Joseph Ratzinger: The Ratzinger Report

Since the publication of Luther's famous Ninety-Five Theses in the early fifteen century, the "war" between Protestantism and Catholicism has raged. It is interesting to note, however, that beneath this layer of open schism there are strata of internal disputes and borders disputes that complicate the matter considerably.
 

Joseph Ratzinger was a lecturer on church dogmatics when, in 1962, he was invited to participate in Vatican II as a theological consultant. He quickly won a reputation among the so-called "progressive" caucus, for his openness to adapt church practice and discipline to modern times. This bloc found itself in a particularly vexing dispute with the more "traditionalist" conference, who favored the older traditions, especially the Latin Mass. Ratzinger's reputation was secured when he became one of the founders of the progressive periodical "Concilium," that became one of the primary dogmatic disputants with the official Catholic organ of dogma: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Holy Office, formerly the Roman and Universal Inquisition.

However, some years later Ratzinger separated from this caucus and this periodical. He would maintain his openness to adaptation and "the modern times," but Ratzinger insisted that any progressive caucus must recognize the authority of Catholic Tradition (and not seek to reinvent everything anew) and the true spirit of Vatican II (without regard for some hypothetical Vatican III that would trump it). The Church must "remain true to Vatican III, to this today of the Church, without any longing for a yesterday irretrievably gone with the wind and without any impatient thrust toward a tomorrow that is not ours" (pg. 19).

In 1977, Ratzinger was appointed by Pope Paul VI to the rank of Cardinal and Archbishop of Munich. Four years later, in 1981, he was selected by Pope John Paul II to be the head and Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In this position, Cardinal Ratzinger often found himself butting heads with his former progressive colleagues, as he sought to establish the post-Vatican II identity of the Catholic Church. Indeed, Ratzinger can be directly credited with moderating these divergent influences, and for reining in some of the more liberal doctrines that were promulgated (perhaps most notably by the liberation theology movement). By the time he was elected to the papal seat, succeeding Pope John Paul II and taking the name Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger was already the Dean of the College of Cardinals, and the most highly regarded theologian in the Catholic Church.

All of this should tell you just how important Cardinal Ratzinger was, even before his election as Pope. It should also give you some idea how significant it was when Ratzinger agreed to be interviewed by Vittorio Messori, an Italian journalist with a focus on religious issues. This interview was doubly significant because it would last for several days, and would wind up not just as an article but as an entire book, from the most important theologian in the Church besides the Pope himself, speaking from a privileged position about the state of the Church. The interview was trebly significant because of the historical secrecy associated with the Holy Office, and the Cardinal's own reticence about interviews.

The book is fantastic.  The introduction, written by Messori, is in my opinion an exemplar of journalistic integrity and honesty. However, the content is the far more impressive aspect of the work. The text, taken almost entirely from Ratzinger's words in the interview, ranges a whole gamut of issues, from the very notion of the Church to the doctrine of sexual ethics, to the conflicts within the Catholic Church and their presumed resolutions.  Though it was published in 1985, it remains entirely relevant today, even in the wake of the debilitating crisis wrought by the child abuses scandal among American Catholic clergy and the far different circumstances faced by the now-Pope Benedict XVI.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Catholicism. The clarity and mental dexterity displayed by Cardinal Ratzinger is a genuine delight.

If you'd like to purchase this book, check it out at Amazon.com
Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church

This was cross-posted at A Sacramental World.

Scott Hahn: Reasons to Believe

Scott Hahn is a former Presbyterian minister who converted to the Catholic Church and is now Professor of Scripture and Theology at the Franciscan University of Stuebenville. He has written upwards of a dozen books, on topics ranging from his conversion ("Rome Sweet Home") and his experiences in Opus Dei ("Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace"), to his appreciation of the Eucharist ("The Lamb's Supper") and the Sacraments ("Swear to God"), of the liturgy ("Letter and Spirit"), of the family ("First Comes Love"), and of Marian dogma ("Hail, Holy Queen").

Hahn addresses much of his writing for a Protestant audience, so he is perhaps best known as an apologist, a reputation reinforced by the stellar short work, "Reasons to Believe." The book is divided into three part: the first part addressed to non-Christians, the second part addressed to Protestants and non-Catholic Christians, and the third addressed primarily to his fellow Catholics.

The first part is fairly unoriginal, though I can hardly fault it for being so, as it covers most of the historically recognized and developed arguments for the existence of God, the legitimacy of faith, and the foundations of Christian Scripture and revelation. Hahn's prose is thorough and clear without getting bogged down in a philosophical mire, which is a credit to his craftsmanship. However, while most of the arguments are ostensibly geared towards a non-Christian audience, I suspect it was actually written for Catholic audiences trying to understand the philosophical underpinnings of their faith.

The second part is easily the best aspect of the work. Coming from a Protestant background, Hahn instinctively knows the rhetoric of Protestantism, and is able to present Catholic dogma in a way that makes intuitive sense to his audience. His five chapters delve into issues of Scripture and tradition, the communion of the saints, the sacraments, and the papacy. While he covers similar material in greater depth in many of his other works, this is a brilliant summary of the major points of contention.

I found the third part of the book less compelling, if only in comparison to the second. He introduces his own area of expertise -- covenant theology, the subject of his doctoral dissertation -- and examines the Catholic doctrine of the church through that lens: as the kingdom of God. The conclusion, however, is another high point. Hahn directly addresses Catholics and exhorts them to re-examine the dogma promulgated by the Council of Trent, which directly responded to the claims of the Protestant Reformation. Rather than identify justification on legalistic grounds of imputed righteousness (as Luther asserted) or the merit of works (as many Catholic chose to respond), the Council of Trent advocated a more relational understanding, sometimes called "imparted righteousness" or "divine filiation."

By faith and by the grace of God, we become heirs of the kingdom and can call ourselves truly sons of God. It is this righteousness, ours through inheritance, that is the basis of our justification, as well as our sanctification and future glorification.  It's a doctrine that all Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, could stand to understand and put into practice.

If you'd like to purchase this book, check it out at Amazon.com
Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, and Defend the Catholic Faith

This was cross-posted at my theology blog, A Sacramental World.

Larry Schweikart: What Would The Founders Say?

"What Would the Founders Say" is the most recent entry in a string of works by politically-minded historians in defense of a conservative ideal. Written by Larry Schweikart, University of Dayton professor and Fox News commentator, this book argues strongly for an "original intent" approach to modern political issues.

To the extent this work is defined by its title, it largely succeeds. With few exceptions, it conveys the common understanding of the Founding Fathers with impressive clarity.  If, however, this book were meant to be anything more -- if it were meant to argue against liberal or progressive policies, or meant to be a template for such arguments -- it would unfortunately fail before it could even get out of the gate.

The crux of the matter appears in the last two paragraphs of the introduction:

The best way for America to find its way again is to return to the ideas and principles of the Founders.... The Founders owed it to us to make their positions plain and understandable, and they succeeded.  We owe it to them to embrace and apply them (pp. 9-10).

Unfortunately, this argument from "original intent" assumes perhaps the most important point of contention in debates over political philosophy. An equally notable stream of conservative thought argues that the intent of the Founding generation should have no hold over Constitutional law, and that only the original meaning of the Constitution, treaties and laws of the United States should be applied to modern governance. This position, "textualism," is most notably espoused by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and is widely considered (even among liberals) as the most formidable legal argument for conservative policies.

On the other end of the spectrum is the "Living Constitution" arguments from latter-day progressives such as Laurence Tribe.  This argument points out (courtesy of post-modernist epistemology) that the meaning of words is often conditioned on cultures and social environments, and that any attempt to apply an "original intent" or "original meaning" will therefore apply a stringent if arbitrary standard of interpretation. This thesis is quite common among scholars and legal professionals.

Most importantly for our purposes, however, this "Living Constitution" thesis rejects from the beginning any effort to bind modern policy-making to Founding-era values. Thus, "What Would the Founders Say?" is at its heart a book preaching to its own choir. There's nothing wrong with this.  Indeed, as Schweikart points out in the same introduction, the Founding Fathers "are far more than 'dead white men.' They were geniuses..." (pg. 9). The Founding generation lived under a tyranny and studied history extensively, and in the end they crafted a government more free and more stable than anything that had been created before in history. It's an impressive achievement, and we would do well to listen to their advice and guidance. But, unfortunately, that is a premise not always shared among modern progressives, and therefore persuasive appeals must find other grounds for argument.

As for the substantive chapters, I found the seventh chapter on banking and monetary issues to be the most effectively written and argued. While I lack the knowledge of early monetary history to confirm or dispute his statistical arguments, the principles of economic theory were clearly outlined and applied, and the pivotal historical events were presented with clarity and meaning.

There was one aggravating error regarding my own field, the history of economic thought, but Schweikart is hardly responsible for the mistake.  He wrote on pg. 127 that "capitalism as [Adam Smith] outlined it was little known as a theory (though it was already a widespread practice)" -- relying on the common misunderstanding that Adam Smith was the father of classical economics and not reliant on the work of prior economists, notably the French Physiocrats. Likewise, while I wanted to sing from rooftops when Schweikart mentioned the appallingly under-appreciated Jean-Baptiste Say (pg. 155), it appeared that he misunderstood the importance and meaning of Say's contribution to economic thought.

This last point regarding Say is actually part of a broader theme in Schweikart's book. One of main thrusts of the book is a rehabilitation of Hamilton's reputation among conservative audiences. The author's slight misunderstanding of Say is ironically appended to an apologia for Hamilton's misunderstanding of Say. Schweikart is also dismissive of John Adams for the same reason. At one point he notes Adams' tendency to "congratulat[e] himself with characteristic hyperbole" when relaying Adams' opinion late in life that "save for me, [Hamilton] would have involved us in a foreign war with France and a civil war with ourselves" (pg. 165). In all honesty, I'm pretty confident Adams was right, and that his self-congratulation was earned: he did manage to keep us out of the wars raging in Europe at the time, even though it cost him his own prospects for re-election, most of his ties in the Federalist Party, and his close friendship with Thomas Jefferson.

The first two chapters were impressively detailed summaries of the Founder's opinions on religion and education.  I had already read most of the quotes in other works, so it didn't affect me as strongly, but it serves as a decidedly useful antidote to any assertion that the Founding Fathers were generally deists or apathetic to religion, when that is quite possibly the furthest thing from the truth.  The third and fourth chapters, ostensibly on environmentalism and health care, mostly focused on the history of property rights in America -- useful in its own right, but tangential to the question at hand.  I found the ninth chapter on foreign policy to be of particular interest. Where most writers in my experience treat the Founders as non-interventionists, Schweikart argued that the Founders would have preferred a neoconservative approach to foreign policy, but were stymied by the lack of organization that characterized the early republic. I wasn't entirely convinced, but his arguments were well developed, and I will be giving the subject more thought.

On the whole, "What Would the Founders Say?" is a valuable overview of the opinions of the Founding Generation on issues affecting modern America. Some of the issues are developed in a superficial manner, but given the breadth of issues covered and this book's intended popular audience, I'm less surprised by that and more surprised that Schweikart managed to cover issues in as much depth as he did.

If you're interested in purchasing this book, check it out at Amazon.com: What Would the Founders Say?: A Patriot's Answers to America's Most Pressing Problems

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

I don't consider myself much of a connoisseur of Hitchcock films.  I've seen my fair share -- "The 39 Steps" was my first, and "Rope" may be my favorite --  but my personal preference is for more recent films.  On the other hand, whenever I discover a new Hitchcock film I know for a fact that I'm in for a treat, so occasionally I carve out to time to watch one.  Thus I found myself watching "The Lady Vanishes," one of Hitchcock's last works before he moved to produce for American studios, and the film that firmly established his early reputation.

The first half-hour or so of the film is quite slow.  A large number of passengers are waiting for a train that has been snowed in, and must stay overnight at an already crowded inn.  We first see the events of the film through the eyes of two British gentlemen, Charters and Coldicott, utterly enraptured by the sport of cricket and utterly enraged at their inability to learn the score. They meet a young happy couple on their honeymoon -- a secret kept from both their real spouses -- and a chatterbox of an English governess, Ms. Froy (played by the inimitable Dame May Whitty).  At length we shift perspectives to Iris, a beautiful but rather spoiled young lady vacationing in Europe on her distant fiance's money. She bribes the innkeeper to stop the noise coming from the room above her, and meets the charming and worldly Gilbert, who was trying to transcribe a local country dance. Finally, as the night concludes, we return to Ms. Froy, listening in raptures to the trilling melody of a serenading guitarist.

As the music ends, the guitarist is strangled.

Events quickly accelerate. As they board the train, Iris is hit on the head with large flower-pot intended for Ms. Froy.  She manages to get on board, but suffers a concussion, and when she awakes, Ms. Froy has vanished, and none of the other passengers remember seeing her.  Only Gilbert believes her, and it takes him some time for that as well.  They search high and low for Ms. Froy, but to little avail.

The great joy of the film is in Hitchcock's ability to construct a compelling 'conspiracy,' for each person in the compartment must have a compelling reason for forgetting Ms. Froy.  Either they are all in on the conspiracy, or each is lying for reasons of their own.  That slow half-hour at the beginning of the film establishes those independent reasons, such that the final effect doesn't feel nearly as artificial or hodge-podge as it might have otherwise seemed.

There are a few sequences in this film that stand out to me. The fight in the baggage compartment between Gilbert and Doppo the Magnificent (a magician famous for his "vanishing woman" act...) is somewhat suspenseful but mostly uproarious, as Gilbert invites the fish-out-of-water Iris to help him fight.  Likewise, the climactic scene has moments of hilarity as the several English gentlemen find themselves (to their chagrin and disbelief) engaging in a gun battle.  The plot pressed onward, and the suspense is constantly maintained, but such moments and little asides are a genuine delight.

Unlike some of his bleaker works, the conclusion of the film is pretty unambiguously happy -- though Charters and Coldicott are disappointed when the fourth match of their cricket team is canceled due to flooding.  The MacGuffin is satisfactorily revealed, and there is a moment of romantic bliss in the penultimate scene involving Gilbert, Iris, and her fiance -- and no, I won't say more than that. There's nothing terrible profound about this film, but it is decidedly entertaining, and that's good enough for me

Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

I'll admit, I was pretty skeptical about this film. An adaptation of Shakespeare's immortal romance, starring garden gnomes?  Within the first few minutes of the movie, however, I was hooked.  A gnome walks onto the stage and, in what I can only describe as a Veggie Tales voice, apologizes in advance for how many times that story has already been told. Without further ado, he wipes out a massive scroll, and begins reading Shakespeare's prologue. Spoiler warning: he doesn't finish.

If you don't enter the theater knowing this particular story in advance, my feelings towards you would probably be categorized as: "Oh, how cute!  And how many years old are you?" To reduce it to essentials: boy meets girl, boy is supposed to hate girl, but boy thinks girl is kinda cute, and their doom is thereby assured.  Sure, there are other details like "boy kills girl's brother, and girl wishes he hadn't," but those are really of secondary importance to the gloriously doomed romance.


My favorite brand of humor is probably self-aware humor, and this movie has it in spades. The movie is full to brimming with Shakespeare references, whether in the name of the two neighbor in whose yards this gnome-gang warfare is set, in the name of the movie company (it's a famous duo, and it's not "Starsky and Hutch") , or in the giant talking statue of Shakespeare located in the nearby park. Some of the dialogue is admittedly groan-worthy, but there are several particularly clever lines.  On one occasion Juliet encounters the neighbor's dog and pushes it away, "Out!  Out!", whereupon the neighbor is heard searching for the dog, "Damn Spot!" Another scene shows two gnomes are searching for a mysterious vandal, and decide to split up... only to realize that their feet are joined to the same base.  The first gnome shrugs, "I wish I could quit you," and they continue on their merry way.

Some of the voice work is also top notch: James McAvoy and Emily Blunt voice the two leads, Michael Caine voices Juliet's father and the leader of the red gnomes, while Maggie Smith (see also: Professor McGonagall from the Harry Potter series) voices Gnomeo's mother and leader of the blue gnomes. There are more than a few funny moments involving Featherstone, a rather demented pink flamingo played by the legendary voice actor Jim Cummings (who at points seems to channel Robin Williams as the Genie). Meanwhile, Jason Statham is perfectly cast as the villainous Tybalt, and the show is nearly stolen by Ashley Jensen, who plays Juliet's "nurse," the boy-crazy frog Nanette.

Elton John was a producer of the movie and it definitely shows: the 70's- and 80's-themed soundtrack, while it fits the energy of the piece, tends to get in the way of some of the scenes.  The ending is particular was a bit too much -- I felt like it just hadn't earned the right to be quite so jubilantly cheesy and saccharine.  On the whole, though, it was an energetic and unabashedly self-referential comedy that earned its keep and at least temporarily sated my appetite for cornball humor.  If you liked the film "Over the Hedge" -- or, better yet, you liked that film but for the pontificating on social issues -- you'll almost certainly enjoy this film.

Kirill Yeskov: The Last Ringbearer

Some things in the world you just know. Tigger's butt will always be made out of rubber and springs, Aurora will invariably find the one remaining sewing machine in the kingdom in the secret passage to the abandoned tower just before her sixteenth birthday, and Sauron will forever be remembered as the personification of True Evil among the inhabitants of Middle Earth.  But ah, the skeptic asks: can you ever really know?

Enter, stage left: Kirill Yeskov, world-renown arachnologist and paleontologist by day, author of "Lord of the Rings" fan-fiction by night. Back in 1999, he published "The Last Ringbearer," a revisionist history of Middle Earth. Dismissing Tolkien's fantasy epic as hagiography ("history is written by the victors," his epigram reminds us), Yeskov rewrites the saga and its aftermath from the perspective of Mordor. The battle between the inhuman armies of Mordor and the free peoples of the West becomes in his hands a contest of the Elvish masters of magic against the technological and industrial innovations of Mordor. The Elves fear that Mordorian tech would one day prove their undoing, and so manipulate the Luddite populations of Gondor and Rohan (along with the wizards' Council at Isengard, over the objections of Saruman the Wise) into armed conflict with Mordor.

It is here that the novel's classically Russian heritage becomes evident: Yeskov demonstrates an impressive grasp of military history, strategy, and geopolitics. It turns out that Mordor was not bent on world domination, but was at a strategic impasse that forced it into war. Mordor relied heavily on foreign imports of food and raw materials, which flowed through trade routes to the West, particularly through Gondor.  Raids on such caravans would quickly push Mordor to the brink of starvation and stagnation, and force it into war.  Strategically, however, a defensive war was impossible, for though its mountainous borders were impenetrable, Mordor could not survive under siege, lacking an internal supply of food. Moreover, located between the two contingents of its enemy (Rivendell and Lorien, home of the Elves, to the North, with the kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan to the West), it was almost ideally situated for an offensive strike.

All of this occurs within the first few pages of the novel.  With this new realization of Mordorian geopolitics, it is almost impossible not to sympathize with their plight, nor their ultimately catastrophic failure to secure the necessary leverage to ensure food delivery and bring about peace.

Early on in the novel, Yeskov forces us to re-examine the list of races.  In his world, there are Elves and men and wizards.  But the trolls are simply rustic mountain-dwelling men who specialize in masonry; orcs are no longer demonic-looking dwellers of darkness, but ordinary men living in the shadow of the Ash Mountains; and both dwarves and hobbits were legends invented for the pleasure of credulous Gondorian ears

Moreover, the original cast of characters are reimagined. Aragorn is a Machiavellian schemer who deals in Dark Magic to secure the allegiance of the dead soldiers of Dunharrow, and who wins his throne from the rightful heir Faramir by blackmail and an invented lineage -- though even he is far outmatched in scheming by his Elvish "handler" Arwen. In the character of Gandalf, the author's evidently Soviet sympathies come to the fore: for the Grey Wizard is an oddly villainous cross between Adolf Hitler (seeking a "Final Solution" to the Mordorian problem) and Ronald Reagan (describing Mordor as "an Evil Empire"). Only Faramir and Eowyn remain of the original cast with their nobility intact. As for the infamous Ring of Power, it was a legend invented by the Nazgul (ancient wizards, counterparts to the Council of Isengard but unafraid of technology and therefore sympathetic to Mordor) to distract the power-hungry Western kingdoms.

After a few chapters of ret-conning the final defeat of Mordor's forces (Sauron evidently met his heroic end fighting as an ordinary captain among his men at the Battle of the Black Gate), Yeskov presents his own main characters: a field medic from Umbar, a port-city south of Mordor, and an Orocuen scout.  These two principals propel the story to its conclusion, for to them is entrusted the last hope of Mordor: they must sever the connection between Middle Earth and the Ardan world of magic, and thereby drive out the Elves from their positions of dominance.

Revisionism and ret-conning aside, this is a fantastic work.  (After some consideration, I've decided I am quite pleased with that inadvertent pun, and will let it stand).  Yeskov's influences from classical Russian literature are demonstrable, especially in his Tolstoyan grasp of military strategy and politics. There is a fascinating spy v. spy interlude that verges on a danse macabre -- undertones of Liszt's "Totentanz" seem to periodically ring out in this high-stakes game of death.  There is tragedy, high comedy, hints of mythology, and even romance.  It must be said, however, that there are several scenes with sexual content that would make Tolkien blush.  I don't recall anything explicit being described, merely discussed, but it may be too much for some readers.

The epilogue is decidedly ingenious as well. Hearkening to a similar historian's conceit, the prologue to "The Princess Bride," the author claims to have received his account from the folktales passed down by the descendants of the original Orocuen scout.  He also derides the popular Gondorian media for its vulgar and politically correct depictions of the tale, and includes a delicious passing shot at film festival critics, who (fearing the labels of racist, sexist, homophobe) give the vulgar cinematic trash every award in the book.

Despite the sometimes clunky translation, occasional anachronisms, and rare but decidedly off-putting revelations of the author's Soviet sympathies, I found this work a fascinating counterpoint to Tolkien's original.  Tolkien's method, as a philologist, was to create a world and a mythology from languages.  Yeskov's is to create a world and a social reality from a geological and geopolitical climate. I am too unread in Tolkien's other works to know whether this tale is compatible with the rest of the official history of Middle Earth, but as far as I could tell it was grounded in as comprehensive and coherent a world as the original. I'm not at all sure that "The Last Ringbearer" would appeal to fans of Tolkien's work, but on the whole I would consider it one of the best works of 'fan fiction' I have ever read.

**Note: the Tolkien estate has thus far prevented publication of an English translation of the original Russian novel.  However, at the end of last year an English version did appear, and last month a full English translation was vetted and approved by the author.  It can be found, in full and for free, on the translator's blog at the following address: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html.  Enjoy the read.**

The Green Hornet (2011)

Besides "The Adventures of Tintin," I didn't read comic books when I was younger. I still don't. But due to the recent spate of films derived from Marvel and DC comics, my interest in these characters and stories has grown. My interest was thus piqued when I heard about a new comic book character that would soon be arriving in cinemas: Britt Reid, alias the Green Hornet, and his sidekick Kato.

 
Britt Reid (played by Seth Rogen) is the son of a newspaper magnate, who dies and leaves him the corporate empire without any idea of how to run it. But with loads of money and a sense of adventure, Britt recruits his father's resident mechanic/barista Kato (Jay Chou), as well as amateur criminologist Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), and goes out to fight the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. He fights the city's resident criminal mastermind Chudnofsky (the delightfully self-conscious Christoph Waltz) and the obviously corrupt District Attorney Scanlon (David Harbour).

I'm not sure whether it comes across in the original comics, but Britt Reid is, at least in this film, is almost spectacularly unlikeable.  He epitomizes the "spoiled playboy" stereotype, but unlike Batman/Bruce Wayne, that is his actual personality.  There is no change of heart that causes him to yearn for justice; there is no deep philosophical or metaphysical yearning to make his deeds meaningful. His inaugural act as the Green Hornet is to decapitate the statue of his dead father. He is a coward, a boor, an over-sexed miscreant, and abusive friend, and a petulant man-child.  He has no sense of personal responsibility, no sense of humility, and really no sense of virtue whatsoever.  There is one redeeming moment towards the end of the film where he refuses a bribe from Scanlon, but that decision was borne equally out of pride as out of Reid's fledgling moral idealism. I found it totally impossible to like the character, and nearly impossible to root for him.

Besides the catastrophe that is the main character, the film is a mixed bag. The sidekick Kato is not only highly proficient, but also far more responsible and creative than Reid. Even if it would have been a travesty to the original comics series, I would have much preferred a movie in which Kato were the real Green Hornet who was using Britt Reid's resources and general cluelessness to fight crime on his own. Britt Reid shouldn't have been the protagonist, but instead the plucky comic relief. However, Kato was obliged to remain the buffoon's valet, and Jay Chou's acting did nothing to elevate this character from mediocrity.

As for Lenore Case, the criminologist, this role was mostly reduced to spouting random plot points from gang movies and crime films. To give her character depth, she was shoehorned into the 'love interest' role as well. But, in light of Britt Reid's utter lack of charm, this sideplotmostly mostly consists of Cameron Diaz acting alternately offended and incredulous at Britt's offensiveness.

The secondary villain, the District Attorney Scanlon, was utterly unremarkable as well.  The third-act twist which reveals him to be corrupt (having bribed and then killed Britt Reid's father, on behalf of the crime lord Chudnofsky) was so clearly foreshadowed, it was hard not to think about his "sudden but inevitable betrayal" while watching the earlier scenes.

Perhaps the sole redeeming factor of the film was the villain, Chudnofsky. He belongs to the "old guard" of the criminal underworld, who'd risen by hard work and high explosives. He remains insecure, however, both because of his unpronounceable name and because he's constantly overshadowed by more image-conscious criminals. We first meet him in one such encounter: he rapidly dispatches four armed guards then casually asks the drug kingpin (an uncredited appearance by James Franco) for tips on improving his public image. Waltz plays this scene beautifully, and his character's plot arc (he ultimately becomes the quip-spouting caped criminal, "Bloodnofsky") is a beauty to behold.  More's the pity, for those gems were encased in the thick walls suffering from narrative dry rot. "The Green Hornet" was an immense disappointment.

Orson Scott Card: Enchantment

Orson Scott Card is one of the most recognized writers of science fiction and fantasy today, perhaps best known for writing Ender's Game and its sequels.  A list of his other novels, stories, and series is pretty staggering on its own, spanning the sub-genres of political thriller, time-travel, space travel, magical fantasy, and historical fiction.

One of his lesser-known stand-alone works is the novel "Enchantment," which may be broadly characterized as a modern retelling of the Sleeping Beauty myth. In fact it is a meta-fictional take on some of the classic Grimm fairy tales, Slavonic folk stories, and Jewish myths, with an ample helping of Cold War politics and time travel to take the edge off. It features Card's characteristic chapter format with rotating multi-persona perspectives, a complex mythology of magic, pagan polytheism, and religious doctrine, and a startlingly effective love story.  There's also a complimentary self-aware reference to Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."  All told, this might be my favorite of Card's novels.

 
Most people know the story of Sleeping Beauty from the Disney version, though the original folktale probably originated in pre-medieval Europe. The story is simple: a newborn princess is cursed by the regional administrator of the International Wicked Witches Association (Cardinal Directions division), to the effect that she will die on her sixteenth birthday. Fortunately, the curse is 'alleviated' by three wise witches, presumably employed as union busters by the local warlords. Instead, the princess would merely fall into a death-like sleep on her sixteenth birthday, until woken up by True Love's Kiss (patent pending). Sure enough, the princess pricks her finger on a spindle, falls fast asleep, wakes up some time later to a random guy performing mouth-to-mouth, and naturally concludes that this is the love of her life. Happily ever after shortly ensues.

Card begins the novel focused around Ivan, a young Ukrainian boy coming to terms with his father's recent revelation that they are Jewish (his father publicly declared this so they could seek religious asylum in America). While visiting their cousin Marek, the young Ivan stumbles across a mysterious grove, with a strange beast trapped in a circular chasm that seems to be guarding a sleeping girl. Frightened of the beast, he runs away, and after his family relocates to America he shrugs off the memory (and recurring dreams) as a childhood fantasy.  He becomes a scholar of languages, specializing in Old Church Slavonic, a distant ancestor of modern Russian. He visits his cousin Marek again as a young man, to conduct research into his subject, and once again encounters the grove.  He somehow outruns the beast, a colossal stone-throwing bear, knocks it unconscious and leapfrogs the chasm.

Thus begins his adventures through time into the pre-medieval kingdom of Taina, located by the Carpathian mountains in Eastern Europe. The book marshals an impressive array of folktales and cultural anthropological knowledge to convey the distance in culture between Ivan's Ukrainian-American upbringing and the far-removed cultural mores of the land of Princess Katherina.

The chapter-by-chapter rotating viewpoints effectively roots us in the cultural differences and allows us to understand the characters far more intensively than would have otherwise been possible.  We understand and sympathize intuitively with Ivan's predicament, trying desperately to speak and understand the language (and preserve his insights for future generations) while fulfilling the kingdom's expectations of a prince and, of course, impressing the princess.  However, we also can understand the princess' dilemma of finding herself married to a man with hardly any upper-body strength, with no concept of princedom and leadership, and with very strange ideas of what is decent and what is taboo.

One of the delights of the story was when the tables were reversed -- to save Ivan's life, the two must flee ancient Taina and return to modern America.  Thus Ivan is partially vindicated and Katherina is allowed to understand how great a challenge it had been for him.  This sequence, incidentally, is also one of the weaknesses of the story -- Katherina finds it far too easy to adjust to modern life, and there are far too many easy coincidences (Ivan's mother knows magic, and his entire family has some knowledge of Old Church Slovenian, for instance). A fantasy novel may disregard normal conventions of fiction, but must develop and abide by a cogent set of rules for itself to maintain narrative coherence. Having established the 'rule' of cultural encounter from Ivan's adventures among Katherina's people, it seems to partly disregard those rules for convenience when the roles are reversed.

That's not to say the novel doesn't work. It may have simply worked too well and too easily in that particular passage. The love story between Ivan and Katherina, on the other hand, does not skimp on the challenges, and it is probably the best aspect of the story. Due to the cultural difference, misunderstandings abound, but we understand why and sympathize with the difficulty in overcoming them. This is no modern rom-com which forces obstacles in the path of lovers by means of idiocy, inanity, and simple invention.  This is closer to the Austen model of romantic comedy, where human psychology causes those obstacles to arise naturally, and where classical and Christian virtues must combine to remove them.

I have little interest in Eastern European folktales.  Of the ancient mythologies, the Greek and Roman are easily my two favorites, followed by the Norse. Slavonic folktales fail to win, place, or show in the horse-race for my loyalties. Yet I appreciated Card's obvious love for the culture, and his enthusiasm for its native stories is truly contagious. "Enchantment" is an extraordinary novel, and one I would highly recommend.

To purchase this book, check out Amazon.com:
Enchantment

Matt Baglio: The Rite

I read this book without knowing precisely what to expect.  I was interested in learning about spiritual warfare, especially from a Catholic perspective.  I knew that Father Thomas Euteneur (currently of the diocese of Palm Beach, formerly of Human Life International) had written a well-received book on the subject, Exorcism and the Church Militant. That book was unfortunately out of print, but Euteneur did recommend another work as a resource: The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, by Matt Baglio.

Among the Catholic rites and practices, exorcism is decidedly the black sheep -- ignored whenever it's possible, and marginalized whenever it can't. Due to an explosion of reported possessions and instances of demonic warfare in Europe, specifically in Italy, the Vatican had decided to debut a course in exorcism for interested priests.  This naturally attracted a good deal of attention from local and international media, including by American journalist Matt Baglio.  Shortly after the course began, Baglio met Father Gary Thomas, a priest from San Jose, California, who had been sent by his bishop to Rome for training. Father Thomas had never witnessed an exorcism and knew virtually nothing about the subject, but was eager to learn and was soon apprenticed to a practicing exorcist, Father Carmine.

Baglio wrote The Rite as the story of Father Thomas' training. The narrative conceit is stunningly effective. Both Baglio and Father Thomas begin as a skeptic, but the book conveys their gradual exposure to the Rite and acceptance of the reality of spiritual warfare.  Baglio packs the book chock-full of anecdotes, not only from Father Thomas' experience, but from other exorcists around Italy, and various sufferers.  He also covers the theology of spiritual warfare, a historical survey of Catholic and Christian demonology, and (most intriguingly) modern medical and psychological views on demonic possession.

In an article published in The American, Baglio stated that he "wanted to take an unbiased, non-macabre, almost scientific approach to determine just what the Church actually taught about exorcism." The Rite was quite successful in this regard.  There are occasional sensational details, but on the whole Baglio conveys the surprising banality of the rite, and dispels many misconceptions that accompany the subject.  The Rite may have been too successful, in fact. It attracted the attention of Hollywood (the source of many of those misconceptions), and is the basis for the upcoming film "The Rite" (starring Anthony Hopkins as Father Carmine). Based on the trailer, I have little doubt that this film will be a typical Hollywood bastardization of the source material, but that hardly disqualifies the book as a splendid and invaluable resource for those who seek real theological and scientific content on this much-disputed area of Christian doctrine.

This was cross-posted at my theology blog, Orthodox Reflections.

Carl Olson: Will Catholics Be 'Left Behind'?

When I was younger, I had a pretty strong interest in eschatology (from eschaton - the study of the "end times").  I think my interest was primarily motivated out of a love for storytelling.  The book of Revelation has so many wonderful and terrible images that it really does draw you in to the cosmic portrait being drawn, even if the portrait is as indecipherable as modern art.  This storytelling aspect was amplified by the "Left Behind" series, which now seems ideally suited for an impressionable young mind -- a thoroughly engaging plot featuring two-dimensional characters and absolutely abysmal writing.

As I grew older, I grew more familiar with some of the views on the book of Revelations, and I realized that "Rapture theology" was far from the only orthodox approach to eschatology.  My own views were shaped decisively in my freshman and sophomore years of college, when I engaged in a study of millennialist heresies in the Middle Ages and the Reformation.  For many years prior I had studied the history of economic thought, and I was frankly stunned by the many correlations I discovered between heretical eschatology and later utopian ideologies that had secularized these false millennial doctrines. This historical background helped demonstrate to me not only the theological dangers of over-emphasizing the eschaton, but the social and philosophical ramifications as well.

This book, "Will Catholics Be 'Left Behind'?", skilfully dissects the doctrines of "Rapture theology" that are so familiar to certain Protestant circles. The organization is a bit scatter-shot, surveying historical millennailists (focusing on the proto-dispensationalist heresies of Joachim de Fiore), major dispensationalist figures (such as Darby, Scofield, and Chafer), and finally the popularizers of the Rapture (especially Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye).

The book analyzes and evaluates some of the crucial doctrinal underpinnings of "the Rapture," and offers considerable clarity in defining various schools and camps of Christian eschatology. The distinctions between pre-millennialist, post-millennialist, and amillennialist interpretations, along with the divisions within Rapture theology (pre-Tribulation, mid-Trib, or post-Trib), are offered and explained. Finally, from the perspective of a historically orthodox Catholic (relying on church dogma and papal encyclicals), the authors presents a critique of dispensationalist theology and a positive affirmation of Catholic doctrine on the millennium and the eschaton.

I am not a Catholic, but I found the arguments both intriguing and compelling. It taught me a good deal about the doctrinal underpinnings of dispensationalism, especially the sharp dichotomy between the nation of Israel and the Church, a "two covenants" approach to eschatology that practically entails two separate "Second Comings" -- a preliminary Rapture alongside the final Parousia. That answered one of my main questions about dispensationalism: why the Rapture was considered a doctrinal necessity in the first place. The book also surveyed some of the more vitriolic strains of anti-Catholicism among dispensationalist writers, a bigotry that almost makes me ashamed to be a Protestant. On a more positive note, the author's case for the Catholic doctrine of eschatology also delved into issues of the Church as the Body of Christ, and the role of church tradition. This work is an engaging read, and an immensely valuable resource for studying Christian doctrines of eschatology.

This was cross-posted at my theology blog, Orthodox Reflections.

To purchase this book, check out Amazon.com:
Will Catholics Be Left Behind? (Modern Apologetics Library) (See all Eschatology Books)