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Quite a bit has changed over the last couple millennia. And some things haven't. One of the things that hasn't changed is human nature: which is good news and bad news, depending on how I look at it. I'd started writing about that, when my oldest daughter and I ran into an all-to-common opinion about religion. The narrator of a video we were watching said that religion was silly. Then he said something like 'isn't that an unforgivable sin?' The phrase is fairly common in English-speaking cultures. It's "Biblical" in the sense that it refers to a sentence in Matthew. Since I'm a Catholic, I do not think the unforgivable sin is using the wrong fork at a formal dinner. I'll get back to that. At any rate, here's my shorter-than-planned review of (comparatively) recent events, along with how I see sin (original, unforgivable and otherwise); and why Advent matters: Politics, Ideas, and Technology: 20 Centuries in 138 Words After th...

This week I'll be looking at: Parts of that "...Progress of the Century..." lithograph A few lines from three poems by Tennyson What's changed over the last couple centuries What hasn't I'll also explain why I don't "believe in" Progress with a capital "P". On the other hand, I'd rather be living today than in 1923 or 1823. That's partly because we've made considerable progress, lowercase "p", on the technology side of our lives. And some remarkable lowercase progress on the social side, too. I've been running a fever this week, so the discussion of P rogress and p rogress is a whole lot shorter than I'd planned. Which may be a good thing. This week's post may be a trifle more digressive than usual. You have been warned. Mottoes and Viewpoints Principles Steam, Reform, and Poisoned Candy A Long-Overdue Change (Optionally) Rational Animals The Candy Man Could "Forward!...

On his way back from World Youth Day in Lisbon, Pope Francis said that folks who aren't perfect can be Catholics. Since he was a tad more specific in how he expressed the idea, we got headlines like this: "Pope Francis restates Catholic Church is for everyone, including LGBTQ+ people" (ABC News). This week I'm taking a quick look at the news, and a longer look at why I'm okay with being Catholic. Pope Francis and the News Being Catholic — Two Millennia of Wildly Improbable Survival Definitions — Acting Like it Matters Happiness, Lust, Sin and Making Sense Wheat, Weeds, and What Pope Francis Said Not 'Just Us' Sodom, Gomorrah, and Lot's Guests — or — Evil is Not Nice Responsibility More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Pope Francis: the Catholic Church is for everyone, including LGBT. A quick look at news, a longer look at why acting like I am Catholic makes sense.)

This post should be online just after midnight, on the morning of Ash Wednesday Meanwhile, New Orleans will have almost six hours of their Mardi Gras left. There's a reason for that, and it's not that New Orleans Mardi Gras folks are ignoring Lent. A Catholic Citizen in America is on UTC time, Greenwich Mean Time's successor. Midnight, UTC, is 6:00 p.m. in New Orleans, Louisiana. 1 Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday: Meat, Cheese and New Orleans Lent: Pointing Myself Towards God Original Sin: Living With Consequences Wounded, But Still Basically Good The Bible, Very Briefly Goals: Short- and Long-Term Simple, Yes; Easy, No Looking Back at Lent 2022 More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Mardi Gras, very briefly. The purpose of Lent. Original sin and consequences. The Bible, briefly. Goals, short and long term.)

Yesterday was Veteran's Day. In my country, it's a time to remember folks who have served in America's military. Today I'll talk about why countries have military forces, and why I think it's a good idea. Even though I don't like war. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . We live in a less-than-ideal world. But we can make it better. I look at conscience and conflict, songs and ideas: and a few things we got right.

Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) in Sauk Centre, Minnesota: northwest entrance. (September 20, 2022) "First, the good news. As far as I know, nobody got hurt during last weekend's incident. "That much I could tell from what wasn't in a metro area station's news item...." One statue tipped, urine on the carpet, a damaged cross. The Saturday morning trashing spree showed lack of respect for the folks in this parish. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

(From Agostino Carracci, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wikimedia Commons; used w/o permission.) I figure folks have been hankering for the 'good old days' since long before we started keeping written records. And occasionally preserving them. The records, I mean. Not the 'good old days.'... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . This week I discuss Troy and the Late Bronze Age collapse, golden ages, fear and Phaedrus. And why history is not mythology, but both are important.

(From Thomas Cole, via Museum of Fine Arts, Boston & Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.) ("Expulsion from the Garden of Eden," Thomas Cole. (1828)) We celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary this Wednesday. It's a big deal — a Holy Day of Obligation — because Mary is our Lord's mother. And because Mary is the only one of us born without original sin. Original sin is not the notion that humans are utterly depraved, bad to the core. We're still "very good" and made "in the image of God." More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

It's that time of year. Daily reminders of how many shopping days remain before Christmas fill some with dread, others with relief. Folks enjoy, endure or try to ignore another season of "Jingle Bells," "Santa Baby" and "Frosty the Snowman." Some of my neighbors have deployed their Christmas displays. So have we, thanks to my son. It's part of our Advent preparations. We're getting ready for Christmas, looking back at the first time Jesus came; and ahead to when our Lord returns. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Petrarch called Rome "a rubbish heap of history." That's what Ferdinand Gregorovius says Petrarch wrote in a letter, at any rate.... ...A bit over a half-millennium after Petrarch, a fair number of notables have used variations on "rubbish heap of history:"... ...So I'll be sifting through our ash heap: starting with a wrap-up of what I said about Pericles and good times (for some) in Athens three weeks back. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

"Doctor Faustus..." starts with a 194-word soliloquy. Sort of. It's delivered by Chorus, named last in Marlowe's "Dramatis Personae." Ancient Greek tragedies had a chorus, acting like today's narrators. Again, sort of. Aristotle said that chorus was a character, so maybe Marlowe saw it that way, too. Make that probably did, since his "Dramtis Personae" lists Chorus. Anyway, here's Marlowe's first whacking great chunk of soliloquy, whittled down considerably, in "Dr. Faustus." Assuming that what Chorus says is soliloquy.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Throughout the ages, Saints and sages have pondered the big questions. Who are we? What are we? Why are our lives so messed up? Storytellers and movie makers — these groups overlap — also reflect on human nature from time to time. Sometimes they use use space aliens as placeholders for ideas and ideals, strengths and failings. I'll be talking about that, and why I don't "believe in" space aliens: but think we may have neighbors. Then again, maybe we don't. Which hasn't kept folks from wondering "what if?"... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Today's Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time. It's also Saint Apollonia's feast day.... ...St. Apollonia isn't on my diocesan or national liturgical calendar. Not that I've seen, at any rate. That's not, or shouldn't be, a big surprise. The Catholic Church is literally catholic, καθολικός, katholikos, universal. Some things we do, like reading the Bible, are universal. Some aspects of our worship are regional or local. 1 ( September 30, 2018 ) I figure devotion to St. Apollonia hasn't been part of my place and time's life. Which is okay. Today's reading — right! That's what got me started. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Advent started November 29, a couple Sundays back. It's my faith's Christmas warmup. I'll get back to that. My culture's Christmas begins after Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.... ...Today I'll be talking about Advent's serious side: a song that's been sung at funerals, a Nativity painting's crucifix, introspection and shortcomings. Also ♪ magi on Segways with Amazon cartons. ♪ (Try singing it to the tune of "My Favorite Things," from "Sound of Music:" The bit that goes "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens....") Anyway, these are today's headings: "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel" — Plainsong, Burial Chant and Advent Hymn Heaven's Peace: a Work in Progress Advent: Ordinary Folks, Unique Events Something Odd O Hipster Night Illustrators and Illustrations Joy and Shadow Joseph's Options News: Not Entirely Bad; Unsettling; and Disbelieved Herod,...

Derek Chauvin, a police officer, killed George Floyd about a month ago. I don't know whether a court will call that homicide a murder, or assign some other label. I do know that there was and is no apparent excuse for ending Mr. Floyd's life.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . News and Views A Drive-Through Nap The Mystery of the Transferred Tazer Duality and Death St. Cloud, Minnesota: An Arrest, Social Media and Riots Good Neighbors and Ersatz Facts Rumors and Looting Fear and NASCAR Flags Prudence and Perspective "A Highly Charged and Emotional Time" Freudian Slips, a "Cavalier" Comment Moral Panic, Then and Now "A Day of Reckoning:" He Said, She Said Attitudes "Hooray for Our Side" Irish Lives Matter??? Cartoons, Slogans and Some Logic Statue Panic? Public Safety and Making Sense Minneapolis: [insert feared technolog...

Apollo 11's Lunar Module reached Mare Tranquillitatis fifty years ago this month. I remember hearing Neil A. Armstrong announce the landing site's name: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." A few hours later, Armstrong opened the Lunar Module's MESA — a storage locker built into the lander's side. A television camera in the MESA showed us Armstrong's, and humanity's, first step onto another world. Back on Earth, one out of every five people were watching: at home, in pubs, at cafes, in New York's Central Park and at shop windows. Pope St. Paul VI watched at the Castle Gandolfo observatory.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Folks who saw virtue in unquestioning devotion to established values didn't like the 1960s. No institution, custom or belief seemed safe from scrutiny. Even the idea of progress — a cherished heirloom from the Age of Enlightenment — was challenged disputed, and ultimately rejected. Visions of a technotopia, where our greatest challenge was deciding how to spend our leisure time, were fading. Hopes for nuclear power's abundant clean energy were giving way to fears of an atomic holocaust and reactor meltdowns. Assuming that pollution didn't kill us first. ( July 28, 2017 ; February 17, 2017 ) Perhaps even more disturbing for social Luddites, the nation's youth seemed ill-suited for their assigned role as torchbearers for liberty, conformity and suburban living. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

I think pursuing knowledge and truth is a good idea. That's probably why Tennyson's "Ulysses" is one of my favorite poems. It's the source of my Google Plus tagline: "To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought." ( March 26, 2017 ) I'll be talking about science, faith, and why I see no problem with admiring God's work. Also the Flat Earth Society's origin, and my own silly notion: a doughnut-shaped Earth. But first, an excerpt from Apollodorus that reminded me of the pottery metaphor in Genesis 2:7 : "...Prometheus moulded men out of water and earth and gave them also fire...." (Apollodorus, The Library, Book 1, 1.7.1 ; via The Theoi Classical Texts Library) Bible translations I grew up with often called the material in Genesis 2:7 "clay." The Hebrew the word is אדמה , adamah /adama. It means ground, land, or earth — dirt. I use the The New American Bible these days, wher...

I care about God's mercy because I'm a sinner. What that means depends on who says it. I think and hope Jonathan Edwards meant well, and wish some of his imitators would be less enthusiastic. Or at least think about what he said. Hollywood theology — I'd like to believe that many folks don't get their religious education from the movies, and that's another topic. Basically, Americans have lots of options for what we think "sin" and "sinners" mean. I'm a Catholic, so my view is 'none of the above.'... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Easter is when we celebrate "the crowning truth of our faith in Christ" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 638 ) It's among the top major events so far. Depending on how you count them, there have been only three to six: the creation of this universe; humanity's creation and fall; and our Lord's arrival, execution, and resurrection. There's another big one coming, eventually, and I'll get back to that. The idea that the Son of God was human and divine has seemed insufficiently 'spiritual' to some folks for two millennia now. But like John 1:14 says, 1 "...the Word became flesh...." The crucifixion, and what happened later, wouldn't mean much otherwise.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .