Today will be a blog day off, so go out and cook some burgers and dogs and set off some illegal fireworks or something.
Have fun!
Sorry to international readers, but I do need breaks from this stuff and may as well take them when everyone else (here) is.
The British "newspaper" The Telegraph has run a story headlined "Vatican vows to expel stem cell scientists from Church" and illustrated yet again why the secular press is too incompetent to keep its job when it comes to reporting religion stories.
According to the story:
Scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research
and politicians who pass laws permitting the practice will be
excommunicated, the Vatican said yesterday."Destroying
human embryos is equivalent to an abortion. It is the same thing," said
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the
Family."Excommunication will be applied to the
women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the]
politicians that approve the law," he said in an interview with
Famiglia Christiana, an official Vatican magazine.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
The Telegraph needs to hold its horses on this one.
First, the fact that the head of a pontifical council said something in a magazine interview–even in a magazine published by the Vatican–does not ammount ot a statement of Vatican policy, so it is completely misrepresents the situation to take the cardinals interview remarks and pitch them as "Vatican vows" to do anything. The Vatican doesn’t make policy statements in magazine interviews.
Second, we’re talking about the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, here. While he’s a great guy, it is not within his brief to make binding statements regarding the extent to which canonical matters like excommunication apply to particular situations. He’s certainly entitled to express his opinions on the matters (and ED PETERS THINKS HE’S RIGHT REGARDING EMBRYO DESTROYERS) but the good cardinal is not empowered to move beyond the realm of offering an opinion and into making binding interpretations of canon law. So one more reason why this ain’t a "Vatican vow."
Third, we’re not talking about all stem cell scientists–just those who destroy embryos. As JAMIE BEU POINTS OUT, only stem cell research involving embryos is in question, not adult stem cell research.
Fourth, even confining outselves to embryonic stem cell research, it ain’t all scientists who do this research that the cardinal was addressing–just those who destroy embryos. If a scientist is doing experiments on a cell line derived from embryos who were killed in the past, he’s not performing an abortion and thus he’s not whacked by the sentence of excommunication. Regardless of whether he’s engaging in a moral activity in doing such experiments, he’s not aborting embryos and thus does not incur excommunication for procuring or assisting in the procurement of an abortion.
Fifth, excommunication does not "expel [one] from [the] Church"! It just doesn’t! Not under current canon law. The canonical effects of excommunication are enumerated in CANON 1331 and being expelled from the Church ain’t one of ’em.
So any way you slice it, The Telegraph staff responsible for this story have done a flatly incompetent job–at that before we even get past the headline!
It’s not even clear from the way the story is written how far its incompetence goes.
For example, note this statement:
"Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law," he said in an interview with Famiglia Christiana, an official Vatican magazine.
Since I don’t have a copy of Famiglia Christiana (or a translation of it), I have to rely on The Telegraph that the material from the cardinal is being quoted accurately and in context, but there is a question in my mind about that because of the inserted "[and to the]" which bridges an elipsis in the cardinal’s remarks.
There is a question in my mind about whether this insertion and elipsis distorts what the cardinal said because there would be notable canonical problems with the assertion that politicians would be excommunicated.
Penal laws are subject to narrow interpretation (Canon 18), and the Church has not historically interpreted the abortion excommunication politicians who vote in favor of laws that allow abortion as being excommunicated. Those directly involved in the abortion are, but not those who established the legal framework allowing abortion to take place.
Further, John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae 73 that in certain situations Catholic politicians can vote for laws that allow abortion if there is no practical way to get the abortion-allowing provisions out of the laws.
If Cardinal Trujillo did say that the abortion excommunication applies to politicians (and I don’t know what is meant by "approve"–whether it is morally approve or approve in the sense of voting, either one of which would have canonical hurdles for such excommunications to take effect) then that is his opinion, but it is once again not an authentic (i.e., authoritative) interpretation of canon law.
Unfortunately, I can’t even be sure what the cardinal said or meant from the incompetent way that The Telegraph’s staff has handled this story.
A reader writes:
Through the work of the Holy Spirit a couple of years
ago, I was able to really turn my spiritual life
around and fully embrace my Catholicism. I’ll spare
you all the gory details, but Catholic Answers Live
played a big part.I made some important confessions back then to really
bring me back into full communion with the Church, and
I continue to go every month or so. But I occasionally
will remember some stuff I did in my past life, either
a long time ago, or even just before my "reversion".
Sometimes really bad stuff, like Darth Vader stuff.
Unless you are a mass murderer or a Satanist, I very much doubt that you’ve got real Darth Vader-like stuff. You may be being scrupulous.
I tend to be scrupulous at times, although it comes
and goes.
Ahh. See?
I know I’m not supposed to reconfess things
(which I don’t)
It is possible to reconfess sins that have already been confessed and forgiven, but according to standard moral and pastoral theology this is something that a scrupulous person should not do because it fosters further scrupulosity.
and I’m not supposed to worry about
past sins (which I do). The sacrament takes care of
that.
True.
However, I have heard on EWTN and elsewhere that
it’s a good idea to mention unconfessed (forgotten)
serious sins the next time I go, even though the
sacrament took care of them.
It’s actually a bit stronger than that. If you remember a mortal sin that your forgot to confess then you have an obligation to confess it, even though it has already been forgiven.
In the case of scrupulous individuals, though, standard moral and pastoral theology holds that they should only confess such sins if the following conditions obtain: (1) they know for a fact it was a mortal sin and (2) they know for a fact that they have not already confessed it. If they aren’t sure about either of these two conditions then a person with a scrupulous conscience should not confess the sin because it will foster further scrupulosity if they get in the habit of confessing sins that they aren’t sure were mortal or aren’t sure if they haven’t already been confessed.
Would it be a good idea
for me to make a general confession, mentioning the
things I can think of, as a way to move on?
I continue to receive communion almost every day. My
head tells me to keep receiving, but my heart wants to
rid myself of the old baggage. I do realize the danger
of always remembering more and more past sins, as well
as the danger of not trusting the sacrament. I’ve
really enjoyed the posts you’ve made in the past
regarding scrupulosity. I’ve also read Fr. Santa’s
book. I’m not a "hard case", but like I said, it comes
and goes.
Whether you should make a general confession is difficult to say and is ultimately a decision that you will have to make based on your own knowledge of yourself and how successful it would be in helping you get past the present issue. It’s not an unreasonable idea, though, as long as you don’t find yourself wanting to do it again and again.
If you do make a general confession, then do it in such a way that will maximize your chance of getting past the scrupulosity: Sit down with a really thorough examination of conscience and make a list of everything mortally sinful that you think you may have done. Write it by hand; don’t use a computer. Then take this list with you into the confessional and read it or, if it is too painful, give it to the priest and say "I confess this." Then get the list back and DESTROY it (e.g., burn it and then flush the ashes).
You can, of course, omit from the list things that you’re sure that you have confessed.
And if you do decide on making a general confession, be sure to set up a special appointment time with the priest. Don’t show up to do it right before Mass or when there are other people waiting in line.
Hope this helps!
20
A reader writes:
I’ve run across a quote in some Sabbatarian discussions: Acts 20:7 And I want to know something about it in case it comes up again.
"On the first day of the week when we gathered to break bread, Paul spoke to them because he was going to leave on the next day, and he kept on speaking until midnight."
I’ve heard this quoted to mean that these Christians met _only_ Sunday. The English doesn’t support that. It could perfectly well describe a situation where they met only on Sunday, but it could also describe a situation where they met every day (as the Christians did earlier in Acts) but this was the one where Paul spoke until late.
Does the Greek have something that precludes "This is the meeting where Paul spoke late" instead of "We had our only meeting on Sunday, and Paul spoke late at it."?
There’s nothing in the Greek (as opposed to the English) that would insist that Christians didn’t have meeting times other than Sunday (the first day of the week). Christians could and probably did have meetings on other days of the week.
That’s not to say that this verse as no value for establishing Sunday as the distinctive Christian day of worship, though.
I think that the situation is more complex than a "Did they meet every day or just on Sunday?" dichotomy, though. It is possible for the early Christians to have met on multiple days of the week–including every day–while still retaining Sunday as the distinctive day of worship.
That’s how we do it today. Most parishes have daily Mass, but it doesn’t deprive Sunday Mass of its special place.
How many times a week the Christians in Troas (where this verse is set) met, I don’t know, but this verse–at least in conjunction with other passages–has modest evidentiary value toward establishing Sunday as a distinctive Christian day of worship.
Here’s how that works:
You’ll note that the verse speaks of "the first day of the week when we gathered to break bread." This doesn’t prove that they didn’t break bread (including having Mass) on other days of the week, but it does at least raise the question of whether Sunday was a distinctive day for Christian worship.
The idea that Sunday might be such a day is strengthened by passages like Revelation 1:10, where St. John records that he was in the Spirit "on the Lord’s Day," which tells us that there was some kind of special Christian holy day.
When we put that together with 1 Corinthians 16:2, where Paul tells the Corinthians to set aside money for charitable collections on the first day of the week, the idea is further strengthened that Christians were distinctively meeting on Sundays.
Add to that the fact that Christ was raised from the dead on Sunday and that Christian tradition in later centuries has been virtually unanimous in regarding Sunday as the distinctive (though not exclusive) Christian day of worship and we have a pattern suggesting that this was already established in the days of the apostles, and Acts 20:7 fits into that pattern.
SEE HERE FROM CHURCH CHURCH FATHERS MATERIALS ON THIS POINT.
BTW, don’t fail to read the rest of the pericope that Acts 20:7 introduces! It’s one of my favorite places in the book of Acts.
It’s got a terriffic story of humanity, humor, horror, and . . . and . . . something else beginning with the letter H, I guess (though I don’t know what that might be).
I think it’s hilarious that Paul keeps talking after the dramatic events of the incident.