It's not often that the secular media get anything right about the meat of Catholic theology. Father Robert Barron gives us a splendidly reasoned exception with his argument for priestly celibacy, published on the CNN website. From the essay:

This is why, as G.K. Chesterton noted, there is a tension to Christian life. In accord with its affirmation of the world, the Church loves color, pageantry, music and rich decoration (as in the liturgy and papal ceremonials), even as, in accord with its detachment from the world, it loves the poverty of St. Francis and the simplicity of Mother Teresa.

To sum up Fr. Barron's argument, priests should be celibate because in so being, they become living models of the transcendent communion with God that we will experience in heaven.

He even mentioned G.K. Chesterton. I am pleased.

My sister Mile Hi Mama gets a hat tip for pointing out a blog called Taliban Rising. This blog is about heretical, patriarchal ideas being promoted by certain radical members of the traditionalist Catholic movement ("Rad Trads"). As blogger Jeanette points out, these ideas delve into the realm of the distinctly non-Catholic (i.e., heretical) philosophy of religious naturalism. (Before reading further, please be aware, if you are not already, that Leave the lights on is written by a woman.)

In her post "Weaving the Mental Burqa," Jeanette (who writes with more clarity and spirit than I can manage here) quotes a few Rad Trad intellectual leaders, including Dr. Peter Chojnowski and the infamous Bishop Richard Williamson. Bishop Williamson's outrageous comments do not need to be refuted; they fairly refute themselves. Dr. Chojnowski, on the other hand, writes with a style reeking of erudition and opaque scholarship, and I consider his work to be a fair target.

He publishes a blog in which he reprints some of the articles he has written. In the introduction to his recently posted article "Our Lady as Woman and Warrior," he decries "the various writers on the internet who insist on distorting everything I have to say about women." I hope he does not consider this quote from that article to be a distortion:

"On account of the fact that the 'lady,' in all of her various aspects and roles, is commonly accepted to be the model of what all woman, on the natural level, ought to be. Just as the masculine ideal is one of being a 'master'...." (emphasis added)

It certainly sounds like much of this writer's philosophy is based on religious naturalism.

I do not mean to say, as some feminists do, that men and women are exactly the same (clearly they are not), nor that mothers and fathers do not have duties particular to their respective roles in the family (clearly they do). But as Jeanette points out, God's plan for men and women is not ordered primarily toward their sex, but rather toward Christ. Our duties arise not from our gender, but from our specific roles in the service of God.

To quote Dr. Gyula Mago, in the article "Feminism as Antichurch" in the Angelus, "[Woman] is subject to man, but not because he is the end for which she exists." The Angelus is a traditionalist publication; this quote is indicative of the fact that the naturalist heresy is not completely pervasive in the traditionalist movement, only in a small number of Rad Trads.

Contrast this statement with the following from Dr. Chojnowski's article "Flesh of my Flesh":

"It will be my contention that women have their being as women actualized only through their relationship with men. Women need men in order to be truly women. Men, however, do not need women in order to be truly men. ... Every convent has its father confessor and the Eucharistic Bridegroom." (emphasis original)

Though Chojnowski states this is based on Thomistic philosophy, I think St. Thomas Aquinas would shudder to think of his clearly reasoned philosphy invoked for such confused, pop-psych drivel. There are two errors in this quote. The first is the statement that "women have their being actualized by men." Nowhere in Catholic theology does one find this sentiment. The second error is the assertion that the presence of priests in convents somehow "proves" the first. It proves nothing of the sort; what it proves is that women, like men, need Christ. The priest is there to bring Christ in the sacraments to the nuns of the convent, not to "actualize their being," whatever that means.

My experience suggests that women have as much of a civilizing influence on men as men have a stabilizing influence on women. Even these observations are only broad generalities, as individual men and women vary widely in temperament.

Dr. Chojnowski can continue writing to encourage men to find women to actualize into being. (I imagine he does not intend women, being mentally inferior and subordinate to men, to read what he writes. I also imagine he has not ever had a real conversation with an actual woman.) As for me and my blog, we will serve the Lord, not the male sex.

This is just a quick note to say that if you do not regularly read the blog The Deeps of Time, go over and read Michael's excellent post on self-existence. He compares the rational reasons behind the Thomistic belief that God is self-existing to the idea that the physical universe may also somehow be self-existing. Michael effectively shoots down the claims of some scientists (like Neil deGrasse Tyson, of whom I am a fan, as a loyal Nova viewer) that these two claims are equally reasonable.

I recently had a conversation with science blogger Gumby the Cat, who said this in the comments:

I do think though, that either all religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity and the non-Abrahamic religions) were originally inspired by God, or none of them are. I think the tendency of the adherents of one particular faith to ascribe "The One Truth" status to their religion is a man-made conceit. How could one possibly know that?

Is it logical to believe that there is only one true religion?

Let me first make some postulates:

1. God is perfect and unchanging. In another manner of speaking, he is self-consistent and non-contradictory.
2. Many of the world's religions contradict each other. For example, Islam and Christianity have different views of God, both of which are radically different from the Hindu view of God/gods, which in turn is different from Buddhist and Shinto views.

It follows, then, that all religions cannot be true. Therefore at least some of them must be at least partially false.

An atheist might conclude that no religions are true. This does not necessarily follow from my two postulates; they are equally consistent with the view that exactly one religion is completely true. I do not think it is logical to believe that more than one religion is completely true, though.

So either one religion is completely true, or none are. If God is truth, that means that either one religion is "the one" God wants us to follow, or none are. I believe that one is, and I believe this is more logical than believing that many religions are equal in God's eyes.

Over at the Raving Theist, formerly the Raving Atheist, there is ongoing hubbub over the author's recently-announced conversion to Christianity. A recent post about conversion compared the conversion from atheism to theism, or conversion between different religions, to conversion between two philosophical schools of thought: empiricism and rationalism. I must admit that I had never thought too much about these metaphysical approaches.

One of the themes of this blog is that religion is rational. Clearly I am a rationalist. But I also am a woman of science, which necessarily makes me an empiricist.

The bottom line is that I cannot accept either philosophy as completely superior to the other. They complement each other. In science, purely empirical observations can only describe the world, not explain it. A rational approach is also necessary. On the other hand, science is meaningless without an empirical approach. A hybrid of the two philosophies, in which reason informs observations and observations guide reason, is best for learning about the natural world.

Another theme of this blog is that there are two distinct realms of truth, what Stephen J. Gould called the two magisteria: natural truth (the laws of nature, which are explored and explained by science) and supernatural truth (those parts of existence that are outside nature, meaning God and other non-material beings). In exploring the supernatural world, I favor rationalism as coming before empiricism. Empirical observations of the supernatural would include revelation (such as the Bible) and personal experience. These must be subject to the rational mind. The abundance of contradicting religious beliefs are evidence of what happens when one relies only on "empirical observations" of the supernatural without using the rational mind.

Some religions utterly rely on abandoning the rational intellect. If you have ever talked to Latter Day Saints missionaries, who encourage people to read the Book of Mormon and wait for a subjective fiffy experience to decide whether it is true, you know what I am talking about. ("Fiffy" means related to a "fif," or "funny internal feeling.")

What do you think is a better philosophy for looking at the world, empiricism or rationalism?