Month: September 2005

“Hypothetical” Marriage Case

A reader writes:

Hypothetical;

A non-catholic couple, married in a civil ceremony.

Wife of couple expresses  an interest in the Catholic Faith.  However, she is concerned that while her husband would not be unecessarily difficult, he would want as little to do with the matter as possible.

What would need to take place in terms of convalidation?

Nothing. At least, nothing given the fact pattern you have mentioned. If two non-Catholics get married, they are not bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage and thus are presumed to be validly married unless there is something else affecting the situation (like one of them having been previously married to someone else, in which case they need an annulment but probably even then they don’t need a convalidation). I’m just not hearing anything that would trigger a need for a convalidation.

Would this take place privately at the parish (not during a Mass, for example)

Convalidations are typically private, with just a few people (witnesses) present.

What role would the husband be expected to play

Be the husband.

(other than being the husband! )?

Oh, uh . . . nothing then.

Would the husband be expected to go to private discussions with the parish priest in preparation for the event. etc (this couple have been married for a looooong time 🙂

Okay, this ain’t sounding so hypothetical any more. Not that that makes any difference. The answers are still of general educational value, one way or ‘tuther.

The answer, though, will probably vary from place to place. When my wife and I had our marriage convalidated, there was no pre-marriage prep as we’d already been living as man and wife for several years, but that might be different in other places. I couldn’t say.

how soon after a convalidation would the wifes reception into the church take place….

Thus far I haven’t heard that a convalidation is even necessary, but if one were then there would not need to be any waiting period before reception into the Church, assuming that the wife had already taken whatever instruction in the Catholic faith her situation would require.

oh, I’ve just thought of something else….what if the husband was baptised in an emergency situation as a baby and has no certificate…but also no desire to be Catholic?

Doesn’t make any difference as far as the need for a convalidation. As long as he wasn’t formally a member of the Catholic Church at the time of the ceremony, he wasn’t bound by form. If a convalidation were needed, though, he would need to be informed of the wife’s obligation to do her best to see that any kids that result from the union get raised Catholic.

Also, the conjugal relations stuff (sorry but I have to ask)… would the wife, if she were received into the faith,need to confess having sexual relations with her husband if the marriage has been convalidated

If a convalidation is not needed then there is no need to confess prior sexual relations (unless they occurred after the wife’s baptism, if she’s already baptized, and before the marriage ceremony).

If a convalidation is needed (for some reason I can’t fathom given the fact pattern as described) then the wife would need to confess prior sexual relations with the husband IF she believed them to be gravely sinful at the time and did them with deliberate consent of the will. Otherwise, they weren’t mortal sins and don’t need to be confessed.

Hope this helps! . . . er, hypothetically speaking, that is. 🙂

So Where’s MY Serenity Screening???

Serenitythumb_1

I’m very jealous that the publicists for the upcoming movie Serenity (based on the cult sci-fi show Firefly) have invited the guys over at Powerline to have a screening of the movie for themselves and 120 or so of their readers.

I mean, John Hinderaker, who does their review, spends half of the piece talking about the fact that he isn’t a sci-fi fan, doesn’t watch TV, and hasn’t seen a sci-fi movie since Star Wars (the ORIGINAL one).

What pearls before swine! I mean, that’s just fahng-tzong fung-kwong duh jeh.

On the other hand, I’m very pleased to note what this represents. As Hinderaker explains:

These folks have figured out that the major bloggers have audiences that exceed those of most newspaper and magazine movie reviewers, and that we can help generate word of mouth traffic and, better yet, controversy [SOURCE].

Yet another indication of life in the fourth age of human communications.

And I’m not really bitter about not getting a Serenity screening.

After all, they can’t take the sky from me.

PRE-UPDATE: STEVEN D. GREYDANUS’S REVIEW OF SERENITY IS AVAILABLE ONLINE. (And it’s insightful.)

New Public School Bible Textbook?

A reader writes:

Jimmy –

I know you get quite a bit of e-mail during the day but I found this article & thought you’d find it interesting.  It’s about a new book called  "The Bible and Its Influence" that’s intended to teach how literature, society, politics, etc, have been influenced by the Bible & it’s meant to be used in public schools.  I found it a very interesting piece.

So did I.

GET THE STORY.

SWEET! HIV Getting Weaker?

Virushivlaevo150_1There’s a new report out that the HIV virus may be getting weaker.

EXCERPTS:

A team at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, in Antwerp, compared HIV-1 samples from 1986-89 and 2002-03.


They found the newer samples appeared not to multiply as well, and were more sensitive to drugs


Researcher Dr Eric Artz said: "This was a very preliminary study, but we did find a pretty striking observation in that the viruses from the 2000s are much weaker than the viruses from the eighties.


"Obviously this virus is still causing death, although it may be causing death at a slower rate of progression now. Maybe in another 50 to 60 years we might see this virus not causing death."


Keith Alcorn, senior editor at the HIV information charity NAM, said it had been thought that HIV would increase in virulence as it passed through more and more human hosts.


But the latest study suggested the opposite is actually true.

Now why would that be? The article goes on to speculate about possible reasons (and they’re only possible; the study might be wrong and the virus might actually be increasing in strength), but it’s important to remember something:

Viruses don’t want to kill you.

In fact, viruses don’t want anything. They have no minds. To the extent they can be said to analogically "want" anything, they "want" only to reproduce themselves. You dying is just a side-effect of their reproductive process. If they can find a way to reproduce without killing you, it’s all the same to them.

In fact, it may even be better, as they can reproduce more if the host stays alive. That’s why the most successful viruses either don’t kill, don’t kill often, or kill really slowly. For viruses, like for people at parties, it’s bad form to kill the host. Tends to bring the party to a halt.

That’s one reason why really destructive pathogens like Ebola only occur in small outbreaks: They kill off the hosts before they can spread far and wide.

Allowing extra life to the host allows extra reproductive potential to the virus, and HIV may be in the process of figuring this out (in a mindless sort of way).

Unfortunately, it’s too slow a process to do anybody today any good.

I just hope HIV weakens enough that we can finally figure out how to give it a knockout punch and eliminate its threat entirely!

In the meantime,

GET THE STORY.

Brain Death?

A reader writes:

A national Catholic paper recently referred to the Church’s teaching on "brain death." I haven’t seen this in the Catechism. What is the Church’s teaching on "brain death"?

I haven’t seen the paper you refer to (so I deleted the name of it), but it would be misleading to state in a blunt fashion that the Church has a "teaching" on the concept of brain death. This term is not used in magisterial documents, and the key document that delves into this area contain important qualifications that make it possible to say that there is a "teaching" here only in the most tenuous sense.

The situation is analagous to the question of evolution. The Church doesn’t have a "teaching" on evolution per se. Evolution is a scientific hypothesis, and the Church is not in the business of teaching scientific hypotheses. What the Church does teach on is Scripture and the deposit of faith, and in the 1950s Pope Pius XII issued a preliminary finding that certain versions of biological evolution do not appear to conflict with what is found in the sources of revelation. A Catholic is thus morally permitted to believe in those forms of evolution.

Whether any of them are true or not, though, is a matter of science, not of faith, and thus the Church does not teach evolution. It teaches only that certain forms of evolution would not contradict the sources of faith and that a Catholic may accept these forms of evolutionary belief if he feels that the evidence warrantes them.

A similar situation pertains to the subject of "brain death." The Church does not teach, as some individuals hold, that an individual is dead when he is "brain dead." Instead, in the year 2000 Pope John Paul II issued a preliminary finding that certain versions of "brain death" criteria do not appear to conflict with what is found in the sources of faith regarding the human person and that a Catholic is thus morally permitted to act on those versions of brain death criteria.

Here’s what the pope said:

Continue reading “Brain Death?”

Blog Day Off

Sorry, folks!

It was one thing after another yesterday, and I didn’t stop having meetings with people (in person or by phone) until late in the evening.

Was therefore unable to do my usual blogging.

Blogging should resume tomorrow.

In the meantime, enjoy the archives!

Stories Of Terri

To coincide with the first anniversary of her death this coming March, the Schindler family will be releasing a book on their struggle to save her life:

"Terri Schiavo’s parents and siblings are writing a book about their struggle in the epic end-of-life case that divided the country and captured the attention of everyone from the Pope John Paul II to President Bush, their publisher said Tuesday.

"The yet untitled memoir by parents Bob and Mary Schindler, brother Bobby Schindler and sister Suzanne Vitadamo will be published in March to coincide with the first anniversary of the death of the brain-damaged woman, whose feeding tube was removed after her husband won a court order to do so.

"’This book is the moving story of an ordinary family caught up in extraordinary circumstances, and it will set the record straight for the first time,’ said Jamie Raab, senior vice president and publisher at Warner Books in New York."

Apparently unwilling to miss out on the action, Terri’s husband and murderer Michael Schiavo also plans to release his own memoir, to be titled Terri: The Truth, in which it is likely that he will tell everything but that:

"The Schindlers’ book is likely to compete for space on the shelves with a memoir by Terri Schiavo’s husband, Michael, who fought his in-laws in court for eight years to end her life, arguing she would not have wanted to be kept alive in what doctors called a persistent vegetative state.

"Michael Schiavo said he is collaborating on the book with author Michael Hirsh. The 280-page book is titled Terri: [T]he Truth, and is planned for release in March by Dutton Publishing."

GET THE STORY.

The Schindlers will not profit from their book on Terri, instead planning to "donate profits from the book to a foundation they established when they were fighting to save Terri’s life, Warner Books said. The foundation now is dedicated to protecting severely disabled people."

No word yet on Michael Schiavo’s plans for the money he will make from his book.

Returning To The Church Quesiton

A reader writes:

I have a friend who has come back to the Church!  He has been going to Mass and Confession now for over a year.  He was married in a civil ceremony about eight years ago.  She is not Catholic but is Christian.  His Mother who is Catholic has said he should not being going to Communion until he is married in the Church.  Is this true?  He has nothing against getting married in the Church but I think it bothers him about not being able to go to Communion until this happens.

It’s wonderful to hear that your friend has come back to the Church, and I’ll do my best to help provide an answer here. Unfortunately, there are a few missing facts that I’d need to know the answer to in order to give an individually-tailored answer. Specifically:

  1. Had your friend formally defected from the Catholic Church at the time of his civil ceremony (e.g., had he formally joined another church with the intention of no longer being Catholic).
  2. If he had not formally defected then did he have a dispensation from the Catholic form of marriage?
  3. Is he presently having conjugal relations with his spouse?

The easiest way to give the answer in light of the missing facts is in the form of a decision tree:

IF he had formally defected OR had a dispensation from form THEN based on the fact pattern you have laid out his marriage is presumed valid and he can participate in the sacraments of the Church, including confession and Communion. He also does not need to get married in the Church.

IF he did not formally defect OR have a dispensation from form THEN his marriage is presently invalid. (See next two points.)

IF his marriage is presently invalid AND he is having conjugal relations with his spouse THEN he is committing grave sin (having sexual relations with someone he is not validly married to) and cannot participate in the sacraments, including confession and Communion. He needs to get married in the Church in order for his conjugal relations to cease being sinful. At that point he can participate in the sacraments, including confession and Communion.

IF his marriage is presently invalid BUT he is not having conjugal relations with his spouse THEN he is not committing grave sin and so can participate in the sacraments, including confession and Communion. He does, though, need to get married in the Church before he can resume conjugal relations without sinning.

I hope this helps. It’s not phrase in the pastoral manner that I would like, but given the missing facts I thought it best to write as clearly as possible to avoid confusion. Documentation of any of the above answers can be provided from the Code of Canon Law if needed.

One pastoral note: I suggest that you DO NOT ask him about the third missing fact. That’s between him, his spouse, and his confessor.

In the meantime, we should rejoice that your friend has come back to the Church. He should be assured of God’s love for him and his spouse and that it sounds as if his marital situation can easily be regularized (if needed). It generally does not take very long to rectify situations such as this.

Back before I was Catholic, I was in such a situation myself (as the non-Catholic spouse) and so I have a special empathy for the situation.

20

At Last! Someone In Hollywood With A GOOD Idea!

And by "a good idea" I mean "my idea."

You may have noticed that the time between the theatrical release of a motion picture and its DVD release is getting shorter. MUCH shorter.

My idea: Eliminate the time discrepancy COMPLETELY. Release movies on DVD at the same time they are in the theater.

In fact, SELL THEM IN THE THEATER. There’s no better time to hit a person up to by a DVD of a movie than when they’ve just seen it and are all excited about it. Make them wait 3-6 months and their enthusiasm will cool and you’ll have less of a chance of selling them that DVD.

I know I’ve come out of a movie and really wanted a DVD of it only to find myself thinking, months later when it finally comes out, "Was it really that good? Do really want to spend the money for a DVD?" My memories of the movie have faded enough that I end up not buying one, even though I now have the chance.

Selling DVDs in the theater would also (a) help boost flagging theater revenues (good for the theaters) and (b) cut down on film piracy if people can buy a legitimate copy the same way selling songs through iTunes cuts down on illegal downloading (good for the studios) and (c) please the customer (good for the customer)!

I know, I know.

People will argue that letting people buy the DVDs will cut down on ticket sales. Maybe so. Maybe not. You can cut down on that some if you only sell the DVDs in the theater while the movie is showing, so you have to go there to buy them.

At any rate, it gives customers more choice, and in principle, that’s a good thing. (Me being a customer.)

I think it’s an idea that’s at least worth experimenting with.

AND NOW, FINALLY, SOMEONE IS.