Made in Wisconsin: Cardinal Raymond Burke

For Church wonks such as myself, the news that Wisconsin native Cardinal Raymond Burke will be removed as head of the Apostolic Signatura and made head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta is an ecclesiastical earthquake! His current post is important. The post to which he reportedly will be transferred is a clear demotion.

Raymond Burke was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 30, 1948. He is not the first Wisconsinite to become a Catholic Cardinal, but he has certainly risen to the highest position in the Catholic Church that any previous child of the Badger State ever did.

He came from humble rural Wisconsin beginnings, but his meteoric rise began shortly after Seminary. After receiving Bachelor and Master degrees from Catholic University in Washington, DC, he received Bachelor and Master degrees from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and he was ordained a priest by Pope Paul VI himself. He received his doctorate in Canon Law and was consecrated as Bishop of La Crosse, Wisconsin by Pope John Paul II in 1995.

In 2003 he was transferred to the position of Archbishop of St. Louis, Missouri. 

In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI appointed Burke as a Cardinal and he was moved to Rome to begin a series of positions leading to his current role as head of the Apostolic Signatura.

Cardinal Burke is his own man. And so, when the new Pope Francis stated that the Catholic Church needs to be less obsessed solely with issues such as abortion, Cardinal Burke seemed to chafe, stating to a media outlet, "But we can never talk enough about that." 

Cardinal Burke has also seemed to flout the Pope's example of simplicity in ecclesiastical garb, sporting vestments of a high medieval style.

It seems that Pope Francis wants someone else in the position of Head of the Apostolic Signatura, especially in advance of his Extraordinary Synod on the Family next month, a meeting in which changes to Catholic practice regarding communion for divorced and remarried Catholics may be discussed.

At any rate, Wisconsin should be proud that one of our own rose to such a high post within his Church community. According to his conscience, he served to the best of his ability. May his continued ministry to the Christian Church be fruitful.

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

When Did World War III Begin And When Will It End?

The Pope asserted today that we are, in fact, currently in World War III. Speaking in a homily at a monument to Italy's World War I dead, the Pope asserted that we are effectively in a "piecemeal" World War III even now, when you consider the range of armed conflicts that have raged for over a decade.

On reflection of this, it strikes me as obviously true. The reason we haven't previously referred to ourselves as being in World War III is that, during the Cold War, we had already reserved that name for the future and, we thought, inevitable fight between NATO and the Soviet Union.

But, based on the criteria whereby World Wars I and II were so named, it's clear the current global situation qualifies for the name World War III.

World War I was called the Great War and only retroactively termed World War I. The Time Magazine issue of June 12, 1939 first named it such, while already referring to their contemporary hostilities as World War II.

The current range of hostilities is well beyond that seen in World War I. That was essentially a war in Europe with somewhat related actions in Turkey. In the last decade, combatant nations and groups from across the globe have launched attacks in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

One might counter the claim that we are in World War III by asserting that the disparate hostilities the world has seen are not strictly related to one another. To be honest, however, World War II was really two generally separate wars. The Nazis and the Japanese had a pact, but they were never true allies. The Japanese had to be aware that the Nazis considered them an inferior race who were just conveniently dividing the American forces. And the Nazis had a non-aggression pact with the Soviets as well, which they broke the moment they felt it was no longer in their best interest.

Further, it's not clear that the bloodshed of the last decade is completely unrelated. An argument could be made, for instance, that Russian intervention in the Ukraine was emboldened by the perception that Europe and the United States are preoccupied with concerns in the Middle East.

And so, I agree with the Pope. We are currently in what will likely someday retroactively be termed World War III. Historians will consider September 11, 2001 to be the convenient beginning of the war, though, like all wars, the flashpoint was preceded by a building of tensions. 

Less clear is how World War III will ever be declared to have come to an end someday (God willing). Perhaps it will yet evolve into a transnational conflict that could see someone eventually surrender and the world collectively decide it's done with war for a while. More likely, after what could be at least another decade, the current conflicts will have cooled and, following an interval of relative peace, the world will declare that period of conflict finally over. 

And, in that moment, people will begin to ask what World War IV will resemble.

Made in Wisconsin: Bob Suter

Wisconsin is in mourning as I write this post. On September 9, 2014, Robert Allen Suter passed away suddenly of an apparent heart attack in Middleton. His funeral will be held in a stadium in Madison (the Alliant Energy Center) on Saturday, September 13 because no Lutheran church in the area could possibly hold the amount of people expected to attend.

Bob Suter was born on May 16, 1957 in Madison, Wisconsin. He grew up on the blue-collar East Side of that city, as did I. He attended Madison East High School, as did I. He was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church on the East Side, as was I.

He attended, as I later would, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and played hockey for the Badgers in 1977, a year in which they won the NCAA National Championship.

Bob Suter made it on to the 1980 Olympic Hockey Team. Now, back then, the Soviets essentially ran a professional team that got to play in the Olympics because they technically were not disqualified by being officially professional players. And the United States assembled its team from college players with considerably less experience than their Soviet counterparts.

We were mighty proud that two Madisonians, Mark Johnson and Bob Suter, were on that team. We on the East Side of Madison were understandably particularly proud that an East Sider represented our country in that venue.

And we watched live and on pins and needles as they played the Soviets and achieved the Miracle on Ice.

Bob Suter made his home in Wisconsin until his untimely death two days ago. He operated a sporting goods store and worked tirelessly to promote youth hockey in the Madison area. Fittingly, he died at the Capitol Ice Arena in those pursuits.

Rest in peace, Bob Suter. You are loved and will be sorely missed.

Learning Latin with Pope Francis - September 9, 2014

To visit my archive of Latin Papal Tweets, go to my main page.

September 9, 2014

 

Literal translation of the Latin: The faithfulness of God (is) stronger than our unfaithfulness and our infidelities.

Here's how the Latin works.

Latin	English	Parsing	Grammar Points
Fidelitas	The Faithfulnuss	nom. sing. fem. noun	fidelitas, fidelitatis
Dei	of God	gen. sing. masc. noun	Deus, Dei
fortior	stronger		comparative adverb from fortis, forte
infidelitate	(than) unfaithfulness	abl. sing. fem. noun	infidelitas, infidelitatis
nostra	our	abl. sing. fem. adj.	noster, nostra, nostrum; modifies infidelitate
et	and		conj.
proditionibus	(than) infidelities	abl. pl. fem. noun	proditio, proditionis
nostris	our	abl. pl. fem. adj.	noster, nostra, nostrum; modifies proditionibus

 

Learning Latin with Pope Francis - September 6, 2014

To visit my archive of Latin Papal Tweets, go to my main page.

September 6, 2014

 

Literal translation of the Latin: Jesus is the Good Shepherd who, although (we are) sinners, nay, indeed inasmuch as (we are) sinners, seeks us out and remains with us.

Here's how the Latin works.

Latin	English	Parsing	Grammar Points
Iesus	Jesus	nom. sing. masc. proper name	Iesus, Iesu; subject of est
est	is	3rd pers. sing. pres. ind. verb	sum, esse, fui
Pastor	the Shepherd	nom. sing. masc. noun	pastor, pastoris
Bonus	Good	nom, sing. masc. adj.	bonus, bona, bonum; modifies Pastor
qui	who	nom. sing. masc. rel. pronoun	qui, quae, quod; subj. of quaerit and remanet
nos	us	acc. pl. 1st. pers. pronoun	nos, nostrum; direct obj. of quaerit and remanet
quamvis	although		conj.
peccatores	sinners	acc. pl. masc. noun	peccator, peccatoris; dir. obj. of quaerit and remanet
immo	nay		adv.
vero	indeed		adv,
quatenus	inasmuch as		conj.
peccatores	sinners	acc. pl. masc. noun	peccator, peccatoris; dir. obj. of quaerit and remanet
quaerit	seeks	3rd pers. sing. pres. act. ind. verb	quaero, quaerere, quaesivi, quaesitum
et	and		conj.
nobiscum	with us	abl. pl. 1st. pers. pl pronoun + cum as enclitic
remanet	remains	3rd pers. pres. act. ind. verb	remaneo, remanere, remansi