Christopher Check Rebuts the Catholic Feminists

With regards to St. Catherine of Siena: The First Catholic Feminist? by Christopher Check

Let us reject the frame put forth by the egalitarians.

Christopher Check on Jean de La Valette

Defending Christendom against Islamic Jihad: Jean de La Valette by Christopher Check

Christopher Check, Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, Pray for Us!

The land that spawned Oliver Cromwell has given the Irish enough sorrow for the world to share, and anyone doubting the trials of Irish in America might look into the cruelty they endured as conscripts in Zachary Taylor’s army, cruelty that, along with our ill-treatment of the Mexican female population and desecration of Catholic churches south of the Rio Grande, drove the San Patricios to defect and fight for the Mexicans during the war even Ulysses Grant called unjust. My affection for Irish protest songs draws no end of ridicule from Tom Fleming and no end of patient sighs from Fr. Hugh Barbour. Both men, with scholastic precision, have explained to me why English folk songs are musically and morally superior...

Those arguments would come in handy for agitating various people at Christendom... haha.

Mr. Check concludes his piece:

Italian holy cards probably have not helped us form the image of Saint Joseph invoked by these two great popes. But an understanding of the Patron of the Universal Church as her militant protector from the forces of revolution is one we should cultivate. Fathers especially. After all, it is fathers of Christian families, Charles Péguy observed, that are today’s counter-revolutionaries.

Do Catholics need a men's movement? Probably not, but Catholic men should invoke the aid of St. Joseph as they live up to their vocation and try to bring about sanity in an insane world.

Christopher Check on Lent

I Gave it Up for Lent

One of my brothers-in-law is opposed to the notion of "giving something up" since one doesn't really give up anything if one is getting God in return. But a sacrifice is compatible with charity -- one is abstaining from a legitimate good or from fulfilling a lawful desire, out of the love of God. Ascesis has been a part of Christian spirituality from the very beginning, both as a means of becoming closer to God and also to moderate our bodily appetites.

Mr. Check writes:

While everyone’s choosing his or her own Lenten sacrifice is not as bad as priests making up their own version of the Mass or Catholic university presidents permitting the staging of lesbian-advocacy plays in the name of individual expression, we can see how Pope Leo saw that a little democracy would go a long way. A long way toward chaos, that is, and the best defense against chaos is unity, which word has the same root as universal, which, as any Catholic grammar school child of my father’s generation could tell you, is exactly what “Catholic” means.

And when my father was a child, all Catholics, all good ones, anyway, observed the same rules for fasting and abstaining throughout Lent, and these proscriptions were demanding and worthy of Christian persons who were serious about growing in holiness as they prepared for the greatest of all the liturgical feasts. The merits of the old rules are easy to understand. They are, first and foremost, designed to help us to express our love of God for creating us out of nothing and for, through a continuous act of His will, keeping us in existence. They are designed to help us conquer the passions that ever try to take over our hearts and fog our minds. They are given from the top down for those of us—myself, chief among them—who would seek some easier course. And they are given to all men so that in and by their common practice all men are more closely united in the Mystical Body of Christ.

It may be dangerous to link two marks of the Church so closely -- one and Catholic. United does not mean uniform (as non-Latin apostolic Christians will attest), though uniformity may be expected within one rite of the Church. One might think of the old Lenten regulations as rigid or strict, and proper only to an army, but Christians can be said to be soldiers, in a certain respect, and having a common Lenten observance for Latin-rite Catholics does not diminish their freedom or take away the exercise of prudence. It adds a structure to their lives that they might not have, or may be tempted to loosen. And Mr. Check's warning that a rampant individualism with respect to the spiritual life is dangerous should be taken into consideration. Pride may be occasioned by the following of the old rule as well, though. (And Orthodox Christians have criticized the Latin-rite for excessive legalism with respect to the old Lenten rules.) Still, while those who are more advanced can be encouraged, under the guidance of a spiritual director, to undertake other forms of mortification or works of charity, some basic rules applicable to all would be especially beneficial for beginners, who usually do not have access to a spiritual director or have not considered finding one would seem.

Mr. Check's appearance on Catholic Answers: Catholic and American: Which Comes First? (ra, mp3)