Month: March 2006

New Star Alert!

OphiuchusThere’s a new star in the sky this month.

This new star is a nova (Latin, "new"–duh!).

It’s actually a nova that we’ve known about for a while, but you normally can’t see it with the naked eye.

Why can we see it now?

The star is RS Ophiuchi, and it is a very rare kind of star, known as a recurrent nova–a nova that doesn’t just brighten up once but does so repeatedly.

There are only seven known stars that behave like RS Ophiuchi.

Here’s how it works: In its star system there are two stars: a red giant and a white dwarf.

Matter from the red giant is spilling out and forming an accretion disk around the white dwarf.

The white dwarf itself doesn’t have the mass needed for additional fusion reactions, so it slowly cools down.

But if there is another body–like a nearby red giant–discharging matter then eventually the matter in the accretion disk around the white dwarf gets massive enough that fusion can occur, and then

BANG!

there’s new nova outburst as it blows this matter outward. Hence: recurrent nova.

RS Ophiuchi is currently experiencing an outburst, which made it bright enough to be seen with the naked eye (normally you have to use artificial magnification to see it). The outburst was first  noticed in February, and astronomers all over the world have been watching.

Why?

Because RS Ophiuchi doesn’t do this very often. The last time was in 1985, or 21 years ago.

I don’t know if the star has faded to the point that it can no longer be seen with the naked eye, but if not then this may be your last chance to see it with the naked eye for . . . quite a while. We don’t know when it’ll flare up again.

LISTEN TO A SLACKER ASTRONOMY STORY ON THE CURRENT FLARE UP OF RS OPHIUCHI.

Panel: Soviets Behind 1981 Assassination Attempt

Third_secretEXCERPTS:

An Italian parliamentary commission concluded "beyond any reasonable doubt" that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 attempt to kill Pope John Paul II _ a theory long alleged but never proved, according to a draft report made available Thursday.

"This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the pope Karol Wojtyla," said a draft of the commission’s report obtained by The Associated Press. Wojtyla was John Paul’s Polish name.

The draft has no bearing on any judicial investigations, which have long been closed. If the commission approves the report in its final form, that would mark the first time an official body had blamed the Soviet Union for shooting John Paul.

The Italian report said Soviet military intelligence _ and not the KGB _ was responsible.

GET THE STORY.

GET THE STORY FROM HEAVEN’S PERSPECTIVE.

THE TEXT OF ALL THREE PARTS OF THE FATIMA SECRET.

The Cold Truth About Antarctic Ice

AntarcticicechangeIf you’re like me, you may have run across a number of stories recently about how Antarctic ice is melting and causing sea levels to rise and how all this is proof of global warming.

Well, there’s another side to this story that you probably haven’t been told.

It’s true that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has been losing mass, but what you likely haven’t heard is that the Eastern Antartic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is GAINING mass.

You also likely haven’t heard that hte EAIS is three times the size of the WAIS, and that the mass it’s gaining more than offsets the mass being lost by the WAIS. This means that, on a continent-wide basis, Antarctica has actually been GAINING ice mass.

In the map above, the minuses represent where Antactica is losing ice and the plusses represent where it is gaining ice (due to snowfall).

ALL THIS IS EXPLORED IN THIS VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE BY ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST DR. PATRICK MICHAELS.

Something that Dr. Michaels doens’t mention but that immediately struck me upon looking at the map is that the minuses tend to occur near the coast of Antarctica (Duh! That’s where the ice slides toward and falls into the sea!), and that the western part of Antarctica is shaped in such a way that may lead to it being Antarctica’s natural ice slough-off point.

I just hope that so much ice doesn’t slough off that it uncovers the hideous Plateau of Leng or Kadath of the Cold Wastes!

Anointing Of The Sick For Infants

A reader writes:

I’ve a friend who’s 8month old child (baptized child) has a medical syndrome and is having increasing medical problems. I think that the child should receive the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. That it will impart grace and possible healing and strengthen the child in it’s health battles, even though they are too young to understand. I believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is present in this anointing, and prayers. Others seem to be leaning so much towards the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament, that they are overlooking the strengthen and healing portion of the sacrament. I realize that the child has nothing to forgive, But as a baptized catholic christian they are in titled to the strength that this sacrament can give. Do you think that this is appropriate for an infant.

I agree with you! Infants should be able to receive the anointing of the sick!

Unfortunately, canon law in the Latin Rite of the Church does not presently provide for this. The Latin Code of Canon Law provides:

Can.  1004 ยง1. The anointing of the sick can be administered to a member of the faithful who, having reached the use of reason, begins to be in danger due to sickness or old age.

I consider the age-of-reason requirement absolutely reprehensible. It is a remnant, so far as I can tell, of the mindset that existed in the last number of centuries, in which the anointing of the sick (then called "extreme unction," meaning final anointing) was viewed principally as a preparation for death. From that perspective, children below the age of reason wouldn’t need it since they can’t sin gravely.

But that’s NOT why Christ gave us this sacrament. He didn’t give it to us just as a preparation for death but as a means of healing, which is the way Scripture presents it (the forgiveness of sins being a secondary aspect, which is why even those who receive the anointing of the sick still need to go to confession if they are able to confess).

Whether you are sick and need healing has absolutely ZERO to do with whether you have reached the age of reason, and so I do not approve of denying this sacrament to gravely sick children under the age of reason.

Fortunately, following Vatican II, the Church started moving away from envisioning this sacrament principally as a preparation for death. Unfortunately, not all aspects of its law regarding this sacrament have yet caught up with that insight.

So what would I do if I had a gravely sick child below the age of reason? If my child was in danger of death I would immediately seek out a priest in one of the Eastern Catholic Churches (i.e., Eastern Catholics in union with the pope, not Eastern Orthodox).

Their equivalent to the Code of Canon Law–known as the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches (CCEO)–contains NO age-based requirement for the administration of this sacrament. It merely says:

Can. 738. The Christian faithful are to receive the anointing of the sick gladly whenever they are gravely ill; pastors of souls and the relatives of the sick are to see to it that the sick find relief in this sacrament at an appropriate time.

The CCEO also contains NO prohibition on Eastern priests administering this sacrament to Latin Catholics, so I would take my child to an Eastern priest in a hot second if the child was gravely ill.

Hopefully the deficiency in the Latin Code of Canon Law will be corrected in short order.

A Resurgence Of Devotion

Europe may be in its spiritual death throes, but the resurrection of Catholicism across the pond has already begun:

"Vatican officials say young people’s thirst for moral direction is driving a resurging interest in Catholicism. ‘There’s a reawakening after a time of secularization,’ says Sister Giuseppina Fragasso, vice president of the Vatican’s association for cloistered monks and nuns.

"The number of Catholic clergy has dwindled worldwide since peaking in the late 1960s. In particular, it’s getting harder to attract new blood to the priesthood. According to the Vatican’s statistics office, monasteries have been closing too fast for their researchers to keep track. While other Christian sects attract priests by allowing them to marry and by inviting women to ordination, the Catholic church still prohibits such activities.

"But the tide is turning in Italy. Nearly half of adult Catholics attend mass at least weekly, up from 35 percent who did so in 1980.

"Clergy credit much of young people’s interest in Catholicism to the late Pope John Paul II, stressing the impact of the World Youth Days he started in 1984. Catholic fervor reached a crescendo with his death in April 2005. ‘This pope really brought the faith closer to young people; there was a strong bond between him and us,’ affirms Giovanna, a young biologist praying by John Paul II’s tomb in Rome."

GET THE STORY.

Bad Math

Tim Powers writes:

Has the Church definitively said that animals _don’t_ go to Heaven, or at least have some posthumous happy state? They suffer, but they don’t sin. They’re not fallen. Their suffering-&-death is both real and undeserved, which is an inbalance, bad math, unless it’s made up for somewhere else in the equation. After all, we’re told that "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid" and all. Maybe that’s literal!

Maybe, though the literal sense of those texts is that God will send a great age of peace, during which it will be as if all strife–even between animals–will be eliminated. There may be an even more literal fulfillment in the next life–if animals have souls that can survive death–but we don’t have strong reason to think that it will happen in this one.

As to whether animals have a posthumous happy state, the standard position is that they don’t because their souls are unable to survive death. This is not something that the Church has taught definitively (infallibly), but it is the standard opinion among theologians historically.

(Note for those who may want to be cantankerous about animals being
unfallen: Many would say that they suffer bad effects due to our fall,
but that doesn’t mean that they themselves sinned. I also would be
hesitant to say that carnivorism only came into the universe with the
fall of man. I tend to go with Aquinas in saying that human death entered the world through the fall of man, but animal death was already there.)

You’re right, though, that there is a bad math problem here: Many animals do seem to live very short lives in which they suffer more than they benefit, making it look like they come out on the negative side of the equation, which is hard to square with God’s justice and mercy.

This isn’t a problem (or not nearly as much of one) for humans since our souls survive death and so–no matter how much we’re banged around in this life–God can make it up to us in the next.

But how can we solve the equation for animals? How can we make sure that they get more good out of existence than bad? It would seem that there are several possible ways:

  1. Animals are sufficiently insignificant in the moral order that it really doesn’t matter what happens to them individually and whether they suffer more than they benefit from life.
  2. Animals actually do benefit more than they suffer, because (despite how it may appear if you’re a baby mouse being eaten by a predator who has discovered your warm, cozy nest) life ITSELF is of sufficient value that any amount of it overbalances whatever sufferings you may experience in it (at least if you’re an animal).
  3. Animals have excess sufferings made up to them in a mysterious way that we can’t perceive in the last moments of life.
  4. Animals really do survive death–at least the ones who need some suffering made up to them–but they don’t survive permanently, the way we do.
  5. Animals do survive permanently the way we do.

Each of these has benefits and problems associated with it. The standard account would presumably go in the direction of #1 or #2.

#5, though, seems to be the most common sensically attractive to many (especially children suffering from the loss of a pet), though it isn’t the way most theologians have gone historically.

An especially creative solution (that comes from C. S. Lewis, if I recall correctly) to what to tell a child who is grieving for a pet is that the pet will be in heaven "if you need it" since God will certainly let us have everything we need in heaven. I’ve used that one myself in answering questions on the Catholic Answers Live kids’ show.

Scrupulous TV Viewing?

A reader writes:

I was wondering if you might be able to help me with a problem that has been plaguing me for months now – and only seems to be getting much, much worse.

I think I’m suffering from a case of scruples – and my latest challenge has been trying to determine a boundary between what movies and television shows are appropriate and inappropriate to watch. Of course, I avoid watching blatantly dirty movies and television – but I started to wonder (and torture myself over) where the line can be drawn. As far as television is concerned, I wouldn’t watch something like Sex in the City because, in my opinion, the content of that show offers nothing except a sense of "see, everyone is doing it" to those who chose to live an immoral lifestyle…but what about a show I have always loved (although is sometimes a little racy) Seinfeld? Why is that appropriate for me to watch, or is it?

Then, as far as movies are concerned, how dirty is too dirty? I know to avoid movies with hard-core nudity and pornographic love scenes, but should I also avoid every movie that contains the flashing of a naked bosom, a glimpse of a buttock, the suggestion of promiscuity? Or is it possible to draw a boundary between the dirty movie and the less dirty movie??

I have asked my husband and family members, and no one seems to be able to give me a solid answer. Everyone keeps telling me that I’m being silly and over-sensitive, but I absolutely cannot rid myself of the feeling that I am going to be eternally damned for watching something that seems as harmless as Seinfeld. I have been driving my husband more and more insane as my sensitivity grows (although so far he has been a pretty good sport about it). I won’t watch our favorite tv shows because an immoral situation might come up, or this movie because it may have a dirty scene, or this movie because it shows a woman’s bare bosom through her shirt…it goes on and on…

Can you shed any light on this problem for me??

Yes, I had this problem, too, when I was a relatively new Christian and started scrupuling over where to draw the line. It’s common for folks to go through phases like this, so don’t worry about it. It’s normal.

The key to understanding what is not okay for you to watch is figuring out when you will be tempted to sin due to the content that you are exposed to. That’s the reason it becomes immoral to watch something.

It does not matter if you see (or hear or read about) someone doing something immoral as long as you are not tempted to do something immoral as a result.

For example: The Bible recounts stories in which it mentions people who burn their children to the pagan god Moloch.

Now: If you are a recovering Moloch-worshipper and could be tempted to burn your children to Moloch if you read those passages then you should not read them.

But if you are not a recovering Moloch-worshipper–if you are a person with a normal, non-Moloch-worshipping background–then you are very, very, very unlikely to be tempted to burn your children to Moloch (or anybody else) by reading such passages. As a result, they are safe for you. In fact, such passages are likely to actually strengthen your resolve not to be a Moloch-worshipper because of the fact that Moloch-worshippers do disgusting things like burn their children to him.

Same principle goes for everything else: If it tempts you such that you are likely to sin then you should avoid it. If it doesn’t, then it’s not a problem.

So: If your favorite TV programs or movies you want to see contain material that make it likely that you will go out and commit a sexually immoral act then you shouldn’t watch them.

Similarly: If they make it likely that you will willfully fantasize about committing such an act then you shouldn’t watch them.

If they make slight moments of temptation that you can easily resist pass through your mind then we are into relatively safe territory.

If they cause you to be revulsed by the immoral things characters are doing then we’re definitely on safe ground.

I’ve never really watched Seinfeld. I saw enough of it to realize that it wasn’t my cup of tea. I thought the characters in it were too cruel and amoral for the kind of comedy I enjoy. (Though I did think the Soup Nazi bit I saw was funny: "No soup for you!") But unless Seinfeld is tempting you to do or willfulling fantasize about doing gravely immoral stuff then you certainly will not be eternally damned for watching it.

Similarly, you being a woman, a movie with a woman’s bare breast showing through her shirt is not very likely to tempt you into doing or willfully fantasizing about anything gravely immoral. (Your husband is a different story, but let him be the judge of that; do not try to make that decision for him, especially while in a scrupulous state.)

It also is not reasonable to refuse to watch (or read or listen to) something because a temptation might come up. Temptations are going to come up in life. You can’t stop them from doing so. Even if you put yourself in a sensory deprivation tank, your own mind would manufacture its own temptations.

If we try to utterly avoid all temptation then we will end up hurting ourselves. Just think of how impoverished your life would be if you lived in a sensory deprivation tank and never got to see your husband (and children, if you have any).

What we have to do is take a risk-management approach to temptation. Life involves risk, and temptation is one such risk. We have to make the best judgment call we can based on the info we have. If what we know about a TV show/movie/book/whatever tells us that it will pose a significant temptation to us then we should avoid it.

Otherwise, we should not be scrupulous about it.

I should note that if we expose ourselves to a lot of material containing risk-laden material then it can have a cumulative, corrosive effect over a long period of time, and that is a danger to watch out for. (I.e., getting us to lower our threshold little by little until we are vulnerable to temptations that we didn’t used to be.)

But this is not the position you are in right now. You’re currently suffering from scruples so far as you can tell. The opposite danger–laxism–is one to watch out for, but you can’t let the danger of laxism drive you further into scrupulosity. The thing to do is try to get a balanced, healthy appraisal of things–and maintain it.

That means accepting some risks but rejecting others. Over time, if you try to be self-reflective about what poses a significant temptation to you and what doesn’t, you’ll figure it out.

Good luck, and good viewing!

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