Rebecca and I attended an all day seminar held at a neighboring parish today, in a beautiful new church called St Nicolas'. Professor Janet Smith was the guest speaker and the event was sponsored by nearby Pacific Redeemer College. Rebecca and I first saw Dr. Smith speak on EWTN, a Catholic cable channel (you can get it if you have a digital receiver with Shaw, or also on some satellite channels or on the web). While the quality of the broadcasts on EWTN can vary quite a bit, with some shows being very cheap looking and dull, others are refreshing and good. I like EWTN Bookmark quite a bit, for example. Dr. Smith speaks about Ethics and Bioethics especially. She is very good and knows her subject well. When we learned she was coming to speak so close to us, we decided we ought to attend. Although the event lasted all day, it was not overly long, and it was really nice to see what a strong, faithful and bright young student body looks like up close. I was so impressed. Not everyone was a student. Some people came from as far away as Kamloops or Cash Creek. Pacific Redeemer, I'm told, has an affiliation with Steubenville, which is a hotbed of Catholic Orthodoxy. I'm not intending to write a lot about Smith's presentation on life issues as it was long and I've tread that ground a lot already. I did, however, get a couple of pamphlets that I have not had the chance to look over yet, so you never know.
Ecce Homo I haven't done a quote from Pope Ratzinger's Introduction to Chistianty in a while and even though I have finished the book there are still one or two passages I want to share, including - perhaps even especially - this one. When I first began to look over what Christianity teaches, to look at the gospel story and to try penetrate why it has been so compelling to so many for so long, this was one of the things that leapt out at me. I was happy to see our Pope confirm it. Expanding on the Apostles Creed where it says "... suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried," Ratzinger writes: The fact that when the perfectly just man appeared he was crucified, delivered up by justice to death, tells us pitilessly who man is: Thou art such, man, that thou canst not bear the just man - that he who simply loves becomes a fool, a scourged criminal, an outcast. Thou art such because, unjust thyself, thou dost always need the injustice of the n...
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