Does Blame Have an Expiration Date?

Today the NY Daily News announced that the NY Giants and the NY Jets are considering selling naming-rights to their new stadium to Allianz—a German insurance company with ties to Nazi Germany. Jewish groups are outraged. (http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/2008/09/10/2008-09-10_considering_firm_with_nazi_ties_for_nami.html)

Below are a few facts the Daily News printed about Allianz:
• It was the insurer of the Auschwitz death camp's facilities and personnel.
• Its chief executive, Kurt Schmitt, served as Hitler's economics minister.
• Like other insurers, it refused to pay back Jews' life insurance policies and sent the money to the Nazis instead.

• The company did pay restitution over the years.
The issue raises an important moral question: Are their certain crimes for which people will never be forgiven?
As Christians we are taught to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Regardless of the crime’s horror or the evil of the injustice committed, our Lord tells us we must forgive.

Yet, in the case of the Holocaust when should the Jewish people be expected to forgive? Is more than fifty years of seeking vengeance against all involved in this crime-against-humanity enough? Or is there no amount of reparation capable of mitigating the anger towards the guilty? Perhaps the crime committed was so evil that all involved should be forced to wear a metaphorical Scarlet Letter for as long as they exist?

Complicating matters regarding the naming rights for the new stadium is that NY Giants co-owner, the Tisch family, is Jewish. Has the Tisch family decided that Allianz has paid enough reparation over the years to warrant acceptance? Or is it simply a matter of economics and the Tisch family is willing to “sell out” for the right price? Considering the Tischs’ reputation as active supporters of Jewish philanthropy the sellout accusation seems highly unlikely.

So when is enough, enough?

I would be lying if I said I had the answer.

Donald Tremblay

I Now Pronounce You...

Step 2 in California’s plan to destroy the sacrament of marriage has begun.

Step 1 was California’s highest court ruling that limiting marriage to a man and a woman is unconstitutional. In step 2 all words having a connection to traditional marriage will be cleansed from the state’s books. Just ask Pastor Doug Bird of Abundant Life Fellowship in Roseville, CA.

According to worldnetdaily.com, a couple just married by Pastor Bird made the mistake of signing their marriage license “ ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ next to ‘Party A’ and ‘Party B’ because they wanted to be legally recognized as husband and wife. “

(http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=74768) Not so fast said Placer County. "I received back the license and a letter from the Placer County Clerk/Recorder stating that the license 'does not comply with California State registration laws,'" Bird said in a statement from the Pacific Justice Institute.

California is using an Orwellian method to redefine the definition of marriage. The theory is that if you remove the offending words from people’s vocabularies, over time you will expunge the concepts themselves from people’s minds. Hence, if the younger generations don’t hear “bride” and “groom”, it will never occur to them that they should hear anything other than “Party A” and “Party B”. (Incidentally, if this hasn’t happened already, look for the same approach to be taken with regards to children. The terms “parents”, “mother”, and “father” will be rejected in favor of “guardian” and “caregiver”.)

One other observation: I am surprised that a group such as the polygamists have not tried to capitalize on the California court’s rejection of traditional marriage. If a court has decided that marriage cannot be defined as only between a man and a woman, then why can’t a man justifiably have five or ten wives? Once you’ve removed the restriction from marriage’s definition, you have no moral grounds to ban any other voluntary arrangement.


Donald Tremblay

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Perhaps no better term summarizes our flawed analysis of life than the Law of Unintended Consequences. How often we make confident choices in life only to be confronted days, even years, later by unanticipated results. The feminist movement of the late 60s and early 70s demanded women’s equality, particularly sexual equality. And through their bra-burnings and assorted protests, they were wildly successful with regards to sexual liberation.

Enter The Law of Unintended Consequences.

What nobody anticipated as a result of this sexual freedom is that women would become viewed as sexual commodities. Worse still is that women would treat themselves as commodities.

Today’s New York Daily News features a story in its Gossip section about shock jock Howard Stern. (http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/09/09/2008-09-09_howard_stern_in_virgin_territory.html) Always looking to up the ante of guests willing to demoralize themselves for 15 minutes of fame, Stern today will auction off the virginity of a 22-year-old San Diego girl. Apparently, this girl has decided that prostituting herself will be a lucrative way for her to pay-off her student loans.

Oh, excuse me. Paying off debt? That is a different story. I thought she was doing it merely as a backdoor means of becoming a reality star. How fiscally responsible of her.
"We live in a capitalist society," she tells us. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?"
And there you go. Once you cheapen sexuality as this society has, you turn it into a commodity that can be bartered like any other good or service. The reason for selling it becomes irrelevant.

How proud her parents must be. An event in a woman’s life that a dinosaur like me believes should be special is warped into a financial transaction.

Wonderful.



Donald Tremblay

Tattooed

I’m amazed at the number of people today, particularly women, who have tattoos. Personally I don’t think they make much sense. What enamors you today may not five or ten years from now. But to each his own, I guess.

The September 7, 2008, issue of the National Catholic Register asks an interesting question about tattoos: Are they moral? Does one deface the temple of the Holy Spirit when they add any tattoo, or does it depend on what tattoo is chosen? Is the morality of tattoos gender-specific?

One gentleman who regrets getting a tattoo is quoted in the article, Tattoo Taboos, comparing a tattoo to “putting graffiti on a work of art.” On the other hand another gentleman views his tattoos as an evangelizing ice-breaker. He has nearly 20 tattoos on his right forearm, including “Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, a pair of hands praying with a rosary, the angel of death, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and a vine.” Men have always worn tattoos, so any increase in their numbers is not as noticeable. The difference today is that the practice of “body art” has become fashionable, resulting in a staggering number of tattooed young women. (I confess: Although I may not like tattoos on a man, I find it especially distasteful on a woman. The female body is God’s most beautiful creation and adding artwork mars its beauty.)

Perhaps the gentleman with the 20 tattoos on his arm is correct and religious body art encourages spiritual inquiry . . . but I doubt it. One of the photos posted alongside the NCR article is of a young man with tattoos on both of his legs. On the calf of his left leg is the Virgin Mary, while on the right calf is St. Joseph holding the baby Jesus. More than honoring God or encouraging theological discussion, this “artistry” serves to draw attention to the wearer . . . which I believe is ultimately the goal of someone who gets a tattoo. And if that’s the case then a tattoo-wearer may not only be guilty of marring the body, but of surrendering to Pride as well.

The jury may still be out as to the morality of tattoos, but do yourself a favor regardless: If you want a visible expression of your faith, wear a cross or carry around a pair of rosary beads.


Donald Tremblay

Big Mac vs The Whopper

Over the past few weeks the American Family Association (AFA)-- http://www.afa.net/-- has been sending e-mail alerts exposing McDonald’s support of the homosexual agenda. The boycott attached to the e-mails specifies that AFA’s objection “is not about hiring homosexuals, or homosexuals eating at McDonald's, or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald's, as a corporation, choosing to put the full weight of their corporation behind promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.”

AFA reached out to McDonald’s and asked the corporation for the following:

Remove McDonald's name and logo from the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) Web site listing McDonald's as a "Corporate Partner and Organization Ally" of NGLCC.

Remove the endorsement of NGLCC by Richard Ellis, Vice President of Communications for McDonald's USA, from the NGLCC Web site.

Not only did McDonald’s deny the request, but according to AFA the fast-food chain even “paid $20,000 to become a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and to have a seat on the board of directors.”

On August 13 AFA announced that McDonald’s had upped the ante in this cultural poker “game” by sponsoring a group called Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. According to AFA,
“Out & Equal™ Workplace Advocates is a national organization devoted to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the workplace.

One of its primary purposes is to train employees how to aggressively promote homosexuality within the company they work for, all the way to the corporate boardroom. Part of last year’s Out & Equal Summit in Washington, DC, (sponsored by McDonald’s) was an organized march into congressional offices demanding same-sex marriage laws be passed.”

So the next time you crave a hamburger, go with a Whopper.

Donald Tremblay

Miracle or Myth

Medjugorje is back in the news today as Pope Benedict XVI “has authorized ‘severe cautionary and disciplinary measures’ against Father Tomislav Vlasic, the former ‘spiritual director’ to six children who said Our Lady was appearing to them at Medjugorje in Bosnia.” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1052230/Pope-finally-launches-crackdown-worlds-largest-illicit-Catholic-shrine-suspends-dubious-priest.html#)

The alleged apparitions began in June 1981. “Three Church commissions failed to find evidence to support their claims and the bishops of the former Yugoslavia finally declared that ‘it cannot be affirmed that these matters concern supernatural apparitions or revelations’”.

The pope was forced to punish Father Vlasic after the Franciscan refused to cooperate with a
Church investigation of him for the following:

· Scandalous sexual immorality aggravated by mystical motivations
· Diffusion of dubious doctrine
· Manipulation of consciences,
· Suspected mysticism
· Disobedience towards legitimately issued orders
· Suspicions of heresy and schism

Although then-cardinal Ratzinger banned pilgrimages to Medjugorje in 1985, hundreds of thousands of people continue to flock to the site. Many have returned with anecdotal evidence of the site’s holiness. A priest once told me that a friend of his—also a cleric—entered a Medjugorje church with an old, tarnished set of rosary beads. When he left the church the rosary beads had turned to shining gold.

Were these alleged apparitions truly visitations from the Virgin Mother and is Medjugorje another Fatima? Or is the whole phenomena a case of mass hysteria where people are seeing what they want to see? Or worse, is the whole thing merely a hoax?
One detail that seems more than coincidental is that the phenomena took place just a few years prior to the War in the Balkans that ravaged the former Yugoslavia and saw unspeakable acts of cruelty and genocide. One would expect that if there were a place Mary would visit to warn of doom it would be the location of a future war.

However, there are also legitimate arguments against the apparitions’ credibility. For ex, the above article mentions that “the seers have grown wealthy as a result of their claims – and so has their town, which has boomed as a result of the ‘Madonna gold rush’. Some today own smart executive houses with immaculate gardens, double garages and security gates, and one has a tennis court.”

It seems unlikely that those blessed by apparitions from the Virgin Mother would be concerned with accumulating wealth or that the town blessed by these supernatural visits would transform itself into a country-club community. One would think that being visited by Our Mother would be a life-altering experience revealing the necessity of seeking God’s kingdom as opposed to the transitory gifts of this world. For instance, Lúcia de Jesus Rosa Santos was one of the witnesses of Mary’s apparitions at Fatima. As an adult she entered a convent and became a Carmelite nun. (The other two children who witnessed the Fatima apparitions, Jacinta and Francisco, died shortly after the visions)

This issue will not go away anytime soon. It’ll be fascinating to see how it unfolds. Will Medjugorje’s followers be vindicated or will Italian Bishop Andrea Gemma’s claim that Medjugorje is the “‘work of the Demon’” prevail?


Donald Tremblay

Religous Fluff

Apparently dwindling parishioners is not just a Catholic problem. Today’s Wall Street Journal reviews Quitting Church by Washington Times religion reporter Julia Duin. The Weekly Standard publisher, Terry Eastland, is the writer of the WSJ’s review. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122031237268288821.html?mod=2_1580_middlebox)

According to Duin droves of evangelicals are fleeing their churches for a variety of reasons, including

“a lack of a feeling of community among church members, inducing loneliness and boredom; church teaching that fails to go beyond the basics of the faith or to reach members grappling with suffering or unanswered prayer; pastors who are either out of touch with their parishioners or themselves unhappy, or who fail to shepherd their flocks, or who are caught up in scandal, or who try to control the lives of church members in a high-handed way.”

Of the above listed complaints I find “church teaching that fails to go beyond the basics” most interesting. Many who left the Catholic Church for evangelical worship did so because they wanted to shed their spiritual lives of Church teachings and dogma. They wanted less structure and more emotion. How ironic is it that this same vanilla, non-judgmental, “love-is-in-the-air” brand of religion is responsible for the emptying of churches?

The truth of the matter is that people want and need to be challenged. A psychologist friend once told me that the most important word to teach a child is “no”. Children will get angry, but subconsciously they are happy to hear it. “No” teaches them they are not alone, that someone is protecting them. “No” sets boundaries, which makes a child feel safe. We adults are no different. We are children of God. We too need the guidance. We too need to hear “no”. Boundaries let us know we are on the right path—that we are not headed for destruction.

It’s no surprise that the post-Vatican II Catholic Church has led the way in dwindling Sunday Mass attendance. The church no longer challenges the Faithful as it did prior to Vatican II. I often laugh when I recall the CCD instruction I received in the 1970s. I can honestly say that I learned nothing in all those years except that God is Love. I remember beautiful pictures of flowers, oceans, and sunsets, but nothing else. Anything I learned about The Faith was from reading the gospels during Mass or from doing my own research.

Evangelicals are learning what Catholics need to learn: Challenge strengthens spirituality; religious fluff does not.



Donald Tremblay