Month: May 2005

Space Warp To Heaven

A reader writes:

I’ve been asked to give a talk to a group of young adults about the Eucharist next month. I would like to use a sci-fi example to clarify the role played by the eucharistic species in the Real Presence.

It would go something like this: think of the eucharistic appearances as like a dimensional warp gate or power field which overcomes the spatial/dimensional distance between my body and Christ’s body. When my finger encounters this gate or window, it is actually touching the body of Christ, even though that body is a billion miles away / in a different universe / or whatever. But when the priest breaks the host, what he actually does is break the warp window in half: even though the window is in two pieces, the body with which it brings me into contact is still the same, unbroken body. (I think this is better than the old example of the mirror which is broken into a thousand pieces, yet each piece reflects the entire image.)

The problem is that I haven’t kept abreast of what’s happening in sci-fi. It would be great if I could relate this example to something specific people have seen on Star Trek or some other show lots of people watch.

You’re the only man I know who is thoroughly versed in both the Eucharist and Star Trek. ONLY YOU CAN HELP ME!

Oh, I’m sure many of the fine folks here at the blog could help, but I’ll be happy to.

You analogy is quite good and, actually, is one that I use all the time–particularly when explaining the Real Presence to children. It taps into an element of pop culture that almost everyone is aware of and that does, indeed, do a better job than the broken mirror analogy since one can really be present via a spacewarp (CHT to Einstein for this point) but one is not really present in a mirror.

What I’d suggest is that you tweak the language that you plan on using a little bit in order to avoid confusion. "Power field" describes something other than what you’re thinking of, and "dimensional warp gate," while it gestures at the idea, is inelegant. I would propose that you use the term "space warp." I’d also stay away from "wormhole" because it sounds bad and would also be misleading. I also wouldn’t use the bare term "warp" since in a Star Trek environment that might get people thinking about warp drive (which is absurd from a physics point of view). So I’d stick with "space warp."

I’d also be sure to throw in a qualifier that this may not be how God does it but it is a useful way of showing how what God does is possible.

I often present the analogy like this:

<me talking>When I was in the process of becoming Catholic, I had to grapple with issues like the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and how that could be possible. As a science fan, I realized that there were all kinds of ways that God could choose to perform a miracle, so if I could think of at least one way that God could accomplish a particular thing in a scientific manner then God knew at least that way to do it and probably a lot more besides.

In the case of the Real Presence the issues to be solved are (a) how Jesus’ body can be present under the appearances of bread and wine when, plainly, the consecrated elements are much smaller than an adult human body, (b) how Jesus’ body can be present in more than one place at a time (i.e., in every host in the world), and (c) what happens when one of the consecrated elements is divided, as when a priest breaks a host or when one takes a sip of the Precious Blood.

Thinking about this in scientific terms, it seemed to me that all of these issues could be explained in terms of the warping of space. Einsteinian physics allows for the possibility of the bending and folding and other distortion of space such that two points can be connected or even made present to each other.

It thus seemed to me that it would be possible for God to achieve the above-mentioned effects if he warped space to do it. The accidents of bread and wine might then be seen as a space warp connecting to where Jesus’ body is located in heaven.

The shape and size of the consecrated elements do not have to match the shape and size of Jesus’ body because the two ends of a space warp do not have to have the same shape and size, making it possible for the whole of Jesus’ body to be present, in its entirety, in the consecrated elements without leaving any of the appearances unfilled, thus accomplishing effect (a).

The fact that he is present in all of the consecrated hosts in the world is similarly explained, as it just means that there are many space warps connecting to the location of his body in heaven, thus accomplishing effect (b).

An the fact that he remains present in his entirety even when the accidents of the consecrated elements are separated is also explainable in terms of space warping: It would just mean that the space warp has been divided when the accidents are divided, and so there are now two space warps where there was one before, thus accomplishing effect (c).

Now, in reality, God may not be doing it this way. He may be doing it in another way that is totally beyond the ability of human intellect to even grasp. We also have to be a little careful about talking about Jesus’ body in heaven as if it is currently extended in space, for it may not be. But this analogy shows that, even within the realm of human thought, it is possible to illustrate a means by which God could accomplish the effects that the faith teaches us that he does accomplish in the Eucharist.

Once we have shown that something is possible, it becomes entirely a matter of God’s choice whether he does it or not. Though some things may be hard or easy for humans because of our limited resources, this does not apply to God. All things are equally easy for God, because of his unlimited resources. Creating the universe is as easy for God as sending a gentle breeze. And so once we have shown that a particular type of miracle is possible, this means it is as easy for God as anything else and thus purely a matter of his choice whether he does it.</me talking>

One final tip I’d offer: I wouldn’t speak of touching the accidents as touching the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is present, but it seems to me more proper to speak of touching the accidents rather than touching the Body of Christ directly.

Hope this helps!

Happy Ascension ThursdaySunday???

A reader writes:

It is my understanding (correct me if I am wrong) that the Ascension is celebrated today (Thursday) only in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and the New England states. Everywhere else in the U.S., the feast has been moved to this Sunday. How is a diocese able to move a holy day from Thursday to Sunday? And why the lack of uniformity across the entire church?

I can’t vouch for the geographical information you list. I know that here in California we have Ascension Thursday transferred to Sunday, but I don’t know about the practice in other provinces. I suggest checking your diocesan web site to see what the status is in your area.

Here’s the deal: The U.S. bishops got permission from the Vatican to move Ascension Thursday to a Sunday on a province by province basis.

Here’s the relevant complementary norm:

In accord with the provisions of canon 1246§2 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: "… the conference of bishops can abolish certain holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday with prior approval of the Apostolic See," the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States decrees that the Ecclesiastical Provinces of the United States may transfer the Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter to the Seventh Sunday of Easter according to the following procedure.

The decision of each Ecclesiastical Province to transfer the Solemnity of the Ascension is to be made by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the bishops of the respective Ecclesiastical Province. The decision of the Ecclesiastical Province should be communicated to the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and to the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [SOURCE, keep scrolling].

Happy Ascension ThursdaySunday???

A reader writes:

It is my understanding (correct me if I am wrong) that the Ascension is celebrated today (Thursday) only in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and the New England states. Everywhere else in the U.S., the feast has been moved to this Sunday. How is a diocese able to move a holy day from Thursday to Sunday? And why the lack of uniformity across the entire church?

I can’t vouch for the geographical information you list. I know that here in California we have Ascension Thursday transferred to Sunday, but I don’t know about the practice in other provinces. I suggest checking your diocesan web site to see what the status is in your area.

Here’s the deal: The U.S. bishops got permission from the Vatican to move Ascension Thursday to a Sunday on a province by province basis.

Here’s the relevant complementary norm:

In accord with the provisions of canon 1246§2 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: "… the conference of bishops can abolish certain holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday with prior approval of the Apostolic See," the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States decrees that the Ecclesiastical Provinces of the United States may transfer the Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter to the Seventh Sunday of Easter according to the following procedure.

The decision of each Ecclesiastical Province to transfer the Solemnity of the Ascension is to be made by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the bishops of the respective Ecclesiastical Province. The decision of the Ecclesiastical Province should be communicated to the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and to the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops [SOURCE, keep scrolling].

Victory For Forces Of Good–In Canada

Ontario jails now allowing small quantities of wine for celebrating the Eucharist to be brought into prison.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

EXCERPTS:

A policy has now been spelled out, according to Julia Noonan, a spokeswoman with Ontario’s correctional service.

"The priest may bring in 1½-2 ounces … as needed for that day," she said.

ALSO:

"Unfortunately, it came across that we were discriminating against the Catholics and we weren’t."

In fact, she pointed out, authorities at Lindsay had also prevented Anglican clergy, including a bishop, from celebrating the Eucharist because wine was needed for the sacrament. "We were therefore discriminating against the religious rights of all Christians who use alcoholic wine for celebrating the Eucharist," she confessed.

Darth Greer To Be PilloriedHonored

Yes! Instead of being placed in a pillory and pelted with rotten vegetables and subjected to public scorn as a prelude to being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, the Sith lord who presided over the Terri Schiavo case is being given an award by his colleagues for his service to the bench, including the Schiavo killing.

GET THE (REPUGNANT) STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

Darth Greer To Be PilloriedHonored

Yes! Instead of being placed in a pillory and pelted with rotten vegetables and subjected to public scorn as a prelude to being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, the Sith lord who presided over the Terri Schiavo case is being given an award by his colleagues for his service to the bench, including the Schiavo killing.

GET THE (REPUGNANT) STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

Intercommunion

A reader writes:

I’m not a Catholic, but I do study Catholic theology. I find it addictive.

Cool! Me, too!

My uncle, who lives in Florida, is Catholic. My mother recently went to visit my aunt and uncle. She went to mass with them, this is the first mass she ever attended. A friend of my aunt and uncle (who happenes to be a former nun) encouraged my mother to go up recieve communion. She gave her quick instructions, and told my mother that this was okay. I told my mother that this was a big "NO, NO"! I told her that the Catholic communion was, without a doubt, closed. She said that the ex-nun assured her it was okay.

My mother hopes that she didn’t do anything wrong. Did she? Did the lady do something wrong by telling to her to partake in communion?

Based on what you’ve said about the situation, you are correct that Church law would not permit your mother to receive Communion under these circumstances. There are limited circumstances in which a non-Catholic can receive Communion, but this does not appear to be one of those cases.

So you don’t just have to take my word on it, here’s what the Code of Canon Law says:

If the danger of death is present or if, in the judgment of the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, some other grave necessity urges it, Catholic ministers administer these same sacraments [penance, the Eucharist, and the anointing of the sick] licitly also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed (Canon 844 §4).

This applies to Protestants, which I assume your mother is. (Eastern Orthodox fall under a different provision.)

The Church allows limited reception of Communion in these cases because of how important it is for a person in grave need (e.g., a dying person) to be united with Jesus eucharistically, but because of the separations which regrettably divide the Christian community at present, a regular sharing of the Eucharist would not be possible.

One reason for this, from a Catholic point of view, is that many Protestants (and certainly most in the country) do not share the Church’s faith in the Real Presence. St. Paul is emphatic about the need to recognize the Real Presence of Christ in order to receive Communion (1 Cor. 11:28-30), so it is not possible to extend the offer of Communion to a great many Protestants without violating St. Paul’s injunction.

That being said, your mother should not feel guilty. She was assured by someone who she should have been able to count on to tell her the truth about this matter, and thus she acted in good conscience. She was doing something that she thought was appropriate and, I assume, was trying to please God in so doing. God honors and accepts her good motives and attempt to please him.

The ex-nun, on the other hand, did objectively mislead your mother. Whether the ex-nun is culpable for this, I cannot say. Her training in Church teaching and law may have been so poor that she is not culpable for having misrepresented matters to your mother. On the other hand, she may harbor a dissident attitude that rejects and seeks to undermine the sacramental discipline of the Church. Ultimately, only she and God know her heart.

Hope this helps!

20

Humans Cause Global Warming, Climatologists Agree

Michael Crichston will be hacked. The journals Science and Nature have been refusing to publish papers showing that climatologists are not agreed that global warming is occurring or that, if it is, it is caused by humans.

This follows the publication of a previous paper claiming that climatologists are in agreement on these points.

EXCERPT:

The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.

The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

Dr Oreskes’s study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser.

However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication – but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".

So the scientific discourse can be summarized like this:

SCIENCE: Climatologists agree! Humans clause global warming! Look at all these papers that say so!

CLIMATOLOGIST: Um, actually we don’t. Y’all have misread the papers.

SCIENCE REVIEWERS: Sorry, everybody knows about the point your making. No publication for you.

MORE:

Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It’s pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It’s the news value that is most important."

He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review – despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.

As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."

GET THE STORY.

Humans Cause Global Warming, Climatologists Agree

Michael Crichston will be hacked. The journals Science and Nature have been refusing to publish papers showing that climatologists are not agreed that global warming is occurring or that, if it is, it is caused by humans.

This follows the publication of a previous paper claiming that climatologists are in agreement on these points.

EXCERPT:

The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.

The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

Dr Oreskes’s study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser.

However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication – but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".

So the scientific discourse can be summarized like this:

SCIENCE: Climatologists agree! Humans clause global warming! Look at all these papers that say so!

CLIMATOLOGIST: Um, actually we don’t. Y’all have misread the papers.

SCIENCE REVIEWERS: Sorry, everybody knows about the point your making. No publication for you.

MORE:

Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It’s pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It’s the news value that is most important."

He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review – despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.

As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."

GET THE STORY.