Vatican Darwin Conference & the Lowly Status of Intelligent Design

Here, in the midst of my Maciel obsession, is an interesting piece of news about the Vatican's efforts to discuss the scientific and theological implications of Darwinism and evolution. The odd-person out, it seems, is intelligent design. That theory has only been added to be considered as a cultural phenomena, not as a scientific or theological issue. The Church has come a long way since Galileo.

Click here to read a report with additional sources from CathNews.

Las Hijas de Maciel

"¿Es ella, la ahora famosa, más hija del P. Maciel que lo que soy yo? No, creo que no."

Is she, the now famous, more "daughter" of Fr. Maciel than I am? No, I think not.

"Esa chiquilla, hasta ayer desconocida, sin deberla ni temerla, se ha hecho famosa en el mundo entero en un solo día y no puedo negar que eso me ha hecho sentirme un poco celosa, pues yo no saldré publicada en todos los diarios (tal vez en ninguno) y ¡también soy hija del P. Maciel! No llevo su sangre en mis venas , pero gran parte de lo que soy (casi todo) se lo debo a él. Sí, el P. Maciel es mi padre (Nuestro Padre, como cariñosamente le llamamos los miembros del Regnum Christi) y lo digo con mucho orgullo."

This little girl, undiscovered until yesterday, without owing or fearing her, has made herself famous in the whole world in only one day and I cannot deny that this has made me feel a little bit jealous, since I will not come out published in all the daily news (perhaps none) and, I too am a daughter of Fr. Maciel! I do not carry his blood in my veins, but a great part of what I am (almost all of it) I owe to him. Yes, Fr. Maciel is my father (Our Father, as we, the member of Regnum Christi, lovingly call him) and I say it with much pride.

--Comments from a story on Univision.com with my own translation.

Before I write a longer post explaining my fascination with the recent developments in the Maciel scandal, I wanted to mention a trend I have been reading from Legionaries of Christ writing in response to Latin American (for the most part Mexican) coverage of this story. In a fascinating twist of prose, there are a great number of women who are posting as the other, or another, "daughter of Maciel." Now, by this they mean spiritual daughters. But, they seem to express a certain dismissal--and even envy--of the biological daughter of Maciel since, after all, they are just as much his daugthers too.

If you read Spanish, you will find a striking difference in the rhetoric and polemics on this issue. For my part, I find it fascinating and gut-wrentching. There is no doubt, however, that the Spanish commentary reveals what most English-speaking sensibilities will not. In that graphic and less-deodorized rhetoric there is much to be learned from.

In my next post I will begin, at personal risk of crossing into the realm of self-pyschoanalysis, to describe my own reasons for finding these tragic events so important. I hope whatever lessons I might convey will have some impact on the culture at large (or small).

Vox-Nova on George Weigel on Regnum Christi

Since this has been the only thing going here lately, here is more on it from Vox-Nova

A Heartfelt Exchange on Regnum Christi

Yesterday I received a kind, while critical, message about my title choice, "Regnum Creepy?," for the article on the recent scandalous discoveries about the revered founder of Regnum Christi and Legionaries of Christ, Fr. Maciel. I agonized over a response and wanted to post snippets of the exchange here for a more through evaluation. I will refer to this person as "Nice Person."

Nice Person: The recent revelation about Fr. Maciel is devastating to me personally and to many. Though you may not be able to understand this and you are entitled to any opinion you like about the Regnum Christi movement, Fr. Maciel himself, or even me, you may be unaware that many people are grieving and that your blog title "regnum creepy" is hurtful. Fr. Maciel is personally responsible for my growth in holiness, and to discover such a shocking double life is heartbreaking.

You don't need to change the title or do anything really, I just thought you might want to know that some who will read this will have open wounds like me and those words are like salt.

My Response: Thank you for your charitable and generous e-mail. You're right. Many people are grieving--myself included. I grieve as a Catholic, but I rejoice in the truth and I am restless know more and more of what that means, exactly.

Regarding the movement, however, I have seen it from the inside out and, in particular, I saw it swell with community members after the covenant community we belonged to (Bread of Life) dissolved. That process of dissolution took many years and along the way I met many casualties who came from our own community, other ones, and subsidiaries or allies of them like RC and Opus Dei and more.

It is my belief fundamental belief that despite the spiritual formation I received from those organizations (including RC), the truth does not belong to them exclusively, they have no monopoly over it or over my conscience. While their teachings carefully shelter themselves under the generous mantle of the Church, their hubris as movements can only lead to humility or dissolution of some kind.

No matter how we parse it out there is a genuine creepiness--evident in the tragic nature of this scandal--that we ought to wrestle with and, when we come out of it, we will find that we owe them nothing, for the truth is not a possession to be had.

I mourn for you and many of my friends who are faithful Catholics who have found good counsel in RC or alike. At the same time, I also rejoice for you to be in such a poignant, salt-to-the-flesh process of death and resurrection--conversion--in the discovery of truth. I can only hope and pray for more of it in my life too. Please pray for that in me.

Final thoughts: I have thought more about the specific word "creepy" and what it means to describe this scandal. As I give it more and more thought it not seems to convey the feeling of things, it also describes them in more literal terms. To "creep" is to be sneaky and secretive. These discoveries of Fr. Maciel crept along while he was alive and he kept them hidden. That is creepy--literally.

More News: Tintanoboa

A snake that could eat a cow.

Regnum Creepy?

This in yesterday from the NY Times: Catholic Order Jolted by Reports That Its Founder Led a Double Life

On Words

I found myself making another linguistic distinction and remembered that my post, "Oh Sam You're Just So Special", seemed to go by too quietly. In case you wondered, the intention of that piece was to defend my way of looking at words and their meanings. Several people have objected to the sense in which I have treated 'socialism' and 'life' (within the term 'pro-life'). Their argument is that there is a mostly common and agreed upon meaning that I should abide by too. Any other meanings are ill suited for the purposes of doing anything other than empty, intellectual semantics.

I disagree. Words like 'socialism' that distill into "something about social," or 'pro-life' that clearly means "for, not against, life," are not defined by popular sentiment. They very well may function that way, but that does nothing to change what they mean to say. To question their meaning and posit a fuller representation is not to theoretically quibble, it is actually to advocate for the use of the language in ways that are consistent with common--not exclusive--intuitive senses that originate in human life, not apart from it.

So, in defense of what I coined the "weak intuitive" meaning of socialism or my abiding sentiment that 'life' is a broad expansive term that cannot be limited to this or that special interest group's own usage, I think that some words (certainly not all of them) have meaning that cannot be ignored simply because of their popular usage. At the same time, I think word games are parts of the primitive dance of the human struggle for truth, so, I am not arguing for some essentialist correspondence between language and objects.