September 2005 – Page 8

The Religion Of “Peace” In action

Jewish World Report carries a worthwhile story by Daniel Pipes on the persecutions Christians are facing in Palestinian-held lands.

EXCERPTS:

What some observers are calling a pogrom took place near Ramallah, West Bank, on the night of Sep. 3-4. That’s when fifteen Muslim youths from one village, Dair Jarir, rampaged against Taybeh, a neighboring all-Christian village of 1,500 people.

The reason for the assault? A Muslim woman from Dair Jarir, Hiyam Ajaj, 23, fell in love with her Christian boss, Mehdi Khouriyye, owner of a tailor shop in Taybeh. The couple maintained a clandestine two-year affair and she became pregnant in about March 2005. When her family learned of her condition, it murdered her. That was on about Sep. 1; unsatisfied even with this "honor killing" — for Islamic law strictly forbids non-Muslim males to have sexual relations with Muslim females — the Ajaj men sought vengeance against Khouriyye and his family.

The article notes that many Christians have been fleeing the Holy Land due to Muslim persecution:

The campaign of persecution has succeeded. Even as the Christian population of Israel grows, that of the Palestinian Authority shrinks precipitously. Bethlehem and Nazareth, historic Christian towns for nearly two millennia, are now primarily Muslim. In 1922, Christians outnumbered Muslims in Jerusalem; today, Christians amount to a mere 2 percent of that city’s population.

"Is Christian life liable to be reduced to empty church buildings and a congregation-less hierarchy with no flock in the birthplace of Christianity?" So asks Daphne Tsimhoni in the Middle East Quarterly.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

Do Catholics Read The Bible?

Yes, but not enough of them, say some Catholic biblical experts. Too many Catholics apparently have not gotten the word that the Bible is not the sole domain of the clergy:

"While it may be a best-seller, the Bible still is not regularly read, nor has it become an integral part of many Catholics’ lives, said a panel of biblical experts.

"’Unfortunately, it must be said, there is still little Bible in the lives of the faithful,’ said Italian Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Catholic Bible Federation.

"Recent research conducted in Italy, Spain and France found that many Catholics consider the sacred Scriptures as something ‘reserved for the clergy’ rather than as an accessible resource for them to draw upon for truth and inspiration in their own lives, he said.

"Bishop Paglia, together with a number of biblical experts, spoke at a Vatican press conference Sept. 8 to present an upcoming international congress commemorating the 40th anniversary of Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council document on Scripture and divine revelation."

GET THE STORY.

On the bright side, Bishop Paglia notes that "It is by listening to the word of God, in fact, that the believer discovers himself to be a disciple and even an apostle, that is, an evangelizer" (emphasis added). Rather than distributing Bibles to Catholics, a la the Gideon Society (a plan that the bishop notes is problematic), a better approach might be to get Catholics back to Mass where they can hear the word of God every Sunday — or better yet, every day.

An Immaculate Sense Of Humor

A reader writes:

If we did not fall from grace, would we find anything funny or humorous?
Someone once suggested that we find things funny because they are based on
misfortune.

What’s your take on humor???

I’ve thought a lot about humor and the nature of humor. In everyday life, I use humor a lot (and with a good amount of success, though you always have to expect that 5-10% of the jokes you tell won’t get a laugh; risk is part of comedy), so it’s frustrating to be able to do something without being able to explain what you’re doing.

I have some thoughts on what makes things funny, but I haven’t yet sat down and devoted the brainpower to the topic to really try to crack the question (if that’s even possible for us humans).

I have read some treatments of humor, but not enough, and not ones I was happy with.

Some theorists do indeed posulate that humor is based on misfortune in a very strict way, but I think that they’re overplaying their hand. I’m not convinced that all humor involves misfortune.

Sometimes humor just involves wordplay, without anybody suffering or being the butt of a joke.

I can’t think of a specific example at the moment, but I often find that when I’m talking to a friend we discuss one topic and then, after the conversation has moved on to a new topic, it suddenly occurs to me that phrases that came up in our discussion of the first topic can also be applied to the new one.

When I deliver these phrases with the right timing (doing what is known among commedians as a "call back" because you’re calling back a previous line) the mere fact that the phrase has returned in a new context generates a pleased surprise on the part of the listener that produces a humorous response and laughter.

The more surprising the call back is (e.g., because of how long it’s been since it was first brought up) and the more apt it is to the current topic, the funnier it is.

Nobody gets hurt in this kind of comedy. It isn’t based on anybody undergoing suffering or embarrassment. It’s based on the joy of discovry and the delight of seeing a new connection one hadn’t noticed before.

I think that’s what’s behind a lot of wordplay humor. The joy we’re getting at it is the joy of seeing creativity in action, not laughter at anybody’s expense.

My basic theory is that when we have a humorous response to something then what we’re really doing is responding to a form of beauty. There’s something beautiful about humorous situations (even darkly humorous ones). It’s not a visual beauty like we see looking at a painting or an attractive person of the opposite sex. It’s not an audible beauty like we hear in good music. It’s a "situational" beauty that applies to certain situations.

The trick is to be able to cash it out and explain exactly what is beautiful about these situations that generates a humor response.

That’s not easy, but neither is it easy to say why a particular piece of music is beautiful or why a particular sunset is beautiful. That’s not to say it can’t be done; it’s just not easy, especially for a non-specialist.

To answer the question about the Fall of Man, it seems to me that there are two questions there:

(1) Would we have had the capacity to sense humor if we had not fallen and
(2) Would there have encountered any situations of the sort that would trigger our humor response if we had not fallen.

I think the answer to the first question is a definite yes.

Since the gospels never mention Jesus laughing, I had wondered whether he–as an unfallen man–would have done so, but I got my answer when I was spending time with some friends who had a tiny daughter who was born deaf.

Though this child was only three years old and had never heard laughter in her life, she laughed and shrieked and giggled her head off playing with her siblings. She wasn’t just imitating their mouth movements, either, but really laughing. That told me that laughter is a reflex built into human nature. It’s part of us, not just a learned response. It’s instinctive that even people who have never heard laughter still laugh. That means it was part of Jesus’ human nature, too.

We have other evidence as well, for Jesus sometimes uses humor in the gospels. In fact, he regularly uses irony and sarcasm (forms of humor) when dealing with evil people, as when he refers to "blind guides" or "the blind leading the blind."

So yes, we would have had the capacity for humor (what we might call "humor perception" or a sense of humor) even if we had not fallen.

Would there have been situations to elicit this response in us?

Most probably, yes. If I’m right about not all humor being misfortune-based then there definitely could have been. Maybe Adam and Eve entertained each other with wordplay as they worked out the first human language. Think of all the joyful wordplay connections they could make as they said things nobody had ever said before and made call backs when nobody had ever done that before.

Also, I can imagine Eve asking Adam what he’d named various animals and getting responses in some cases that were based on onomatopoeia, causing both of them to bust out laughing.

I’m not at all certain, though, that misfortune-based humor would have been absent. They could have, for example, laughed at the devil’s attempt to tempt them had it failed. And just as we can have a humor response to watching baby animals doing things (like leaping while playing and not quite making it), they might have laughted at them, too.

For that matter, the mere fact that we wouldn’t have died or suffered in the way that we did after the Fall doesn’t mean that paradise was totally . . . paradiasical. There might have been misfortunes, just not ones like we came to inherit as a result of the fall and our loss of whatever superpowers we had.

I mean, if you’re unfallen and not paying attention to where you’re walking and you stub your toe, it can still be funny.

So I suspect that, whatever the situation would have been like, humor would have existed. I also suspect that it would have been gentler on the whole than it is now. (Unless, maybe, you were making fun of that serpent that tried to trick you. You might have been viciously funny in that case.)

The Littlest Saint

You may remember the story of the Torres family making the rounds of the Internet. Jason and Susan Torres were expecting their second child when Susan collapsed due to undetected cancer. Susan was kept alive on life support until the child, a little girl, was delivered August 2. Susan died the next day on August 3.

Tragically, little Susan Anne Catherine Torres died in the early-morning hours of Monday, September 12, after emergency intestinal surgery:

"An infant born last month to an unconscious, severely brain-damaged mother has died, the family said Monday.

"Susan Anne Catherine Torres, born prematurely on August 2, died of heart failure Sunday after emergency surgery to repair a perforated intestine, a family statement said.

"A spokeswoman at St. Rita’s Church in Alexandria [Virginia] said parishioners were told of the child’s death during morning Mass."

GET THE (HEARTBREAKING) STORY.

Please keep Jason Torres and his family in prayer. Their agony must be unimaginable. You can learn more about the Torres family’s story HERE.

Wanting to find some glimmer of hope in this tragedy, I did a Google search to see if I could find out whether or not the baby had been baptized. I figured she must have been baptized, but wanted to know if I could confirm it. I did.

GET THE (LIFE-AFFIRMING) STORY.

Because this little girl was baptized, we can know — not just hope — that she is a saint now. Susan Anne Catherine Torres, pray for us.

Dancing The Confirmation Two-Step

Yesterday morning I read A BRIEF PIECE listing different ways in which Judge Roberts dodged the abortion question during his senate confirmation hearings.

One comment concerned me. He was reported as saying that Roe "is settled as the precedent of the court."

I realized, though, that this is the kind of thing that might well be taken out of context. Roberts might be describing the present status of Roe without implying anything about whether he’d overturn it in the future.

I wondered what Feddie over at Southern Appeal would have to say on the subject, figuring he (and his co-bloggers) would be glued to C-SPAN and have heard the original context of the remark.

Sure, enough

FEDDIE PROVIDES THE GOODS.

When one reads the entirety of the exchange, it’s clear that Roberts is being as evasive as he can be on the subject of whether he’d overturn Roe (giving a clear answer on this being certain to torpedo his nomination or cause his defenders to completely melt away depending on the answer).

The comment quoted above, in context, is not an indication that he wouldn’t overturn. He mentions multiple times that overturning precedents sometimes is justified–and sometimes isn’t. The fact that Roe (and the subsequent Casey case) is a precedent does not mean it’s un-overturnable.

My suspicion is that Roberts will vote to overturn, though I’m not comfortable with his level of vagueness. But then I often don’t get my druthers. Ya just gotta deal with that.

Incidentally, in reading Feddie’s transcript you should be aware of a technical term that comes up over and over: stare decisis (pronounced "STAR-ry duh-SIGH-sis"), which is Latin for "to stand by the decisions" (roughly). This is a legal principle that one should be reluctant to overturn precedents because overturning them willy-nilly would have bad effects.

Roberts believes in stare decisis, which makes me unhappy because–to my mind–stare decisis should have only a very limited role in our judicial system. What the law means is what is important, not whether it was correctly interpreted by later courts.

If I’m being serious and nuanced I wouldn’t put the matter this bluntly, but much of the time I find myself endorsing the sentiment over at Southern Appeal (and elsewhere) that

"Stare decisis is fo’ suckas!"

Now if only Feddy would come out with those T-shirt’s he’s promsed that say that.

Catholic Godparents At Orthodox Baptisms

A reader writes:

Hi Jimmy! I have a question…..In regards to a Catholic standing in as a godparent for a Greek Othodox baptism, is it permissible? Would a church is schism with Rome be acceptable for a Catholic to be godparent or is it still considered ‘christian witness’? I know that presently they are working to bring them back to Rome, but I thought I read a Catholic Answers book long ago that said we could not be godparents to other denominations. Can you clarify this for me?

A Catholic can serve as a godparent per se (not just a "witness") for a child being baptized in an Eastern Orthodox church. The Principles and Norms for Ecumenism first state the general principle that:

98. It is the Catholic understanding that godparents, in a liturgical and canonical sense, should themselves be members of the Church or ecclesial Community in which the baptism is being celebrated. They do not merely undertake a responsibility for the Christian education of the person being baptized (or confirmed) as a relation or friend; they are also there as representatives of a community of faith, standing as guarantees of the candidate’s faith and desire for ecclesial communion.

But then it goes on to note several exceptions to this, including:

A Catholic is not forbidden to stand as godparent in an Eastern Orthodox Church, if heshe is so invited. In this case, the duty of providing for the Christian education binds in the first place the godparent who belongs to the Church in which the child is baptized.

The document thus envisions and allows a situation in which there is one Eastern Orthodox godparent and one Catholic godparent at an Eastern Orthodox baptism.

Will The Big One Be Next?

Many have long wondered when The Big One, a massive earthquake long predicted for California, will finally hit. Some are beginning to think it may be Any Day Now:

"U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones remembers attending an emergency training session in August 2001 with the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] that discussed the three most likely catastrophes to strike the United States.

"First on the list was a terrorist attack in New York. Second was a super-strength hurricane hitting New Orleans. Third was a major earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

"Now that the first two have come to pass, she and other earthquake experts are using the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as an opportunity to reassess how California would handle a major temblor."

GET THE STORY.

The good news is that progress in seismic safety has been made. The bad news is that there is still a long way to go before California is prepared to ride out The Big One.

For those of you who are Californians interested in a patron saint to petition, the Patron Saints Index recommends Saints Agatha, Emidius, Francis Borgia, and Gregory Thaumaturgus (aka Gregory the Wonder Worker).

Saints, Agatha, Emidius, Francis, and Gregory, pray for us.

EMHC Blessings

A reader writes:

Jimmy, over at Amy Welborne’s blog there is a discussion in the comments about the licit-ness of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion [EMHCs]giving those who can not receive Eucharist a blessing. This is a common practice in my parish and as an EMHC, I’ve frequently given these blessings. Is this acceptable?

I haven’t read what Amy or others have said on this subject, so I can’t comment on that directly, but I can give you my take on the question.

The problem is that the law is unclear in this area and seems to be in flux.

Here’s the starting point.

Canon law provides that:

Can. 846 §1. In celebrating the sacraments the
liturgical books approved by competent authority are to be observed faithfully;
accordingly, no one is to add, omit, or alter anything in them on one’s own
authority.

To create a new sub-ritual within the rite of Mass of going up in the Communion line to receive a blessing would seem to be adding something to what is provided for in the liturgical books. Therefore it would not ordinarily be permitted under canon 846 §1.

That being said, I think that a good case can be made that a priest can do it. Priests are clearly authorized to give blessings and they can, for an adequate reason, pause the celebration of Mass as it is prescribed in the liturgical books. For example, if a plane flies overhead, the priest can stop talking until he can again be heard. Similarly, if there is an earthquake, he can wait until it passes. If gunmen break into the church, he can duck under the altar (or push other ministers at the altar to safety, or give the congregation an emergency general absolution in case any of them are fatally shot, etc.).

Those two principles being established, it seems to me that if someone approaches a priest for a blessing then, rather than turning the person away (and possibly crushing them with embarrassment and maybe even alienating them from the Church, especially if they are a non-Catholic) that he would be within his rights to pause his distribution of Communion in order to give the person a blessing.

I would not, however, say that he is (yet) within his rights to encourage people to come up and do this, per canon 846. It’s one thing to respond to a pastoral situation that is forced on one; it is another thing to encourage that pastoral situation to arise.

The same reasoning likely applies to deacons.

The problem is that in this country EMHCs are massively over-used, and thus many laypeople find themselves in precisely the situation that you mention. Laity generally are not allowed to give blessings in church settings, but they are allowed to do so in some circumstances (the Book of Blessings indicates most of those). Laity are not expressly permitted to give blessings at Communion time, and so by the letter of the law they shouldn’t be doing it. The problem is that the way Italians write law, they frequently will countenance unwritten exceptions to the law for pastoral reasons, and a person serving as an EMHC who is approached by someone wanting a blessing is arguably in such a pastorally exceptional circumstance.

The phenomenon has become so widespread that we really need Rome to give us some guidance on it, and until then I can’t fault EMHCs who go ahead and give blessings unless the pastor of the parish has told them not to. (He presumably knows that they are doing this and if he says nothing to the contrary about it, it’s a form of tacit concent. As the man in charge of the liturgy in his parish, he’s the one who’s responsible for regulating situations in which the laity aren’t expressly forbidden by law to do something.)

If an EMHC does give such blessings, I would keep two things in mind:

I would keep the blessing as simple as possible (e.g., just saying "God bless you" and not doing anything with my hands), and
I would definitely refrain from making the sign of the cross over the person with the Eucharist (this would constitute Eucharistic benediction, which is expressly forbidden to the laity by law).

I suspect that we will be hearing from Rome on this subject before too long, and I suspect that the answer will be that the giving of blessings at Communion time is approved.

This is one of the topics that’s scheduled for discussion at the Synod on the Eucharist next month, and the vibe I’m getting is that the folks over in Rome (and elsewhere) are thinking of such blessings as a pretty good way of addressing the problem of people who are not qualified to receive Communion being able to participate without feeling like they need to receive when they shouldn’t be receiving.

This is not a case of liberals doing something until conservatives finally capitulate and allow it (as was the case with altar girls). It’s a case of the folks in Rome hearing about an unauthorized practice and going, "Hey! That sounds like a good idea!"

For Rome, it would be an attempt to find a solution to a real pastoral problem (people who aren’t qualified to receive Communion either feeling pressured to receive or feeling totally left out) and the folks in Rome seeing this as a potential way to cut the Gordian knot. They really want to cut down on the number of people making unworthy Communions (including non-Catholics who are in attendance), but they also want to make that as easy on the people as they can, and they’re seeing this as a promising possibility.

I therefore suspect that there will be some kind of general approval of the practice in the future.

This does not mean that they will say that it’s okay for laity to do. They may approve the action only for priests, or they may approve it without saying who can do it, or they may even expressly forbid the laity to do it, but if they approve it for priests then it will be inevitable that laity end up doing it, too, and eventually that’ll get approve just to end the confusion.

So, while the liturgical policeman in me wants to 846 this practice, I can see that the writing is probably on the wall.

New Annulments Booklet

Yesterday at Catholic Answers we got my new annulments booklet from the printers.

Many people have basic questions about annulments that they need to get answered in order to get the process rolling (at which point they need more detailed answers).

Unfortunately, I haven’t been aware of any orthodox Catholic booklets dealing with the topic.

So I wrote one.

The booklet covers things such as:

* What is an annulment?
* Is an annulment the same as a divorce?
* How can I know if I need an annulment?
* Do annulments cost anything?
* How long do annulments take?
* What are the reasons that the Church would consider a particular marriage null?
* How can a couple live together for years and then have their marriage annulled?
* If the parents are granted an annulment, does that make their children illegitimate?
* What is the Pauline privilege?
* What happens when a marriage is convalidated?

With the huge number of divorces today, there is a great need for people to have the information this booklet contains. It’s meant to be sold both as individual copies (for people who need annulments, their friends and family members, those who want to help them) and in bulk so that people can place them in their parish literature racks, so that pastors and parish workers can keep a stack of them onhand to give to people, so that they can be given to folks taking RCIA (whether they themselves need an annulment or not, just so they’ll have a basic understanding of the concept), etc.

Bulk ordering will be available online soon, but to verify that you want to order them in bulk (or even if you only need a single copy for someone)

GET YOUR COPY NOW.

Bear in mind that this is only a booklet and can only give brief answers, so if you’re already past the booklet stage and are ready to tear into a book-length treatment of the subject, the HANDS DOWN BEST ONE THERE EVER HAS BEEN is

THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. GET IT!

Euro-Reaction To Katrina

As an American living abroad, Vatican correspondent John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter reports on the European reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the U.S. response.

"Americans who lived overseas at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York remember vividly the massive wave of sympathy for the United States that followed those events. The most common headline in European papers the next morning, including Corriere della Sera, the flagship paper in Italy, was, ‘We are all Americans now.’

"International reaction to Hurricane Katrina, at least from this vantage point, somehow feels different.

"In the early hours after the storm there was similar concern, especially since Katrina triggered memories of the recent Asian tsunami. As events unfolded, however, many observers were quickly dumbfounded by how ill-prepared American authorities seemed to be; this is not how the richest and most powerful country in the world is supposed to function.

"Then, as images of chaos played out on television screens, the inescapable fact that many of the hardest-hit victims are poor, minorities, and the elderly began to reinforce some of the worst stereotypes many overseas observers already harbor of America.

"Critics have long charged that the United States is a cut-throat culture with little sense of community, one in which the poor and minorities are largely left to fend for themselves. Here, it seemed, was dramatic proof of the point, as large pockets of already vulnerable people appeared to be literally abandoned."

GET THE STORY.

I’ve been wondering why there was an apparent dichotomy between the European sympathy following 9/11 and the European tsking following Hurricane Katrina. Seeing the European perspective articulated in this report did make it easier to understand the European viewpoint. Especially interesting was Allen’s note that sub-sea-level urban centers in Europe, such as in Holland, are regularly protected against catastrophic flooding. I can’t help but wonder why New Orleans was left all but defenseless.