October 2006 – Page 6

The Need For Acceptance And Approval

A reader writes:

I am currently involved in a book reading club with some separated brethren. We are reading The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee. Overall it is a good book to help one think about seeing our true worth through God’s eyes. However, the fullness of truth would make the book even better.

The book delves into false beliefs vs. God’s truths. One of the false beliefs discussed is, "I must be approved (accepted) by certain others to feel good about myself. If I’m not approved…. (fear of rejection)." (pg. 305) McGee identifies, "Reconciliation (Col. 1:21-22): I am totally accepted by God." (cf. pg. 305) as the offsetting truth to the false belief of the fear of rejection.

What is the Church’s answer or understanding to the fear of rejection that we as humans face in our daily lives and how do we over come it?

I’m at a bit of a disadvantage since I haven’t read the book and thus don’t know exactly what McGee says about the need for human approval. If he means that the desire for approval by others must not be our ultimate criterion–that approval by God must be–then his thesis is acceptable. On the other hand, he may be diminishing or downplaying the need for approval by other humans in a way that falsifies the truth abou man.

There can be a tendency to this at times in some Protestant circles. I don’t know whether McGee is part of one of these or not, but there are circles in which psychological needs for acceptance and approval by others are dismissed in favor of a "God accepts me, and that’s all I need, I shouldn’t worry about anything else" mentality. This can happen, for example, in circles that are highly suspicious of psychology or the concept of self-esteem (and it must be admitted that there is a lot of junk psychology and even more junk in the self-esteem movement; the trick is not throwing the baby out with the bathwater).

If one needs a Bible verse pointing out that God does not intend for us to draw all of our emotional satisfaction from God alone, I would point to one of the foundational verses about human nature as God designed it:

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gen. 2:18).

This verse is not to be understood as leading to the creation of Eve simply so she could bear children or do housework. The verse reflects the need of the man to be married, to engage in a partnership of life oriented to the good of the spouses as well as the procreation of children. This means that mankind, from its foundation–and the verse in question applies to the situation before the fall, so we can’t chalk this up to original sin–is called to exist in interpersonal communion, and when this fails to happen the situation is "not good."

Jesus made it clear that not everybody is called to marriage in particular (Matt. 19:10-12), but everyone is called to interpersonal communion with others, and that means not only giving emotionally to others but taking emotional satisfaction in human relationships as well. In the case of marriage, spouses are not exclusively givers of love, they are also receivers of love, and if one spouse does not receive love and support from the other then something is wrong with the marriage.

The same applies to other human relationships, whether it is the parent-child relationship (Scripture makes a big point about the duties of parents and children toward each other) and friendships (Scripture also makes a big point about the importance of these).

In all such relationships, we are not meant to be endless wells of charity that never draw upon the relationships for our own needs. That’s just not how God set up human nature. He made us to be social beings, and we don’t exist well if we are deprived of human contact and support.

Indeed, in cases where humans are deprived of all contact with their own kind, they tend not to live for very long and, if deprived of contact from a very young age, they suffer severe developmental and emotional problems.

While we cannot allow ourselves to become slaves to the need for approval and acceptance by others so that we forget our overarching duty to God, we do need these things from others, and the lack of them hurts us. It is natural to fear what hurts us, and so we have a natural fear of rejection.

Sometimes we must face this fear and just endure it, particularly when we will be rejected for honoring our duties to God, and in those circumstances we must just trust God to give us the support we need.

However when we are not in such a situation, it is natural and appropriate to do what we can to mitigate and avoid rejection. This effort can include things like going out and making new friends, engaging in social activities, taking the steps necessary to build families, improving our social skills, doing good things that others will appreciate, recognizing when our anxieties about our relationships are hurting us and making things worse, learning to not stress so much, learning to make peace with others, etc.

There is no single solution here–no equivalent to "Just trust God and don’t worry about what others think"–because God designed human society to be a complex reality that, particularly after the introduction of sin, involves finding and implementing what can be complex solutions to the problems we face.

That complexity is part of us–part of the human condition–and by wrestling with it and building good lives for ourselves we thereby glorify God. It’s what he meant us to do, and it’s what he gives us gifts of nature and grace to allow us to pursue.

By the way, though the reader asked for "the Church’s answer or understanding to the fear of rejection," I would point out that what I have written above is not a perspective unique to Catholics. Many Protestants and other Christians would share it as well, because they, too, recognize the biblical principles and the principles of human nature that are involved.

Blog Day Off

Need a day off. See y’all tomorrow.

Have fun stormin’ the castle!

(Ooo. There’s an idea. How about a favorite movie quotes combox? Just be sure to keep it clean.)

Anointing In Extremis

A reader writes:

I have a question that arose in a discussion of Brideshead Revisited,
but I suppose the answer has practical application today too. You’re
probably familiar with the fictional scene, but to summarise, in BR, the
dying Lord Marchmain has been persisting in manifest grave sin for quite
a long time, and when lucid, refuses the sacrament of anointing of the
sick. Soon, when he is almost gone and unable to protest, members of his
family bring in the priest again, Lord Marchmain is anointed and makes
the sign of the Cross.

Lord Marchmain’s family and the priest seem to be violating Canon Law as
currently set out (although obviously the book is set in the 1930s), as

Can. 1006 This sacrament is to be conferred on the sick who at least
implicitly requested it when they were in control of their faculties.

Can. 1007 The anointing of the sick is not to be conferred upon those
who persevere obstinately in manifest grave sin.

Has canon law / Catholic practice changed, or are they violating
something? What ought to be the position of Catholics today in a
similar situation with a lapsed, dying relative?

In the story (and I’m going from my memories of the DVDs, here), Lord Marchmain was living in an illicit sexual relationship with a woman after he left his wife. When near death, he came home and his family urged him to receive the sacrament of extreme unction. At the time, he protested, saying that he was not in extremis (basically, at the point of death itself). This then became a point of argument in the family: Was he rejecting the sacrament or was he rejecting it now, with the expectation that he would receive it when actually at the point of death? When he reached that point and was unable to speak, the family had the sacrament conferred on him, and he made the sign of the cross, signaling that he accepted what was done for him.

Now let’s deal with the canonical aspects of the situation.

Let’s deal with the situation in the 1930s first, because canon law has changed.At the time the story is set, the 1917 Code of Canon Law as in effect, and according to that Code:

Canon 942
This sacrament is not to be conferred on those who are impenitent,
persevering contumaciously in manifest mortal sin; if there is doubt
about this, it should be conferred under condition.

Canon 943
Nevertheless, [the sacrament] should be absolutely conferred on those
who, when they were in possession of their faculties, had at least
implicitly asked [for it] or who seemed to ask [for it], even if they
later lost their senses or the use of reason.

BUY
THE OLD CODE (IN ENGLISH) HERE.

It seems to me that the fact pattern in the story (as I remember it) allows for Lord Marchmain to have received the sacrament under the 1917 Code. It was not clear at the time of his reception that Lord Marchmain was impenitent regarding his illicit sexual relationship. The relationship had clearly ended (he wasn’t engaging in illicit sexual activity from his deathbed), and his objection to receiving the sacrament on the grounds that he wasn’t in extremis could be construed as a sign that he wished to receive the sacrament when he was at the point of death. That would be taken as an indicator of a desire to get right with God before dying and thus of not being impenitent. At least there was doubt about this, which would have allowed the sacrament to be conferred conditionally under canon 942.

But 942 isn’t the whole story, because there was still 943. According to this canon, even if there is doubt about whether the person is penitent (note that it begins "Nevertheless," presumably setting aside what the preceding canon had just said in the case it is about to examine), the sacrament is to be administered unconditionally if the person requested it. The request for the sacrament thus seems to be taken of itself as at least enough of a token of penitence that it can be administered absolutely, even in cases of doubtful penitence.

Lord Marchmain’s objection to receiving the sacrament when he wasn’t in extremis could reasonably be taken as an implicit request for the sacrament, triggering 943 and allowing the sacrament to be administered absolutely.

Either way, under 942 or 943, it seems to me that his reception of it was licit, and the fact that he made the sign of the cross signalled that those around him had guessed right: At least by the point of his death, he did want to receive it and the graces it offers, allowing us to reasonably infer the salvation of his soul, notwithstanding his prior illicit sexual relationship.

Now, let’s flash forward to today. How would the law handle the same situation under the 1983 Code of Canon Law that is presently in force?

It seems to me that it would handle it in basically the same way. Given the right of the faithful to receive the sacraments unless specifically prohibited by law (Can. 843), and the requirement to subject laws that restrict the exercise of rights to a strict interpretation (Can. 18), there is a duty to read canons 1006 and 1007 (which the reader quoted) in a strict fashion, meaning: In cases of doubt, you err on the side of the faithful’s ability to receive the sacrament.

It is reasonably arguable that Lord Marchmain implicitly requested the sacrament, and as long as this is reasonably arguable then canon 1006 would allow him to receive it.

Canon 1007 would not block him from receiving it because it was at least reasonably arguable that he had repented of his illicit sexual relationship sufficiently that he did not "persevere obstinately in manifest grave sin." Once again, as long as it’s arguable, you have to read the law in favor of administering the sacrament.

So while this is an extreme case–which is what Evelyn Waugh meant it to be as part of his exploration of the human condition in Brideshead–it seems to me that both under former and current law it would be licit to administer the sacrament to him.

Fortunately for the reader, Waugh also included him making the sign of the cross, telling us that giving him the sacrament was the right thing to do and allowing us to–at least in terms of the story–infer his salvation.

Regarding situations in which a person has not made an in extremis statement like Lord Marchmain’s, it should be pointed out that it is fairly easy to satisfy the requirement for making an implicit request. On this point the most informative official discussion is found in the document "Pastoral Care of the Sick: Anointing and Viaticum" (found in The Rites, vol. 1), which contains the official texts for the celebration of the sacrament. According to its introduction,

14. The sacrament of anointing is to be conferred on sick people who, although they have lost consciousness or the use of reason, would, as Christian believers, have at least implicitly asked for it when they were in control of their faculties.

The way I read that (notice it says "would" not "did"), for practical purposes (and given the requirement to err on the side of administering the sacrament), if you’ve got a person who is about to die and can’t speak for himself (or who is otherwise gravely ill and can’t speak for himself) then the fact that the person was a Catholic and maintained some kind of Catholic identity (even if he didn’t practice his faith regularly) can of itself be taken as evidence that the person would want the sacrament in these circumstances unless the person specifically indicated otherwise. Thus in the case of most dying relatives, even if they weren’t active in their Catholicism, their desire is to be presumed unless they said that they don’t want the sacrament on their deathbed.

In other words, there doesn’t have to be a distinct, overt action whereby a person requests or hints that he wants the sacrament. If he’s a Catholic then, since this is what Catholics are supposed to have done for them, you presume it’s what he wanted unless you know for a fact otherwise. The mere maintenance of some form of Catholic identity is to be taken as an implicit request for what Catholics should have done for them unless he said he didn’t want it.

BTW, on a related note, I’m looking forward to going to Rome next year as part of Catholic Answers’ 2007 pilgrimage/cruise. I hope to send back photos of all the sacred monkeys in the Vatican.

Limbo In Limbo?

I’ve gotten a number of requests for comment on news stories that have been circulating recently regarding the possibility that the Church may repudiate the idea of limbo. As usual, the press has done its usual substellar job of reporting matters of religion, so here goes.

First, just in case there might be any doubt on this point, the limbo we’re talking about here is the limbo of the infants (Latin, limbus infantium or limbus purerorum), not the limbu of the fathers (limbus patrum). The latter is a different concept (which, incidentally, is not to be too hastily identified with purgatory).

The idea of the limbo of the infants arose out of reflections on (1) the New Testament’s clear teaching on the necessity of baptism for salvation and (2) the fact that many seemingly innocent people (babies, those who are severely and congenitally retarded, etc.) die without baptism and (3) the mercy and justice of God.

An early and influential attempt to address the question of what happens to children dying without baptism was formulated by St. Augustine, who held that–since baptism is necessary for salvation–children dying without it must be excluded from heaven. They thus do not receive the beatific vision of God. Further, since there are only two ultimate destinations for humans–heaven and hell–this meant that such children must end up in hell. However, because they do not have personal acts of sin, they would experience only the mildest of torments–those due to original sin only.

Later theologians rejected part of Augustine’s solution–namely, the part about the children suffering. It came to be held that exclusion from the beatific vision is what dying in original sin causes to happen, but that the positive suffering that only occurs if one has committed actual, personal sin. You won’t suffer in the afterlife in less you personally sinned, in other words. You’ll only be deprived of the supernatural happiness of being with God.

Further theological reflection noticed another possibility: If someone is neither in torment nor in supernatural beatitude then it is possible for them to experience a non-supernatural or natural beatitude. In other words, they could be happy–indeed, very, very happy–but without having the specific happiness of being able to see God as he is. (Kinda like we on earth can be very, very happy without having the beatific vision in this life.)

Theologians thus came to speculate that babies dying without baptism could experience a natural happiness.
The resulting picture would be a rather odd one–technically, the children would be in hell (excluded from the beatific vision) but they would have potentially tremendous happiness, just not the supernatural happiness of union with God. This idea would be very comforting to parents, though from what I can
tell this point always remained private theological speculation. I
haven’t been able to find any indication of it in magisterial texts.

In the fullness of time, the term "limbo" came to be associated with the resulting state. The term "limbo" is derived from a word meaning hem or fringe or border, and the idea that the infants in question would be in hell, but only on its hem or fringe or border–not where the real suffering goes on.

Various aspects of this found their way into magisterial texts, though I am unaware of any that has the full-orbed view of limbo-as-place-of-great-natural-happiness version. Generally there is a more reserved presentation that merely stresses the necessity of baptism for salvation, even for infants, but that such infants will not suffer on account of their lack of personal sins if they die without it.

A recent example of this kind of presentation may be found in Pius XII’s Address to Italian Midwives, where he stated:

If what We have said up to now concerns the protection and care of natural life, much more so must it concern the supernatural life, which the newly born receives with Baptism. In the present economy there is no other way to communicate that life to the child who has not attained the use of reason. Above all, the state of grace is absolutely necessary at the moment of death. Without it salvation and supernatural happiness—the beatific vision of God—are impossible. An act of love is sufficient for the adult to obtain sanctifying grace and to supply the lack of baptism; to the still unborn or newly born this way is not open. . . . so it is easy to understand the great importance of providing for the baptism of the child deprived of complete reason who finds himself in grave danger or at death’s threshold.

Here the pontiff affirms that a child cannot make the kind of personal act of charity needed to obtain sanctifying grace apart from baptism and thus, according to the clear implication of the text, such children cannot experience the beatific vision. The pontiff does not go into the fact that such children will not suffer (other documents do that) or affirm the idea of their natural happiness, but he does make it clear that such children will not be saved (in the proper sense of the term of receiving the beatific vision).

That was Church teaching (doctrine). It was not, however, Church dogma, and for some time (centuries, actually), theologians had been entertaining possible ways by which salvation could be achieved for such infants. These often centered on the idea that such children might experience a form of baptism of blood or baptism of desire.

Another time we can go into the mechanics of how these theories work, but as the Church’s understanding of baptism of desire progressed in the 19th and 20th centuries, related to a greater emphasis on the universality of God’s salvific will, the idea of limbo began to fall out of favor. This was clearly happening by the mid-20th century, and it may even be why Pius XII didn’t go further than he did in articulating limbo in his address to the midwives.

In the 1960s the Second Vatican Council, using typically oblique language, seemed to affirm that God offers all individuals the possibility of salvation, even if it is in a mysterious way we cannot perceive or understand (Gaudium et Spes 22). One could argue that the Council was talking about people who attain the use of reason, but if it wasn’t–if it really meant that God gives a universal offer of salvation–then it would apply to infants dying without baptism as well.

The Council didn’t address this question explicitly, but in 1992 the Catechism of the Catholic Church did:

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

This represents a clear shift in doctrine. In Pius XII’s day and before, private speculation had been permitted that there might be a way of salvation for such children, but official teaching was that this was not the case, as documented above. (The situation then was similar to the situation with respect to Feeneyites now: Official teaching is that it is possible for non-Catholics to be saved, but the Church still allows private speculation that this is not the case.) With the Catechism, we have a clear shift in what the magisterial texts are saying, so that now–instead of denying the possibility of salvation without baptism for such children–they are affirming at least the hope of it.

This doesn’t mean that limbo doesn’t exist, but it does mean that the Church is now actively pointing toward an alternative to limbo.

It also means that the Church’s official teaching has already changed on this point, so if you are encountering a press story that seems to imply that the Church still actively proclaims limbo and is considering whether to shift its position on limbo, the article is misleading. It has already shifted its position, as the above documents show.

That’s what folks in the business call "doctrinal development," and since it does not contradict prior infallible definitions (the Church has never infallibly defined that all children dying without baptism without exception are excluded from the beatific vision) it does not pose a challenge to the integrity of Catholic dogma.

An even more striking departure from prior teaching came in John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (section 99), where he wrote:

I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. . . . The Father of mercies is ready to give
you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord.

This would seem to affirm the salvation of children dying without baptism–or at least those who died by abortion–but there’s something very strange about this passage, because when the official, Latin version came out in Acta Apostolicae Sedes, the passage had been rephrased so that it read:

I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. . . . The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can with sure hope entrust your child.

It would appear that the degree of departure from prior teaching in the original text was called to the attention of the pontiff, who then had the official Latin version altered. One would expect that the other versions of the text would be corrected in light of the Latin one and the prior text regarded as inauthentic, but I have seen individuals argue (I can’t see on what basis) that both texts enjoy official status.

However that may be, both do continue to circulate, and in fact both are present on the Vatican’s own web site (here’s the first, here’s the second).

The development of this area of theology led John Paul II in 2004 to ask the International Theological Commission to prepare a document discussing the fate of unbaptized children, with the clear expectation that the document would find a way to more fully articulate recent thought on the subject, without resorting to the concept of limbo. Here’s what he said:

The themes chosen for examination by the Commission during the coming years are of the greatest interest. First of all is the question of the fate of children who die without Baptism. This is not merely an isolated theological problem. A great many other fundamental topics are closely interwoven with it: the universal salvific will of God, the one universal mediation of Jesus Christ, the role of the Church, the universal sacrament of salvation, the theology of the sacraments, the meaning of the doctrine on original sin…. It will be up to you to explore the "nexus" between all these mysteries with a view to offering a theological synthesis that will help to encourage consistent and enlightened pastoral practice [SOURCE].

The International Theological Commission, though run under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is an advisory body, and its documents do not have magisterial standing. What the pope was doing, in essence, was to ask a group of theological advisors to come up with a fuller way to articulate an alternative to limbo.

If the pope was pleased with the document they eventually came up with, he could order it to be published and, though it would not itself have magisterial status, it would serve as a pointer for future discussions of the topic and would likely shape future magisterial presentations of it.

John Paul II died in 2005, though, and His Awesomeness Joseph Ratzinger became His Most Awesomeness B16.

So what impact would that have on this question?

Back in the 1980s (see The Ratzinger Report), Cardinal Ratzinger had already expressed his personal opinion that the idea of limbo should be abandoned. Here’s what he said:

Limbo was never a defined truth of the faith. Personally – and here I am speaking more as a theologian and not as Prefect of the Congregation – I would abandon it since it was only a theological hypothesis. It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for the faith, namely, the importance of baptism. …. One should not hesitate to give up the idea of ‘limbo’ if need be (and it is worth noting that the very theologians who proposed ‘limbo’ also said that parents could spare the child limbo by desiring its baptism and through prayer); but the concern behind it must not be surrendered. Baptism has never been a side issue for the faith; it is not now, nor will it ever be."

So there is little doubt that he would be favorable to the general direction of the document (early versions of which may have been prepared when he was still the head of the International Theological Commission).

But will he order the text published?

Part of me wonders about that, because since becoming pontiff he has had the idea of reconciling the SSPX with the Church as one of his priorities, and it seems to me that this effort could be harmed by the publication of the document, since many radical traditionalists are keen on the idea of limbo.

On the other hand, he may view the matter as of sufficient pastoral weight to go ahead and allow what he perceives as doctrinal development to proceed on this point, regardless of how it will be received in such quarters.

Further, according to John Allen,

A Vatican Information Service news release of Oct. 2 indicated that Pope Benedict has furnished "precise indications" to the commission, urging it "to overcome the traditional orientation" of Limbo [SOURCE].

Unfortunantly, I haven’t been able to find the original text of this news release on the VIS web site.

Last week the International Theological Commission (now headed by Cardinal Levada) had a big meeting (a "plenary session") in Rome in which they talked about the limbo matter, and this set off a lot of speculation in the media that an announcement might be imminent. It was widely thought that the document might be released or that B16 might address the matter in his homily at the Mass he celebrated on Friday for the ITC, but neither happened.

The accounts I’ve come across are mixed regarding whether the document is yet-to-be-drafted or has already been drafted but is now being tweaked. Presumably, they’ve drafted something–at least points for discussion–but the final document is still a ways off.

How far off?

Well, the ITC has discussion themes that it takes up in five-year blocks. The current block runs from 2004-2008 (which is why JP2 asked them to take up this question back in 2004). Presumably, the document will be finished and presented to the pope before 2008–quite possibly in 2007–but we’ll have to wait and see. Even then, there’s a possibility that B16 might not order it to be published, though my best guess at the moment is that he will.

MORE HERE.

AND HERE.

AND HERE.

One final prediction: If the document is published and if it starts to shape future magisterial statements on the subject then there is one provision in the current Code of Canon Law that may get revisited at some point in the future. Here it is:

Can. 868.

§2. An infant of Catholic parents or even of non-Catholic parents is baptized licitly in danger of death even against the will of the parents.

Cardinal Dulles On Dialogue With Muslims

John Allen recently intervewed His Awesomeness Avery Cardinal Dulles on the subject of Islam and, in particular, Christian efforts from the Middle Ages onward to interact with his.

The cardinal displayed his customary perspicacity and frankness, and I thought the extracts of the interview that Allen printed were, though brief, well worth reading. I was particularly struck by this exchange:

Isn’t there a . . . problem, in that some of the Muslims who do show up at dialogue meetings aren’t representative of mainstream Islam?

Yes, that can be a problem. I remember back in 1968, there was a Christian/Muslim meeting at Woodstock that I attended. [Note: From 1966 to 1973, Dulles served as a consultor to the Papal Secretariat for Dialogue with Non-Believers]. One of the Muslims had obviously read a lot of Kant, and the whole thing struck me as a little phony. He had studied in the West, and clearly didn’t represent the Muslim tradition in a normative way. That happens fairly often in these sessions. It’s going to take time for real dialogue to develop — there’s an internal process that has to happen.

To return to Pope Benedict, would it be helpful if he put himself in contact more thoroughly with Islam as a living religion, meeting with representative Muslim leaders?

Certainly, it would be helpful, and it’s definitely worth trying. I’m sure he would love to do that. I believe the thinking around the Vatican these days is that the dialogue with Islam should start with things like ecology, poverty, these sorts of common human problems, before we get to more sensitive theological questions. This is part of Benedict’s emphasis on reason. His approach seems to be, let’s go as far as reason can take us before we get to these other issues.

GET THE STORY.

New Galactica Tonight

Well, the long wait is finally over. Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica begins tonight on Sci-Fi.

Galactica’s at a new time (an hour earlier), so the lineup is as follows (Eastern & Pacific; your timezone may vary):

7:00 Heroes (a show I’ve only just discovered and don’t know much about yet, but it’s supposed to be good from what I hear)

8:00 Dr. Who (the 2nd ep of the 2nd season)

9:00 Galactica (2 hour season premier)

Events at the end of last season found the Colonials of Battlestar Galactica settled on a new homeworld, only to have the situation spoiled by the arrival of their evil robot enemies, the Cylons.

This sets up the beginning of season 3 as a "jumping-on point" for new viewers, so if you haven’t tried the series yet, you might want to.

In the gap between seasons we had the webisodes about the resistance that forms between seasons 2 and 3, all of which are now online. (Minor bad language warning.)

There’s also a recap of the story so far.

And after the end of season 2, I made a number of predictions about what would be coming up on the show.

LET’S SEE HOW WELL I DID.

I just hope that they stick with having backed off the sex, as they have of late.

Holy Water

A reader writes:

A protestant pastor recently asked why holy water is blessed. I did not have a good answer. Why is holy water blessed, and what does this blessing do above and beyond regular water?

Holy water is blessed in order to make it holy. Otherwise, it would just be water.

As to what the blessing does, it consecrates (sets apart) the water for sacred use. It is particularly used in baptism and, upon entering a church, in blessing oneself as a reminder of baptism (that’s why holy water fonts are set at the doors of churches, to remind us of how we entered the Church by baptism). In addition, holy water is used to bless other things and thus it serves as an acted out prayer by which we as God to bless whatever the holy water is being used on.

Holy water–like the other sacramentals–does not function like a sacrament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes:

Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it. "For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is scarcely any proper use of material things which cannot be thus directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God" [CCC 1670].

Like the other sacramentals, holy water thus serves as a means by which we can to something to signify our desire to consecrate ourselves and our circumstances to God, striking a connection with him in response to his grace and asking him to give us of his grace. They are, if you will, a kind of acted out prayer in which we and the Church implore God’s blessings.

The Excommunication Blotter

Ed Peters has periodically noted that it is often private individuals who begin worthwhile initiatives that the Church may eventually take up. For example, the first efforts at codifying canon law were private initiatives, and eventually the Church came out with the first Code of Canon Law (1917).

Now Ed has come up with such an initiative himself. A decade ago, he predicted that excommunications would become more common in the Church, and there certainly have been more public reports of excommunication in recent years.

But there’s a problem: We’re now living in an age of global travel and communications, and unless steps are taken to allow the faithful to know who is and is not subject to excommunication, the rapid travel and instantaneous communicatoin that now exist can thwart the disciplinary force of excommunication.

If there’s an excommunicated person from a distant country who’s taken up residence in your town and become involved in the local Catholic community, how are the faithful supposed to check out whether or not he’s been excommunicated? Figure out what his home diocese was and then call a chancery in a country where you don’t speak the language? Or what if the excommunicated person stays in his home country and sets up a web site that people from your parish are reading? How are you supposed to learn of his excommunication? He won’t want to advertise it on his site, and he may even have technical-sounding arguments for why he’s not excommunicated.

There needs to be a central, Internet-accessible registry of excommunicated persons just like there are such registries for sex offenders.

Ideally, this would be hosted on the Vatican’s web site.

But the Holy See hasn’t started such a registry (yet), so Ed has begun one.

CHECK IT OUT.

And, hey, if someone in the Vatican is reading this, Ed’s onto a good idea here. Y’all start one soon! It would really help clear up a lot of confusion if individuals could simply point to a registry entry to prove which people are excommunicated and thus should be regarded with caution by the faithful.

I Spy With My Sky-High Eye . . .

. . . a bunch of camels walking in the desert!

This picture was taken directly above a bunch of camels walking in the desert in Turkey.

But wait! If it’s taken from a perspective above the camels then why do the silhouettes look like we’re viewing them edge-on? Is this like one of those scenes in 50’s B-movies where ground-level stock footage is wrongly used to simulate what you’d see from an airplane?

Nope.

Look closely.

(CHT to the readers who e-mailed!)

Combox Operations Note

See the image to the left? It’s a composite of two elements of a screencap that I took from a recent comment in the combox.

I selected these two elements to illustrate a problem that’s been cropping up of late.

I don’t insist on people using the same name or handle in the combox all the time. They can uncheck the "Remember personal info?" box and comment anonymously if they want.

I don’t mind this as long as it doesn’t cause problems, but lately there’s been a lot of it, which makes it hard for other commenters to respond if we’ve got multiple anonymous posters in a single combox thread.

The comment I took the screencap of is particularly noteworthy in this regard. Here we have one anonymous commenter commenting on another anonymous commenter, and that’s . . . well, that’s just wrong. It’s also going to make it really hard for other commenters to respond to either of them.

You’ll note that if you leave the personal info fields blank that the results reads "Posted by: | ". In typography, that vertical bar ( | ) is called a pipe character, so we could take to calling such anonymous commenters "Pipe," but that really wouldn’t fix the problem since we might have multiple Anons and Pipes running around the same combox.

Therefore, to really solve the problem, I’m going to make a new, unofficial rule, which is this: If you don’t want a particular comment to appear under your usual name or handle, that’s fine, but at least put something in the "Name:" field that will let people refer to you easily.

If the problem doesn’t settle down then I may have to make this an official rule and start deleting comments that don’t follow it in order to prevent confusion, so fair warning.

I want to be flexible about this and let people post without their usual name or handle, but as the number of comments has been growing of late, the problem of multiple Anons has been growing worse.

So: Thanks for your cooperation, and I hope this helps make the combox experience more enjoyable for everyone.

Also, I want to reiterate Rule 1, which is that folks need to be polite in expressing disagreement. We’ve had a number of distinctly non-polite exchanges of late, and I’ve gotten complaints about it, so be nice or you may find your comment ain’t there no more.

Oh, and one other combox note: You may have observed that of late the totals shown for a particular blog post [y’know, the ones that say (0) or (13) or (549) or whatever] have not been updating properly. This is a technical issue that TypePad has been having, and I’m talking to them about it. The upshot of it for practical purposes is that if you see a suspiciously low number of comments for a particular post–such as (0) when the post has been up for a while–there may well be comments there that aren’t reflected in the total.