The Ark and The Dove

People Attend Mass! Priest Speaks Truth! Shocking!

The NY Daily News found it newsworthy that Archbishop Dolan defended the pope against the hyperbolic news media.

My favorite line in the article is:

The standing-room-only crowd applauded Dolan for calling the Holy Father a "leader in purification, reform and renewal that the church so very much needs."

Of course, the article had to end with:

Earlier, a small group of protesters had gathered outside St. Patrick's to denounce the pontiff.

Even so, this was the least damning depiction of the Church's response to the scandals that I've read so far.

Canon Ball

Going of John 2 (Wedding Feast at Cana) the other day, I was struck by an NAB footnote to verse four:

This verse may seek to show that Jesus did not work miracles to help his family and friends, as in the apocryphal gospels.

Some of the apocryphal account are pretty funny, depicting a boy Jesus making birds out of clay, killing a town bully and then resurrecting him after being scolded, that type of stuff.

It's easy to see why John could be a bit skittish about the wedding feast. It seems a bit trivial. In fact, the footnote mentioned above is attached to Christ asking his mother why he should bother performing this particular miracle: "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come."
The footnote softens the tone, suggesting that the more literal translation is "What's it to you and me?"

In part, Jesus' reluctance separates the narrative from wacky apocrypha...but then it rather begs the question. Could the early audiences be put off by such a story. That, after all, seems to be John's point. It's like he's saying, "bear with me people...there's going to be a pay off."

And perhaps the payoff is why this story could be recognized by the early Church as canonical and not apocryphal.

While I'm sure someone could come up with an interesting allegorical reading about Jesus making clay animals in the backyard, the story seems more invested in the literal rather than the figurative. That is, it reads like a pulp fiction version of the Bible. The story just doesn't compel a reader to go deeper.

The Wedding Feast at Cana, however, reads more literarily...that is, it reads more figuratively. Reading the story, especially in the context of John, you get the sense that it isn't really just a story about Christ's first miracle. It is a foreshadowing of the Last Supper. It sets up Eucharistic imagery. It  anagogically foretells the post-apocalytpic wedding feast of Revelation.

The context of the miracle, the wedding feast, fits into the rest of the Messianic narrative in a more compelling way than other domestic or more or less frivolous miracles in apocrypha do.

As Easy as ABC

Drudge also linked to an ABCNews piece citing Christopher Hitchens's call to arrest the pope.

Sigh. It's hard to Hitchens seriously any more. Especially when mentioned in the same sentence as Sinead O'Connor (puke!).

Anyway, the piece (by Susan Donaldson James) was a painfully irresponsible piece of journalism. Poke me in the eye kind of stuff. Perhaps, the most offending example is in the following two paragraphs:

Protesters rallied outside the Vatican, angry that an office under his command had stopped the prosecution in 1996 of Wisconsin priest Lawrence Murphy, who admitted molesting 200 boys at a school for the deaf where he worked for 20 years.

The secret church trial was halted after Murphy made a personal appeal to the future pope asking for mercy. 

Let's pause for a second, shall we? The first paragraph says that the Vatican "stopped the prosecution." This is quite vague. It doesn't say what prosecution was stopped. Indeed, the phrase comes just after indicated that the aforementioned silly people "said the pope should face a criminal investigation." Now, maybe I'm stretching things a bit, but if the last thing you write before "prosecution" is "criminal investigation" your reader might assume you are talking about a criminal prosecution. What other kinds of prosecutions are there?

Oh, that's right, there are prosecutions with Church courts...outside of civil authority. Ms James gets to this point in subsequent paragraph when she mentions "secret church trial."

Let's consider, then, what's a stake.

The Vatican did not stop the criminal prosecution of the child molester (and accounts are indicating that civil charges were in fact dropped by authorities before the Vatican got wind of the case):

In the early 1970s, multiple allegations of sexual abuse against the priest were made to civil authorities, who investigated but never brought charges. (Catholic News Service)

Thus, the Church stopped its internal prosecution...of, as ABC indicates, a secret trial.

Even if the Church had pursued the secret trial, how would anyone have ever known about it? This, I think, is the most confusing bit of logic being advanced. There seems to be an insinuation that the Church was engaged in some kind of cover-up...but why would the Church bother to cover up the crime if it was already brought to civil authorities and if the trial was going to be in secret?

If anything, it would seem the Church dropped the trial because it would have been a waste of time. The victims would most likely never get the satisfaction of knowing the results of a secret trial. The Church would have had no authority to punish the priest in a secular legal sense. And the guy could well have died before the secret trial was finished. The only reason to have committed resources towards such a trial would be to avoid the media completing misunderstanding the situation fourteen years in the future.

The article then makes a spectacular leap in logic.

And the conservative group Legionaries of Christ issued a statement today apologizing for the behavior of the group's founder, Marcial Maciel, who was determined by a church investigation to have molested seminarians and fathered a child by a woman with whom he had a long affair.

Those would be devastating scenarios for most world leaders, but not for the pope.

Experts in canon law say only a heavenly bolt of lightning can take the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from power as the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Not only does the Ms James use an utterly flippant (if not blatantly biased tone in the article), she's pretty much engaging in non sequitur.

Why would the treachery and deceit of a vile founder of a religious group translate into a "devastating scenario" for the pope? For that matter, how would it translate into a "devastating scenario" for most world leaders? For starters, there are plenty of tyrants out there who are actually putting rapists and murderers in positions of power without losing any power. For that matter, do we impeach presidents every time we find out that someone in Congress secretly and deceptively engaged in a criminal act? It just doesn't make sense. Then the story (predictably) dwells on the resignation issue for a bit.

Oh, and someone remind me to look up Richard Sipe's claim in the article that: "There have been a pope or two who have resigned, several hundred have been murdered, but it's a very stable organization from the top down."

First of all, I really need to check the numbers there. Several hundred have been murdered? There have only been 266 popes according to New Advent. Were four-fifths of the popes really bumped off (Wikipedia lists 8 definite murders, and 11 alleged murders...oddly enough, they don't include Peter's execution)? And murdered by whom (see, this is why you should never use passive voice)?

Holy Shmoley

So has anyone else had enough of the hyperbolic news articles concerning the problematic management of pedophile priests?

Drudge is linking to a Washington Post article with the following bit:

It all comes down to the question of what the pope knew and when. The answer will almost certainly determine the fate of Benedict's papacy.

Now, certainly there were horrible cover-ups that had occurred in various incidents, but the previous quote is a perfect example of overstatement.

To what precisely does the phrase "it all" refer? First of all, the Post writer is using a pronoun with an unclear antecedent. We aren't sure what "it" is...let alone what "all" of it could mean. Sure sounds important, though.

And then we get to the phrase "almost certainly determine the fate of Benedict's papacy."

Fate is a very abstract concept and extraordinarily hard to pin down. It's such a complicated term that Greek poets had to invoke a trinity of characters just to try to anthropomorphize it. What could the author mean by "the fate of Benedict's papacy?" It sound as if the author implies the pope might, oh, I don't know, lose his job...

Scrolling down to the end of the article, you find the following:

Rainer Kampling, a professor of Catholic theology at Berlin Free University, says the idea that the pope might resign - slipping polls not withstanding - is hardly realistic. "The pope is not a politician," he said.

Herbert Kohlmaier, chairman of an Austrian Catholic group that has criticized Benedict, also said a resignation shouldn't be expected. "They certainly won't let a symbolic figure like that go."

While church law allows for the resignation of a pope, there are few precedents over the church's two millennium history. The last was by 15th-century Pope Gregory XII, and that was not over scandal but rather a schism in the church.

These observations that is unlikely that the pope will resign are pretty much non sequitur in the article. The sentence immediately preceding them describes how a German poll shows a significant reduction in trust for the pope, down from 62% to 39% (he's still doing better than most American politicians). But there is no mention of papal resignation in the article to elicit the retort by Kampling. It's something of a non-issue, except for the fact that the article ends by reminding the reader it's still a possibility with precedent...and, by the way, did you know the Church once had a schism?

Would I like the Church to have handled these cases differently? Sure.
Am I suddenly going to abandon my faith because a disciplinary bureaucracy failed to address the heinousness of these crimes? Hardly.

John 6:52-63

As a Catholic, I really do think these might be my favorite -- if not most comforting -- lines in the whole Bible.

The Eucharist is, no disrespectful puns intended, probably the hardest piece of Catholic theology to swallow. It's weird. It defies empiricism. Sometimes it seems like it could be an embarrassing Dark Age superstition.

But then you have John 6:52-53. An NAB note on the passage even points out that the word John uses for "eat" was actually the word used for animals, and is closer to "gnaw" or "munch." The note suggests that this language might have been intended to reinforce the literalness of what Christ was saying (which is actually rather sophisticated because it suggests that figurative language in one place actually reinforces the literal language in another).

Also somewhat paradoxically comforting is that this is one of those passages that seems like it might embellish historical accuracy for theological explication. Whether or not these were Christ's exact words, it is clear that the author of John understood Christ to have offered his actual body for real digestion in the appearance of bread and wine. It testifies that the earliest Christian communities understood what we call transubstantiation even if they didn't have the word for it yet.

In a way, the modernist, literary approaches to this passage can actually reinforce orthodoxy.

To me, it seems that Catholics can occasionally have anxiety when we don't see things like the Eucharist or purgatory described in as explicit terms as we might like. We seem to expect everything in the Bible spelled out as clearly as in a Catechism. We forget that one of the roles of the Catechism, however, is to identify and spell out specifically the things that are in the Bible.

I'm sure that people pretty much understood the gist of gravity before they had a word for it. While having a word for a thing certainly proves a society has a concept of it, the lack of language does not prove a lack of awareness.

Give unto Caesar What Is Pompey's

I was watching that crazy interview turned infomercial that Fox's anchor bunny had with Gene Simmons (from KISS) the other day. It was a bit odd, but it did get me thinking about taxes in a slightly more nuanced way than I had before.

It seems to me that, generally, the idea of taxes is repugnant because we don't like the idea of the government taking away our money that we earned.

But listening to Simmons' self-promotional ideology made me think about the fact that I should be less annoyed by the government taking my earnings than by the government taking my spendings.

Consider that most entertainers make their livings through the sale of their art. A mega rock star is someone who has found a way to create a product that millions of people are willing to pay for. If we all buy a band's able, we have all, collectively, decided that we should invest in that band--not only so we can listen to their product now but also so that we can enjoy future their work. At the very least, purchasing a product is a public endorsement -- a capitalist vote, if you will -- to encourage future artists to make art like the stuff we bought.

I'd hate to sound like I am defending superstar millionaires (the poor things), and that's not really what I'm doing. What I am defending is our right to spend our money as we see fit.

Simmons said that he is taxed something like 48% of his income. I don't know if that's true, but let's run with the idea. As I see it, taking away half of his profit is like the government telling the consumer: "We think you have spent your money unwisely. Therefore, we, the government, will take that money away. Oh...it's okay, you can still keep the cd/book/software. We're just going to prevent the person you paid from getting the money. What you should have done with the money is donate it to the ObamaCare fund. That would have been socially more responsible. But since you didn't, we'll take the money and do it for you. Oh, and I hope you don't mind if we raise sales tax in the meantime."

It's like the government told us we made a stupid decision by endorsing a performer rather than paying for someone else's public services.

If I buy X, I'm indicating that I think more of our society's resources should be invested in X. I have, in the marketplace, cast a vote.
If the government takes away half of the money everytime someone buys X, then it is like taking away half of the votes in favor of investing more in X.

Taxation is, therefoe, a form of disenfranchisement.

The Age of Alex and his Droogs is Now

I just read an article on Philadelphia adolescents playing a game called "catch and wreck." (via Drudge)

According to the Philly.com article:

In the game, a group of children between the ages of nine and 15 congregating at the Finnegan Playground at 69th Street and Grovers Avenue beat, strike and stomp adults they believe may be homeless, Walker said. He said neither victim in the two attacks was homeless.

Anyone who has read A Clockwork Orange should immediately recognize this as one of the favorite ultraviolent pastimes of the future dystopian teens. Or you can watch the movie clip here.

Of course, in real life, the kids brutalized people who had homes and jobs...

Even without God, People Need Something

FoxNews is running an article about March 20th being Alien Abduction Day.

While the event appears to have started as a publicity event in Toronto "by a comic book shop and several local businesses," it no doubt speaks to a very real belief that many people have in extraterrestrial life and their intervention in human activities.

As others have observed, aliens are quite like elves for the Enlightenment. Aliens swap magic out for technology. Their seemingly cruel, clinical approach to humanity as specimens for research replaces the hyper-spiritual mysticism of sometimes helpful, sometimes mischievous forest folk for a cold, objective, super-scientific method.

The human mind that does not understand true faith as a whole will always fill the gaps of ignorance with imaginary friends.

I didn't come up with that idea. I just paraphrased it.

Wolves in Sheeps' Clothing

The boys over at the Jawa Report have linked to a post by Archbishop Chaput warning Catholics about how Pro-Obama Catholic groups deceive the faithful and undermine the Church.

Be Careful at the Next Zebra Crossing

Black is white! Up is down! Pro-life = abortions!

While checking my hotmail account, a link to this Slate article came up on the MSN home page.

The article/post/column by Timothy Noah is something of a metacommentary/book review (see all the choices I'm giving you by using slashes--very pro-choice), exhorting people to go read T.R. Reid's The Healing of America.

Nash gives the book high praise, explaining how if pro-lifers were really interested in curbing abortion rather than meddling in other people's lives, they would embrace the current health care reform bill as the best means of reducing abortions.

The brilliant simplicity of Reid's argument, according to Noah, is the following:

if a pregnant woman knows she will have access to decent prenatal, maternity, and pediatric care, she will less likely choose abortion, even if she has access to abortion, too.

That sounds great, doesn't it?

If we give women better health care, they are statistically less likely to have abortions.

Fewer abortions means more life, right?

If the country follows the pro-life argument, then Noah rather bluntly argues

If Stupak prevails, then health care reform won't pass. If health care reform doesn't pass, then pregnant women won't get improved access to health care. And if pregnant women don't get improved access to health care, then there will be more abortions.

I can't help but think that Noah sounds a bit like Yoda pontificating faulty syllogisms in the Jedi Council scene of The Phantom Menace (Fear leads to Anger...Anger leads to Hate...Hate leads to Suffering).

Of course, there's a significant problem Noah seems to be overlooking.

Pro-life people don't want to be complicit in abortions through government health care.

Noah's logic also sounds like another film character -- the Joker from The Dark Knight. He's setting up a scenario where Americans either have to be complicit in a horrid atrocity and cut their losses or take a moral stand against evil and let even more people die. Either you can press the detonator that blows up the ship with the convicted felons...or let innocent people die when the felons decide to blow up the other ship first. Kill these babies with your own tax dollars as a means of preventing people from killing babies they would keep if you didn't fork over cash.

Actually, if you put it that way, Noah is essentially holding the nation's youth for a ransom of a health care bill.

Don't you see, America!?!? You have to pay the ransom now or the abortionists will kill even MORE babies! So just pay the ransom, and a minimal number of innocent lives will be slaughtered! Surrender to the Democrats demands, or even more babies will get it, see?

We'd balk at this kind of argument if it were coming out of the mouth of a terrorist...but somehow we are supposed to see the wisdom of adhering to it when it comes from the left?

What Noah seems to miss...as do all pro-choice advocates...is that pro-lifers view abortion as murder. You can't compromise on murder. You can't ask someone to be complicit in a certain number of murders as a lesser of two evils. You can't say, "Here, why don't you damn yourself twelve times over in order to prevent a million people from damning themselves one time each."

That's not how morality works...certainly not for any pro-lifer who is faithful. Which is, I suppose, the other major point that pro-choice advocates forget. While the pro-life argument can be made on grounds of natural law, human reason, and science, the individual pro-lifer still has religious convictions.

The pro-lifer has more at stake in life than merely preserving it.

If pro-lifers were all materialist-atheists, then Noah's argument would make perfect sense. It would, perhaps, be the greater good for the world as such.

But what would it gain a pro-lifer to save the world at the cost of his soul?