September 2006 – Page 4

Yarr!! It Be Talke Like A Pirate Day!!!

Today be Tal kie Like A Prrriate Day! (PHT t’th’rrrrreader which ee-mail’d!)

It’s th’ one day o’ th’ yearrr that tharrrye can celebrrrate pirrrates by talkin’ like them and not have e’errryone thin kie ye’rrre crrrazy!

(Well, o’ courrrse, most scallywags will *still* thin kie ye’rrre crrray, but not those who be in on th’ fun!)

(Well, okay, a bit o’ them will, too, and a bottle of rum!)

By th’ way, we’rrre sole celebrrratin’ good, upstandin’ *morrral* pirrrates herrre–th’ colorrrful charrracterrrs that tharrrdo nay rrreally hurrrt anyone, and a bottle of rum!

Like those fine chaps frrrom yon Gilberrrt and Sullivan’s "The Pirrrates o’ Penzance (orrr The Slave o’ Duty)"

Speakin’ o’ which, that’s anotherrr good way t’ celebrrrate Tal kie Like A Pirrrate Day! Go watch "The Pirrrates o’ Penzance"–a lovely tale, and a bottle of rum! All about keepin’ yerrr duty and booty like that, and a bottle of rum!

And pirrrates, o’ courrrse, and a bottle of rum!

It’s out on DVD in se’errral verrrsions, and a bottle of rum! The Canadian Strrratforrrd Festival verrrsion be likely th’ best one out at th’ moment, and a bottle of rum! It’s quite good, and a bottle of rum! Though I ca nay ferrr th’ dismal exist’nce o’ me figurrre out why in th’ name o’ Davy Jones t avast do nay rrrelease th’ outstandin’ Kevin Kline, Rex Smith, Linda Rondstadt verrrsion, and a bottle of rum!

Aaaarrrgh!

Yarr! An’ don’t ferget t’get THIS YERE BOOKE BY MISTERRR TIMOTHEE POWERSE.

By th’ way, if ye’d like t’ learrrn morrre about Tal kie Like A Pirrrate Day,

GO HERE, and a bottle of rum!

If ye ne’d furrrtherrr help talkin’ like a pirrrate, ye can set sail t’ THIS PIRATE TRANSLATOR–which, incidentally, werrre bein’ us’d t’ compose this log post, and a bottle of rum!

Have fun, Mateys! Aarrrgh!

P.S. Go pirates! Beat ninjas! Yarr!

Western Catholic At Eastern Catholic Liturgies

A reader writes:

I grew up Roman Catholic in a small town in the Midwest where only the Novus Ordo was available for weekly Mass. I know live in an area where the Tridentine Rite was recently allowed. After going to a Tridentine Mass for the first time I became interested in other expressions of the Catholic Mass and started looking for Eastern Rite parishes in the area. Luckily it has a number of Eastern Rite Churches. I have visited a Melkite Greek Catholic parish and a Byzantine Catholic parish.

I asked a few knowledgeable Catholic friends if receiving Communion was permissible at these Masses. All agreed that if the church is in communion with Rome then that is permissible. Is that the case?

Absolutely! The Code of Canon Law provides:

Can. 844 §1. Catholic ministers administer the
sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who
likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone, without prejudice
to the prescripts of §§2, 3, and 4 of this canon, and can. 861,
§2.

The word order in this canon is a little awkward for the point in question, but "Catholic members of the Christian faithful . . . receive [the sacraments] licitly from Catholic ministers." Given that, you can receive the Eucharist from any Catholic minister unless there is a specific prohibition otherwise, and in the case of the Eucharist there is not. You are perfectly free to approach an eastern Catholic priest or deacon (or other eastern Catholic minister of Holy Communion).

There was some disagreement if attending these other Masses fulfilled my Sunday Mass obligation. Most thought they did, but some disagreed.

The ones who disagreed were incorrect. The Code of Canon Law expressly provides for you to be able to fulfill your Sunday obligation at a divine liturgy in an eastern Catholic church:

Can. 1248 §1. 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.

The reader then asks:

Finally, I would like to know what would be necessary to join an Eastern Rite parish if I wished to do so. Since I am already in full communion with Rome, so it wouldn’t be considered a “conversion,” would it?

It would not be a conversion, no. It would be one of two things, described below.

First, if you just want to join a parish then all you would have to do (I suppose) is fill out their registration card. This would not mean that you belonged to the Eastern Church of which this parish is a part. If you registered at a Byzantine parish you would not thereby become a Byzantine Catholic. You would still be a Latin (Roman) Catholic who happened to be registered at an Byzanting parish, and you would still be subject to the Latin Church’s Code of Canon Law (which I have been quoting above since it is the one that is relevant to you; the Eastern Catholic Churches have their own code of canon law, known as the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches).

Second, it would be possible for you to change rites and become an actual member of an Eastern Catholic Church by law. Thus if you changed rites to join the Melkite Church, you would at that point no longer be a Roman Catholic but a Melkite Catholic and would be subject to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, as well as the particular law of the Melkite Church.

The way to do this has evolved somewhat since the Code of Canon Law was released in 1983. According to what is on the books, you would need to obtain the permission of the Holy See (Can. 112 §1, no. 1), but my understanding is that the Holy See has modified this in practice in subsequent years. If you decide to take this step, consult with your (Latin) diocese for further assistance.

Be aware that this is a big step and should not be taken lightly. It also may not be as easy to change back to the Latin Church if you decide you want to do that later on. The Church (as a whole) permits the faithful of every individual Church within it to receive the sacraments and participate in the ecclesial life of every other individual Church (which is part of what it means to be in ecclesiastical communion with each other), but it posses additional barriers to the faithful changing from membership in one of these Churches to another.

The purpose of this (in part) is to help preserve the identities of the individual Churches by not allowing transfers to happen willy-nilly.

If you do decide that you wish to legally transfer to another rite, I would suggest that you spend a considerable period of time (at least one whole year, so that you can see the whole liturgical year and the laws that apply to it) attending a parish of the Church in questoin so that you can make sure you will be comfortable there long-term.

By the way, if anyone has an opportunity to go to Sunday Mass in an Eastern Rite Parish, you should give it a try. The liturgy is so beautiful and reverent. There isn’t any doubt as to the Real Presence at these Masses.

Indeed. I have been to Eatern Catholic liturgies many times, and I always find it a very moving experience.

Self-Defense In The Face Of Muslim Violence

A reader writes:

With all the angry Muslim responses over the pope’s statements, including now the attacks on the churches in Gaza, it is safe to say that, assuming he doesn’t give them the apology they want, and that their anger doesn’t abate (it usually doesn’t), we will see greater violence done against Christians.

My question is this: at what point are Christians allowed, or even obliged, to take up arms to defend themselves? It’s not that I want this to happen, just that it seems likely to become an issue sooner rather than later in some countries.

Does it make a difference whether the Christian is defending, for example, a church building vs. his home? A priest vs. a family member? Under what circumstances would a non-governmentally aligned community of Christians be allowed to take up arms and counterattack?

I know we are to rely of legitimate government to defend us from attack, but one could certainly argue that some of those Middle Eastern locations don’t have a government that is truly committed to defending ALL their citizens, or any effective government at all.

Morally speaking, individuals are warranted (permitted to) use lethal force in self-defense whenever their own lives are gravely endangered. Thus as soon as your life is gravely endangered (e.g., someone pulls a gun on you) then you would be permitted to use lethal force in self-defense.

(NOTE: I’m speaking in terms of moral justification, here, not legal justification; some U.S. states have laws that prohibit people from using lethal force even though their lives are already in grave danger and–for example–require the person to try fleeing to get away from the danger instead of facing it. These laws require one to do more than what morality does and–to my mind–they are boneheaded. Requiring a person to flee from a gun-wielding maniac may, in fact, put the person at greater risk of death than using lethal force on the maniac–not to mention that it leaves the maniac free to continue his rampage and kill others.)

Though one is permitted to use lethal force in self-defense when one’s life is gravely in danger, one is not required to do so. One can refuse to defend one’s own life and, if one does so in a context in which one is being killed for one’s faith but refuses to use the means of escape one has, one accepts a martyr’s death.

One is also morally permitted to use lethal force in the defense of another person as soon as that person’s life is gravely in danger. One is not automatically required to do so, however. Possible reasons for not doing so include: (a) the person does not wish to be defended or (b) defending him could put your life in grave jeopardy, and it is not required that one put one’s own life in grave jeopardy for an person for whom you do not have special responsibility.

One is not just permitted to but required to use lethal force in the defense of those for whom we have special responsibility. This includes parents for their children, husbands for their wives, and governments for their citizens.

The use of lethal force is not morally legitimate if the stakes are less than life. You cannot legitimately use lethal force to defend property for its own sake, for example. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a house or a church. One can, however, use sub-lethal force proportionate to the value of the property. And, if one is patrolling the property to defend it and one comes under attack personally then one can of course use lethal force in self-defense.

While the offense against religion is greater if a church is burned or a priest killed, the offense against property and against life is not different and thus does not change the criteria for the use of lethal force.

Even before life or property are in grave danger one is warranted in taking steps to see to their defense. If I were a Christian in an area in danger of Muslim violence, I would do everything in my power to obtain sufficient weapons and ammunition to defend myself and my family.

As to when individuals are morally permitted to organize for their self-defense, you have already named the condition that is required: the inability or unwillingness of the government to provide for their defense.

I’ll also touch on something that Catholic readers may wonder about–namely, the use of force in defending the Eucharist against desecration.

Jesus–in the Eucharist–of course is alive, and the Eucharist does not constitute property, so what can be done to defend the Eucharist?

Although there are steps one can legitimately take to prevent a person from desecrating the Eucharist (e.g., shoving him away from it so he can’t get it or snatching it out of his hand), one cannot kill a person who is about to desecrate the Eucharist. If someone at Mass took the Eucharist and was about to stomp on it, you could not kill him to stop him from doing it. He would not be killing Jesus by doing so, or harming Jesus in any way since Jesus is now glorified in the beatitude of heaven. The offense is one that does not result in damage to Jesus. It results instead in damage to the soul of the desecrator and to the moral order, but Jesus has chosen by allowing such desecrations to occur to subject himself to this kind of treatment, and–while it is mortally sinful and incurs automatic excommunication reserved to the Holy See–we are not authorized to use lethal force to prevent it from happening (any more than Peter was authorized to use force to keep Jesus from going to the Cross).

This is not to say that the pastors of churches in areas subject to Muslim violence should not take action to prevent desecration of the Eucharist in case of possible attack by fanatics. If I were a pastor in such a situation, I would ensure that the Eucharist was not kept in the church or other locations where it would be in danger of desecration. This might mean reserving it in a hidden location or not reserving it at all and, for example, consuming all of the Eucharist that was reserved previously.

Chapel Veils Redux

I’ve blogged a few times before about the subject of head coverings and whether women are still required to wear them under current canon or liturgical law.

The reason that this keeps coming up is that there are people out there who are spreading the erroneous idea that it is still mandatory for women to do this. Some are even sellers of chapel veils who are self-interestedly misrepresenting the law.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like the custom of women wearing headcoverings in the liturgy. But I’m adamantly opposed to misrepresenting the law and people fostering scruples or "more Catholic than thou" attitudes or laying a greater burden on people than the Church does.

When I’ve blogged about this subject, I’ve been confronted with counter-arguments that, to put it delicately, have no canonical validity, and I’ve refrained from responding in some cases.

BUT IT’S NICE TO SEE COMPETENT CANON LAW FOLKS MAKING THE SAME POINT.

Pope Benedict Clarifies

On Sunday Pope Benedict said:

At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims.

These in fact were a quotation from a Medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.

Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect [SOURCE].

I’ve highlighted a few phrases from this because of their significance for recent discussions taking place here on the blog.

The first one ("I am deeply sorry for the reactions") does not carry the meaning that what the pope said in his University of Regensburg speech was wrong. This is what one would expect. The pope does not believe that what he said was wrong–and it wasn’t. He therefore focuses his expression of sorrow on the real problem–the reactions that were touched off in the wake of the speech.

This statement is open to several constructions, one of which is the kind of terse feauxpology that we often encounter in our own lives (i.e., the one with the meaning "I’m sorry you flew off the handle, but I don’t think I did anything wrong at all; the fault is thus really all yours"). I don’t think that’s what the pope’s doing here; I think it’s more subtle than that, but the English translation I have access to uses a phrasing that is open to that interpretation. I don’t want to press the English phrasing, though, because expressions of regret are extraordinarily difficult to precisely port from one language to another without some loss or addition of meaning and force. So I’ll have to wait until I find out more about this aspect of the original language text.

The second highlighted statement ("which do not in any way express my own thoughts") rules out an interpretation that seems to be common in the combox from Friday–the idea that in presenting the words of Manuel II Paleologous the pope was endorsing them and speaking them in a kind of macho swordthrust of unpleasant truth for Islam.

While Benedict XVI is quite capable of speaking unpleasant truths, the idea that he was endorsing as his own the un-nuanced remark by Manuel II was–for anyone who is familiar with the details of the pope’s thought–clearly false. The second highlighted statement confirms this. B16 was not endorsing the ideas of Manuel II.

The third highlighted statement ("the true meaning of my words") indicates that the pope perceives the problem as one of incomprehension. It is not that he spoke the unplesant truth about Islam and Muslims got offended. It is that Muslims failed to grasp–for whatever reason, including the way that his words were reported to them through their own hate-inciting, government-controlled press–"the true meaning of [his] words."

This too distances one from the macho swordthrust of truth to Islam interpretation.

Finally, the fourth highlighted phrase ("in its totality") also points us away from that interpretation. The pope here indicates that the point of the speech was to issue "an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect." That is inconsistent with the macho swordthrust interpretation, and the fact that the pope says the speech was an invitation to a dialogue "with great mutual respect" in its totality means–if we are to take the pope at his word–that he wasn’t even trying to get in a little swordthrust on the side.

The pope thus tells us that he was trying to summon people to a profoundly mutually respectful dialogue but that the true meaning of his words was misunderstood and he does not endorse as his own the sentiments of Manuel II and that he is deeply sorry for the reactions that this passage in his speech led to.

The pope also alludes to the statement by the new Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, which he says explains the "true meaning" of what he said. It is thus worthwhile to look at that statement.

In the statement Cardinal Bertone explains concerning the opinion of Manuel II that "the Holy Father did not mean, nor does he
mean, to make that opinion his own in any way." So yet another piece of evidence against the macho swordthrust interpretation.

He further says that "The position of the Pope concerning Islam is unequivocally that expressed by the conciliar document Nostra Aetate: ‘The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God.’"

He quotes the popes own words to a Muslim audience that "We must seek paths of reconciliation and learn to live with respect for each other’s identity."

And on behalf of the pope he conveys the following:

The Holy Father thus sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address
could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful, and
should have been interpreted in a manner that in no way corresponds to his
intentions. . . .

In reiterating his respect and esteem for those who profess Islam, he hopes
they will be helped to understand the correct meaning of his words so that,
quickly surmounting this present uneasy moment. . . .

From the original speech itself and from the way the Vatican has handled this matter, it is clear that the present situation was unexpected and that the Holy Father did not foresee this reaction to his speech. If he did then he would not be expressing regret that passages in the speech could sound offensive. Instead, he would be saying, "Y’all are just proving my point, folks! You have a violent, barbaric religion that is hate-filled, and you only prove that by the violent histrionics that you go through when someone points this out."

A lot of people might wish that the Holy Father had said this in his response, but he did not, and those who know the thought of the Holy Father on these matters are aware that he never would.

Indeed, as a man of his generation the Holy Father has an enormous concern for the promotion and preservation of peace and the avoidance of violence. It was one of the reasons that he chose the name "Benedict," in part after Benedict XV, a man of peace at a time of great conflict. He wishes his own reign to be in the service of promoting peace, and in particular he has a great concern to de-couple religion and violence.

Thus, in his message for the recent Assissi anniversary–which Cardinal Bertone quotes in the official statement linked above, Benedict himself said the following:

[D]emonstrations of violence cannot be attributed to religion as such but to the cultural limitations with which it is lived and develops in time. … In fact, attestations of the close bond that exists between the relationship with God and the ethics of love are recorded in all great religious traditions.

This mode of language is not easy to completely understand, given the obvious commands to kill that are found in various religious texts, including the Qur’an and the Old Testament, but it is clear that–however the pope might address that issue–he certainly wishes to see religion and violence de-coupled in the minds of everyone so that religion no longer serves as a pretext for violence.

It is thus completely alien to the thought of the Holy Father–and anyone who knows his thought well knows this–to say things like "Islam is irredeemably violent and cannot be changed. It is intrinsically violent and, as long as it exists, it will always be."

Indeed, we had a demonstration of this just last year after the Schulerkreis when statements were made that the pope had privately said just this kind of thing. This was not only strongly denied, but what the pope did say was elaborated to explain that he felt Islam faces a more difficult time than some religions in overcoming its violent past but that this was still possible.

What we are witnessing here, therefore, is Pope Benedict’s NIGHTMARE SCENARIO.

He sees himself as a man of peace (which he is) who wishes to play a role in promoting peace in the world and overcoming the tendency to use religion as a pretext for violence.

That his own words–however true in their original context and understanding–could become the pretext for violence, with churches being attacked and people being killed, can only be a source of intense anguish for the Holy Father.

He certainly would be willing to be martyred himself–but to be the accidental cause of martyrdom for others would for him be an unimaginable horror. The fact that some of the churches that have been attacked haven’t even been Catholic ones–thus having his words serve as the pretext for violence against Christians who aren’t even Catholic–adds insult to injury.

And I can only begin to imagine the pain he feels at the assassination of Sr. Leonella Sgorbati (left), the nun in Somalia who was likely killed as retribution for what the pope said.

Statements like "We will blow up all of Gaza’s churches" or threats to "kill all Christians in Iraq if the Pope does not apologize in three days in front of the whole world to Mohammed" are certainly intensely painful for the Holy Father and it is unimaginable for those who know his thought to suggest that he intended to bring about this situation.

He is strong and resolute in his defense of the truth and willing to say unpleasant things when needed, but to deliberately provoke this situation is simply not Benedict’s way of doing things. His way is the one described above, of promoting a dialogue that seeks to de-couple religion and violence.

This is an intense time of suffering for him and for all those Christians who are at risk of Muslim violence.

Let us therefore unite ourselves with the Holy Father in prayer for peace.

“Anyone Who Describes Islam As A Religion As Intolerant Encourages Violence”

Well, the adherents of the religion of peace are at it again.

When Pope Benedict quoted the words of a man 600 years ago that reflect unflatteringly on Islam, what does the Muslim community do?

It does what you see to the left.

Not all of it, of course. Not all Muslims are violent fanatics. But the Muslim community contains far too many such individuals and–fed on a constant diet of hate and conspiracy theories by their corrupt political leaders who want to direct the anger of the masses away from their own regimes–many Muslims are far too willing to throw a public temper tantrum at the slightest pretext.

Basically, Islamic culture is infected with an ethos of rage and hatred, and it needs to grow up and stop being so thin-skinned.

Consider, for example, the irony of the statement I used as the headline for this blog post. It comes from a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman named Tasnim Aslam.

Just what are we to make of this statement? If it were talking about any religion other than Islam, it might possibly bear the meaning that one who portrays the religion as intolerant thereby encourages violence against members of that religion (e.g., fostering anti-Jewish sentiment could stir up violence against Jewish people), but here that reading is scarcely plausible.

It reads instead like a veiled threat: Muslims–or certian Muslims–will commit violence against those who describe them as intolerant.

Which actually appears to be true, but it’s an ironic statement nevertheless: "You wrongly accuse our religion of being intolerant and you may end up dead."

Of course, there is a distinction between the religion itself and the people who practice it, and the pope is fully aware of that. He also didn’t say that Islam itself is intolerant.

Which brings us to the real tragedy of this situation.

The pope was making a speech to a German university on the subject of faith and its relationship to reason, and he took a detour in the speech to touch on one of his pet subjects–that religion must not be used as a basis for violence.

So in the process of taking a detour to say something meant to help break the link between religion and violence, he happened to quote a particularly inflammatory line from 600 years ago that could and has stirred up the potential for religious violence.

And the line isn’t even necessary to his speech! He could have made all the same points without the inflammatory line–and even without bringing Islam into the discussion.

This didn’t have to have happened, and it is hard not to see it as the first (or second) major gaffe of Benedict’s pontificate (the other one being what happened when he visited Auschwitz).

How serious a gaffe is it?

It could get him killed.

Either when he goes to Turkey or when a fanatical Muslim pulls a gun on him in Rome. All it takes is one, after all, and the Muslim political leaders are as likely to use this as a pretext to redirect their populations’ anger as they were when they whipped the Muslim community into a frenzy over the Danish cartoons.

I suggest we all pray about this.

Hard.

MORE HERE.

AND HERE.

Ziusudra. . . . Big Deal.

A reader writes:

What should I say to someone who says that Genesis
chapters 6 through 9 regarding Noah and the flood is
based on the 2nd millenium B.C. Babylonian story of
Utnapishtim told in the Gilgamesh epic, which in turn
was based on the 3rd millenium B.C. Sumerian story of
Ziusudra?

Don’t forget Atrahasis and Deucalion and Xisuthrus!

They were ancient mariners who survived floods because of superhuman warnings, too!

The fact is that there were just a lot of flood stories in the ancient world–and not just in the Middle East and Mediterranean region.

These stories are reflecting a primordial flood event (or events), and the stories ammount to a whole genre in the ancient world.

It’s clear when reading the early chapters of Genesis, if you know the legends of the surrounding pagan peoples, that what is happening is that the author is correcting popular stories of the day from pagan stories by offering the real (monotheistic) account of what happened and offering an anti-pagan apologetic in the process.

"It wasn’t the water god Ea who warned the flood survivor, it was the God of everything–Yahweh–who did so!"

And since everything asserted by the Holy Spirit is true, everything that is asserted in the story of Noah is true. The Genesis account offers a true account of everything it asserts.

The question of what in the story is an assertion is not always easy to determine, for the ancients’ modes of speech and writing are not the same as our modes. As Pius XII pointed out in Divino Afflante Spiritu,

What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of our own time. For what they wished to express is not to be determined by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context; the interpreter must, as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history, archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of writing, so to speak, the authors of that ancient period would be likely to use, and in fact did use.

For the ancient peoples of the East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech which we use today; but rather those used by the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East [Divino Afflante Spiritu 35-36].

In fact, be sure to read all of sections 35-39 of the encyclical.

Much of the early chapters of Genesis employs forms that are quite different than those in use today, and the Church has acknowledge that the accounts in Genesis of the creation and fall of man in particular contain symbolic elements (CCC 337 and 390), and the same is presumably true of how it would have us read the other material of the primordial history part of Genesis–as expressing the actual truth but in a way that incorporates significant non-literal elements.

That means that we should expect the flood narrative to express the truth in a way that contains significant non-literal components.

What might those be?

Well, as Pius XII pointed out, the ancient writers used the modes of speech and writing that were common in their own day. To figure them out, you have to conduct "a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East," and the fact that there was a flood story genre at the time suggests that we would expect elements that were standard to that genre to appear in the Genesis account of the flood. They were standard parts of the flood story genre and would have been expected by the audience, the same way we expect the sheriff of a western to have a gunfight with the villain. The ancient audience was thus in a position (a better position than we are in) to recognize what elements are likely the author’s way of telling the story because it is required by the genre.

And this doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen that way in history. Sheriffs really did have gun battles with criminals in the Old West, and ancient flood survivors really would have reacted to their experience in a particular way.

If the answer is "Opening a window, sending out a bird to see if the waters have receded, and offering sacrifices in thanksgiving" then the question is likely to be "What would an ancient flood survivor do, Alex?"

I am particularly unimpressed by some of the parallels mentioned here. The idea that the storm phase of the flood lasted for a certain number of days and nights in several epics can be directly attributed to the role of reckoning time in terms of days and nights in ancient Near Eastern culture. The fact that the survivor offers sacrifice is similarly unremarkable since that’s what survivors of calamities did. As is the idea that the aroma of the sacrifices were smelled by and pleased the divinity, since roasting meat smells good and the smell can be presumed to go up to heaven, like smoke.

These are the kind of things one would expect in any ancient flood narrative, so if the author of Genesis included them in his account of the event then that is nothing more or less than what one would expect. Their appearance is thus unremarkable.

If the author of Genesis knew that the ancient flood survivor was warned by the true God–not a false one–and told the story according to the conventions of the day, based on the culture of the day, then Big Deal.

We’re still left with the question of which of these elements are meant to be taken as factual assertions compared to which are meant as non-literal elements shaped by other instances of the genre, but it’s no surprise to find these elements here.

If I had to respond to the claim that the Genesis flood narrative is shaped in some way by other ancient flood narratives then my response would be, "So what?"

What it asserts is still true–guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. The question is what the actual assertions are versus what are non-literal elements required or permitted by the narrative conventions of the day.

No matter what the answer to the latter question is, the truth of Scripture is in no way threatned by the discovery of ancient texts that merely add more knowledge to our understanding of how these ancient genres worked.

BTW, did you catch the Toho Studios flick where Ziusudra battled Gamera and Godzilla? That was wicked awesome.

More On Adding Wine To The Precious Blood

Recently I wrote about a priest pouring wine into a chalice of the Precious Blood and alluded to the fact that he might add enough that the point was reached where the Real Presence ceases.

Following this, Ed Peters wrote:

And Jimmy, what point is that? We’re not talking about adding water, etc., which at some hard-to-identify point would render what is in the cup no longer "Wine" (yes, you know what I mean), since at no point would this not still have the appearance of "Wine". Little help? Great question and a good start toward it. Thx, edp.

Excellent question!

Obviously, we cannot in this case use the test of when the accidents of wine cease to be present since the accidents do not cease to be present.

That fact might lead one to suppose–and I’m not at all saying that Ed supposes this, those someone might–that one could continue to add wine to the Precious Blood without the Real Presence ceasing at all.

This would not be the historic understanding of the Church.

This can be seen from the document De Defectibus in Celebratione Missae Occurentibus ("On Defects Occurring in the Celebration of Mass"), which is a document that deals with liturgical abuses and used to be printed in the front of every Missal before the reform of the liturgy following the Second Vatican Council.

It so happens that I have just translated this document (and will be putting it online soon, after I polish the translation and have it vetted), but since Ed has raised an excellent question, I’ll share one bit of the draft translation here:

If a fly, or a spider, or something else falls into the chalice before the Consecration, he [the priest] pours out the wine in a decent place, and he puts other [wine] in the chalice, mixes in a little water, and offers it, as above, and the Mass proceeds. If after the Consecration a fly or something of this sort has fallen in, he removes it, and washes it with wine. After the Mass is finished he burns it, and the ashes and the liquid of this kind is poured into the sacrarium [De Defectibus X §5].

The document thus expressly directs priests to wash whatever has fallen into the chalice with wine. This would make no sense if the addition of wine did not cause the Real Presence to cease, since the whole point of washing the thing that fell in the chalice is to cause the Real Presence to cease, so that it can be reverently burned.

The Church–in a document that was part of the Roman Missal for 400 years–thus has understood the addition of wine in sufficient quantity to cause the Real Presence of the Precious Blood to cease.

Which gets us back to Ed’s question: At what point does this happen?

My answer would be that this would happen when, in the opinion of reasonable men, so much wine had been added that what is in the chalice would no longer be judged by the senses to be the same wine that was there before. I’m talking, in this case, about the wine that was in the chalice as a whole, not the taste or color or other properties it has.

It’s difficult to verbalize what I mean since "wine" in this context if functioning as a mass noun rather than a count noun, and we don’t have a good word in English for the particular body of wine that is poured into a chalice, but I can offer a couple of examples that should be illuminative:

1) Suppose that a priest had a chalice with the Precious Blood in it and the accidents of wine in this case were of white wine. But then suppose that (God forbid) he started pouring unconsecrated red wine into the chalice. If he poured in only a drop and then mixed it throughly, it seems to me that a reasonable man would say that he had not substantially changed the accidents that were in the chalice–any more than pouring a drop of water in would substantially alter them. The Real Presence would thus remain.

But if he poured in a large amount of red wine then at some point a reasonable man would say, "That’s not the same wine any more" and at that point the accidents masking the Real Presence would have changed so much that the Real Presence would have ceased.

In this case it would be easy(er) to tell because the color would have changed (and the taste as well), but I think the same thing would hold even if the color and taste and smell don’t change. At some point so much wine is added that it no longer appears to be "the same wine" (meaning the same unit of wine) that was in the chalice.

Thus my second illustration . . .

2) Suppose that the priest had a large vat full of white wine and then put some of this in a chalice and consecrated it. He then (God forbid) took the Precious Blood in the chalice and pours it back into the vat and mixes it thoroughly.

It seems to me that a reasonable man would say that the unit of wine that appeared to be in the chalice is no longer present. It has been mixed into the vat of wine and has no independent status any longer. Consequently that unit of wine is no longer present, and neither is the Real Presence.

Now, at what precise point the Real Presence would cease is not something that can be determined, any more than the precise point that so much water is added that it ceases can be determined. We can say, in general terms, that this happens when so much water has been added that it would no longer appears to be wine, but we can’t specify a percentage of change where this happens. It’s a fuzzy boundary, like the boundary between red and orange on a color spectrum.

In the same way we can’t specify precisely when too much wine has been added to the Precious Blood, but in principle it seems to me that it would be the point where the unit of wine that appeared to be in the chalice is so substantially altered that it no longer appears to be the same unit. It has been mixed into another unit of wine and no longer has independent status.

Incidentally, we know by faith that these accidents are divisible in the sense that you can drink part of it and leave enough of the apparent unit of wine in the chalice that the Real Presence stays. The apparent unit of wine can be diminished through drinking without losing the Real Presence as soon as the first sip is taken, and the sip also retains the Real Presence. Though at some point, so much can be removed that the Real Presence does cease–as would happen if there were only an undrinkably thin film of wine molecules (or apparent wine molecules) that refuses to form a drop were left in the chalice.

But it seems to me that the accidents masking the Precious Blood can be altered in two ways that cause the Real Presence to cease: (1) they can alter in quality such that it no longer seems to be wine at all or (2) they can alter in quantity such that they no longer appear to be the same unit of wine that was consecrated.

At least that’s the best I can make out of the Church’s historic understanding that the addition of wine to the Precious Blood can cause the Real Presence to cease.

PRE-PUBLICATION UPDATE: After writing the above, I decided to check the Summa Theologia to see what Aquinas said, and he says the same thing. He even uses some of the same examples, like adding red wine to white, and speaks in terms of the wine having to be not just qualitatively but "numerically" the same wine that was consecrated, which is what I was getting at by talking about it being the same "unit" of wine that was consecrated.

Forgotten & Forgiven Mortal Sins

A reader writes:

I am aware that if one goes to confession and supplies the requisite contrition, then all sins which the person committed are absolved–provided that the person does not intentionally conceal any mortal sins.

Correct.

Also, I have been told by several priests that this means that if one remembers a mortal sin after confession, they should know that they are forgiven for it so long as they mention it the next time they go to confession.

Correct, though this should be formulated a little differently. You are forgiven if you meant to confess all your mortal sins and just forgot one. Having been forgiven of the one you forgot, you are still obligated to confess it the next time you go to confession. It’s not that your forgiveness of it is conditional on you adopting the intention to confess it next time. That sin has already been forgiven. It’s that you incur a new sin if you refuse to adopt the intention of confessing it.

Now I remember that you did a similar blog topic about this fairly recently, but my question is one that I don’t think you dealt with in that blog.

My question is after one has remembered the mortal sin, how soon is one required to seek out confession? For example, if I go to confession and mention everything I can bring to mind, but immediately afterward remember a mortal sin, must I go to confession to mention the mortal sin as soon as possible? Or could I just wait 2 weeks, a month, etc., until I feel like going to confession? And can I receive communion in the meanwhile?

Since you are not in a state of mortal sin, you can receive Communion prior to your next confession.

As to how long you can wait before the next confession, the fact that you have an already-forgiven-but-not-yet-confessed sin does not create an obligation to go at any particular time, though one might suggest that one should go before one is likely to forget the mortal sin that needs to be mentioned.

Consequently, church law does not require one to go within any particular time frame, other than the obligation to confess one’s mortal sins at least once a year. It would be arguable whether this law applies to forgiven-but-unconfessed sins or not. The purpose is clearly to deal with mortal sins that haven’t been forgiven, so in the absence of clarification that it applies to those that have as well, it would seem that liberty would be presumed on the grounds of it being doubtful whether the law applies to this case (canon 14).

Now, there is language in some Church documents about going to confession "as soon as possible," but this is connected with a different situation, which is described in canon 916:

A person who is conscious of grave sin is
not to celebrate Mass or receive the body of the Lord without previous
sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no
opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation
to make an act of perfect contrition which includes the resolution of
confessing as soon as possible.

What this canon is talking about is a person who has not been to confession and who can’t go, not a person who has been and just forgot a sin. That person needs to make an act of perfect contrition in order to get back into a state of grace and thus able to take Communion, and making an act of perfect contrition includes the will to go to confession when it is possible (and reasonable) to do so.

The Code formulates this in terms of going "as soon as possible," but what it means by this is as soon as it is possible and reasonable for a person to go. The Church does not expect you to do unreasonable things just to be able to go a sooner. (E.g., driving recklessly in order to get to the church a little faster or demanding that the priest get out of bed to hear your confession.) There is an unstated reasonableness condition in this canon.

This may be where you got the idea about needing to go "as soon as possible," but it does not apply to your case. It deals with those who have an unforgiven sin and can’t go to confession before Communion, not those who went to confession and got forgiven but forgot to mention something.

Your sins already have been remitted by the sacrament of confession. You just forgot something.

This kind of situation happens all the time, and if there were a requirement to go to confession within a particular timeframe, it would be on the books.

Flattening The Real Presence

Blogger Catholic Mom writes:

I’ve been engaging in an online discussion with some folks and the gist of the discussion is they believe Christ is as present when 2 or 3 are gathered in His name or in the faces of the poor as He is in the Eucharist. Therefore, all this fuss about tabernacles and reverence is irrelevant. As long as we are out there ministering to our fellow man we are meeting Christ just as much as we would in the Eucharist.

I can explain that the Eucharist is the True Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. I am not sure how to describe the presence of Christ we find in the gathering of Christians or when we minister to the poor. I know it is distinct from the Eucharist. How would you verbalize this difference?

It is somewhat difficult to answer this question because in telling us that he is present wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he didn’t give us a lot of detail about what this manner of presence entails. The same is true for the "if you did it for the least of my brethren, you did it for me" passage.

It is clear that Jesus is present in these places in that his divinity is omnipresent, but he seems to mean more than that.

Yet it is also clear that he is not present there in the same way that he is in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is Jesus–just disguised. But it is clear that a poor person to whom we are ministering is not Jesus himself. It would not be appropriate to react to the poor person exactly the way we would react to Jesus himself. For example, it would not be appropriate to offer the poor person the worship of latreia, which is due only to God.

Common sense thus tells you that–whatever Jesus’ mode of presence is in such cases–it is less than the full reality of that presence which is found in the Eucharist. Therefore, one does an injustice to the Eucharist–and to Jesus himself–if one attempts to flatten the uniqueness of the Eucharistic presence and reduce it to the other modes of his presence which Scripture and theology speak of.

To do so speaks of either gross ignorance of the faith or an agenda of some sort that is so strong it overrides what is patently obvious.

If I were to attempt to unpack what Jesus meant in referring to these alternate and lesser modes of presence, the best I could probably do would be to say that Jesus is speaking metaphorically when he makes these statements in the gospels. It is important to point out that a metaphor is not the same as a fiction. Metaphors are ways of expressing a truth that is otherwise difficult to convey, or at least to convey with the same vividness that hte metaphor carries.

Consequently, I would say that–while Jesus’ divine nature is present in such instances since it is omnipresent–he is also "present" in the sense that he spiritually guides and works through and helps people gathered in his name. Similarly, since we have a duty toward Jesus to exercise charity toward others, when we show charity or fail to show it to the poor we are fulfilling or failing to fulfill a duty toward Jesus and thus our action has reference to him even though we are outwardly acting toward someone else.

But in these cases Jesus’ Body, Blood, and human Soul are not present, as they are in the Eucharist. Jesus uses the metaphor of his presence in these cases not to signify that he is fully present in them as he is in the Eucharist but that he is guiding and working through and helping people or that our actions toward others have to be viewed in relation to our obligations to him.

There may be more to it than this, for we are not privvy to all of the divine mysteries, and Jesus may be present in more mystical ways that I am not able to articulate, but it is clear that Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist is both unique and supreme and not to be flattened onto a par with other modes of presence.

There is absolutely no difficulty demonstrating that from Church documents, as the following indicate.

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says this:

282. How is Christ present in the Eucharist?

Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist in a unique and incomparable way. He is present in a true, real and substantial way, with his Body and his Blood, with his Soul and his Divinity. In the Eucharist, therefore, there is present in a sacramental way, that is, under the Eucharistic species of bread and wine, Christ whole and entire, God and Man.

While the Catechism itself says:

1373 "Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us," is present in many ways to his Church: in his word, in his Church’s prayer, "where two or three are gathered in my name," in the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, in the sacraments of which he is the author, in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister. But "he is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species."

1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."

One of the most important discussions of this topic is found in Paul VI’s encyclical Mysterium Fidei, which was written precisely to combat erroneous understandings of Christ’s presence. Sections 35-39 of the encyclical are in particular devoted to the topic, and the pope offers an explanation of different ways in which Christ is present in different things and activities, concluding, under the heading "The Highest Kind of Presence":

These various ways in which Christ is present fill the mind with astonishment and offer the Church a mystery for her contemplation. But there is another way in which Christ is present in His Church, a way that surpasses all the others. It is His presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist [38].