Arguably the most literate, witty, and truly “adult” Britcom ever broadcast was Yes, Minister and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister. Like any good satire, it skewered both right and left, as this ongoing saga of British political hijinks is told from a bureaucrat’s point of view, played with supernatural ease by Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George). The minister he tries mightily to keep diverted and in check is James Hacker, played with just the right combination of cluelessness and devotion by Paul Eddington (Jerry on Good Neighbors).

As the career bureaucrat Sir Humphrey sees it, parties, parliaments, and prime ministers come and go, but the civil service is here to stay. And the primary goal of any good civil servant is to maintain the status quo and ensure the smooth processing of their next pay rise.

The dialogue typical of this series was stage-worthy, and there was no political topic it was afraid to tackle.

In one episode, Hacker, now prime minister, must choose between two Church of England candidates to recommend to Her Majesty to fill a bishopric. Of course, the C of E, and the bureaucracy, has already decided who Hacker should be manipulated into picking. Between a low-church disestablishmentarianist and a modernist radical, well, the radical will cause the least amount of problems in the long run, especially as his wife is the daughter of the Earl of Chichester.

Herewith are snippets of dialogue:

Hacker: Being a bishop is just a matter of status? Dressing up in cassocks and gaiters?

Sir Humphrey: Yes, but gaiters are generally worn only at significant religious events, like the royal garden party.

Hacker: Why?

Sir Humphrey: Well, the church is trying to be more relevant.

Hacker: To God?

Sir Humphrey: Oh, of course not, Prime Minister. I meant relevant in sociological terms.

Hacker: So the ideal candidate from the Church of England’s point of view would be a cross between a socialite and a socialist.

Sir Humphrey: Precisely.

************

Bernard: (Of the modernist candidate for bishop) He designed a new church in South London and among the plans was a place for dispensing orange juice, family planning, and organizing demos. But no place for Holy Communion. . . .

Hacker: And the church approved his?

Sir Humphrey: Of course. You see the church is run by theologians.

Hacker: How do you mean?

Sir Humphrey: Theology is a device for enabling agnostics to stay within the church. . . . You could turn both candidates down, but that would be exceptional and not advised.

Hacker: Even though one of them wants to get God out of the Church of England and the other one wants to get the Queen out?

Sir Humphrey: The Queen is inseparable from the Church of England.

Hacker: What about God?

Sir Humphrey: I think He’s what’s called an “optional extra.”

Well, the Right Reverend Dr. N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, is neither an disestablishmentarianist nor a modernist, but is instead one of the premier biblical scholars in the world. His three-volume Christian Origins and the Question of God series, especially volume three, The Resurrection of the Son of God, continues to perform the inestimable service of undoing the bad work of the Jesus Seminar and radical historical critics, as well as providing one of the most important theological and apologetic aids any Christian could ask for.

And he paid us a visit today here at the First Things office.

Off the top of my head, I don’t remember Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, or Harris ever alluding to Wright’s work in any of their respective atheist tracts. Either they are unfamiliar with it—which wouldn’t surprise me; what they know about serious Christian theology and a MetroCard will get you on any bus in New York—or they couldn’t begin to deal with its level of scholarship, and so realized they were in over their heads.

I told Bishop Wright that I was still struggling to come to terms with his teaching on justification and the atonement. He said he hoped his planned “big book on Paul” would help sort things out. I will be scanning Amazon regularly…

Last week Jonathan Last pointed to an article on Church music in the Washington Post. It’s a great find, all about the generational change from the older Catholics to the new.

The “Swallows of Capistrano” are what I’ve come to call this younger generation of Catholics, but the piece in the Washington Post left me a litlte depressed. Why did I need to write 10,000 words on the topic? In the Washington Post, we get the point about the Swallows in a single sentence: Says Jeffrey Tucker, a choir director in Alabama, “The young priests and the young people just can’t seem to get ‘hep’ to the whole 1970s thing, and the old people just don’t understand why.”

“Just can’t seem to get hep”—you can’t do better than that for a description of today’s Catholic youth.

In her New York Times column this morning, Maureen Dowd sets out to defend Senator Obama against the claim that he is an elitist snob. Along the way, though, she admits he has some problems relating to the common man: “Asked about his friendly relationship with the former Weather Underground anarchist William Ayers,” she notes, “Obama defended him with a line that only the eggheads orbiting his campaign could appreciate. Ayers, he said, is ‘a professor of English in Chicago.’”

Dowd is right that this is what Obama said, though, in fact, Ayers is a professor of education—which, in eggheady circles, is a little less boastworthy than being a professor of English. And it’s interesting the direction in which Obama misremembered: unconsciously promoting his friend to higher intellectual bracket. Is that what she means by a line that only eggheads could appreciate?

Via Argent by the Tiber, here’s the musical line-up for the Mass in Yankee Stadium. Note the musical difference between this and the Mass in Nationals Stadium, which involved less traditional music and more music from the many peoples comprising American Catholicism. To me, it also seems to be the difference between John Paul II’s liturgical sensibilities and those of Benedict XVI. Pulling off a multicultural celebration in a baseball stadium has been done before; I’m looking forward to hearing what Palestrina’s “Sicut Cervus” sounds like in Yankee Stadium with 55,000.

Entrance of concelebrants

Symphony No. 9 in D minor – Ludwig van Beethoven
I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
II. Molto vivace

Entrance of the Holy Father

Hymnus Pontificius – Charles Gounod, arr. Alberico Vitalini

Dixit from Vesperae Solennes de Confessore – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Music for Mass

Jesus is Risen/ Cristo Jesús Resucitó – arr. John Rutter

Tu es Petrus – Dom Lorenzo Perosi

Kyrie, from Litany of the Saints - adapt. Richard Proulx

Gloria, from Missa O Magnum Mysterium – Tomás Luis da Victoria

Psalm – Dr. Jennifer Pascual

Alleluia (VICTORY) - arr. Wm. Glenn Osborne

Credo III

Trilingual Intercessions – Michael Hay, orch. Wm. Glenn Osborne

How Lovely is thy Dwelling Place – Johannes Brahms

Sanctus from German Mass – Franz Schubert, adapt. Richard Proulx

Christ Has Died/ Amen - Franz Schubert, adapt. Richard Proulx

Agnus Dei from Missa O Magnum Mysterium – Tomás Luis da Victoria

Panis Angelicus – Cesár Franck, Marcello Giordani, Tenor, Metropolitan Opera

Sicut Cervus – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Ave Verum – Alexandre Guilmant, orch. Deborah Jamini

Amén. El Cuerpo de Cristo - John Schiavonne, orch. Carl Maultsby

Let Us Break Bread Together – arr. Carl MaultsBy

This is the Feast – Richard Hillert, arr. Richard Kidd

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee/ Jubilosos te Adoramos – from Hymn to Joy Fantasy – Bruce Saylor

Symphony No. 9 in D minor – Ludwig van Beethoven
IV. Presto

of the pope’s U.S. visit can be found here.

Raymond Arroyo and our own Fr. Neuhaus preside over the coverage.

(It may take a few seconds to load fully. Remember the words of St. Augustine: “Patience is the companion of wisdom.” He also contended that the damned will not demerit by their perverse will, for, if they did, their damnation would be augmented. So, plenty to think about on all fronts . . .)

Update: Fr. Neuhaus has just supplied us with fresh commentary on the day’s events.

Also: If you have not already done so, you may want to read Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1988 Erasmus Lecture.

One of the best bits of reporting I’ve seen during the coverage of the Holy Father’s visit is this fantastic Hank Stuever piece in the Washington Post. It’s an exposé on the giant clash within the American Catholic Church–is schism too strong a word?–over . . . liturgical music. Nearly every observation and quote Stuever makes rings true and while it might surprise non-Catholics, the divide is between older Catholics who cling to casual, guitar-and-tambourine ’70s music and young Catholics who want Latin, Palestrina, and Gregorian chant.

Some highlights:

“You know, just today I received a publication from a mainline Catholic music organization, and there are aspects of it that seem like the musical version of the AARP quarterly, if you know what I mean,” says Jeffrey Tucker, 44, a choir director who lives in Auburn, Ala., and is the managing editor of Sacred Music, a journal of the Church Music Association of America. “There is no question that we are talking about a generational issue here. The young priests and the young people just can’t seem to get ‘hep’ to the whole 1970s thing, and the old people just don’t understand why.”

Tucker encounters this all the time, and blogs about it frequently. At a recent conference, a jazz pianist confided to Tucker that he’d been playing at church, but there was a new, young pastor who had taken over and “he said, ‘You know what that means.’ [And] I said, ‘Well, I’m not entirely sure.’ So he added, surprised that he would have to clarify, ‘That means he wants Gregorian chant!’

The kids these days!

For those in the New York area this weekend, here are two events to put on the calendar:

1. Friday: Papal Candlelight Vigil, 9:00 pm - 12:00 am, 5th Ave at 72nd Street.
The Archdiocese will provide 1000 candles for the faithful outside the Pope’s window. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pokes his head out to say hello.

2. Saturday: Popemobile Procession, 1:15 pm, 5th Avenue from 54th - 72nd Street.
Join 50,000+ to welcome the Holy Father to New York.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release April 16, 2008

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT BUSH
AND HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI
IN ARRIVAL CEREMONY

South Lawn

10:38 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT BUSH: Holy Father, Laura and I are privileged to have you here at the White House. We welcome you with the ancient words commended by Saint Augustine: “Pax Tecum.” Peace be with you.

You’ve chosen to visit America on your birthday. Well, birthdays are traditionally spent with close friends, so our entire nation is moved and honored that you’ve decided to share this special day with us. We wish you much health and happiness — today and for many years to come. (Applause.)

This is your first trip to the United States since you ascended to the Chair of Saint Peter. You will visit two of our greatest cities and meet countless Americans, including many who have traveled from across the country to see with you and to share in the joy of this visit. Here in America you’ll find a nation of prayer. Each day millions of our citizens approach our Maker on bended knee, seeking His grace and giving thanks for the many blessings He bestows upon us. Millions of Americans have been praying for your visit, and millions look forward to praying with you this week.

Here in America you’ll find a nation of compassion. Americans believe that the measure of a free society is how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us. So each day citizens across America answer the universal call to feed the hungry and comfort the sick and care for the infirm. Each day across the world the United States is working to eradicate disease, alleviate poverty, promote peace and bring the light of hope to places still mired in the darkness of tyranny and despair.

Here in America you’ll find a nation that welcomes the role of faith in the public square. When our Founders declared our nation’s independence, they rested their case on an appeal to the “laws of nature, and of nature’s God.” We believe in religious liberty. We also believe that a love for freedom and a common moral law are written into every human heart, and that these constitute the firm foundation on which any successful free society must be built.

Here in America, you’ll find a nation that is fully modern, yet guided by ancient and eternal truths. The United States is the most innovative, creative and dynamic country on earth — it is also among the most religious. In our nation, faith and reason coexist in harmony. This is one of our country’s greatest strengths, and one of the reasons that our land remains a beacon of hope and opportunity for millions across the world.

Most of all, Holy Father, you will find in America people whose hearts are open to your message of hope. And America and the world need this message. In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that “God is love.” And embracing this love is the surest way to save men from “falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism.”

In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred, and that “each of us is willed, each of us is loved” — (applause) — and your message that “each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary.”

In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this “dictatorship of relativism,” and embrace a culture of justice and truth. (Applause.)

In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but “in a spirit of mutual support.”

Holy Father, thank you for making this journey to America. Our nation welcomes you. We appreciate the example you set for the world, and we ask that you always keep us in your prayers. (Applause.)

POPE BENEDICT XVI: Mr. President, thank you for your gracious words of welcome on behalf of the people of the United States of America. I deeply appreciate your invitation to visit this great country. My visit coincides with an important moment in the life of the Catholic community in America: the celebration of the 200th anniversary of elevation of the country’s first Diocese — Baltimore — to a metropolitan Archdiocese and the establishment of the Sees of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Louisville.

Yet I am happy to be here as a guest of all Americans. I come as a friend, a preacher of the Gospel, and one with great respect for this vast pluralistic society. America’s Catholics have made, and continue to make, an excellent contribution to the life of their country. As I begin my visit, I trust that my presence will be a source of renewal and hope for the Church in the United States, and strengthen the resolve of Catholics to contribute ever more responsibly to the life of this nation, of which they are proud to be citizens.

From the dawn of the Republic, America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation’s founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God.

The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles, and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In that process, which forged the soul of the nation, religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement. In our time, too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideas and aspirations.

In the next few days, I look forward to meeting not only with America’s Catholic community, but with other Christian communities and representatives of the many religious traditions present in this country. Historically, not only Catholics, but all believers have found here the freedom to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, while at the same time being accepted as part of a commonwealth in which each individual group can make its voice heard.

As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more human and free society.

Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience — almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good, and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate.

In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good. Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in Eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows time and again that “in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation,” and a democracy without values can lose its very soul. Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.

The Church, for her part, wishes to contribute to building a world ever more worthy of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God. She is convinced that faith sheds new light on all things, and that the Gospel reveals the noble vocation and sublime destiny of every man and woman. Faith also gives us the strength to respond to our high calling and to hope that inspires us to work for an ever more just and fraternal society. Democracy can only flourish, as your founding fathers realized, when political leaders and those whom they represent are guided by truth and bring the wisdom born of firm moral principle to decisions affecting the life and future of the nation.

For well over a century, the United States of America has played an important role in the international community. On Friday, God willing, I will have the honor of addressing the United Nations organization, where I hope to encourage the efforts underway to make that institution an ever more effective voice for the legitimate aspirations of all the world’s peoples.

On this, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the need for global solidarity is as urgent as ever, if all people are to live in a way worthy of their dignity — as brothers and sisters dwelling in the same house and around that table which God’s bounty has set for all his children. America has traditionally shown herself generous in meeting immediate human needs, fostering development and offering relief to the victims of natural catastrophes. I am confident that this concern for the greater human family will continue to find expression in support for the patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts and promote progress. In this way, coming generations will be able to live in a world where truth, freedom and justice can flourish — a world where the God-given dignity and the rights of every man, women and child are cherished, protected and effectively advanced.

Mr. President, dear friends, as I begin my visit to the United States, I express once more my gratitude for your invitation, my joy to be in your midst, and my fervent prayers that Almighty God will confirm this nation and its people in the ways of justice, prosperity and peace. God bless America. (Applause.)

END 10:52 A.M. EDT

Kenneth Woodward, a contributing editor on religion for Newsweek, has an editorial in the New York Times on what Benedict might say on Catholic education tomorrow. One notes first that Mr. Woodward has added his name to the list of people who are eager to tell Benedict what he should be saying to the Church and the country, though unlike some on that list Woodward also seems eager to listen to what the pope actually says. Furthermore, the tone of the article seems unnecessarily antagonistic; Benedict is a thoughtful scholar and pastor, not a partisan crank. This comes through in the text of the address the pope would have given at La Sapienza in Rome. But despite his tone, Woodward’s point is a sound one: More American Catholics are attending public universities and secular private universities than Catholic ones, and it would be good if Benedict’s speech took that into consideration. “What these students and their teachers need is a vision of what it means to be an educated Catholic, not just a lecture on preserving Catholic institutional identity,” Woodward writes. “If Benedict can manage that, his words will be worth remembering.” Given the content of his other speeches and given the intellectual force of his mind, I imagine that whatever Benedict says, it will be worth bearing in mind and remembering.

One Muslim organization has declined an invitation to meet Pope Benedict XVI at next Thursday’s Interfaith Meeting in Washington, the Associated Press reports, and another will attend out of respect for the Catholic Church, but not for Benedict. The Muslim Public Affairs Council, which will not attend the April 17 event, stated on its website:

Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born writer in Italy, was one of seven people chosen by the Pope to be baptized before millions on Easter Sunday. This move by the Pope revived memories of the Regensburg speech in 2006, which sought to brand Islam as inherently violent.

While there is no compulsion in matters of faith, and people have the right to follow any religion they choose, the Pope made the conversion out to be a victory for Catholicism. The act of conversion itself was not offensive, but rather, the high-profile nature of how the conversion was carried out was insulting to Muslims. The fact that the conversion took place at St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the most sacred locations for Christians, and on the holiest day of the Christian calendar carried a negative message of competition and superiority. Unfortunately, these recent events are neither constructive, nor conducive to effective interfaith dialogue.

Salam al-Marayati, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, told the AP that the April 17 meeting was “more ceremonial than substantive” and that MPAC had declined the invitation.

Another Muslim organization, the Fiqh Council of North America, will attend, but “Our going there is more out of respect for the Catholic Church itself,” the AP quotes its chairman, Muzammil H. Siddiqi. “Popes come and go, but the church is there,” Mr. Siddiqi added, in an apparent snub at the Pope.

In the Easter issue of Dappled Things, a magazine devoted to the artistic and cultural life of young Catholics in America, First Things contributor Matthew Milliner writes on how Catholics can renew the world of contemporary art. Playing off the title of Joseph Bottum’s article “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano: Catholic Culture in America,” Milliner titles his piece “When the Eagles Don’t Fit in Capistrano,” and his suggestions are quite compelling:

My art history professor there was John Walford, a stately Cambridge-trained Brit, and in this lecture he outlined different strategies for Christian engagement of the world of art, using birds as a typology. There was the phoenix, which sought to resurrect the great Christian art of the past, but ran the risk of merely resurrecting a corpse. There was the parrot, offering only timid imitations of contemporary art. Then there was the bald eagle, which rose above resuscitation or replica with soaring, original talent. The note Walford ended on, however, was not the eagle–such a rare bird–but the sparrow. Eagles, be they Raphael, Rembrandt or Rouault, are needed; but more likely most of us are artistic sparrows. The aim of the sparrow, in Walford’s typology, was not to make an indelible impact on the art world or provide the next chapter in art history (perhaps now too fragmented to even be written). The aim of the sparrow was more modest. Sparrows enhance the life of a local community, providing for aesthetic needs the same way a family doctor or local schoolteacher provide their respective services. The names of these sparrows, explained Walford, “will rarely appear in art books, but their contribution is nevertheless invaluable. They paint or sculpt for the local community much as Van Goyen and Ruisdael did for the citizens of Leiden and Amsterdam.” . . .

The eagles coming back to Capistrano is a rather horrifying image. At best the mission could support one, and even that would be distracting. Notre Dame de Toute Grace sought to sponsor several, and a case could be made that it is indeed, a rather distracting space. Worshipping there, as I did several years ago, one is tempted to contemplate art history more than the Mass. Even birds as large as seagulls descending on a church only brings to mind Alfred Hitchcock. Perhaps a better model for the renewal of Catholic and Protestant culture is a slow, steady cultivation of serious faithful art, guided by traditional formations, yet free also to move–cautiously– in unexpected directions. The pattern for this is less the Renaissance than the Middle Ages, when the glory of artists gave way to the greater glory of God.

In connection with the ongoing controversy over the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod radio station KFUO’s pulling of the popular program Issues, Etc., which has been discussed in this space as well as a host of other blogs, a prayer service and a demonstration are planned for April 13 and 14, respectively, in St. Louis. The stated purpose is to demonstrate “displeasure at the lack of a comprehensive and believable answer to our question: ‘Why was “Issues, Etc.” canceled?’”

The planned events promise to be “silent to commemorate the silencing of ‘Issues, Etc.’ and to symbolize the synod’s silence on the real reasons for its cancellation.”

Participants also promise to be “peaceful, prayerful, and loving. We will not be loud, angry, or hostile.”

Evangelical Lutheran Church U.A.C. (Unaltered Augsburg Confession) is where the prayer service will be held.

You will need to register should you care to participate in service/dinner/demonstration. Bratwurst will be served, which may prove a disincentive for some.

UPDATE: A transcript of Pastor Asburry’s Sunday Evening Prayer homily is available here. Live blogging of the demonstration will be available at the Augsburg 1530 site.

The order of service for all US ceremonies during the upcoming papal visit was released today. I didn’t find any big surprises, although the plans for the Youth Rally at Dunwoodie in New York are outlined in greater detail. Those present will be singing “Happy Birthday” in German to the Pope. He will be presented with numerous gifts, including bread, maize, and corn, as symbols of the heritages present in the American melting pot. No word on the papal skateboard, but we’ll keep our eyes open.

And if you missed the video of Benedict’s address before the visit, it’s below. Note the call to prayer and personal encounter with God, the professorial and paternal manner, and the extremely endearing German accent. God willing, we’ll be hearing more of this in the near future.

On this day sixty-three years ago, Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged (actually slowly asphyxiated to death) at Flossenburg Prison, a mere three weeks before it was liberated by Allied forces. Bonhoeffer had been imprisoned for his role in the July 20 Plot, the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer was caught only when money used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced back to the pastor.

Today is a day to remember the cost of discipleship:

Suffering then is the badge of true discipleship. The disciple is not above his master. . . . That is why Luther reckoned suffering among the marks of the true Church. . . . If we refuse to take up our cross and submit to suffering and rejection at the hands of men, we forfeit our fellowship with Christ and have ceased to follow Him. But if we lose our lives in His service and carry out cross, we shall find our lives again in the fellowship of the cross with Christ. The opposite of discipleship is to be ashamed of Christ and His cross and all the offense which the cross brings in its train. — The Cost of Discipleship (1937)

I would say this is splendid, but that’s not allowed. First Things writer Dimitri Cavalli sends along this amusing and instructive catalogue of writing dos and don’ts, compiled in 1915 by The Kansas City Star and given to Ernest Hemingway during his stint as a police and emergency-room reporter. Hemingway praised this guide as offering the “best rules I ever learned in the business of writing.” *Prospective FT authors, take heed!*

Here are some of the more edifying entries:

• A Woman of the Name of Mary Jones—Disrespect is attached to the individual in such sentences. Avoid it. Never use it even in referring to street walkers.
• Avoid the use of adjectives, especially such extravagant ones as splendid, gorgeous, grand, magnificent, etc.
• Say evening clothes, not full dress. [A common error on our pages.]
• “He was made unconscious,” not “he was rendered unconscious.” “He died on the sidewalk” not “He fell dead on the sidewalk.”
• The police tried to find her husband, not tried to locate her husband. To locate, used as a transitive verb, means to establish.
• The Star does not use “dope” or “dope fiend.” Use habit forming drugs or narcotics and addicts.
• “He suffered a broken leg in a fall,” not “he broke his leg in a fall.” He didn’t break the leg, the fall did. Say a leg, not his leg, because presumably the man has two legs.
• “She was born in Ireland and came to Jackson County in 1874″ not “but came to Jackson County.” She didn’t come here to make amends for being born in Ireland. This is a common abuse of the conjunction.
• Such words as “tots,” “urchins,” and “mites of humanity” are not to be used in writing of children. In certain cases, where “kids” conveys the proper shading and fits the story, it is permissible.

And, a final word of wisdom: “He died of heart disease, not heart failure—everybody dies of heart failure.”

FOR THE MOST COMPLETE VIEW OF THE PAPAL VISIT, you will want to watch EWTN (check your cable listings), where Father Neuhaus will be cohosting with Raymond Arroyo the coverage of all events in Washington and New York. We are hopeful that Father Neuhaus will also have some daily postings on this website.

Kelefa Sanneh, long the New York Times’ hip-hop correspondent, now shifts his attention to theology in a New Yorker profile of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Senator Obama’s pastor. Wright’s public avowal of the “black liberation theology” of James Cone raised eyebrows after the February airing of some of Wright’s sermons. Cone, as I documented in a recent essay, argued that Jesus was black, and that blacks are the Chosen People.

In Sanneh’s account, Rev. Wright goes well beyond James Cone in promulgating an Afrocentric theology, with a declared affinity for the Islam of Louis Farrakhan. As Sanneh reports:

Although Cone’s work had a major influence on him, Wright was carried along, too, by his own research and inclinations. He criticized Cone’s assertion that blacks “were completely stripped of their African heritage as they were enslaved,” and argued that the black Church should engage more with the African roots of its worshippers: he defined Trinity as “a congregation with a non-negotiable commitment to Africa.”…

Like Cone in the nineteen-sixties, Wright may have worried that he would be judged, and found wanting, by purer and less forgiving forms of black nationalism. Farrakhan represented the threat; his followers—particularly the young black men whom churches sometimes had trouble reaching—represented the prize.

Wright attended (but didn’t address) the Million Man March, the 1995 gathering in Washington that Farrakhan convened to promote self-reliance and “spiritual renewal” among black men. In the months afterward, Wright delivered a series of sermons that were reprinted in a book, “When Black Men Stand Up for God,” which presents a Christian response to the challenge posed by the Nation of Islam. In it, he lambastes the preachers who opposed the march on political or religious grounds: they had missed a prime opportunity to present their case to African-American men. And, by way of establishing his bona fides, he reminds readers that he studied Islam at the University of Chicago. “I have a different perspective on Islam than the average preacher,” he writes. “Islam and Christianity are a whole lot closer than you may realize. Islam comes out of Christianity.”

Presumably, Senator Obama didn’t hear those sermons, either.

As you may or may not know, Oliver Stone is making a film based on the life of the president, entitled W, starring Josh Brolin as Bush. It’s way too easy to begin with the jokes—not about W, but about W, and the director’s “gift” for creative re-imaginings: Think JFK and Nixon.

Slate has come across Stone’s (actually Stanley Weiser’s) screenplay and offers some snippets. It reads like an SNL skit meets a Nation editorial meeting wherein the participants, drunk on righteous indignation and still recovering from the failure of that whole communism thing, imagine how decisions were made in the Bush White House. (Warning to the fainthearted: The “president” uses really icky language when he’s angry. You won’t like the fake W when he’s angry. I’m sure there are some of you who don’t even like the real W when he’s clement.)

In short, I doubt the film will have much to say—or imagine—about the president that hasn’t already been said and imagined over and over and over again. How much is truth, speculation, satire, or outright baloney is anybody’s guess. The final product will most probably fall somewhere between a Michael Moore mockumentary (the dime-store psychology stuff and invented intra-family dialogue) and a sad-to-say all-too-accurate depiction of how decisions were made in the Bush White House.

In any event, the film won’t open until the real W is out of office. I suspect that, by then, most people will be Bush-bashed out and happy to focus on the future.

BTW: The L.A. Times offers photos of the cast.

Update: Biographers question Stone/Weiser’s portrait of Bush 43. Ya think?

The news this morning is that Father Servais Pinckaers, O.P., has died after a long period of debilitation. His history of Christian ethics and other writings—and especially his acute distinction between the “freedom of indifference” and the “freedom of excellence”—has had a powerful influence in Christian circles, and not only among Catholics, and certainly not only among Thomists.

One expects that influence will grow in the years ahead. May choirs of angels welcome him on the far side of Jordan.

“I have a son. His name is Christopher. He would be nearly thirty-three years old, if I hadn’t made that fateful choice when I was nineteen.…On July 2, 1973, I walked into the hospital pregnant, and walked out without an infant in my arms.”

So begins the story of Marie’s motherhood—a story tragically pierced by her decision, as a terrified college freshman from a nice and average family, to undergo an abortion. But that is not the end of Marie’s story, nor the end of her motherhood.

Motherhood Interrupted: Stories of Healing and Hope after Abortion poignantly details sixteen journeys—sixteen children lost, and mothers found—in the women’s own words. “It is my hope that after reading my story and the stories of the other women in this book,” says editor Jane Brennan, “many women who have had abortions will not be afraid to tell their own secrets. We all need to let other women know that abortion is not just a clinical procedure or fundamental right, but tragedy. In and beyond this tragedy, there is forgiveness, but if we don’t speak out, other women will have to endure the pain.”

Looking back thirty-three years, Christopher’s mother describes how she sat in a movie theater shortly after her abortion, and found herself staring at the mother and child in front of her: “My baby. I was completely undone.” Marie’s tears turned to depression, but she couldn’t yet pinpoint the root cause of her heartbreak. She eventually married and threw her battered heart into her work at an abortion clinic. “It was a very sad place to work,” she recalls, “they had counseling sessions weekly for the staff.” But God’s gentle grace can penetrate even the most hostile circumstances, in Marie’s case through the birth of a healthy baby girl—“a miracle.” In time she found her way back to the Church and was touched by its post-abortive ministries, learning to accept the forgiveness of God and the compassion of his children; learning to ask forgiveness from the son she never met, and to hope for their meeting in heaven.

Hers is a tragic story, but—for herself and for others—it is a story that needs to be told. As Pope John Paul the Great wrote in Evangelium Vitae:

The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can with sure hope entrust your child. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.

Christians hope in the Gospel’s promise, the mystery of love at the heart of Salvation: In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. A collection of accounts of post-abortive suffering and healing is more than a string of emotional anecdotes. It is a glimpse into the reality of the culture of death—and the reality of its conquest. Moreover, it is a glimpse into our call to participate in Redemption.

Story after story reveals that compassion—literally, the willingness to suffer with the suffering—expressed by church communities and family members, is priceless balm for the women who have been wounded by abortion. It necessarily draws from, and crucially points to, the most precious gift of all, God’s forgiveness and grace. As one woman says, echoing the words of St. Paul: “He is the source of all comfort. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all out troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. (1 Cor. 3-4). His Word is the final Word.”

It is the hope of the cross and the hope of Easter, the hope that never dies:

Death with life contended: Combat strangely ended!
Life’s own Champion, slain, yet lives to reign.