Month: January 2007

Flight Of The PhoenixBumblebee

Bee_wing
When 9/11 happened, I wanted our forces to release thousands of tiny, bird- or bumblebee-sized aircraft to swarm over the landscape in Afghanistan to search of Usama bin Laden.

But we didn’t have them yet.

Now we’re closer.

Good.

GET THE STORY.

What amazes me is that it took us this long to figure out something rather basic about the way such aircraft need to work: They need to have wings that are less flexible on the front and more flexible on the back.

Duh! you can tell that by looking at a bumblebee’s wing!

Just look at all that structure on the front that ain’t there on the back! (Above.) That translates to more rigidity on the front and more flexibility aft. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel on this one. God already did it for us. We just need to miniaturize to the point that we’ve got countless "drones" waiting to swarm out in search of terrorist masterminds.

Oh, and we’re close to having

OTHER SCI-FI WEAPONS, TOO.

Good on that also.

The second link covers things like the panic-inducing Active Denial System (which was announced some time ago) as well as other systems that are still a bit down the road.

These systems, which are non-lethal, will change the face of warfare and result in it producing even less casualties than it does now, which is far smaller than in the past. Ironically, as our ability to make war has grown, a smaller and smaller chunk of the population has ended up dying due to warfare. These types of systems hold the promise of helping us get to the next level in non-lethalness.

How Catholic moral doctrine absorbs the impact of these new, non-lethal systems remains to be seen.

New Bioethics Document From The CDF

Word is that there’s a new bioethics document cookin’ at the CDF.

Good!

I tol’ y’all that we’d see doctrinal development on bioethical questions during the coming years.

The latest document is supposed to be a sequel to Donum Vitae, which was prepared under the auspices of Cardinal JoePre-16 back in 1987 and that presciently looked forward to things like embryonic stem cell research. (In fact, just recently I was quoting Donum Vitae in a guide on stem cell research I was writing).

The new doc is expected to pick up where DV left off, covering new bioethical challenges that were unthinkable 20 years ago but that are now not only thinkable but in hot development.

I’m lookin’ forward to it!

Let’s hope it’s as prescient as its predecessor was!

GET THE STORY.

P.S. It ain’t gonna deal with the use of condoms to stop the AIDS virus. No big surprise there.

P.P.S. There’s a new document on natural law in the works, too! That’s another one I’m really looking forward to! (See above link.)

Old Religious Objects

A reader writes:

First, I very much enjoy your blog.  I hope you can keep at it for long time.
Now, my question concerns what is the proper way to dispose of religious
objects such worn out bibles, tarnished or worn crucifixes, old prayer
cards, broken rosaries, religious pamphlets, etc.?  Some of my coworkers
and I had a discussion today about what to do with them.  One person
couldn’t bring himself to dispose of them in the trash out of respect.
Another felt that broken or worn items could be thrown out without any
guilt.  Can you help us out?  We all want to do the right thing.

The disposition of this type of religious object is not something that is regulated by canon law. Consequently, there is not a canonical "right answer" here.

Catholic doctrine also does not treat the subject in any detail, and thus there is no doctrinal "right answer" beyond the general axiom that a religious object should be treated with the reverence that is due it. The question is: How much reverence is that?

It is difficult to give a definite answer, but there are certain levels of reverence that would clearly be wrong. For example:

1) So little reverence that we commit actual sacrilege with the items (e.g., using them as part of a Black Mass)

2) So much reverence that we can never get rid of them and have to squirrel them away when they can no longer be used.

The correct answer falls somewhere between these two extremes, and it is likely to vary from one object to another. Indeed, a pious custom of many Catholics is to distinguish between those objects that have been blessed and those that have not. This appears to be a useful division in that in the case of blessed objects, the Church has in at least a minor way consecrated the item to sacred use, while in the latter case it has not. It thus would make sense to show more reverence in the disposition of a blessed object than an unblessed one.

Correspondingly, a common pious custom is to dispose of blessed objects by either burning them (if they are flammable) or burying them (if they are not). In the former case, the object is destroyed, thus removing its blessing, and the ashes (or other remains) can simply be thrown away.

In the case of objects that were never blessed (or that have been destroyed, removing their blessing), this custom holds that they can simply be thrown away like any other non-blessed object.

As indicated, this is a pious custom and not a matter of law or doctrine, so individual consciences may vary without there being sin. If one person feels comfortable disposing of a religious object in a way that happens to be different than my preferred way of doing it, I would not on that account tell him he’s doing anything wrong. If the Church wanted to mandate ways of doing this, it would.

The key thing is not the physical manner of disposing of these objects but the fact that one is doing so with a right heart. If one "reverently throws away" something then his heart is displaying reverence, which is the important thing. What physical act is used to express this reverence is not what is at issue–be it burning or burial or even if there is no outward act but simply a grateful recognition of the role God has allowed the object to play in one’s religious life.

Googlewhacking JA.O

A reader writes:

Hey, Jimmy – you’re a Googlewhack!

I don’t know if you’re aware of the Googlewhacking phenomenon, but your blog is the only page on the Internet to feature both words ‘ediacaran gerrymandered’.  You’re a one in three billion chance!

I can’t claim credit for finding this out myself; some friends
and I on h2g2 were trying to find some and yours was the first to be
found.

Congratulations, and have a great day!

Thanks much! I had no idea!

MORE ON GOOGLEWHACKING.

Gotta Pay Your Dues?

Religion Today is reporting:

Union Told Me to Pay Dues or Change Religion, Teacher Says

Told by a union official to pay forced dues or "change religions," a teacher in southern Ohio is challenging a state law that allows only those public employees who belong to certain denominations the right to claim religious objection to paying union dues. CNSNews.com reports that Carol Katter, a mathematics and language arts instructor in the St. Marys district, filed a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court in Columbus this week over an Ohio law that prevents the lifelong Catholic from diverting her dues from a union she refuses to fund because it supports abortion on demand. The current law states: "Any public employee who is a member of and adheres to established and traditional tenets or teachings of a bona fide religion or religious body which has historically held conscientious objections to joining or financially supporting an employee organization and which is exempt from taxation under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code shall not be required to join or financially support any employee organization as a condition of employment." The teacher said she had been "shocked" to learn her dues had to go to the OEA [Ohio Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association]. However, she later learned that members of only two religions (Seventh-Day Adventist or a Mennonite) receive the charity exception.

CHT to the reader who e-mailed!

MORE HERE.

EXCERPTS:

While discussing the situation with an OEA official, Katter "pretty much pleaded with the lady," saying: "I can’t do this. It’s against my belief and my conscience. Isn’t there anything I can do to just give the money to charity?"

The teacher’s request was turned down "basically because I could not come up with proof that my individual church — not the Catholic faith, but my individual church — had a record of anyone having successfully fought a union," she said. "In my little parish church, no one’s ever done this, and that’s what threw it out."

Katter said the union attorney told her she had two choices – pay her dues or "change religions."

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, union officials may not force any employee to financially support a union if doing so violates the employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs, Gleason said.

To avoid conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral, the law requires union officials to accommodate the employee – most often by designating a mutually acceptable charity to accept the funds.

[VP of the National Right to Work Foundation Stefan] Gleason added that SERB officials cannot claim ignorance in Katter’s situation. He noted that the state government was involved in a case last year that led a federal judge to issue a decree affirming that all public-sector employees with religious objections to union affiliation could not be forced to pay dues to such organizations.

The ruling was made in a foundation-assisted lawsuit regarding union contracts for state workers. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency employee Glen Greenwood, a Presbyterian, had objected to paying union dues because he believed the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association supported abortion and same-sex marriage.

"I’m hoping that this case will set a precedent so anybody from any religion who has these feelings will not be pressured into compromising their convictions," [Katter] said. "I can’t not do this."

A few thoughts on this story:

First, I’m not a fan of compulsory union membership. I support the right of laborers to organize, but I also support the right of laborers to not organize. Forcing labor to organize distorts the economics of the labor market just as much as prohibiting them from organizing. In principle, they’re the same. When business owners wish to use the law to prohibit their workers from organizing, it’s an attempt by business owners to eliminatekeep individual workers from banding together and exercizing their clout in aggregate. When labor unions wish to use the law to prohibit workers from not joinging the union, it’s an attempt to prevent individual laborers from competing with the union. In both cases, one party (business owners in one case and labor unions in the other) is trying to use the law to eliminate competition for their interests in the labor market.

To see the selfishness of this more clearly, turn the situation around so that it deals with business/consumer relations instead of management/labor relations: Suppose that a business wanted to use the law to prevent customers from organizing a boycott–preventing customers from organizing and using their purchasing power as clout in getting the goods and services it wants. That’s the equivalent of business owners preventing unions from existing. Similarly, suppose that a business wants to use the law to prevent other, competing businesses from springing up; in other words, it wants a monopoly on who will be allowed to provide a particular good or service. That’s the equivalent of labor unions being able to legally mandate membership, so that if you want to provide a particular service (labor), you have to do it only through the monopoly of the union.

In each of these cases, it’s one group trying to use the law to protect its power/money from free competition in the marketplace.

Second, I hope Katter is successful in her action. The idea that you have to be a member of an individual local church that has a history of conscientious objection to union membership is nutty, and I expect that to fall by the wayside.

I’d also like to see her succeed in her quest to strike a blow for religious freedom in general. If she’s not able to get a right-to-work law in her area (which would be preferred), then at least people of all religions should be able to exercise the option of donating their union dues to charity if they can document that their religion would support consientious objection in this case.

Third, I do not think it would be difficult for Katter to establish this in the case of her own Catholic faith. Not only are there existing conscientious objector passages connected with abortion in official Church documents, but I suspect that the Vatican would be quite willing to issue a finding supporting conscientious objection in this case.

A while back they did issue a finding supporting the rights of parents to have their children exempted from mandatory innoculations drawn from immorally-cultivated stem cell lines, and if the request were put to them in the right way, I suspect that they would be most willing to issue a document supporting the right of people to conscientious object when they are being required by law to pay money to unions that promote or support abortion.

Fourth, I’m a little nonplussed about the claim (mentioned in the second link, above) that the Ohio law creates an establishment of religion and thus violates the First Amendment. While I recognize that it creates a more favorable environment to some religions than others, that’s just not what "establishment" means. Ohio hasn’t set up an Official Church of Ohio (which it would have been entitled to do under the Constitution as originally written and interpreted).

Still, we’re dealing with a clear injustice here, and I suspect that Katter will succeed.

Clarence Thomas Update

I’ve pointed out before how much I really like Justice Clarence Thomas. I appreciate his willingness to apply originalism in a more thoroughgoing manner even more than Justice Scalia does (Scalia, while still very, very good, shows too much deference to precedence, and as someone once said, "Stare decisis is fo suckas").

I was very interested yesterday to read

THIS STORY ABOUT JUSTICE THOMAS’S ROLE ON THE COURT.

It turns out that Harry Blackmun, author of The Evil Decision, kept detailed notes on how the justices voted in private before their final decisions were announced. Now that Darth Blackmun has gone to his eternal reward, those notes are available for study, and they reveal that Justice Thomas has had much more of an impact on the court than many had been aware of.

Fascinating reading.

GET THE STORY.

H & R Block’s Dehumanizing Upsell

While I was doing my Monday blog posts on Saturday morning, I got a message on my voicemail that started like this:

Hello, this is <NAME> with H & R Block. We did your taxes last year at our <LOCATION> office, and I was calling to set up an appointment.

Now, not everyone may see it this way, but this kind of thing really rubs me the wrong way. It’s a sales technique that involves a dehumanizing form of upselling. Upselling is a sales technique whereby the salesman offers the customer goods, services, or options that the customer hasn’t requested but might want (e.g., "Do you want fries with that?").

When done in a humane manner, this technique can actually provide the customer with things that they wanted or would have wanted to know about (many people do want fries with their burger), but upselling can also be done in a dehumanizing manner that treats the customer like an object to be exploited (e.g., making your first question to the customer "Do you want our Bacon Cheddar Jack Number One Extra Special Value Meal?"–which is just trying to push something on the customer before he can tell you what he really does want).

H & R Block’s phone message to me is a dehumanizing form of upselling. It’s upselling because it’s offering me a service that I haven’t requested (they called me; I didn’t call them), and it’s dehumanizing because of the assumption that I’m even going to use them again this year.

Maybe I had such a bad experience with them last year that I want to go somewhere else. Maybe one of their competitors is offering a service that I find more attractive. Maybe I recently noted a tax preparer whose office is more conveniently located for me. Maybe I’m one of the millions who’s bought TurboTax. Or maybe I’ve simply decided to do my taxes the old fashioned way with pen and paper.

There are a lot of options out there for people to get their taxes done.

Yet because I happened to use H & R Block as my tax preparer last year, they feel entitled to phone me up out of the blue on a Saturday morning and tell me that they’re calling to schedule an appointment.

I, apparently, have no choice in the matter. It’s a given that they will do my taxes, and they have determined that the time has come for me to make an appointment.

That’s why this is dehumanizing.

It doesn’t respect the free will of the customer. It treats him as an object to be exploited.

The way to respect the customer would be to say

Hello, I’m <NAME> with H & R Block, and we did your taxes last year at our <LOCATION> office. We’d really like to do your taxes again this year, and I was wondering if you’d like to set up an appointment.

How hard would it be to say that?

Abortion & Excommunication

A reader writes:

Recently I fell into grave sin.  I had sex with a woman who I am not married to.  Soon after that I repented and went to confession.  I confessed having contraceptive sex with a woman I was not married to.  We used a condom, but she was also on the pill at the time.  Since condoms don’t always work, and the pill could potentially cause an abortion, or fail completely, she could have potentially conceived, and the baby could have been killed.  The thought of this happening crossed my mind before going through with it.  Also, I doubt the woman is pro-life at all, and if the baby was conceived and survived, she could have gone and had an abortion without me even knowing.

Since I knew that this sin could potentially cause an abortion, am I now excommunicated?  I hadn’t thought of this until recently, and it’s really affecting me.  Do I need to go to confession again and explain this aspect of it?  Thank you.

First, I want to offer thanksgiving that you cooperated with God’s grace and were willing to recognize the moral character of this course of action and to repent of it and seek reconciliation. This is a cause for rejoicing, and Jesus was clear on the joy that there is in heaven when someone returns to God from a state of sin. We should share in that joy.

Regarding the excommunication that canon law provides for procured abortion ("A
person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae
excommunication," can. 1398), I am pleased to say that you have not incurred it. There are several reasons for this:

1) Canon law presupposes that the fact of the abortion is verifiable, or at least knowable.  In the case of her suffering an early miscarriage following a double-contraceptive failure, this would happen at such an early stage of pregnancy (a week after conception) that it would be completely unverifiable and unknowable. It also is very unlikely to occur. In these circumstances, you cannot be said to have procured an abortion in the sense envisioned by canon 1398. As a canon that establishes a penalty, 1398 is subject to the interpretive norm of canon 18, which is that "Laws which
establish a penalty . . . are subject to strict interpretation." 1398 is simply not intended to apply to unverifiable, unknowable abortions that are unlikely to occur in the first place.

2) In addition, your actions do not fall under 1398 because you did not intend to procure an abortion. You may have foreseen that an abortion would result spontaneously, but that is not the same thing as deliberately procuring one. What you intended was to have sexual relations with the woman. That was the object of your action–what you were intending to do. To procure an abortion the abortion has to be sought as a means or an end, and this is not what was happening here. Once again, canon 18’s requirement of strict interpretation applies.

There are other reasons why you are not excommunicated as well, but the reasons why get rather technical and go beyond what can reasonably be done in a blog post. The bottom line, though, is that you simply aren’t excommunicated. 1398 is simply not intended to cover the kind of situation that you describe concerning an unknowable, unintended early miscarriage following double contraceptive failure.

1398 is designed, however, to cover abortions procured by going to an abortionist, so we have to consider that case. What would the effects be for you if she did–against high odds–become pregnant and then decide to go to an abortionist without your knowing?

You would not be affected canonically. You do not support her action. You have to be more than just the father of a baby that someone else chooses to abort (can. 18). Specifically, you would have to cooperate directly in the procurement of the abortion itself, which would mean something like driving her down to the abortion clinic or giving her the money for the abortion. Just being the father isn’t enough.

As to what should be done in confession, there is an argument that what you have already said is sufficient, but to be safe I would do the following: The next time you go to confession, simply say "I have previously confessed that I had sex with a woman I am not married to, but I neglected to mention that before I did so the thought that the act might lead to an abortion crossed my mind and I did it anyway. I wish to confess this circumstance as well for the additional moral coloring it gave to the act."

And that (or an approximation of it) is all you need to say.

Let’s pray that an abortion does not result from this (and it’s the vast likelihood that it will not). Let’s also not forget to pray for the woman in question. And let us rejoice that you have cooperated with God’s grace and been reconciled with him.

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JA.O Brainstorming Bleg

Howdy, folks!

I thought I’d harness the power of the Internet by asking y’all if you could help me brainstorm something.

Currently my square dance club is starting a new class for beginners. We dance on Friday nights in Lakeside, California, and the thing about square dance classes is that you need to get all your new students right at the beginning. Unless someone is already an experienced dancer, it’s not really possible for people to join in mid class.

Given this, we’re trying to find as many new students as we can, and I’m trying to find as many new promising techniques for getting students as possible.

We’re already asking friends and co-workers if they’d like to learn and leaving flyers at local businesses. Those are standard methods of finding potential students.

I thought of doing PSAs on local country music stations, posting ads on CraigsList, and calling local churches (church folks are always looking for good, clean fun–and that’s exactly what we’ve got). Another club member thought of e-mailing our flyer to the local freebie papers.

But I’m in the market for ideas, and I thought I’d ask y’all if you had any!

The two key criteria are:

1) It has to be free (or at least very cheap) and

2) It has to be something that can be done quickly. We only have the next couple of Fridays to get new students in.

Can the ultra-intelligent readership of JA.O come through with good suggestions?

Lemme know in the combox!

BTW, I know I’ve got readers in the San Diego area. If y’all’re looking for something FUN to do on Friday nights, come by! It’s tons of fun–for singles, couples, or whole families! I’ll be there, and we’d love to have you give square dancing a try! (MORE INFO & DIRECTIONS.)