Vatican road rules; Rushdie, a conventless nun and more

Just yesterday I dared to confess my miserable mutterings as I drive:

Driving this morning I saw the usual really bad, inattentive sort of driving one sees in a day, and spent my time behind the wheel muttering, “come on, ye bastid, drive like you mean it! Which lane do you want, sweetie, do you know? Why are you driving like you’re in a coma?”

Yes, I’m distressingly bitchy, lately. But apparently I am not alone. Reader Kia kindly referred me to the Vatican’s “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road” a sort of 10 commandments of road rage, that are not so bad, actually. A few bits culled from both articles:

“Cars tend to bring out the ‘primitive’ side of human beings, thereby producing rather unpleasant results,” the document said.

It appealed to what it called the “noble tendencies” of the human spirit, urging responsibility and self-control to prevent the “psychological regression” often associated with driving.
[…]
It urged readers not to behave in an “unsatisfactory and even barely human manner” when driving and to avoid what it called “unbalanced behaviour… impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy”.
[…]
It called for drivers to obey speed limits and to exercise a host of Christian virtues: charity to fellow drivers, prudence on the roads, hope of arriving safely and justice in the event of crashes.

And it suggested prayer might come in handy…The rosary was particularly well suited to recitation by all in the car since its “rhythm and gentle repetition does not distract the driver’s attention.”

I used to know that. I’ll have to start praying the rosary while driving, once again. Anything is better than this new habit of driving while grinding my teeth.

I would be really, really interested to know what the Episcopal Priest/Muslim Woman I wrote about here, who claims she is both 100% Christian and 100% Muslim is thinking re the problem of Salman Rushdie, about whom radical Islamists again have their buzzsaws in an uproar.

Too bad Rushdie didn’t write a book about some Catholic saint or Father of the Church, or a book about Jesus. He could be knighted and remain perfectly safe. Flemming Rose writes about the latest dustup over Rushdie, the UN’s inexorable move toward criminalizing any criticism of Islam, and what it is all going to mean down the road.

“…insult, blasphemy, respect for religion, those words are being repeated over and over again as justification for violent attacks and death threats. By the Iranian government, by the chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain, and by leading politicians and opinion makers in the West.

And they have made their way into the United Nation’s Human Rights Council…On March 30 it passed a scandalous resolution condoning state punishment of speech that governments deems as insulting for religion.

“The resolution is based in the expectation that it will compel the international community to acknowledge and address the disturbing phenomenon of the defamation of religions, especially Islam,” said Pakistan, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

What does this mean? Well, it means that the UN is encouraging every dictatorship to pass laws that make criticism of Islam a crime. The UN Human Rights Council legitimizes the criminal persecution of sir Salman Rushdie for having insulted people’s religious sensibilities. Beautiful, isn’t it?

I wonder if Queen Elizabeth II and her advisers had thought she would be burned in effigy and her move considered a completely religious issue, especially given her role as Defender of the Faith and Head of the Church of England? They should have thought of it. This is perhaps why it is good to not be both Queen and Church Lady.

Ah, well…it’s a truth that extremists of all stripes – both religious and secular – do more harm than good in the name of their causes. My Auntie Lillie, who was nobody’s fool, always said one should beware the zealot – in zealotry there be dragons.

I like Churchill’s take on fanatics, too: “a fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and won’t change the subject!”

There is a difference between fanaticism, for example, or zealotry, and simple, profound and quiet fidelity to what one believes and espouses:

IVANOVKA, Kazakhstan (UCAN) – Sister Vladislava Veslavska, 73, has spent the past 30 years here, but few if any other residents besides her sister know she is a Catholic nun.

Wearing a simple blue dress with a white kerchief around her head, she looks like any other elderly woman in Ivanovka, about 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) south of Astana, the Kazakh capital.

The 30 years she has spent apart from her Sacred Heart of Mary community in Ukraine followed an almost equal span of time during which she and the other nuns could meet only furtively and did not live together.

Now, close to 60 years since she took her vows as a religious, Sister Veslavska has an opportunity to live in a convent for the first time.

“I’m a Catholic nun, but I’ve never lived in a convent because the communists didn’t allow me to do it,” she told UCA News in May. “Only now, when Incarnate Word nuns are to open a community (in Kazakhstan), do I have a chance to openly join a religious congregation.”

Imagine that – 60 years spent unable to be who you are, living undercover and underground, as it were, alone and without spiritual support. That’s not fanaticism. That is faithfulness in love.

I wonder if the zealots of Islamic Jihad, or the extremists of any religion, or the fanatics on the secular/political left and right (I define them as anyone who thinks you should not have the freedom to express yourself because it goes against their preferred narrative…you could also call them fascists, if you like) would be able to sustain themselves and their ideas and beliefs for 60 years if they had to do it alone, without the mob they’ve gathered behind them to give them momentum and keep their rants alive. Zealots always need a mob, and they’re brilliant at assembling them. Mobs are easy. Singularity of purpose – even in the face of enormous and rabid opposition – is more difficult and therefore heroic.

Of course, the good news is – according to Isaac Newton, anyway – the world’s going to end in 2060 or thereabouts…which is, oddly enough, along the same timeline Frank Tipler is coming up with in his book The Physics of Christianity.

Well…in heaven at least we’ll be allowed to watch a Yankee Game over CNN. And we won’t have such mishaps as these to mortify us.

On a serious note, let us pray on the passing of 9 courageous firefighters – they are the best people in the world, bar none – lost in a terrible blaze in SC, for their families, their fellow firefighters. Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let your perpetual light shine on them…may their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.