Year: 2004

Spiritual Headship

A correspondent writes:

I was wondering what our belief as Catholics are concerning a question my Husband has. He says that the man of the household should be the "spiritual leader" of his family. He is not Catholic, and only turned "fundamentalist/independent" 5 years ago. Before that I was the sole source of my families (we have 1 daughter) faith building. Our daughter (who is 12) is very active in the church, and loves the faith as I do. She is an alter server, reader, and sings on Sunday morning Mass services. So, I was wondering where -if it does say -in the Bible that the man should be the spiritual leader of the family, since I don’t want to go to my husbands new church and feel that we are rooted in the Catholic faith. How do I explain to him that this isn’t going to happen, and possibly refer to scripture in explaining this to him?

This is a sensitive subject, and I hesitate to comment on it without having the space to explore the subject thoroughly and make sure that what I am and am not saying is clear. Nevertheless, I’ll try to answer as best I can. First, some basic principles:

  1. Men and women are equal in God’s eyes. They have equal dignity, and Christ died for both genders equally.
  2. Husbands and wives have an equal right to the goods of marriage and equal responsibility toward making the marriage work.
  3. There are differences in the genders. For example, men tend to be larger and stronger than women, while women have longer life-spans and more agility.
  4. These differences manifest particularly on the level of statistical averages, and the remarks I am about to make are to be understood in this light. The average trends do not always hold on the level of individuals (e.g., some men are physically smaller than some women, some women are physically stronger than some men).
  5. Some differences between men and women are non-physical. For example, though the genders are of approximately equal intelligence, women have greater verbal aptitude than men, and men have greater spatial aptitude than women.
  6. One of the differences between the genders is that men are designed for physical competition and combat in a way that women are not (it goes along with being larger and stronger). They are correspondingly configured mentally and emotionally. Put negatively: Men are more aggressive, more competitive, and less risk-averse on average than women are. Put positively: Men tend to have a stronger leadership drive than women.
  7. The differences between the genders translate into a corresponding differentiation of roles. For example, men are generally better suited to roles that require greater physical strength (e.g., being a weight lifter); women are generally better suited to roles requiring greater agility (e.g., being a gymnast).
  8. In a few cases, the differences in roles is absolute: Only women can give birth; only men can be priests.
  9. In most cases, however, the differences do not lead to an absolute division of roles, and in any given marriage whichever partner is better suited for a task is usually the appropriate one to do it.
  10. In general, men are configured physically and cognitively to serve as the primary leader/protector of the family, while women are configured physically and cognitively to serve as the primary nurturer/caregiver. (Though it is to be immediately pointed out that men also need to nurture and care for the children. Both parents have equal responsibility to make sure the children get what they need as they grow and develop. Men are by nature configured to be the secondary nurturer/caregiver for the family, just as women are configured to be the secondary leader/protector.)
  11. Apart from the siring and bearing of children, however, the distinction in roles within marriage is not absolute. Many spouses are in situations where one spouse refuses to, is ill-suited to, or is incapable of fulfilling the typical roles just described. For example, some women have husbands who are physically or mentally incapacitated and unable to fulfill the functions that typically would be expected of a leader/protector–or, the husband may refuse to fulfill these roles, or he may simply be less suited to them than his wife. In the same way, some husbands may have wives who are physically or mentally incapacitated and unable to fulfill the functions that typically would be expected of a nurturer/caregiver–or, the wife may refuse to fulfill these roles, or she may be less suited to them than her husband.
  12. In such atypical cases, the good of the family must be provided for, and this frequently means that one spouse may need to fulfill an atypical role for his or her gender. E.g., a woman with an alcoholic husband may need to exercise the primary leadership he is incapable of exercising responsibly; a man with an alcoholic wife may need to provide the primary care for the children that she is incapable of providing responsibly.

The above points form the natural law foundation needed to answer your question. With them in mind, two things should be pointed out:

First, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition recognize the difference in gender roles just described. For example, this is evident in Scripture passages such as the following:

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor. 11:3].

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband [Eph. 5:22-33].

Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, when they see your reverent and chaste behavior. Let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold, and wearing of fine clothing, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. So once the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves and were submissive to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are now her children if you do right and let nothing terrify you. Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered [1 Pet. 3:1-7].

These passages have to be applied with some care. There are elements of these passages that are culturally conditioned. For example, the 1 Corinthians passage is part of a longer, culturally-conditioned discussion of women’s head coverings in church.

More fundamentally, these passages are directed toward the typical situation described in point #10, above, not the atypical situations mentioned in points #11 and #12. But the passages do recognize the natural law situation and the fact that, under normal circumstances, men are the natural leaders of the family.

They do not say that the husband is or should be the spiritual leader of the family, but this is clearly implied (e.g., by Christ being the spiritual leader of the Church, by men being able to serve as priests, etc.). So your husband has a point: Men should be the spiritual leaders of their families.

However, we have already noted that there are atypical situations. Not all men are able (or fully able) to exercise leadership functions, the spiritual one included. The passage from 1 Peter is directed toward one such situation: that of a Christian woman with a non-Christian husband (most likely he would be a Jew, since Peter is addressing Christian Jews living outside Palestine; see 1 Pet. 1:1). Such a husband obviously cannot fully be the spiritual leader of his family (and he wouldn’t be the spiritual leader of it at all if he were a pagan rather than a Jew). In such a situation, the wife is still called to recognize his leadership role where he is capable of exercising it (hence Peter’s exhortation to her), but not where he is incapable of exercising it.

This situation is not the same as yours since your husband is a Christian, but it is analogous in that he does not share the fullness of the Christian faith (i.e., he is not a Catholic). To the extent that he shares Christian truth, he is capable of serving as spiritual leader (e.g., by leading the family in prayer, provided the prayers are compatible with the Catholic faith and he’s not trying to covertly "preach at" you and your daughter through them). However, until such time as he becomes a Catholic, he is impeded from fully exercising spiritual leadership. In particular, he is impeded to the extent that he tries to alienate you or your daughter from the Catholic Church–which simply is the Church that Jesus founded and the only one that maintains the fullness of Christian faith and grace.

You and your daughter have an obligation to maintain your Catholic faith and practice, and he must respect that. Even if he does not recognize the Church for what it is, he must recognize your conscience in the matter, and it would be a violation of your conscience to abandon Catholic faith and practice. In this regard, there are a few Scripture passages you may wish to show him.

First, in explaining your perspective on the matter, you may wish to point to the reply of the apostles when they were told to stop preaching Jesus:

We must obey God rather than men [Acts 5:29].

You must obey God by maintaining Catholic faith and practice, regardless of what you husband might say, just as also the women Peter was writing to must continue Christian faith and practice regardless of what their husbands might say.

It also might be helpful for your husband to reflect on Romans 14, in which Paul is dealing with controversies among Christians at the time (e.g., whether it was okay to eat certain foods, whether it was necessary to observe Jewish holy days). Paul pointes out that, apart from the question of which side was right in these controversies, each side must follow its conscience, and for either side to violate its conscience would be mortally sinful. (For example, in 14:20 he speaks of "destroy[ing] the work of God" by getting a person to do what his conscience says is wrong.)

As you explain this to your husband, try to understand also where he is coming from: In Protestant circles it doesn’t matter nearly as much what church one belongs to. As a result, it is a much more normal thing for wives to begin attending their husband’s church in Protestant circles. This is more reasonable because by switching from one Protestant church to another one is not abandoning the Church that Christ founded. However, you as a Catholic are not in that situation. For you it would be abandoning Christ’s Church to join another church, and he needs to understand and respect the situation you are in, even if he does not share your beliefs about the Church.

It also may be useful for your husband to reflect on the fact that no successful leader–inside of the family or out of it–continually insists on his prerogatives as a leader. Successful leaders follow the servant-leader model provided by Jesus (Mark 10:42-45), and appeal to their authority as infrequently as possible. Unfortunately, too many Christian husbands try to use the verses above as tools to get their way on trivial matters, and in so doing they undercut their ability to serve their family and provide it authentic leadership that is pleasing to Christ.

I hope this helps, and I encourage my other readers to keep your situation in prayer!

End-Time Theories

A reader writes:

Is there an official position of the Church regarding the temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem? 

No, there is not.

If not, what is your opinion? 

My opinion is that it will be. St. Paul writes:

Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thess 2:3-4).

Here Paul seems to be speaking about a future event, and he refers to "the temple of God" (which, to a Jew of Paul’s kind, would only mean the Jerusalem temple). Yet since the temple is currently in ruins, this suggests that it will be rebuilt before the end.

The reader continues:

The article on Catholic.com about "The Antichrist" seems to suggest that it’s a given.

Yeah, that’s because I’m the author of that tract.

Also, could you recommend a good Catholic interpretation (book or website) of the Book of Revelations?  I need de-programming from my previous pre-trib exegesis.

Understood. Like so many former Evangelicals, it took me a while to learn to see Bible prophecy through non-dispensationalist eyes, though I did that before becoming Catholic.

I wish that I had a good Catholic book to recommend to you on the subject, but I don’t. There aren’t any ones (a) that are in print, and (b) that I am aware of, and (c) that would be likely to give you what you are looking for. So let me recommend some articles:

  1. The Rapture: Are You Pre, Mid, or Post? This is a basic look at Catholic teaching on the end times. I am not the author of this, though I did revise it.
  2. Apocalypse Not
  3. The Structure of Revelation
  4. The Flow of Time in Revelation
  5. Hunt-ing the Whore of Babylon
  6. The Earthquake Generation (This Rock, Feb. 1998)

UPDATE: A reader points out to me that Carl Olson’s book Will Catholics Be Left Behind? is also a good resource for ex-dispensationalists. This is true. I can recommend this book as well.

Hope this helps!

Girl Talk?

I was intrigued today when I saw a news story on the web about Nushu, billed as a language used only by women in China. As y’all know, I’m fascinated by languages, and the idea of a women’s-only language is especially intriguing, as it’s most unusual. In fact, the article’s author wrote that Nushu is "believed to be the world’s only female-specific language." If that were true, Nushu would be really cool!

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that this article needs to be filed in the "reporter doesn’t know what he/she’s talking about" file. My experience with the press has convinced me that the great majority of reporters have only the most superficial understanding of what they are writing about, but I had hoped that on The Discovery Channel’s web site (where the story appears), they would be able to get the basic facts of the story related to the science of linguistics right.

Yet as I read the article, my suspicions began to grow that Nushu was not, in fact, a language. According to the article, "The language’s origins are unclear, but most scholars believe Nushu emerged in the third century during a time when the Chinese government prohibited education of women." The reporter’s implication would seem to be that Chinese women came up with their own language in response to the education edict.

The third century is certainly old enough to have a language develop. English didn’t develop until five hundred to a thousand years after that, depending on what you’re willing to count as English. But though the time frame for Nushu is fine, the implied method of its origin is all wrong.

I can think of ways that one might get a women’s-only language, but that isn’t one of them. As to how one could arise, suppose that there was a language in general use in a society at one point and then began to be supplanted by a new language. Suppose also that this society had a female priesthood that preserved the old language in their sacred rites. In this way, you would develop a women’s-only language. In fact, one could argue that at a certain stage of European history, Latin could have turned into a men’s-only language, though in reality there were always women who knew it (e.g., nuns who prayed in Latin and the daughters of educated noblemen, like St. Thomas More’s daughter Margaret).

But think: Why would the women of China invent a language just because they were prohibited from getting an education? It’s not very plausible. How would such a language help them? Would they conduct covert classes in it? But then if they could conduct covert classes, why would they need a special language to do them in? It would seem to only add another barrier to the education process, first forcing people to learn a new language before teaching them anything else.

In order to have a language–as opposed to a code–one needs a vocabulary of at least 5000 words (and even that is an incredibly restrictive vocabulary that many linguists might say is not enough for a true language). Such a restrictive vocabulary would not be enough to allow one to conduct classes without using lots of loan-words for technical subject vocabulary, and if women were heard using such loan words, the men would know what they were up to when speaking in Nushu.

These and other problems (which I won’t go into lest this entry get too long) made me begin to strongly suspect that Nushu is not a language at all, but either a code with a teensy tincey vocabulary or–more likely–a script (writing system).

A script is not a language, it’s simply a way of reducing a language to written form. A language can be represented in many scripts (or by none if it is an unwritten language). Though in English we’re used to using an alphabet based on the Latin script, there is no reason why that needs to be the case. For example, here are three English sentences written in scripts that I have handy on my computer:

Each of these sentences says "This is an English sentence written in __________", with the name of the script filled in (respectively, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic). If you want to try and figure out what character corresponds to what letter, remember that Hebrew and Aramaic read right-to-left instead of left-to-right. (Hey, maybe future data-archaeologists mining the Old Web will run across this page and the above will serve as a Rosetta Stone to unlock the meaning of lost languages!)

It would make a lot more sense for women in China to develop their own script than their own language. Scripts can be much smaller and thus easier to create and learn than languages. Logographic scripts (like normal Chinese) are truly huge, with thousands of characters, but you can make them much, much smaller. An alphabetic script (where each character stands for a sound) may only be two or three dozen characters. A syllabaric script (where each character represents a syllable) might be a few dozen or hundred characters.

Checking a few web sites about Nushu, I found that they regularly described Nushu as a script, apparently a primarily syllabaric one with about 700 signs. I haven’t looked into it enough to tell, but it seems that Nushu may be a mixed script, incorporating some logograms (characters that stand for words). In this respect, it may be like Egyptian hieroglyphics, which is also a mixed script with about the same number of characters.

If you’d like to see some examples of Nushu writing, see here. Also, Wikipedia has a good but brief article on Nushu. Both make the point that the name Nushu means "women’s writing," an admission I note on second reading is made even in The Discovery Channel article.

So, unfortunately, we don’t have a true example of a women’s language in Nushu, but we can still admire the inventiveness of Chinese women in coming up with their own multi-hundred-character script. Let’s hope that linguists are able to fully preserve it!

BTW, for any men who are reading this:

Gwon-ca tobbishla Nu’a’mari ex-locsishin-wa tet calculus-lu da astronomy-lu gwon-wa ito’ilu.

Upcoming Events?

A reader writes:

Do you have a list of events that you will participate in in the near future? I would love to attend one. I heard the Bible Answer Man debate against James White, and you’re the first Catholic I heard clearly refute all of White’s arguments while yours were still standing. Thanks for your witness!

Catholic Answers does have a schedule of upcoming events for our speakers, though I’m afraid that my administrative duties don’t let me travel that much, so I don’t get out on the stump that often. Other than the Catholic Answers cruise this October, I don’t think I have any currently scheduled public engagements.

I will try, however, to note on the blog when I have a public event coming up so folks in the area can check it out if they’re in the area.

Fulfilling the Sunday Obligation on Saturday: Part Deux

In response to a recent blog entry, a reader writes:

let’s say I’m Latin rite, and so I must go to Mass on the Feast of the Assumption. Can I go to an Eastern rite liturgy instead, even if they don’t celebrate the Assumption on that day? It’s not just different readings, ceremonies etc., but it’s a daily mass instead of a Solemn mass.

As noted before, here is what the law says:

A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass [CIC Can. 1248 §1].

Note that there is nothing in this about the rite you are attending having to be celebrating the same feast or offering a "solemn Mass" or anything like that. The fact is that by going on such a day you are celebrating the feast and fulfilling your obligation regardless of what is going on around you. By attending "a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite" you are "satisf[ing] the obligation of participating in the Mass." Period.

Fulfilling the Sunday Obligation on Saturday

A correspondent writes:

My mother just called me with a question (I’m the family theologian, I guess!). Her pastor insisted that the Easter Vigil Mass does not count as the Easter Sunday Mass "obligation." My wife and I usually go to the Easter Vigil Mass and Easter morning Mass, so it has never been a question in our minds, but I was always under the assumption that the vigil Mass would work the same way as a Mass of anticipation. As I thought about it, though, I realized that the readings are different, and that the special rites of the Vigil Mass may make a difference. Can you help to clarify this issue for us?

Your mother’s pastor probably had the same thought that you did–that the readings, etc., for Easter Vigil are different than those of Easter Sunday and that, as a consequence, Easter Vigil might not (or, in his opinion, does not) fulfill the Sunday obligation.

The idea that the readings of a Mass must be the same as those of the Sunday or holy day following in order to fulfill the obligation is a common idea, but it is in error. There is no doubt about this in the law.

Here is what the law says:

A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass [CIC Can. 1248 §1].

Note that there is nothing in the law about there needing to be any particular readings or set of ceremonies needed to fulfill the obligation. Any Mass in any rite on the evening of the preceding day satisfied the obligation.

The fact that no readings or ceremonies are required in the law is itself proof of the fact that they are not required, but the matter is doubly proven by the fact that the law provides that a Mass "anywhere in a Catholic rite" is sufficient. The reason is that the different rites have different readings and ceremonies in their Masses. If I were to go across the street to the local Maronite parish, or a few miles one way to the local Chaldean parish, or a few miles the other direction to the local Ruthenian parish, I would hear completely different readings and observe different ceremonies. Yet their Masses would fulfill my Sunday obligation, as the above canon indicates.

So despite the popular misconception, no particular rites or ceremonies are needed, and any Mass on Saturday evening–Easter Vigil Mass included–will satisfy the obligation for Sunday.

When Holidays Collide!

A reader writes:

is it possible for Good Friday to fall on the Feast of the Annunciation?

Let’s see. The date of Easter varies every year between March 22 and April 25, and since Good Friday is two days earlier than Easter, that would put he range of Good Friday dates at March 20 to April 23. Since the Feast of the Annunciation is a fixed feast nine months before Christmas, it has a date of March 25, within the range of possible Good Friday dates.

However!

The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar contains a holiday anti-collision system for just such events. As you can see from the Table of Liturgical Days, Good Friday as part of Triduum is a liturgical day of rank I:1, which is the highest there is, so it takes precedence over the solemnity of the Annunciation, which is a rank I:3 liturgical day.

Under the old calendar, "If this feast falls within Holy Week or Easter Week, its office [was] transferred to the Monday after the octave of Easter" (Catholic Encyclopedia). From what I can tell, if there were a conflict between the solemnity of the Annunciation and Good Friday (or the other days of Holy Week, which are rank I:2 days), the same would likely be the result today.

Why Is It Called Good Friday?

You may have heard that today is called Good Friday because it was on this day that Christ accomplished our redemption and, as Martha Stewart might say, "That’s a Good Thing."

Actually, as intuitive as this answer is, the answer is more complex than that. You will find some dictionaries (like this one) that list the origin of the "Good" in Good Friday as the ordinary adjective good, being taken in the sense of "holy." You will find others (like this one) that disagree.

The Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Good Friday lists its designation in several languages, and although it is called "Holy Friday" in the Romance languages, English isn’t a Romance language but a Germanic one. The article concludes that the origin isn’t clear, but notes that "Some say it is from ‘God’s Friday’ (Gottes Freitag)."

This actually sells this explanation a little short. As far as I can determine, the "God’s Friday" explanation is the standard one, particularly among older etymologists. It’s also reasonable since we know of a similar very common "God" > "good" transformation in English, namely "goodbye," which is a contraction of "God be with you."

Once the true origin of a word or phrase is forgotten, people have a tendency to analyze it in terms of the words it sounds like, and so people today tend to analyze "goodbye" in terms of wishing good for someone, though this isn’t at all where the word comes from. I suspect the same thing is going on with "Good Friday." People are reanalyzing the word "Good" based on the familiar adjective today, and this conjecture has crept into some dictionaries. The older, messier "God’s Friday" explanation strikes me as more likely the correct one.

Why Is It Called Good Friday?

You may have heard that today is called Good Friday because it was on this day that Christ accomplished our redemption and, as Martha Stewart might say, "That’s a Good Thing."

Actually, as intuitive as this answer is, the answer is more complex than that. You will find some dictionaries (like this one) that list the origin of the "Good" in Good Friday as the ordinary adjective good, being taken in the sense of "holy." You will find others (like this one) that disagree.

The Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Good Friday lists its designation in several languages, and although it is called "Holy Friday" in the Romance languages, English isn’t a Romance language but a Germanic one. The article concludes that the origin isn’t clear, but notes that "Some say it is from ‘God’s Friday’ (Gottes Freitag)."

This actually sells this explanation a little short. As far as I can determine, the "God’s Friday" explanation is the standard one, particularly among older etymologists. It’s also reasonable since we know of a similar very common "God" > "good" transformation in English, namely "goodbye," which is a contraction of "God be with you."

Once the true origin of a word or phrase is forgotten, people have a tendency to analyze it in terms of the words it sounds like, and so people today tend to analyze "goodbye" in terms of wishing good for someone, though this isn’t at all where the word comes from. I suspect the same thing is going on with "Good Friday." People are reanalyzing the word "Good" based on the familiar adjective today, and this conjecture has crept into some dictionaries. The older, messier "God’s Friday" explanation strikes me as more likely the correct one.