Month: April 2004

A Hard Spanish Lesson

As I’m sure y’all know, the Spanish recently suffered the tragedy of a terrorist attack on their rail lines, killing hundreds of people. As a result, some are now referring to the event as "Europe’s 9/11," though the comparison is somewhat inappropriate. The American 9/11 was larger by a factor of ten. As tragic as the Spanish event was, it is not on the same plane. Let’s hope that Europe doesn’t have to feel the pain of a true 9/11-size event.

As I’m sure y’all also know, the Spanish then responded very inappropriately in the wake of their attack, when came just before a national election. The Spanish electorate kicked out their incumbent government, which had supported the War on Terror and the liberation of Iraq, and chose an appeasement-oriented government whose prime minister-elect promptly took to scolding the U.S. and promising the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.

This was criminally stupid for all kinds of reasons.

What did the Spanish get for their efforts in sending appeasement signals to the terrorists? More terror. How they could have expected anything else? Did they think that the terrorists would say, "Oh, now that the Spanish have turned tail and shown their cowardice, we’ll leave them alone"? Couldn’t they see that instead the terrorists would say, "Now that the Spaniards have shown they are cowards, let us press the advantage"?

You can’t play appeasement games with such people. All it does is embolden them. They want you to be afraid. That’s why they’re called terror-ists. If you give in to the terror then all you do is turn them into successful terrorists, and that will encourage them to keep going after you so that they can get more concessions from you.

What is jaw-dropping about this situation is how the Spanish, of all Europeans, thought appeasing Islamic terrorists would work. Don’t they know their own history? Don’t they know that their land was under Muslim rule for centuries until it was taken back shortly before the discovery of the New World? Don’t they know that Usama bin Laden has referred to "the tragedy of Andalusia"–by which he means the fact that the Spainiards’ ancestors kicked out the Muslims occupying the country–as one of the things stuck in his craw about the way the world is right now?

Spain, of all places in Europe, is the part Muslim Fundamentalists most want back in their hands, because it is an embarrassment to them. They had it, and they lost it. In their view, it is by rights part of Muslim territory, currently occupied by Christian infidels. As a result, the Spanish need to show more strength and resolve of will in dealing with Muslim Fundamentalists than other Europeans.

But apparently the Spanish do not realize this. They have been lulled into the same lazy stupor of fear and appeasement as the rest of Europe.

This creates problems, and not just for them. For us. The reason is that the terrorists don’t understand the difference between Europeans and Americans, and they are likely to try the same tactics on us that they tried on the Spanish. These won’t work. Americans have more resolve in dealing with the problem than Europeans, and attacks on us will only serve to further enrage us and redouble our efforts against the terrorists. But the fact is that the terrorists aren’t very bright guys. If they were, they would realize that there are better ways to get what you want in life than what they’re trying. Terrorists are just violent criminals with an ideology, and criminals in general aren’t a bright sort. As a result, terrorists are likely to try the tactics on us that worked on Spain.

We must now be extra vigilant.

Thanks for nothing, Spain.

Meat On Lenten Fridays: A Mortal Sin?

A common question at this time of year is whether or not deliberately violating the law of abstinence is a mortal sin. It is. The relevant law is found in Paul VI’s 1966 apostolic constitution Paenitemini, which provides that:

The time of Lent preserves its penitential character. The days of penitence to be observed under obligation through-out the Church are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday, that is to say the first days of "Grande Quaresima" (Great Lent), according to the diversity of the rite. Their substantial observance binds gravely [Norm II §1, emphasis added].

That the keeping of abstinence (and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) is part of the substantial observance of these days is evident from the fact that the second half of Norm II names this as the chief requirement of observing these days:

Apart from the faculties referred to in VI and VIII regarding the manner of fulfilling the precept of penitence on such days, abstinence is to be observed on every Friday which does not fall on a day of obligation, while abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday or, according to local practice, on the first day of ‘Great Lent’ and on Good Friday [Norm II §2, emphasis added].

The faculties mentioned "regarding the manner of fulfilling the precept of penitence on such days" have to do with the ability of pastors to dispense the faithful from the obligation of abstinence and fast or commuting it to something else. If such dispensation or commutation is not obtained then "the manner of fulfilling the precept" is abstinence.

Thus one must substantially observe the law of abstinence on such days, and the obligation to do so is a grave one, meaning that it satisfies the condition of grave matter required for mortal sin. If one knowingly and deliberately fails in this obligation then one has committed mortal sin.

As to the reason for this, the Code of Canon Law notes that:

The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way. In order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance of penance, however, penitential days are prescribed on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence, according to the norm of the following canons [Can.  1249, emphasis added].

It is thus a matter of divine law that the faithful are to do penance (a fact we could have determined from Scripture), and the regulations regarding fast and abstinence are simply the Church’s specification of this divine requirement, made in keeping with Jesus giving the church the power to bind and loose (Matt. 16:18, 18:18).

Curse of the Black Widow

Participated in a debate today. It was a tightly-structured panel discussion at Southwestern College here in the San Diego area. The topic was homosexual "marriages," and the participants were me, a law instructor, a psychology instructor, and a lawyer from the ACLU who was also a lesbian. The debate largely turned into a discussion between me and the lawyer lady, with a little input from the others.

It went quite well. The main arguments of both sides got put forward, we had a chance to rejoin each other’s arguments, threw in some humor, and got the audience engaged (as illustrated by their applause after telling points were made). I’m going to try to contact the lawyer lady and thank her for a good debate. (She got out of there very quickly after the event.)

In preparing for debates and major interviews, I try to "game out" the discussion ahead of time in my mind. (This can cause problems, because it can leave me awake in bed at 2 a.m. twisting arguments around in my head, but that’s an occupational hazard; it’s what you have to do to get the job done right.) Today’s debate was the first one I’ve done on homosexual "marriage," and the first occasion I’ve had to debate homosexuality in a number of years, so for a day or two ahead of time I gave myself a mental workout on the subject.

One of the arguments I was particularly concerned to have a solid, snappy answer for is the claim–which was sure to come up–that homosexuality exists in the animal world and that this makes it "natural" for humans as well. This is an argument that must be convincingly rebutted, because otherwise it undermines the natural law argument against homosexuality, leaving only a religious argument, which in the present, secular public sphere is doomed to fail.

Since it is true that animals do sometimes display homosexual behavior, the obvious rejoinder to the "animals do it too" argument is that just because animals do something, that doesn’t mean it’s good for humans to do. This answer has the benefit of being true, but stated in that form it has the detriment of being boring. It’s not a "grabber," and it smacks too much of your parents saying, "If all the other kids wanted to jump off a bridge, would you jump off too?" That kind of argument probably caused you to stop paying attention when you were a kid, and the same danger presents itself here. It doesn’t matter how true the rejoinder is; if it isn’t presented in an arresting manner then the audience will stop paying attention and won’t take it seriously.

So I ruminated on the charge, and in the wee morning hours, the answer revealed itself to me. I had a good, snappy way of presenting the argument that would grab the audience’s attention and force them to take it seriously. Here’s what I came up with, and ended up using in the debate:

It’s true that some animals do display homosexual behavior, but that doesn’t mean that it is morally justified for humans to engage in it.

Black widow spiders try to kill and eat their mates after copulating, but I assume that you’re not in favor of that among humans.

Further, in many species copulation amounts to rape. A male will capture and force himself on a female. Or sometimes a group of males will do it. I also assume that you’re not in favor of that among human beings.

The fact is that humans, of all the creatures on earth, are rational beings aware of the moral dimension of their actions. For this reason alone (and there are other reasons), you cannot point to the existence of something in the animal kingdom and say that it is therefore justified among humans as well.

The audience really responded to this. The black widow line alone got a huge laugh. I think even people on the other side of the issue were laughing. After the point was made, there was a big round of applause in acknowledgement of its force.

There was no judging of the debate and no announcement of the winning side, but after the event a gentleman from the audience came up to me and said that he overheard some in the audience who were in favor of "gay marriage" saying of me "Man, he’s killing them (the folks on the other side) with these arguments." Perhaps that was one of the ones they were thinking of. . . . (Shrug.)