In Die Somnium

Not Much to Say Here...

2012-02-20T23:18:00.000-06:00

...I'll just let Kim Vandapool comment on the odd consortium of pro-choice males. (Hmm... though neither I nor these guys should have any say on this, since it's "a women's issue," as we're reminded.)

It Begins

2012-02-13T19:14:00.002-06:00

The coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

The American portion of the Anglican ordinariates now have their first ordinary (as opposed to an official bishop, since he's a monsignor). Their current cathedral, overseeing the entire country, is Our Lady of Walsingham, donated by the Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo. And to think, I got all that out in only two sesquipedalian sentences!

To See Ourselves as Others See Us

2012-02-11T23:57:00.003-06:00

"Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding." --Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science (1966)*

Here's an old but good interview with The Big Sort author Bill Bishop about how often we deceive ourselves with confirmation bias--especially in politics. Call me naive, but I find it exceedingly odd that one's opinion on the public sector or defense is automatically connected with a particular side of the Great Culture War, like pro-life or pro-choice status. If one chooses X on one issue, they necessarily have to choose X on everything else... with the definition of "X" changing yearly, of course. Fortunately, variety has always existed beyond the Red and the Blue. Heck, even my own senator is a pro-choice Republican, regrettably. And before you ask, I find that regrettable on both counts.

*Oh noes, I'm becoming a modernist... more medievalism** coming soon!
**Postmodern medievalism, that is. Dang it.

American Cheese

2010-09-24T22:17:00.001-05:00

A digital chasuble, via Bad Vestments.

If I may be candid for a moment, I believe I have discovered the fountainhead of the liturgical abuse that has put a damper over certain Western nations' Catholic worship for the last half century. Are you ready for it?

It's you.

Or, more accurately, it's our culture as a nation (I assume this blog's audience is mostly in the U.S.). I never quite understand how, when faced with spectacular cheesiness that engulfed America from the 1960s onward, we are surprised in the least with cheesy church services and, yes, even masses. We are a land that prides itself on having it our way--our parishes would surely end up reflecting this to some degree.

In any case, the worst of it is behind us I think. And I don't like to harp at length on this, anyway. Some "big T" Traditionalists (I prefer this term to the pejorative "RadTrad") remind me of my wanderings around the Anglo-Catholic blogosphere in their genteel obsessions. I'm not sure where I'd fall on the former's radar, either: as a medievalist, I love splendor, but I can't understand why Trent overrules all. Sometimes they forget that the Mass wasn't perfected for all time in sixteenth century Italy. The Church has endured much more of much worse for a much longer period of time. So why worry (too much)?

God vs. Fairies, Yet Again...

2010-09-03T16:17:00.001-05:00

In response to the usual ruckus some atheists raise when they compare Almighty God to fairies or clumps of spaghetti, Theological Musings from an Amateur rather deftly explains why a mere lack of fairies isn't equivalent at all to the massive void left in human hearts by a lack of deity. Extra points for a reference to H. P. Lovecraft as well.

It is Truly Meet

2010-08-22T22:31:00.004-05:00

From CatholicCulture.org:

New Mass translation approved, will debut in Advent next year

The publication of a revised English translation concludes a lengthy and often controversial process that saw numerous clashes between proponents of differing approaches to translation. Critics of the new translation continue to complain that it contains obscure language, while its defenders note that the revisions eliminate errors and ambiguities in the liturgical translation that is now in use.

If by "obscure language" they mean "delightful archaicisms," I'm in. That's what brought me into a philocatholic frame of mind in the first place, after all!

On Interpreting the Uninterpretable

2010-08-12T12:49:00.000-05:00

I recently rediscovered the English band Radiohead's enigmatic magnum opus, Kid A, apparently considered by Pitchfork to be the greatest album of the last decade. It's not exactly easy listening, of course--even if you could decipher all of the lyrics. I mention this because I also discovered an in-depth interpretation available in this little corner of the Web.

For Shame...

2010-08-10T22:16:00.002-05:00

Shamefully, I'm attempting to blog once more without entirely remolding the CSS template... well, except for the title picture. And that little box on the side. But besides that, it still looks like the first template I was presented with, a template which oddly enough I see fairly few blogs using. I intend to focus this blog more firmly on a few interrelated topics, probably avoiding reviews and the like altogether. (My old blog, Compendium of the Glorious and Horrifying, currently molders over here.) Also, for obscurity's sake among other things, I hereby give this weblog a pretentious Latin name of my own devising: In Die Somnium, which means (I hope) "dreaming by day." So here's to new beginnings, Interwebs. Your comment box is calling...