So is Jesus. We all know the history of how Christianity slowly supplanted paganism, and it all began at the wedding of Cana, when Jesus hurled Bacchus from his ancient throne by transforming  vats of boring old water into luscious gallons of fermented grape juice. And what is one of the things in heaven that Jesus assures us he’ll be joining us in? A celebratory glass of wine, of course.* Imagine being in your brand new, shiny resurrected body (which will be more capable of enjoying things then the old version) and taking that first sip of a post-Apocalypse glass of wine? When I imagine that moment, I think: does everybody realize this is part of the promise of Christianity? Why the flip isn’t everyone Christian?

O.K. I’m getting irreverent again. My apologies. The point here is to introduce a special new category of posts here at That Strangest of Wars: That Strangest of Wine Guides! Wine is delicious, it comes in a zillion different varieties, and it almost never gives you a hangover. Plus, it’s healthy! At least, that’s what I’m told. I know it tastes good, which is always a sure sign that something is good for you.

Let’s get started!

Wine # 1

Brand: Barefoot

Kind: Pinot Grigio

Price: well under $10

I begin with this one because it is the current fave of Ms. Beguiles.  I do not normally prefer Pinot Grigios, because they tend to be on the sweet side, plus I’m uncomfortable saying the word “Pinot.” This Pinot Grigio is very good, though. I’ve been known to have a glass even when Ms. Beguiles is off by herself watching Adele videos.

Wine #2

Brand: Barefoot

Kind: Cabernet Sauvignon

Price: well under $10

Strangely, Barefoot’s “Cabbie” is no good at all. It tastes like grapes. Yes, I know wine is made from grapes, but this one just tastes like Welch’s grape juice. You would think that the good people at Barefoot would have noticed that their Cabernet is not yet actually fermented. Leave this one on the grocery store shelf.

Wine #3

Brand: Beringer

Kind: Cabernet Sauvignon

Price: varies

Beringer has a cool thing going on with it’s Cabs. They have a top shelf variety, “Knight’s Valley,”  with a black-and-plate-mail-gray label. I’ve never had it because it burns too many bunsens (that’s slang for “too expensive for me”).  But then there’s a variety that’s a step down from there: “Founder’s Estate.” It’s anywhere between $11 and $16. It’s really good. Dry, smooth, aromatic. Makes you want to read leather-bound books and kick back with the hounds by the hearth, if you know what I’m saying. Now, from there is even another step down: just the Beringer “California Collection” Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s less than $10—and it’s very, very nice! There’s not much reason to pay extra for the mid-level “Founder’s Estate” one—the low-level is just fine! Enjoy!

The Cheaper's a Keeper!

You see? A wine guide for the rest of us! Because we should all drink more, I think. See you next time!

* see Mt 26:29, Mk 14:25, and Lk 22:18 [RSV]

I’m finishing up Final Edits for my book, which is going to be released by OSV in a couple of months. The Final Edit phase is like riding a wild pig: the animal is all there, you’ve even named it, but it runs all over the place and makes frequent shrill grunting noises and often threatens to carry the both of you right off of a cliff and into a steaming river of lava. Or is that magma? No, I checked: magma is underground, lava’s aboveground. That’s just one of the many millions of items you have to verify in the Final Edit phase.

But, as you writers out there already know, it isn’t just a matter of fact-checking, or even of correcting the multitudinous offenses against English grammar. Often you read entire paragraphs and wonder who the anti-intellectual adolescent was who lit THAT stinkbomb, and then realize with shame that is was YOU.

So, you work it out. You submerge yourself into the page like a paratrooper going behind enemy lines and you start blasting.

You call for support as needed, of course. During one particular bout in which I thought my prose lacked verve, I wandered over to my bookshelf to see if the work of any of my favorite writers could help me enliven things. I was also needing a fix of pure entertainment, a distraction from Final Edits so that I could return to them, refreshed.

Robert E. Howard’s Conan seemed to be the answer. Sometimes, a man just wants to read about a solitary barbarian who resolves all difficult situations with either a large sword or heavy drinking and implied hay-rolling with exotic wenches. I’m sure this reveals something completely scandalous about my nature.

Robert E. Howard

It had been many, many years since I read my yellowed old paperback copy of Howard’s classic stories, but I vaguely remembered exciting, bloody tales relayed with luxurious prose. I was in need of a little luxurious prose myself, so I opened myself to the first tale: The Thing in the Crypt.

It’s a great story. Conan escapes from slavery, and is chased by wolves to a hidden tomb in a hillside. Sneer all you want, Howard had a gift for moving you along from one paragraph to the next and imbuing the whole adventure with an epic, poetic sense of things that is hard for a dweeb like me to ignore.

I congratulated myself for picking the perfect book to inspire my final edits. I was enthralled as Conan, after being so long in chains, finds an ancient sword in the tomb, thereby regaining his manly dignity and sense of purpose. And then…and THEN…the old corpse on the throne comes to life! Ohmigosh. Chopping commences, as it should. Conan is thrashing away at this undead monster, but of course it still…keeps..coming…

It was right about here that I become aware of the—shall we say “quirks”?—of Howard’s writing that were nothing but marvelous to me when I was sixteen years old. For instance, consider this excerpt:

“Stalking clumsily across the chamber, the mummy advanced upon Conan like a shape of nameless horror from the nightmares of a mad fiend.”

Woah. I had to share that one with Ms. Beguiles. I think about Robert E. Howard sitting at his desk, trying to think of how to describe the mummy as it stalked across the chamber. I see Howard suddenly sit upright, seeing the episode playing out in his mind’s eye, as he says aloud: “The mummy advances upon Conan like…like…a what? Like…a jaguar. No, no, a jaguar’s South American, it takes you out of the story. Like..an elephant? No, too big. Like a demon? Ahh, that’s better. But too brief. I want ‘crazy, scary, awful.’ It’s like…a fiend! And not just a fiend, but a MAD fiend. The NIGHTMARE of a mad fiend. And in that nightmare there’s a nameless horror—it doesn’t even have a name, it’s so horrible…but no, it’s not even a nameless horror but just the SHAPE of a nameless horror!! THAT’S WHAT THIS MUMMY IS LIKE AS IT ADVANCES UPON CONAN!!!

The thrill involved in concocting these descriptive details was still pumping through Howard’s veins two pages later, the battle still raging, when Conan gets knocked on the ground and the mummy gets the advantage: “Then a grisly shape of nightmare horror and lunacy loomed over him.” That’s both nightmare horror AND lunacy, kids. This thing isn’t just terrifying, it’s totally nuts. You CANNOT rely on this mummy to make a single, rational decision about ANYTHING.

So, boy, was that break from Final Edits a hoot. And I hope this post isn’t taken as a mockery of my man, Robert E. Howard. He’s still the champ. And, if my editor should run across any descriptions of utterly horrible, nightmarish lunatics who have nightmares about nameless, insane fiends without shapes and who are not sane, she’ll know why.

It isn't too late...to buy me this for Christmas

I was looking over the above map from the John Ciardi translation of Dante’s Inferno, and I realized that there was an entire level that Dante had overlooked: Catholics In Charge of Hiring.

O.K., maybe that’s going too far. Still, the fact is that while over the past few years I have occasionally been picked to be the Guy In Charge of Hiring, more often I have been (like so many other dudes out there right now) the Desperate Husband and Father Trying to Find A Job. My experiences in both positions have led me to the conclusion that the way Catholics in Catholic institutions (e.g. diocesan, parish and school offices, private businesses with Catholic identities, Catholic non-profit organizations, etc.) go about hiring and firing (and, really, engaging the public in general) stinks to high heaven  and needs sweeping reform.

So, to that end, I have decided to start distributing some helpful tips on how Catholic employers can improve the lives of both their employees and job applicants and raise the overall standards of decency and coolness in an otherwise cruel, heartless world. And all for FREE! 

Tip # 1: Banish the term “Human Resources” from your vocabulary. It’s demeaning, cold, and an offense to people’s dignity. A few decades ago, I don’t believe that any personnel department was calling itself “human resources,” and it is only in the past few years that Catholic institutions have begun using it. They picked it up from the secular world—which is not necessarily a bad thing, since the secular world does some things far, far better than the Catholic world, things like efficiency, professionalism, and courtesy.

What the secular world does not do well is human dignity. That’s why, in that world, it is perfectly normal to think of humans as “resources;” i.e. lumps of raw material that are essentially no different than other lumps of raw material like office equipment, company vehicles, merchandise—all the things that serve no purpose other than to make the Company succeed. The Company is the most important thing. Everything serves it; human beings, like all the other “resources,” are just cogs in the machine.

That’s not hyperbole. I’ve done massive amounts of work in the secular world. They do not care in the slightest about you or your life. You could drop dead right in front of the Human Resources Director of the local branch of Ginormous Store Full Of Stuff, and she will step lightly over your twitching corpse to post an immediate job opening on the company website. So, on that front, the Catholic world wins by a mile. Let’s maintain that tradition, shall we? Have a “Personnel Office”, or an “Employment Office”—never a “Human Resources Office”. It’s repugnant, and Catholics, above all, should know better.

Tip # 2: Once you have hired someone, TAKE THE JOB ADVERTISEMENT DOWN. Not long ago I spent an entire Sunday night filling out a 3-page diocesan job application, tweaking my CV, composing a passionate cover letter, and faxing all of that to the person in charge of hiring. I also sent that person a quick email asking to verify that she received all my stuff. Early the next morning she sent me an email telling me that the position had been filled a week before. She assured me that she was “in the process of taking down all of the online advertisements.” In the process? That isn’t a long, difficult process—you go online, you click a couple of things, you uncheck a box or two, and the posting is gone. You think maybe she could have done that on the DAY that the new person was hired, so that I and who knows who else didn’t waste any valuable time and energy trying to apply? Hmm? Hah?

I have other tips, of course, but I don’t want to cause the Internet to go supernova. I’ll post more later…in time. Meanwhile, I’m betting there are others out there who could bring up a few points of their own. Feel free to chime in, fellow strugglers!

Well, kids, play time is over. If you’re a practicing, conscientious Catholic (or a practicing, conscientious anything, for that matter) then you may now consider yourselves part of an endangered species. The following blast at the current administration doesn’t mince words, and my hat’s off to Archbishop Schnurr for having the guts to tell the Man what we think of his totalitarian policies (take note of this line: “we cannot–we will not–comply with this unjust law.” Right on.):
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I write to you concerning an alarming and serious matter that negatively impacts the Church in the United States directly, and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith.

The federal government, which claims to be “of, by, and for the people,” has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people – the Catholic population and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees’ health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those “services” in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.

In so ruling, the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.

We cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build Arnerica’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

And therefore, I would ask of you two things. First, as a community of faith we must commit ourselves to prayer and fasting that wisdom and justice may prevail, and religious liberty may be restored. Without God, we can do nothing; with God, nothing is impossible. Second, I would also recommend visiting http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/index.cfm, to learn more about this severe assault on religious liberty, and how to Contact Congress in support of legislation that would reverse the Administration’s decision.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Most Reverend Dennis M. Schnurr

Archbishop of Cincinnati

Lately I’ve been going to Mass at a beautiful church run by an order of Dominican friars. At the beginning of Mass all the Dominicans gather on either side of the altar and sing the Introit.

Introit  (in’ trō it) n.  1. The city next to the largest city in Michigan. 2.  German word for “come inside, dinner’s on the table.” 3. A short prayer sung when the priest begins Mass.

The 3rd definition listed is the one I would like to call your attention to, since the first two are utterly false.  Yes, though we Catholics are used to starting Mass with an entrance hymn, the Church officially prefers chanting the Introit instead. I understand why. When a devoted band of Dominican friars begins singing chant in two or three part harmony, your soul necessarily rises up a little closer to God. There’s something about the way it isn’t sung according to a fixed rhythm—it feels like an ocean moving around you, an irregular push-and-pull but with a mind of its own. I wish every parish would drop the hymns (except in some cases) and start doing chants again.

I feel so strongly about this, in fact, that I decided to engage in a bit of advocacy journalism on the subject. I temporarily doffed my knavish blog persona, donned my Scholarly Egghead costume, and submitted an article to Crisis magazine that lauds the awesomeness of chantin.’ That’s right, I dropped the “g.” “Chantin’.” If you have a minute, please head over to Crisis, read my stuff, and leave some love in the combox!

Have a great day!

I’m a great lover of Christmas loot, and–so there’s no ambiguity here–I welcome as many Christmas presents as I can possibly lay my hands on, and IT’S NEVER TOO LATE. I won’t be offended by any late presents that TSOW readers might want to send along–you know, as in: you ordered the unabridged, fully annotated Summa Theologica in hardcover for me, but Fed Ex delivered it to your house the Tuesday after Christmas, darn them, and now it’s just sitting there on your kitchen counter and you just don’t know if sending it this late would be offensive to me–it won’t be. In fact, it would ease the pain of not getting a Gandalf pipe, which was high on my wish list. Reading Bad Catholic’s post on pipes the other day only made my suffering more acute.

I’m, of course, thrilled to bits over the loot that I DID get (so far, wink, wink), which leads me to a strange discovery I want to share with you. As you may know, I’m a passionate fan of music, almost all music, and way up at the top of my favorite musicians is Peter Gabriel. My excellent wife bought me his most recent release, New Blood. It’s a lush symphonic arrangement of many of his best songs. I’ve been listening to it a couple of times a day–it is extremely well arranged, it’s creative, inventive, and Pete sounds great. It’s just a really cool achievement. Here’s the cover:

That’s right–you don’t know what it is. I didn’t either. Photograph of an organic ball on a metal thing. Looks microscopic. I didn’t spend much time thinking about it. Then, one day, while giving the CD another listen, I was reading through the liner notes, and I come across the cover photo credits. The title of the photo is: Embryonic Stem Cell on tip of Needle by Steve Gschmeissner/SPL.

That threw a big wet blanket on my mood. I looked at the photo again and thought: that’s all that’s left of an aborted human being, propped up on the tip of a flippin’ needle so we can photograph it and call it art.

I have no idea where Peter Gabriel stands on this particular issue–he may have no idea that there is a crucial difference between fetal stem cells and adult stem cells. I know he’s an extraordinary composer and songwriter; I know I admire him greatly. But I discarded the cover photo. No offense. I kept the CD, of course–it’s a triumph.

Elsewhere among my Christmas loot was the one-in-a-million late-’60′s collaboration between Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim:

Brilliant renditions of all your favorite Bossa Nova-and-such tunes and, as a bonus, the cover photo does not contain a single reference in favor of abortion, infanticide, immoral bioengineering practices, or any other aspect of the Culture of Death, assuming that pinky ring Frank is wearing isn’t a covert nod to a super-secret, multi-tiered European Eugenics Cult. Can’t rule it out yet.

Anyway, have a great Epiphany, and Merry Christmas, people!

FLASH UPDATE: It’s a mouse! Steve Gschmeissner (about whose work I was completely ignorant) left a comment below and showed a remarkable amount of restraint in letting me know that the stem cell in his photo is from a mouse, not an aborted baby. So, that’s good! Don’t throw away your New Blood covers, people! I’m truly sorry about the confusion I caused, Steve.

I might add, though, that the laws governing the use of human and animal materials aren’t necessarily strict everywhere, and there are large numbers of folk working hard right now to get the doors to embryonic stem cell research thrown wide, and there are artists who would have no problem using aborted human tissue as part of their projects–the same kind of artist who would submerge a crucifix in urine or make an image of Mary out of elephant dung–so I’ve developed a kind of nervous tick about it, I guess. Anyway, Steve Gschmeissner is not in that category and, again, Steve, I apologize. God bless.

Connery has nothing at all to do with this post, other than the fact that he's smiling, and he's playing a cool Catholic guy, and...it's just a cool picture.

Hi Kids! Welcome to 2012. Sorry I’ve been incommunicado for awhile, but the Lord family made an Abraham-style journey out of Ur (which is located on the Alabama Gulf Coast, and not in Mesopotamia, as scholars once thought) and settled in Cincinatti, Ohio, a land flowing with snow and chili.

Anyway, I want to dive back into some That Strangest of Wars action, and just now I found a site by a heroic fellow named Steve Gershom. He’s homosexual, AND he’s a faithful, practicing Catholic, AND he seems to be an all-around happy (one might even say “gay”) guy. The following is an excerpt from a particularly great recent post by him:

Steve writes: 

Last night I received this comment on an old post. Read it, friends, and weep.

God loves you fully for who you are – your sexuality is an expression of the love in your soul and heart and God does not require that you repress it unless you really want that (i.e. as a monk)…brother you are trying to be accepted by the church but the true acceptance comes from God – the church’s reasons to oppose gay love are history, fear, self-repression and bigotry–the church has got it wrong and in time will correct it – in the meantime
are rejected and treated as half people – please promise you will try to talk to somebody more open – perhaps Jesuits- please realize God made you as you are and loves you—

     – another Gay Catholic who is a practicing Catholic and has a loving partner.

So much compassion, and so much confusion. The author appears to assume the following things:

• - That I don’t believe God loves me, SSA and all.
• - That all sexual feelings are expressions of love.
• - That the only way to be celibate is through “repression”.
• - That rejecting the behavior of gay people (or anyone  else) implies a rejection of the people themselves.

So many Catholics have been tricked into believing that they can take the parts they love about Catholicism and leave the parts they don’t. This would be the case if the Church were a philosophy, or a political creed, or a theory. The Church is none of those things.

Definitely go read the rest here.

Steve is an inspiration. I myself have never had any struggles with SSA, but I’ve certainly had my struggles with disordered sexual attractions, as I’m sure most any of you have, as well. Any thoughts, comments, or questions on this subject are welcome. God bless!

Allow me to describe the quaint scene at the Lord house on Saturday night at 9:30 PM: the wee ones are all nestled in their beds; Hallie is over on the couch watching girlie shows on her computer with a pair of earbuds on. I’m in my La-Z-Boy wannabe with my own pair of earbuds and my own computer.

Is this the 21^st century, or what?

Ironically, I’m not watching a 21^st century movie. I’m watching a really excellent film from 1962—one year before the Council Fathers published Sacrosanctum Concilium—only a theology nerd like me would make that connection. Anyway, the film is The Manchurian Candidate. This is maybe the third or fourth time I’ve seen it. It’s brilliant. With the aid of a couple of Hienekens and a couple of Jose Cuervo shots I’m PARTICULARLY perceptive, and I can tell you: The Manchurian Candidate is a great movie. Every scene is meticulously crafted. The casting is perfect; Frank Sinatra is so very good—truly an underappreciated actor. My other favorite from the film—excluding the slithery asian Communist brainwasher named Dr. Yen, of course—is Janet Leigh.

I really am an anachronism; Hallie is, too. We are both in love with bygone eras. Modern guys get all hot and bothered over modern film bombshells—but I’m left cold, people. You can keep your Megan Foxes and your Jessica Simpsons. The two most beautiful ladies in film are long dead: Marilyn Monroe and Janet Leigh. Marilyn’s just awesome: fun and silly and lovely. Janet Leigh, though: beautiful, sultry, smart, sophisticated, and, sadly, doomed to be hacked to pieces by Anthony Perkins. These women from a bygone era…there’s something there that I rarely see anymore. I know my wife’s got it—I guess that accounts for why I laid lips on her in the first place: she’s smart, sexy, silly, cute, glamorous—a Monroe/Leigh combo!!

Assuming she hasn’t been put in place by a hostile Communist regime to manipulate me into performing some heinous act, I have to admit: Hallie’s a dream come true.

I remember back when I began to seriously desire a deeper knowledge of the Catholic Church.In particular, I was trying to wrap my mind around her involvement in human history, which nobody can deny is a bloody, joyous, riotous Mardi Gras parade of activity stretching back 2,000 years.

But no such revelation ever came; not the earth-shaking, faith-eradicating sock to the jaw I was dreading—there was plenty of corruption…avarice…prostitutes slithering in and out of rectories and all that. And lots of bad decisions by Church leaders on how to handle those proto-Lutherans and proto-Anglicans and proto-Calvinists, decisions which are very easy for me to criticize with nearly 500 years of cumulative hindsight.

But I also found a strong, living Church, made up of Christ-loving, faithful people, some of them super-heroic (like St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More and Pope St. Pius V), and which included persons born in the years prior to 1517—in other words, saintly people like Ignatius of Loyola who knew full well that the Church needed to be cleansed and renewed, but would never for a moment have advocated breaking away from the Church to start a new one. The very idea would have struck them as oxymoronic; nonsensical.

More importantly, I never found a single instance when the Catholic Church officially declared something that was merely man-made to be synonymous with official divinely sanctioned doctrine rooted in Jesus. Catholics have always distinguished between pious traditions that may or may not be edifying to the faithful (such as the Blessing of the Animals on St. Francis’ feast day) and the awesome non-negotiable stuff, such as the divinity of Jesus or the Real Presence.

For anyone going through a similar process of inquiry let me warmly recommend my friend Devin Rose’s book, If Protestantism Is True. Devin, a former Protestant himself, comes at the subject of Christian truth from a clever angle: as the title suggests, he asks the reader to weigh the things that Protestantism holds dear and then follow them through to their logical consequences—which ends up revealing the inherent non sequiturs.

Devin covers all the big subject areas in the Protestant-Catholic bloodbath debate discussion: the canon of Scripture, history, the sacraments, the question of authority, and more.

One of the best aspects of the book is Devin’s style. He’s a gentleman. He knows how to engage his Protestant readers and challenge them without smashing them into the ground, which is the unfortunate effect of a lot of Catholic/Protestant discussions.

So, you’ll learn a lot from Devin Rose about why what the Catholic Church teaches is true—but you’ll also learn how to proclaim that truth in a way that is appealing. Give If Protestantism is True a shot.