2006 – Page 3 – Jimmy Akin

B16’s Book Out Spring 2007

A press release from Doubleday:

DOUBLEDAY ACQUIRES POPE BENEDICT XVI’S

FIRST BOOK AS HOLY FATHER

December 12, 2006, New York, NY—Pope Benedict XVI’s first book as the Holy Father has been acquired by Doubleday, it was announced today by Bill Barry, Vice President and Publisher of the company’s religious publishing division. Entitled JESUS OF NAZARETH: From His Baptism to His Transfiguration, the book, which will be written for the general reader, will be published in Spring 2007. Barry acquired world English, first serial, audio and exclusive Spanish language rights in North America from the Italian publisher Rizzoli, which licensed international rights to the book at the behest of Libreria Editrice Vaticana (LEV), the publishing arm of the Vatican.

“Having previously published works by Popes John XXIII and John Paul II,” said Barry, “we are especially honored by the Holy Father’s confidence in Doubleday in entrusting to us the English language publication of his book. His scores of books written as the theologian Joseph Ratzinger demonstrate His Holiness’s erudition, but the appeal of this work will be in the personal passion he means to share about the intimate friendship with Jesus as the central figure of Christianity. It is truly a gift for all believers and sure to be an instant spiritual classic.”

JESUS OF NAZARETH represents the culmination of Pope Benedict’s lifelong quest to defend historical Christianity in the modern world. It is, he writes in the book’s preface, the result of a “long interior journey,” and “an expression of [his] personal search for the face of the Lord.” He began work on the project in the summer of 2003 and because, as he explains, “I don’t know how much time and how much strength I will still be given, I have decided to publish the first 10 chapters [from Baptism to Transfiguration] as volume one.” In the book, Pope Benedict paints a vivid portrait of Jesus as depicted in the Gospels and asserts that “only if something extraordinary happened, if the figure and words of Jesus radically exceeded all the hopes and expectations of his age, can his crucifixion and his effectiveness be explained.”

The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group is a division of Random House Inc., whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG.

###

No word if Ignatius will also be publishing an edition.

Tridentine Mass Liberalization News/Rumors

One big clue to the pope’s thinking came in his 1997 book, titled “Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977” and written when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in which he sharply criticized the drastic manner in which Pope Paul VI reformed the Mass in 1969.
…
But the picture is not so clear-cut. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he said he considered the new missal a “real improvement” in many respects, and that the introduction of local languages made sense.
In one revealing speech to Catholic traditionalists in 1998, he said bluntly that the old “low Mass,” with its whispered prayers at the altar and its silent congregation, “was not what liturgy should be, which is why it was not painful for many people” when it disappeared.
The most important thing, he said at that time, was to make sure that the liturgy does not divide the Catholic community.
With that in mind, knowledgeable Vatican sources say the pope’s new document will no doubt aim to lessen pastoral tension between the Tridentine rite and the new Mass, rather than hand out a victory to traditionalists.
CNS on the Motu Proprio: a link and commentary
What came to my mind here was there is also a need for those who have rejected our tradition and traditional forms to likewise demonstrate their own good will and a hermeneutic of continuity. Let’s be clear and fair, there has been a hermeneutic of rupture which has banished most anything deemed “pre-conciliar” and this is as problematic as the sort of traditionalist who has rejected anything and everything “post-conciliar.”
Further, not all “traditionalists” take on this approach of rupture. If they are simply attached to the treasures of the classical liturgy, desirous of true liturgical reform in the light of both the Council and our tradition of organic development, all the while never questioning the validity of the modern Roman rite, but calling for a reform of the reform with regard to it, then it seems to me that they have nothing to justify and join the ranks of our Holy Father as a Cardinal in this set of ideas. In that regard, I would propose they form a part of the true liturgical centre and mainstream —- just as do those who focus upon the reform of the reform, but who are supportive of the availability of the classical liturgy, provided we do not take an immobiliistic and triumphalistic approach to it, or one which rejects the Council — not as popular opinion may go of course, but as the mind of the Church may go, as seen in the light of the Conciliar documents and our tradition.
As for the extremes, the road to a change of heart and mind is not a one way street as this article might make one think; it is rather and precisely a two-way street.

Catholic World News reports:

At a December 12 meeting, the Ecclesia Dei commission discussed a papal document that will broaden access to the traditional Latin Mass, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez confirmed after the Tuesday-morning session. The Chilean cardinal said that he expects Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) to release the document in the near future.

Cardinal Medina Estevez, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, is a member of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, which was set up in 1988 to supervise Vatican relations with traditionalist Catholics. He confirmed that the group’s December 12 meeting was dedicated entirely to a discussion of a papal initiative that will allow more liberal use of the Tridentine rite.

The cardinal told the Roman news agency I Media that the results of today’s discussions would be presented to the Holy Father by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos (bio – news), the chairman of the Ecclesia Dei commission. He suggested that the Pope might then schedule publication of the document. Cardinal Medina Estevez indicated that he did not anticipate further discussion of the matter by the Ecclesia Dei commission.

Vatican insiders expect that the papal document, widely expected to take the form of a motu proprio, will give priests permission to use the Tridentine rite– the liturgical form used throughout the Roman Catholic Church prior to Vatican II– without requiring the explicit permission of the local bishop.

CHT: Roman Catholic Blog.

MORE . . .

Rorate Caeli, quoting Il Giornale, reports:

Benedict XVI intends to extend the indult of his predecessor, in fact withdrawing from the bishops discretionary power on the matter: the Missal of Saint Pius V is no longer abolished, and even if the ordinary Roman Rite is that originated from the post-conciliar liturgical reform, the old one — used by centuries in the Church — can subsist as an "extraordinary rite".

The bishops, therefore, will not be able to deny the ancient mass anymore, but only regulate its eventual celebration, together with the parish priests, harmonising it with the need of the community. The corrections included would have reduced from 50 to 30 the minimal number of faithful who ask for the celebration according to the old rite. As for the readmission of the Lefebvrists, once the rite of Saint Pius V is liberalized, the deal should be easier.

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

What Kind Of Coke I Drink

Yesterday’s mention that I drink a kind of diet coke that doesn’t have caffeine or Aspartame prompted some questions about what kind I do drink.

Actually, it varies. Here’s a selection . . .

None of these kinds of diet coke have either caffeine or Aspartame in them. They are all sweetened with Splenda.

Here are a few notes on them:

1) Diet 7-UP used to have Aspartame but got rid of it a while back. It is the easiest form of Aspartame-free diet coke to find. One note though: There are variants of Diet 7-UP that still DO use Aspartame, such as Diet Cherry 7-UP. Beware of these. It is the regular Diet 7-UP that you want.

2) Diet Rite is also commonly found in supermarkets, and it was the first diet coke to chuck Aspartame in favor of Splenda, as far as I can tell. It comes in several flavors, which the Royal Crown company (which makes Diet Rite) switches around from time to time. They always have a Cola flavor (which, for some strange reason, upsets my stomach; I think I’m allergic to this flavor, though other people obviously aren’t), and lately they’ve had White Grape and Raspberry (which do just fine by my stomach). Occasionally they have Tangerine or other flavors. At the moment they have Cherry Cola, so I’ll see how that does with my stomach.

3) Diet Hansen’s has a BUNCH of different flavors. Pictured here are three of my favorites (which is why I had them on hand): Peach, Kiwi-Strawberry, and Black Cherry. They also have Tangerine-Lime, Ginger Ale, Root Beer, and Grapefruit. MORE INFO. The Diet Hansen’s drinks taste really good (or at least my favorites do). It’s a little harder to find Diet Hansen’s, though. I get it at Henry’s and Trader Joe’s, but I’ve also seen it showing up at some local Vons. You can also order it online.

Incidentally, all of these drinks (Diet 7-UP, Diet Rite, Diet Hansen’s) are also sodium free–so they’re not trying to Ferengi you into drinking more of their product by putting salt in it to make you thirsty (unlike most forms of coke).

There are also other, similar caffeine-free, Aspartame-free kinds of coke, but these are the ones that I drink the most and thus the ones that I had on hand.

BTW, a word about why you might want to avoid caffeine and Aspartame . . .

Most folks know that caffeine can make you feel wired, keep you awake, etc. And some people use it precisely in order to stay awake. I’m not opposed to that in principle. However, caffeine also has some side-effects that people don’t commonly know about.

If you drink enough of it quickly enough, it will raise your blood sugar (which is bad for diabetics and dieters) and it will raise your adrenalin (which is bad if you have high blood pressure or heart palpitations). INFO HERE. Caffeine is safe for most people in moderation–or at least safe enough that they’re willing to live with the obvious side-effects–but it’s something that I avoid as part of my diet since I don’t want my blood sugar raised.

Aspartame is another story. There is a huge controversy over the safety of Aspartame, and for a long time I didn’t pay it any mind. I generally don’t get freaked out about safety claims made regarding products that are being consumed by millions of people. If there’s a significant problem with the product then, in the long run, science will out.

But I started doing some research on Aspartame and found out some things that concerned me enough that I decided to cut it out of my diet. It breaks down into chemicals that I really don’t like. It does this at surprisingly low temperatures, too (lower than body temperature), which is why diet cokes that contain Aspartame frequently have gone "stale" before you open the can. They’ve been exposed to heat that causes the Aspartame to break down and they taste funny.

Even if they haven’t broken down already in the can, they will break down in your body, and one of the things they break down into is phenylalanine. Phenylalanine is something I’m familiar with from my diet and nutrition studies.

Phenylalanine is an amino acid that is common in nature. There’s some of it basically whenever we eat meat. But that form of phenylalanine is slowly-absorbed and is pretty safe. If you’re taking a nutritional supplement or chugging down diet cokes or certain protein drinks, though, it’s another story. In this setting phenylalanine is absorbed much more quickly and causes a spike of the amino acid in your blood stream.

For certain people, who can’t metabolize phenylalanine, Aspartame is very dangerous. These people have a condition known as phenylketonuria, and if they consume phenylalanine it will cause BRAIN DAMAGE.

In your body, about HALF of the Aspartame in a diet coke converts into phenylalanine, which is why products containing Aspartame are required to carry a warning label that says "Phenylketonurics: Contains phenylalanine."

Now, phenylketonuria is rare (though it is more common among people of Irish descent), and if you have it, you’d already know about it. It’s one of the things they test for right after birth, and if you’ve never been told that you have it then you don’t.

But phenylketonurics aren’t the only people who need to watch out for getting a phenylalanine spike in their blood.

Some dieters take phenylalanine because it suppresses hunger (a good thing for dieters), but in significant numbers of people it has bad side-effects, like raising your heart rate and blood pressure (not good things for people who are overweight).

If you have been chugging down diet cokes–even caffeine-free ones–and find your heart racing or pounding or your blood pressure staying higher than it should be, it may be the phenylalanine spike in your blood stream that the diet cokes are causing.

There are a lot of other criticisms that are made of Aspartame, but I already knew about phenylalanine from my own diet and nutrition studies, so when I found out that 50% of Aspartame turns into phenylalanine, that was enough to convince me to cut it out of my diet.

Y’all can make your own decisions, of course, but I’m not waiting for the science to catch up on this one. To my mind, Aspartame is too risky. I’ll stick with other sweeteners, like Splenda or Stevia.

Assessing Mortal Sin

A reader writes:

What is meant by the phrases “full consent” and “sufficient reflection” as two of the three conditions necessary for something to be a mortal sin? I have read spiritual authors who imply that it means that if you have immediate remorse after doing something gravely evil, then you obsiously did not have full consent or sufficient reflection. I have also read authors who say that true mortal sin is very rare for committed Christians because they almost never give full consent to a grave evil, when factoring in mitigating factors like anxiety, compulsion, etc.

On the other hand, if this is true, then how can anyone ever be considered to have commited mortal sin by giving in to temptation? Wouldn’t the temptation itself, by exerting influence, cause one not to have had full consent or sufficient reflection? And what are the implications of this for confession?

I appreciate it if you can make this more clear.

I’ll do what I can, but I’m not sure how much light can be shed on this question. The fact is that the Church has a stronger grasp on the principles involved in this area than it has on how they are to be applied in practice. This is one reason that the Church is reluctant to judge that a person has actually committed a mortal sin. It can recognize that he has committed an objectively grave act, but it is hard to assess his personal level of culpability (i.e., his understanding of what he was doing and how freely he did it anyway).

It may be that further doctrinal development will clarify how the consent and knowledge criteria are to be concretely applied, or there may just be something intrinsically slippery and subjective about these that will always make it hard to assess these matters.

Because of the difficulty we have in assessing them, the general rule for most people (i.e., those with a lax conscience or a normal conscience) is that if you think you may have committed a mortal sin then go ahead and confess it, just to be safe.

The exception to this rule is people who have a scrupulous conscience. For them the rule is do not confess unless you are sure that you have committed a mortal sin.

Whether a person has a lax, a normal, or a scrupulous conscience is something that is best determined in consultation with his spiritual director. It is also something that may change over time in his life. (E.g., most people who are serious about their faith go through at least temporary periods of being scrupulous; most people who are sons of Adam go through at least temporary periods of being lax).

When it comes to the subjective two criteria for mortal sin–that you need adequate knowledge of the moral character of the act and that you need to give adequate consent to it–I can offer these thoughts:

1) I don’t like the way these are sometimes phrased. For example, you sometimes read about a person needing to have "complete knowledge" of the moral character of the act. I think this is misleading because it can make it sound like if you aren’t a thoroughly catechized moral theologian who has thoroughly studied a situation and has all the relevant facts at his fingertips then there is no mortal sin.

Nonsense.

Suppose I’m a poorly-catechized ordinary guy who’s out hunting in the woods and I see a shape in the forrest in front of me that I think might be a man, but it might also be a deer. I am not excused from mortal sin if I shoot at it anyway, even though I didn’t know for certain whether I was objectively shooting at a human being or not.

Same thing goes for aborting a baby if I’m not sure whether it’s a human being or not.

I thus prefer to speak in terms of "adequate knowledge" of the moral character of the act. There are a lot of things that we can know in an intuitive or incomplete way and still be mortally responsible for them. If this were not the case then St. Paul would never have been able to speak in the terms he did in Romans 1 about pagans who "do not have the Law" (i.e., the Torah) and yet are gravely responsible to God for their actions.

One of the things that can hinder adequate knowledge, though, is a lack of what the reader terms "sufficient reflection." It may be that we do know that an act is gravely wrong and yet we haven’t reflected on it sufficiently to realize this at the particular moment.

The classic example of this is having impure thoughts creep into your head. They can just kind of start, without you even realizing it, and then you catch yourself and go "No! I don’t want to be thinking about that!" The general rule here is that if you catch yourself and immediately start resisting the thoughts then you weren’t engaging in them with sufficient reflection to result in a mortal sin.

2) I similarly don’t like the formulations that one needs to give "complete consent" or "full consent" before a sin is mortal. This is also misleading and can convey to a person that you have to be going, "Yes! Yes! YES!!! I know this is mortal sin AND I LOVE IT!!!"

That’s not true either.

Suppose I’m robbing a liquor store and I’m pointing a gun at the cashier, and to keep him from identifying me to the cops I shoot him in the heart, and just before I pull the trigger I have a little twinge of remorse about what I’m doing.

The fact that I had at least somewhat mixed feelings does not let me off from having committed a mortal sin.

I thus like the phrasing that the Catechism uses on this point, saying that we need to give "deliberate consent" to the act.

Some examples of when we do not give deliberate consent include:

1) When we do something on the spur of the moment, without thinking about it first.

2) When we do it when we are asleep.

3) When we do it when we are really groggy (e.g., just going to sleep or just waking from sleep)

4) When we are intoxicated or under the influence of a substance that makes us groggy (e.g., certain allergy or other medications), though this one raises the question of how we got into a state like this and whether we committed a sin in doing so.

5) Under the influence of reason-depriving emotion (e.g., walking in on someone sleeping with your spouse; thinking that your life is in imminent danger)

6) Under the influence of strong psychological illness.

Just how strong some of these have to be for deliberate consent to cease to exist is not easy to determine. Look at grogginess or intoxication as examples. The impairment those involve exists on a spectrum, and it is not easy to say just where on the spectrum deliberate consent stops. Being just a little tired or just a little tipsy is not going to be enough. Yet at some point one reaches a state where one does not have enough possession of one’s faculties to commit a mortal sin.

Where that line is is something that’s really hard to determine, which gets us back to the practical rules mentioned earlier: If you think you may have committed a mortal sin then confess it just to be sure, unless you are scrupulous, in which case don’t confess it unless you are sure.

We may see further doctrinal development (or pastoral distortion) on this question with the progress of time. Three things in this regard strike me as particularly noteworthy:

1) The development of psychology and cognitive science is going to play a role here. The Church already acknowledges in its pastoral practice that we have learned more about the psychological pressures and conditions people can suffer from than we previously knew and that this has an impact on how we assess the personal responsibility of people in various situations. The progress of the cognitive sciences is likely to deepen this awareness, as it has been shown that some decisions seem to be made by us before conscious thought even happens.

The danger in this area is allowing psychology and cognitive science to eliminate the concept of personal responsibility. This is something that is inconsistent with the Christian faith, and up with it the Church cannot put. We’re likely to see further Magisterial interventions at some point to try to clarify the role that psychological and biological factors can and cannot play in assessing moral culpability.

2) The Church is now living in a world in which it is much more acutely aware of the existence of people of good faith who are not Catholic or even Christian. This is a development that has been underway for several centuries–beginning with the age of exploration and the discovery of vast populations who had never heard the gospel–and the Church has become much more sensitive to the role of education and cultural conditioning in forming peoples’ consciences, such that many more people than were previously thought are recognized as being innocently ignorant of the objective moral character of their acts.

The same is true of the collapse of proper catechesis in the developed world. There are now large groups of people who are objectively Christian but who–through no fault of their own–have absorbed very little of the teaching of the Christian faith, and this has to be taken into account in assessing their personal moral culpability.

3) The Church has become more optimistic about the possibility of salvation–particularly in the last century. The previous two factors–greater awareness of psychological and informational impediments to full personal responsibility–have played a role in this, but even beyond that, the Church is just more optimistic.

I’m not fully comfortable with that. I’d love to think that more people will be saved rather than less, but I have a hard time squaring that with the way Christians have traditionally regarded matters and with certain statements in the New Testament.

Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge that doctrinal development may be underway on this point.

A while back I was reading an interview with Pre-16 in which he was taking note of this greater optimism and saying that we may hope (note the word "hope") that a large majority of people today are saved and that only a few go to hell.

If that’s the case then it has implications for how we read the criteria for mortal sin. You have to say that those who are properly catechized have a greater chance of getting to heaven than those who don’t (otherwise catechesis and evangelization would harm the good of souls, and we can’t say that), so you can’t chalk the optimism up to the fact that more people don’t know their faith. Neither do we have evidence that more people suffer from psychological impediments than in the past (it’s almost certainly the opposite).

So if you want to be more optimistic than previously about salvation then you’d have to say that it’s harder than previously thought to commit mortal sin or easier than previously thought to be reconciled with God–or (more likely) both.

Like I said, I’d love this to be true, but I’m not comfortable with saying that it is. Consequently, I fall back on the principle of erring on the side of caution and assuming in my own life that the traditional understanding of these matters is correct.

Part of what we have to do in a situation like this is just do the best that we can. Follow the best advice that we can obtain, even if it is fuzzy and unsatisfying advice, and then trust the results to God.

Remember: He’s a God of Mercy. God is Love. And unless we knowingly and deliberately hold something back in confession, he forgives us. If we do the best we can in confession, that’s good enough for him.

For further reading,

HERE’S THE CATECHISM’S DISCUSSION OF THE ISSUE (INCLUDING THE ROLE THAT TEMPTATION–I.E., THE PASSIONS–CAN PLAY IN AFFECTING OUR CULPABILITY).

Really Complex Carbohydrates

I’ve blogged before about the use of fiber in dieting, and I thought I’d give an update about how I’m currently using it.

Fiber is a kind of carbohydrate, but it’s a kind of carbohydrate that I’m actually friendly to.

Carbs, y’see, come in different kinds. On the one hand, there are simple, refined carbohydrates like those you find in table sugar or white flour that are absolutely horrendous for you. These are positively EVIL and are the cause of everything from obesity to diabetes to hardened arteries to who knows what. Bad, bad stuff. They are instantly digestible, cause huge insulin spikes, and humans cannot healthily have them in anything but small quantities.

Unfortunately, they are cheap to produce and have long shelf-lives, so the food industry is pushing them at us right and left.

Then there are "complex carbohydrates," which are harder for us to digest and that correspondingly have a lower impact on your blood sugar. These are found in things like whole grains, and they are much better (or at least less horrendous) for us. Some humans can healthily have these in large amounts. Others (like myself) cannot. It depends on your own particular metabolism.

Then there are really complex carbohydrates. In other words: fiber. Dietary fiber consists of the carbohydrates in our food that we either cannot digest or cannot digest very much. They are digestion-resistant (in humans) and so do not spike our blood sugar. They’re still carbohydrates, though, and so they get listed on nutrition labels (like the one pictured here) under the heading of "Total Carbohydrates."

This is why you hear low-carb dieters talking sometimes about "net carbs." Net carbs are those carbohydrates that have significant impact on your blood sugar. The way to determine them is to take Total Carbohydrates and subtract out Dietary Fiber. Since we can’t really digest that, it won’t mess up your blood sugar. In the example above, the product would have 10 grams of net carbohydrates (13g – 3g = 10g).

You can also subtract out certain other carbohydrates that don’t have a major impact on blood sugar, such as sugar alcohols (MORE INFO HERE.)

It’s important for low-carb dieters to understand how many net carbs they’re putting into their bodies, but fiber isn’t just a good thing on low-carb diets. It’s a good thing for everybody, even people who aren’t dieting.

Fiber not only helps fill you up so that you don’t eat more (good for dieters), it also can help lower your cholesterol, stabilize your blood sugar, stimulate your immune system, prevent certain types of cancer, and (of course) keep you regular.

In other words, IT’S JUST GOOD FOR YOU, OKAY!

The problem is, with the food industry pushing all those simple, refined carbohydrates at us, the average American doesn’t get anywhere near the amount of fiber he should have. An average adult should get at least 20-35 grams of fiber a day, and most of us just don’t.

Which is where fiber supplements come in.

There are different types of fiber, and they help with different things. Consequently, the best type of fiber supplement to take is a mixed fiber supplement–one that combines several different types of fiber. HERE’S THE ONE I USE.

This is a powder, so I mix it with water and then drink it down–fast, before it has a chance to gel up. It is also available in capsules, but I don’t normally use those because you have to take a bunch of capsules to equal the amount of fiber you get in one tablespoon, and that’s inconvenient. (It’s also cheaper to use the powder, and you don’t have to worry about whether all the capsules will dissolve; if some of them break before the others, they might gel up and keep the others from dissolving).

I do not recommend the use of compressed fiber tablets because you never know if they will dissolve or how much.

A while back I started drinking a glass of water with a couple of tablespoons of fiber in the morning and one again in the afternoon, but recently I changed my practice since I found that I would often forget to have my fiber on this plan.

What I do now is have a tablespoon of fiber each time I eat–either right before eating or right afterwards. By coupling the fiber with when I eat, I don’t forget.

There’s a benefit to taking fiber right before you eat in that it will help fill you up fast so that you eat less. That’s not as much of an issue for me, though, since I don’t generally eat three full meals, the size of which varies. I usually have six or so small snacks per day of 200-400 calories each, so I’m not tempted to overeat on particular occasions due to having gone without food for a longer period of time. Consequently, I often take the fiber after eating rather than before.

I also take extra fiber if I’m eating something that is a little higher in carbs or calories since it will help slow down the absorption of the carbs and reduce my blood sugar spike or reduce the absorption of the calories.

It can be hard, though, to always mix a glass of fiber, drink it, clean the glass, etc.–particularly during the workday, so recently I adopted another solution to this problem: Sticking a spoonful of fiber directly into my mouth and then washing it down with water (or, more likely, a diet coke, remembring that "coke" means any carbonated soft-drink; I don’t actually drink Diet Coke since it has caffeine and Aspartame in it).

The thing is, I can’t do that with the mixed fiber supplement recommended above. There’s something about the texture of that which requires it to be mixed with water and then drunk down. If you put it directly into your mouth it instantly clumps up and sticks to your mouth and the result is like trying to clean your mouth with your tongue if you’ve got peanut butter stuck all over it–only worse.

This effect does not happen, though, with all kinds of fiber, and so when I do the spoon-in-the-mouth trick I use powdered PSYLLIUM HUSKS.

Psyllium is an excellent fiber. It’s the one that is used in most fiber supplements (like Metamucil). If you’re going to take an unmixed supplement, psyllium is the one to take. It’s very beneficial, and it–at least at the level it is normally ground to–does not stick to your mouth like peanut butter on steroids.

Consequently, it’s very easy to just stick a spoonful in my mouth, sip a little coke, swallow it, and then drink the rest of the coke–no having to get glasses, fill them with water, stir them up, clean them afterwards, etc.

I still use the mixed fiber supplement as well, but when I’m "on the go" and don’t have time for that, I use the psyllium (which, incidentally, is cheaper yet).

So whether your on a low-carb diet, another diet, or just want good health, I’d strongly encourage you to consider using a fiber supplement.

There are, however, a few notes:

1) You must drink fluids when you take fiber. They recommend something like 10-12 oz of water per spoonful. This is because the fiber is going to absorb water as it bulks up inside you, and if you haven’t drunk fluid along with the fiber then it’s going to start absorbing fluid that you need for other purposes, like keeping your innards lubricated. If you find yourself getting unexpectedly thirsty after taking fiber, this is a sign that you aren’t drinking enough fluid with the amount you’re taking.

2) You must ramp up the amount of fiber that you are taking. If you aren’t used to taking fiber and suddenly jump on a high dosage of it, it will cause uncomfortable bloating or cramping. You need to give your system time to get used to it. Start by taking one serving of fiber supplement a day, then when you’re used to that take two, then get used to that and take three, etc.

3) Not all fiber supplements are the same. Some manufacturers, in an effort to make the fiber more appetizing, will load it up with sugar, which makes it useless for dieting purposes. The brands I’ve linked above are pure–no sugar–but if you’re looking at other brands, be sure to read the nutrition labels and find out if they’ve got sugar in them (some versions of Metamucil are particularly bad in this regard).

4) Be sure that if you are taking medicines or nutritional supplements that you do not take them close to when you take your fiber. When the fiber bulks up, it could prevent them from being properly absorbed. Let an hour go by after taking fiber before you take medicines or nutritional supplements, and don’t take fiber quickly after the medicines or supplements, either.

5) If you’re taking fiber for weight loss, you should be aware that it will cause the illusion of temporary weight gain. The reason is that even a few grams of fiber absorb multiple ounces of fluid, and fluid has weight. This means that as you ramp up the amount of fiber you are taking, it will be carrying additional water with it through your system, so the reading on your scale will actually go up to reflect the extra water that is accompanying the fiber. This is NOT A BAD THING. The extra weight you see on the scale is NOT fat, it will go away within a day if you stop taking the fiber, but don’t do that because the fiber is doing it’s job in keeping you like you feel full, so you eat less and LOSE FAT (the purpose of dieting). The addition of fiber makes it look like you weigh more on the scale, but in reality it accellerates the amount of fat your are losing. It also is doing its other jobs like lowering cholesterol, stabilizing blood sugar, preventing heart disease, preventing certain types of cancer, etc.

MORE ON DIETARY FIBER.

Egyptian Conservationists Fight To Protect Dwindling Mummy Population

From The Onion (yes! apparently they do manage to write something clean once in a while!) . . .

CAIRO—As the sun sets over Cairo, the streets are eerily quiet. Just a few years ago, the hillsides from Luxor to Giza would have been buzzing with the familiar sounds of tomb doors creaking open and bones snapping under the methodical shuffling of a slow, catatonic gait. But the telltale signs of Egypt’s indigenous mummy population have fallen silent recently, and the fearsome creatures that once lurched freely across the Valley of the Kings are disappearing at an alarming rate. If nothing is done, experts say, the Egyptian mummy will soon go the way of the Bavarian lycanthrope or the Transylvanian vampire, and vanish forever.

Afterlife Preservation Society president James Amarcas said he can recall a time when Egyptians did not have to go to a museum, but could look out their window and see an entire herd of shroud-wrapped forms staggering on missions of revenge.

"My grandchildren have still never seen a mummy," said Amarcas, who vividly recalls his first mummy sighting in 1947, when he was just 3 years old. "These terrible monsters are little more than a legend to them. It’s sad to think they might never see the bloodthirsty march of an undead Egyptian prince on a cool, calm night."

GET THE (HEARTBREAKING) STORY!

Somebody call Zahi Hawass!

About That Blue Mosque Visit

B16’s visit to the Blue Mosque in ~~Istanbul, Constantinople, New Rome, Augusta Antonina, Byzantium~~ (oh, heck, SEE HERE) raised a lot of eyebrows. More specifically, the fact that the pope prayed in the mosque did.

I was surprised when press reports emerged–initially reports that were unclear as to whether he’d actually prayed or just meditated quietly for a moment. Given Pre-16’s disapproval of the interreligious meetings at Assisi and his authorship of Dominus Iesus, it wasn’t something that I predicted.

But it wasn’t something that I thought totally out of character for him. He has articulated principles in the past that would allow him to do something like this, and I could see him saying to himself, "Like Jews and Christians, Muslims do worship God, and in view of the grave world crisis we are presently in and my own obligation as the Vicar of Christ not to inflame it, I should go as far as I possibly can to settle the situation down."

This was a way that was possible given the principles he has articulated before, and so he did it.

Not everyone, though, is familiar with what Pre-16 wrote on this subject, and I was glad to see that John Allen provied a nice column on how to view the event in light of what B16 said before he was B16–as well as the fact that the pope felt is was possible for him to do this without loading it up with theological explanations and qualifiers that would have killed the effect.

Why did he feel that he could handle the matter in that way?

ONLY NIXON COULD GO TO CHINA.

Low-Carb Milk

When I first went low-carb, one of the things that vanished from my diet was milk. It wasn’t a big loss in that I had never been a big milk drinker anyway (now if I’d had to give up diet cokes–in the broad, inclusive sense where "coke" means any carbonated soft drink–then that would be another matter!), but over time I did miss it, and I’ve found a number of alternatives, which I thought I’d share with y’all.

The problem is that, unlike dairy products such as butter or cheese or heavy cream, normal milk contains way too many carbs. If you want a make-shift low-carb equivalent to milk then the thing to do is get heavy cream or whipping cream (which have virtually no carbs) and then dilute it with water to taste. For a long time, low-carbers had to do that, but now there are a wide variety of alternatives. Here are several, as found behind Door #2 on my fridge:

The best alternatives to high-carb milk that I’ve found are the two in the center: Hood’s Calorie Countdown products. Here I have their Fat Free and Chocolate varieties. They also have a 2% variety, though I generally don’t get that one.

Hood’s Fat Free Calorie Countdown, to me, tastes indistinguishable from normal skim milk, and there’s a good reason for that: It’s made from real milk, but with the carbs extracted. Along with most of the calories. As you can see if you squint a little, it has 70% fewer calories than whole milk (45 calories per serving), making it good for dieters of any kind–not just low-carbers. It also has 75% less carbs and sugar than regular milk (3 grams of each per serving instead of 12 grams of each).

The taste of Hood’s Chocolate Calorie Countdown is delicious. This is a 2% reduced fat product, so its calories are a little more than the Fat Free version. It’s got 90 calories per serving (compared to 230 calories in a standard chocolate milk). And it has 4 net grams of carbs per serving (5 total grams, less one gram of fiber), which compares to 31 grams of carb in a normal chocolate milk. It’s also got WAY less sugar: 3 grams as opposed to 29 grams! So even if you aren’t on a low-carb diet, this is a great chocolate milk to use.

Incidentally, both of these also come with 8 grams of protein per serving.

The Hood company is based in the northeast, and if you live in New England you can even get it delivered to your home. SEE THEIR WEB SITE FOR DETAILS. Out here in California, you can get it in the stores, but you may have to ask for it. Albertsons carries it and Vons used to but doesn’t have it now unless you ask (at least that’s the way it is in my neighborhood). You can probably get it by special request from your grocer no matter where you are.

Here in California there are sometimes kinks in the pipeline getting it from New England, and so I’ve also researched other substitutes, and I can tell you about the two that you see on the ends, both of which are forms of soy milk.

The first thing to know about soy milk is that while it can be low carb, it isn’t automatically low carb. Apparently the manufacturers of a lot of soy milk load it up with sugar, which completely ruins it for dieting purposes. If you’re wanting to use it as part of a low-carb diet, what you need to get is UNSWEETENED soy milk (NOT the same thing as "plain" soy milk; "plain" means "doesn’t have a flavor like vanilla or chocolate added").

SILK is one of the bigger soy milk producers. They’ve got a bunch of varieties and are commonly available in supermarkets. Here I have pictured their unsweetened version–recognizable by its green carton. It has 80 calories per serving, but only 3 net grams of carbs (4 total minus one gram of fiber). It’s also got 7 grams of protein. Now, if you’re used to reading nutrition labels, you’re saying, "Okay, so if it’s only got 3 grams of carb and 7 grams of protein, how can you get 80 calories per serving out of that?" The answer is that this is not a fat free product. It’s got 4 grams of fat per serving, which makes it quite rich tasting, and fat is not a problem on a low-carb diet.

If your grocer has any of the Silk soy milks on his shelves, he should be able to get the green-cartoned, unsweetened one for you.

Incidentally, since this isn’t actually made from milk (unlike Calorie Countdown), there’s a little difference in the taste. I initially perceived it as a faint soy-like aftertaste, but it isn’t unpleasant, and I got used to it very fast and don’t even notice it now.

The final product–on the far right–is Westsoy’s Unsweetened (there’s the key word) Vanilla Soymilk. From a nutritional perspective, this one is quite interesting. It’s got 100 calories per serving, 4.5 grams of fat, and 9 grams of protein, making it the highest in protein of any of these products. It’s also the lowest in carbs. According to the nutrition label, it’s got only ONE gram of carb per serving (5 total grams minus 4 grams of fiber, which means it’s also a good source of fiber).

Now, you may be wondering how this could be so different from the milks discussed above–how it can have so much more fiber and so much less carbs than they do–and yet taste like normal milk. The answer is that it doesn’t. This is the least milk-like-tasting product of the ones considered. It has a thinner consistency and has a kind of nutty flavor, like almonds (which is interesting, because it isn’t almond milk–THEY ALSO MAKE THAT). It’s not an unpleasant taste, but it’s just not as milk-like as the others.

I got the above carton of Westsoy Soymilk at Trader Joe’s, but it’s available in a lot of other places, including normal supermarkets, too.

Incidentally, the soy milks don’t have lactose in them so they are also good if you’re lactose intolerant–a condition that is surprisingly common around the world. I was floored when friends of mine from other countries told me that not only were they lactose intolerant, but basically everyone in their home countries was as well. It appears that most people around the planet are lactose intolerant and you can only tolerate lactose well if your ancestors drank a lot of milk straight–without processing it into cheese first–as is the case with northern (not southern) Europeans, certain groups in the Middle East, and certain nomadic groups in Africa and Asia. MORE HERE. AND HERE.

So, whether you’re a low-carb dieter, a low-calorie dieter, or have a personal disagreement with lactose . . . Cheers!

P.S. Just ’cause I know folks will ask: The packages you can see to the right of the milk cartons are tofu . . . mostly nigari tofu, which is really good with worchestershire sauce. Mmmmmm.

My Worst Nightmare (Other Than Hell)

A reader writes:

I didn’t know who else to turn to. My fiancé asked me a very interesting question which I don’t have an answer to. I am hoping that you may be able to shed some light on this topic:

Is it possible for the Pope to convert to Islam? I mean is he protected with special graces that would prevent him from accepting anything but Jesus as the savior of the world? Can he have and make an opinion regarding his own personal conversion and what would that mean for the Seat of Peter?

I personally think he can’t because he is guided by the Holy Spirit, but I am wondering if he could express an opinion regarding personal conversion? Especially when he is not speaking Ex-Cathedra. I am not interested the slightest bit in Islam or its violent ways of achieving peace. I am a devout Catholic and support our Pope 100%

The pope is guided by the Holy Spirit, and when he speaks ex cathedra he is protected from binding the consciences of the faithful to believe error (i.e., he’s infallible), but this so far as we know there is not a charism that prevents–absolutely prevents–the pope from embracing error outside of ex cathedra situations.

We may hope that the Holy Spirit would never allow a pope to apostatize from the Christian faith, but we do not have the assurance of faith that he would not allow it to happen. The pope still has free will, and we do not have doctrinal assurance that he would be absolutely prevented from using this free will to commit the grave sin of apostasy (i.e., the total repudiation of the Christian faith).

In fact, some would argue that this actually happened once in the early days of the Church, during the time of the persecutions. Here’s an entry from the Oxford Dictionary of Popes by J. N. D. Kelly:

MARCELLINUS, ST (30 June 296-? 304; d. 25 Oct. 304). While nothing is known of his background, much the greater part of his reign fell in a period when the church enjoyed external peace. His sole recorded action in these years was, according to an inscription, to authorize one of his deacons, Severus, to carry out certain structural modifications in the cemetery of CALLISTUS. On 23 Feb. 303, however, Emperor Diocletian (284-305) issued his first persecuting edict ordering the destruction of churches, the surrender of sacred books, and the offering of sacrifice by those attending law-courts. Marcellinus complied and, probably in May 303, handed over copies of the Scriptures; he also, apparently, offered incense to the gods. Several of his clergy, including the presbyters MARCELLUS, MILTIADES, and SILVESTER, all three to become popes, were later said to have acted with him. The Donatists used these facts, of which they had documentary evidence, in their controversy early in the 5th cent. with St Augustine, who, while denying the allegations, did so in a perfunctory and embarrassed manner. Marcellinus’s guilt is borne out by the facts that his name was omitted from the official list of popes and that DAMASUS I completely ignored him when composing verse tributes to previous popes. By the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th cents. it is evident that his apostasy was frankly acknowledged, and efforts were being made to present it in a favourable light. Thus LP [the Liber Pontificalis or "Book of Popes"], basing itself on a now lost Passion of St Marcellinus, relates how he was ordered to sacrifice and proceeded to do so, but a few days later was filled with remorse for his weakness; he was then beheaded with three others on Diocletian’s orders. An independent account of his apostasy, and supposed avowal of it at the pseudo-council of Sinuessa (west of Capua), appears in the apocryphal acts (early 6th cent.). There is in fact no evidence of his martyrdom; no one in the 4th cent. seems to have had any inkling of it, and St Augustine made no reference to it when dealing with the Donatists’ charges. On the other hand, his surrender of sacred books disqualified him from the priesthood, and if he was not actually deposed (as some scholars argue) he must have left the Roman church without an acknowledged head. The date of his abdication or deposition is not known. He died on 25 Oct. 304, and was buried in the cemetery of Sta Priscilla on the Via Salaria; this was presumably chosen because it was private property of the powerful family of the Acilii Glabrioni, the church’s official cemeteries having been confiscated by the government at the beginning of the persecution. Because of the story of his execution at the emperor’s behest he came to be venerated as a martyr. Feast 2 June.

Needless to say, this was not an infallible papal canonization.

It is to be pointed out that J. N. D. Kelly is an Anglican, and this sometimes affects his take on things, but he also acknowledges a great deal of the Catholicity of the early Church–so much so that his book Early Christian Doctrines played a significant role in my conversion. In his subsequent entries on Marcellus, Miltiades, and Sylvester he defends them against the charges that they–before they were pope–had apostatized (and then obviously repented), saying that the charges against them appear false, but the one against Marcellinus appears true.

The Catholic Encyclopedia defends Marcellinus against the charges, though its authors were Catholic and living in an age in which everything, including Church history, was viewed through the lens of apologetics, and that could skew their perspective.

I haven’t studied the evidence up close for myself, and it can be read both ways. The authors of the Catholic Encyclopedia’s best argument seems to be that if Marcellinus had apostatized then it would have been more loudly trumpeted by pagans, though I don’t know how much we have from this time period, and it was just before Constantine, at which point mention of an apostate pope would have become an embarrassment. Kelly points to attempts by his successors to suppress his memory, but this–if it happened–could have occurred for other reasons.

I bring up the subject because it is a potential datapoint in the argument that the Holy Spirit would not automatically prevent a pope from using his free will to apostatize, and that gives us all the more reason to pray for the pope.

As to what would happen if a pope did apostatize–today, in the global media age, with 24/7 satellite news and the Internet everywhere–well, obviously it would throw the Church into an enormous convulsion and gravely harm the Christian faith, far more so than would have happened before the advent of telecommunications and when the Church was still a persecuted, semi-underground organization.

Even back then, according to Kelly’s account, it looks like there was a significant problem. Here’s the beginning of his entry on Marcellinus’ successor, Marcellus:

MARCELLUS 1, ST (Nov./Dec. 306-16 Jan. 308). Because of internal divisions as well as the persecution, the Roman see remained vacant for just over three and a half years after MARCELLINUS’s apostasy. With the accession of Emperor Maxentius 306-12) and his adoption of toleration, an election became practicable. The man chosen, Marcellus, had been a leading presbyter under Marcellinus, and had probably played the key role during the vacancy. It is very unlikely that the Donatists’ later allegations that he had surrendered sacred books to the authorities along with Marcellinus were true, for he proved a merciless judge of such conduct and seems to have expunged Marcellinus’s name from official lists of popes.

Today it wouldn’t take three and a half years to get a new pope. The conclave would be as short as the cardinals could possibly make it, and they’d likely elect the most conservative of the papabile possible in order to send reassurances to the public about the stability and solidity of the faith. They wouldn’t want someone who over-nuance things and risk saying or doing something that would create a new wave of doubt after the Church had just suffered such a blow.

Efforts would be made for the former pope to be reconciled, of course. Assuming he returned to the faith, he would be treated gently, would make a public speech and issue a public statement explaining his moment of weakness and begging forgiveness, and then he would be whisked away to a life of private prayer and penance.

How this would be handled canonically is not clear, since canon law does not contain any provisions for a pope losing his office except by death or resignation. The way the law is written, he could not canonically be deposed if he apostatized. Nor would he automatically lose office the way the penalties section of the Code is written. It would, of course, start a fierce canonical debate if an apostate pope wanted–per impossibile–to somehow remain pope. However, if he had truly apostatized then it would be almost certain that he would resign, either de jure by announcing his resignation or de facto by walking away from the job.

His resignation might even happen like this: If the pope were kidnapped by Muslim terrorists and tortured and, in a moment of human weakness, he broke then, as soon as he was released, he would resign (if he didn’t already do so in the video the terrorists uploaded to YouTube), acknowledging that his moment of weakness made him an unfit leader for the Church, and then he’d whisk himself off to a life of private prayer and penance.

Or his resignation might be triggered automatically upon his capture. It is reported that, when Pius XII was expecting Hitler to seize the Vatican and kidnap him, he prepared a secret document specifying that he resigned his office upon the moment of his capture so that a new pope could be elected. For all we know, there may be such a secret document out there right now specifying a papal resignation in the event of capture by Muslims or others.

Let’s just pray that the Church and all its future popes are spared such horrors.

It’s the stuff that nightmares are made of.

Immaculate Conception

Today is a holy day of obligation in the United States, so if you’re in the United States, be sure to go to Mass.

Also as a result of it being a holy day, I won’t be blogging, but feel to have fun with the archives and the comboxes!

God bless!

Here’s what the Compendium has to say about the Immaculate Conception:

96. What does the “Immaculate Conception” mean?

God freely chose Mary from all eternity to be the Mother of his Son. In order to carry out her mission she herself was conceived immaculate. This means that, thanks to the grace of God and in anticipation of the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary was preserved from original sin from the first instant of her conception.

And here’s what the Catechism has to say:

491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.

492 The "splendour of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son". The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love".

493 The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God "the All-Holy" (Panagia), and celebrate her as "free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature". By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long.

MORE INFO ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.