allegory an inferior form of literature, but at least he had the good sense to actually read them as allegory in order not to like them. That another British writer cannot grasp the literary and artistic references to biblical themes in these stories, of one allegory to another, makes me proud to be an Irishman.

Especially an Irishman.

From: http://www.tomroeser.com/

7 Pharmacists Terminated by Walgreen's Shows Disdain for Illinois Right of Conscience

At least seven Walgreen's pharmacists were terminated by the big drug chain today in a southern Illinois area known to be desperately short of pharmacists with the flu season approaching. One pharmacist tells me that she was given a form by Walgreen's to complete on-line which said: ''I am willing to dispense all contraceptives, including Plan B''-the morning after pill which has acted as an abortifacient and can well be a danger to the well-being of young women taking it. Following that statement there are two boxes. One says: ''I agree'' and one says ''I do not agree.'' She checked ''I do not agree'' and the screen flashed: ''Do you understand that by checking 'I do not agree' you can be terminated?'' She indicated yes and continued with the form.

Of the seven Walgreen's pharmacists terminated in southern Illinois, three worked the night shift. This action comes as result of an executive order by Gov. Blagojevich notifying pharmacists to do their jobs notwithstanding their conscience which has been called by many Christians a clear violation of their right of conscience. Attorney Ed Martin (314-914-1455) is leading the Right of Conscience drive at Americans United for Life. This is an issue that has not yet reached the full attention of the MSM, mainstream media. If these pharmacists were terminated because they dared to stand opposed to WalMart or in response to a socially popular cause, you can rest assured they would be number one on the MSM agenda, featured on the front pages and on the TV news. Reluctance or refusal of MSM to provide coverage only certifies that with them the news is important only when it ratifies their prejudices.

Posted By: Tom Roeser at 11/29/2005 2:36:00 PM

Complaints can be sent to Walgreens by calling 1-800-289-2273 or writing the address below. Complaints can also be made on line at http://www.walgreens.com/contactus/storepharmacyinq.jsp

Walgreen Company
Consumer Relations
200 Wilmot Road
Mail Stop #2273
Deerfield, IL 60015

On the Friday morning before that epic Notre Dame-USC football game a couple of weeks ago, new Center assistant director Elizabeth Kirk and I had a chance to meet with Jim Caviezel, who of course is best known for playing Christ in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (but who shouldn't be forgotten for his work in other films, including the much-lesser known but impressive, Frequency, with Dennis Quaid). Mr. Caviezel had expressed an interest in getting to know the Center as part of his weekend at Notre Dame, which included his participation in the rosary at the grotto on Thursday night.

Mr. Caviezel spoke passionately about many things having to do with a spiritual renaissance at Notre Dame. He urged us to take to heart the tremendous influence the University enjoys and to use it as a force for good. But when asked how the Center might best put these ideals into practice, his one-word answer was a surprising one:

"Film."

More precisely, his answer was, "Film school."

Film, Mr. Caviezel insisted, is the most important means of communication of our time, and he urged us, or at least Notre Dame in general, to consider founding a film school that would rival the secular orientation of the nation's most prestigious film school.

Which is where?

You guessed it. USC.

Joining Mr. Caviezel that morning was Fr. Willy Raymond, C.S.C., national director of Family Theater Productions in Hollywood, the institution founded in 1947 by the renowned Fr. Patrick Peyton, C.S.C. (now a candidate for sainthood), the man who coined the famous motto: "The family that prays together, stays together." The mission of Family Theater Productions is to evangelize culture by using mass media to entertain, inspire and educate families. FTP produces television dramas, documentaries, and radio programs, while also conducting the annual Angelus Awards Student Film Festival to honor college-level student films that respect the universal human family. More about FTP can be found at www.familytheater.org.

Elizabeth and I were glad to communicate to Mr. Caviezel and Fr. Willy the ways in which the Center has already recognized the great potential that film, and all the arts, have for contributing to cultural renewal. We told them about our Fall 2004 conference, "Epiphanies of Beauty: The Arts in a Post-Christian Culture," as well as our annual Catholic Culture Series, a series which features prominent Catholic writers. And we also discussed some future projects we are considering, such as a Spring film festival, which instead of highlighting an actor or director might screen films depicting a particular virtue, such as courage. Another wild hare of an idea that we mentioned was a Center-sponsored contest for screenplays or even films, much in the spirit of FTP's Angelus Awards, or the newly-established John Templeton Foundation Kairos Prizes for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays....

"Film and football."

Those were Mr. Caviezel's parting words. A great force for good in the world of college football might also be a great force for good in the arts and entertainment.

What Mr. Caviezel had to say about the importance of film for our culture, as well as about what might be learned from the successes, not least financial, of The Passion of the Christ, is well worth the pondering....

Go Notre Dame. Beat USC.

Daniel McInerny

As the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture enters the seventh autumn of its existence, we are looking forward to great things. The Center's agenda for the 2005-06 academic year is a full one, comprising a wide variety of activities aimed at bringing the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition into an ever more fruitful engagement with contemporary culture. I am pleased to outline here the most important items on our Fall 2005 agenda, not only to keep you up to date on our activities, but also to encourage you to participate in one or more of them. We would love to be your hosts at one of our Center events this year.

On September 16, 2005, we kick off the academic year with a lecture co-sponsored with Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business and the Jacques Maritain Center. The lecture will be given by the renowned Catholic intellectual, Michael Novak, George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, who will speak on "Business as a Calling" (based on his book, published in 1996, Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life.)

Next, from September 29 to October 1, 2005, the Center will host the sixth edition of its annual Fall flagship conference. This year's conference is entitled, "Joy in the Truth: The Catholic University in the New Millennium," which will involve hundreds of participants and over 100 presentations which will address the most central issues affecting Catholic higher education today, issues such as academic freedom, the unity of the curriculum, the specifically Catholic character of the various academic disciplines, and the relationship between faith and reason. The Center is proud to host another stellar array of invited speakers, including Philip Gleason, emeritus professor of history, University of Notre Dame; Helen Alvare, associate professor of law at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law; Fr. Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C., associate professor of history, University of Notre Dame; Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., President, Loyola University, New Orleans; H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., professor of philosophy, Rice University; Ralph McInerny, professor of philosophy and the Michael P. Grace chair of medieval studies here at Notre Dame; and the Center's own senior research professor, Alasdair MacIntyre. And, we are proud to announce that Notre Dame's new president, Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C. will deliver remarks to the conference audience at the closing banquet on Saturday evening, October 1st. Our hope is that this conference will inspire many to help realize in this new millennium the best possibilities of Catholic higher education. For funding this conference we are once again in the debt of George Maas, whose generous gifts have supported our Fall conference from its very inception. A tentative conference program can be found on the page dedicated to the conference right here on our website.

Later in the Fall, on four Tuesday nights from October 25 through November 15, 2005, we will be sponsoring our fourth annual Catholic Literature Lecture Series, a series aimed primarily, though not exclusively, at Notre Dame undergraduates. The subject of this Fall's series is the work of the fantasy novelist, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of such legendary tales as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The speakers in this year's series are Ralph Wood of Baylor University (October 25); Joseph Pearce of Ave Maria University (November 1); Mary Keys of Notre Dame (November 8); and Greg Wright, the author of Peter Jackson In Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema's The Lord Of The Rings (November 18). Selected undergraduates will have the opportunity to share a meal with the speakers on the evening of their lecture, as well as have the opportunity during the weeks in between lectures of viewing Peter Jackson's trilogy of films based upon The Lord of the Rings. The week of the Catholic Literature Lecture Series is always a wonderful opportunity to introduce students to an important feature of Catholic culture. We are grateful to Clarence and Frieda Bayer, whose dedication to our Notre Dame undergraduates enables us to pass on Catholic culture through this series.

Finally, on November 2, 2005 the Center will host the third edition of its hugely successful evening of spiritual discussion called "Breaking Bread." Each semester, some 100 Notre Dame students gather with members of the faculty to enjoy a festive dinner and discussion of some aspect of the Christian spiritual life. This semester, Fr. Mark Poorman, C.S.C., vice-president for student affairs, has graciously agreed to deliver some remarks meant to spur the discussion. Our thanks go out to Mr. Fran McGowen, whose vision and generosity makes "Breaking Bread" possible.

To help us organize these and our other events, the Center is pleased to announce the addition of a new staff member, Elizabeth Kirk, who will serve as the Center's assistant director. A 1996 graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, Elizabeth comes to us most immediately from Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she had been assistant professor since the Fall of 2003. From 2002-03 she was visiting assistant professor at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and from 2000-02 she clerked for the Hon. Daniel A. Manion at the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. Elizabeth's legal expertise and experience gives the Center's staff a whole new dimension, one that we believe will be tremendously beneficial to our endeavors.

I would also like to mention one of our newest and perhaps most fun projects--an event in which I hope many of you will be able to participate. A couple hours or so before kick-off on home football Saturdays this Fall, the Center will host a series of "tailgaters" in our conference room on the 10th floor of Flanner Hall. Accompanied by some tasty food and fine adult beverages, these "tailgaters" will bring together a wide variety of Center friends, and will feature a special guest or guests. Further details on our new "tailgaters" will follow soon on other parts of our website. I hope to see you at one or more of them!

There have been some other staff changes in the Center. Katie Freddoso, our program coordinator since 2003, is off to Maine this Fall to begin a new program of studies in the production of radio documentaries. Though we will miss Katie's energy and commitment to the Center, we are excited for her as she begins this new adventure. As undergraduate assistants for 2005-06 we are proud to welcome Katie's brother, Steve Freddoso, as well as Greer Hannan and Adam Skloczylas, who will join our veteran undergraduate assistant, Kate Wilson, and our graduate assistant, Mark Jensen, in providing invaluable help in running our programs.

As you can see, it is going to be a busy but a very exciting Fall at the Center. And what's more, this note has only highlighted a selection of our activities. I have not even mentioned our semi-annual Schmitt Lectures, the second edition of our one-credit undergraduate course in medical ethics, or the publishing projects we have underway. But we'll pass along news on those items in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, you can keep up to date on the Center's agenda by coming back to our website.

With every good wish,

Daniel McInerny
Associate Director
Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture

The following exchange is from an interview with Tracey Rowland, dean of the Australian session of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family posted today on Zenit.

Q: In what sense is there continuity or discontinuity between in the views of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II -- a major contributor to "Gaudium et Spes" -- in regard to the Church's interaction with "the world"?

Rowland: I think that there will be continuity in the sense that Benedict would no doubt agree that a de Lubacian-type reading of "Gaudium et Spes" is desirable -- that culture is not theologically neutral, that we have a choice between a civilization of love and a culture of death, and that Christ and a Christian anthropology are needed to rescue us from a web of cultural and moral practices which destroy human integrity and foster nihilism.

However, one difference in nuance is that Benedict is less inclined to use a particular rhetorical strategy favored by John Paul II.To give an example, John Paul II once said that the Church of the Council "saw itself as the soul of modernity." He then defined modernity as "a convergence of conditions that permit a human being to express better his or her own maturity, spiritual, moral and cultural." The problem here is that this is not what most people think of when they hear the expression "modernity"; and it is certainly not the reading one finds in the many scholarly accounts of this cultural phenomenon.

From what I have read, Benedict doesn't adopt this intellectual strategy. When Benedict talks about modernity he doesn't try to redefine the common meaning. This is perhaps because he thinks that there is little rhetorical advantage in presenting the Church as modern when the postmoderns are so busy being critical of modernity. It simply aligns Catholics with a position whose popularity in on the wane.

A second way I think the papacies of the two might differ is that whereas John Paul II concentrated on ethics and anthropology -- and hence the central themes of "Gaudium et Spes" -- it is possible that Benedict will take a more ecclesiological focus, concentrating on themes in "Lumen Gentium" and the [Vatican II] decree on ecumenism as well as dealing with the whole territory of liturgy.

This seems to me an interesting comparison: that Benedict's thinking on many issues related to modern thought is different from John Paul II's squares with much of what one reads in the better media, and I've certainly had this sense from reading some of the books written by then-Cardinal Ratzinger. But I wonder if Rowland's categories here cut deeply enough. There was always a lot more premodern culture alive during the period of flourishing for intellectual modernity, an indication of the gulf between thought and practice that seems an eternal feature of human life. There is correspondingly still a lot of "modernity" in practice, even as the intellectual elite promotes "postmodernity." Moreover, in so far as postmodernity is a largely destructive enterprise, it remains unclear what practical legacy it will have. Some Christian thinkers have taken an optimistic view that the postmodern critique will open up premodern possibilities again. The jury is still out on this.

Reports continue to reveal that the birth control patch carries serious risks. At least 23 women appear to have died as a result of using the patch. But how do some doctors respond?

Try this:

"And other doctors who prescribe the patch warned that women should not overreact to news of deaths. It is more risky to remove the patch and become pregnant, several pointed out."

Go here for the rest of the story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8565177/

Is Commonweal a political publication of the left or a journal of lay Catholic theological reflection? Political ideology and party loyality are seductive corrupters of honest theology. Commonweal can see this on the 'right,' but is it blind to its own risk of ideological capture?

Take the current front page of their website. The top three listed articles all negatively reference President Bush (see, http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/). In itself, there is nothing objectionable about that fact. There is, it seems to me, a fair amount for Catholics to criticize in this (and probably any other) administration. The difficulty is the use of theology in service of politics.

One of the above referenced articles is a June 17, 2005, editorial (http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php?id_article=1293) where the editors sneer at a Bush photo-op that is a part of the President's effort to increase political support for the protection of embryonic humans - a position they seem to agree with at least in part. However, the editors feel the need to make an argument for the ''ambiguous moral status of the early embryo'' based primarily on ''the biological fact that 50 percent of all embryos perish as a matter of course. If nature is so profligate with nascent human life, why must science treat as inviolable embryos that would otherwise be discarded?''

Nature is indeed so profligate that all human life ends in death at some point, so 100% of the biological entities that begin as embryos die. So what? Child mortality has been quite high historically. Even today in Sierra Leone 28% of all children born die before they turn five years old. Does this fact make the children of Sierra Leone eligible subjects for deadly experimentation? Does it give them an ''ambiguous moral status''? Is this an example of serious moral reflection by lay Catholics?

Then there is an article on Cardinal George that totally misses the context and meaning of his remarks (see, http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php?id_article=1296). The author conflates the Cardinal's comments with something Bush said after the Cardinal's presentation. They may have used the same words (the President and the Cardinal), but from the context there were two totally different things being said. It is the kind of mistake (as anyone who has taught can attest) that careless undergraduates make on a regular basis, ''Look here, the same phrase used by author A is used here by author B. They must be saying the same thing.'' A good editor should have caught that. As I understand it, the Cardinal was not contacted before the article went to press, which would seem to be basic fact-checking.

Why do I think the author of the above story is using a partisan political lenses rather than a theological one? Because he said so, in the article's first paragraph: ''But when the rhetoric of a cardinal archbishop is indistinguishable from that of a president, I worry a bit. When the rhetoric is that of the rightward fringe of the Republican Party circa 1952, I worry a lot.''

Both the editorial and the article seem shaped and driven by political (anti-Bush) concerns. The important moral and theological issues raised are ill served in this context where theological reflection is captured by an overriding political agenda.