Month: February 2007

Confronting Evil

A reader writes:

You may have heard about the priest in Las Vegas who is on the run after allegedly beating a parish worker.  If not, the latest update is here.  My spouse and I are parishioners at Our Lady of Las Vegas and are involved in the teen ministry.  This weekend will be our first teen meeting since the incident occurred.  I know we are going to get a lot of questions from teens; however, the entire parish still seems to be in shock.  I don’t know what to tell the kids given that I still can’t wrap my mind around what happened.  I know both people involved and it just doesn’t make any sense.  Most of the teens have a fairly weak and immature faith.  We’ve been trying to answer all their questions and misconceptions to help them develop a mature faith before going on to Confirmation.  I worry that the disillusionment of seeing a priest that they all knew and respected as a wanted criminal will cause them to abandon the faith. Do you have any advice for us?

I had not previously heard about the situation, but I read the article the reader links, and it is truly horiffic. If the man did what he is reported to have done (which includes not just beating but sexually molesting and apparently threatening the life of the church worker) then it so shocking that I find myself at a loss for words to express the enormity of the situation.

It’s hard to know what to say in such a situation.

And that’s the first thing I’d say to the teens.

There are points when something happens that is so shocking, so horrifying, that words cannot express it, when we can only groan to God with the emotions we are carrying–shock, outrage, anger, sadness. It’s okay to experience those feelings. They are part of human nature, and the teens–like everyone in the congregation–will go through them in the coming days. That shows that they are normal human beings.

It is natural to turn to God with these feelings and not know what to say to him in prayer. This is natural, and God understands it. St. Paul speaks of this kind of situation in Romans 8:26, where he writes:

In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for
we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself
intercedes with inexpressible groanings.

As we work through our feelings in the wake of such an event, we struggle to make sense of it in our minds. Here there are several things to consider.

First, evil is a real. Some people commit horrible evil against other people, and we have to remember that.

If the priest did what is reported then he has committed one of the worst forms of evil since he abused his position of trust and betrayed someone.

Jesus warned us that there would be people like this, even among men who claim to serve God. Jesus told us "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves" (Matthew 7:15).

Indeed, Jesus himself was betrayed by Judas–one of his own apostles. He knew the pain of betrayal personally–as well as the pain of knowing that it was coming.

God has promised that he will deal with such people. No matter what evil someone like this does, God will not let them get away with it. God will right all of the wrongs that have been done, he will heal those who have been hurt, he will make it up to the innocent who have suffered, and he will hold the evildoer to account for his deeds.

God gave us the state to investigate and punish wrongdoing of this sort (Rom. 13), and now the police are doing their job, investigating what happened and seeking the man so that he can be brought to justice.

What we should do now is pray that the man is found or that he turns himself in, that the situation is resolved without any more violence, and that the truth will come out. If the priest has done what is reported then he needs to be locked up so that he cannot do this to other innocent people.

At the same time we pray for this, we must also pray for his soul, because if he has done these things then he needs to repent and seek God’s mercy. God’s mercy is something we all need, and Jesus loved all of us–including the priest and his victim–enough that he took our sins upon himself so that we might be saved.

We need to pray for all the hurting people of the parish, for the woman who was beaten, and for the priest himself, who needs God’s mercy most of all if what is reported is true.

Whatever happens with this situation, God will make sure that justice is done and that mercy will be shown to those who seek it. So let us all seek God in prayer and trust him to help us in this horrible situation.

That’s probably as far as I’d go with the teens as a first effort. They are likely to have questions, and I’d do my best to answer their questions honestly and simply. I’d talk about my own feelings about the situation and let them see some emotion if it comes as you discuss it. That would validate and help them process their own feelings.

Of course, I would urge them to talk to their parents about their thoughts and feelings, and I would offer to talk to them myself as well, but the general points I would make and tone I would try to set is in the post above.

Now a few thoughts I wouldn’t address to the teens (unless they’ve heard about them and ask about them):

1) The fact that the priest backed off when he had the woman at his mercy is a good sign. It may indicate repentance or the potential for it on his part.

2) The fact that he ran appears to incriminate him.

3) His asking the woman if she was ready to go to heaven suggests that he may have had even darker plans in mind .

4) The fact that he seemed to suggest that he wouldn’t be taken alive is a bad sign.

5) His speaking of having been with other women at other parishes suggests that further investigation of his prior parish situations is warranted.

6) If he said that the only way he could get out of Lebanon was by becoming a priest then he may simply be a crook in sheep’s clothing, who was never really trying to serve God.

7) There is a significant possibility that some form of mental illness is involved here.

I’ll certainly be praying for this situation, and I ask my readers to keep it in prayer as well.

Hard Sayings Of The Old Testament

A reader writes:

I have a very important question about God and right now my faith is at stake.  I doubt you will be able to provide a satisfying answer but please try your best.

In the Exodus and several other instances God ordered the Israelites to perform what I think we can all agree is genocide.  Samuel told Solomon to go forth and kill and kill every man, woman, child and beast.  Making no distinction between age, sex or whether or not they were innocent. 

These were real people living real lives.  They were not wicked evil doers in some cases, they were just in a land that was supposedly promised.  The people God ordered executed had been living there for generations and the Israelites came and murdered them for their land. 

I now know two men who will be dead soon from cancer.  A girl that was in my kindergarten class was hit and killed by a bus in first grade.  I have experienced death first hand and will soon do so again.  Nobody deserves to die and what God did was a despicable, disgusting and unjustifiable crime. 

God said every man, woman, and child.  Put yourself in the shoes of the murdered.   Maybe you have a son/daughter, perhaps a nephew or a co-worker has a child.  Imagine any child that you regularly come in contact with and then imagine some terrorist coming in and killing him/her.  "They say, oh our God ordered it.  You see, even though you own this land it really belongs to us because our God told us it was ours so we have to kill you."  You don’t believe in their God but that doesn’t matter to them.  You are just in their way and you happened to worship a different God, therefore you deserve to die.

How could a God that supposedly loves us perform genocide on us at the same time?

I am sorry to hear that your faith is currently being challenged, and will certainly pray for you. I encourage my readers to do likewise.

It is understandable that, if anything were to challenge your faith, this kind of thing would. Not only are the passages in the Old Testament difficult to understand, but the reality of suffering and death in our lives is the hardest thing for many people to endure. I have had to endure it myself, and I sympathize entirely with your situation.

Let me do what I can to see about answering your questions. I hope you’ll bear with me as I lay some principles that will become relevant later in the discussion. I want to give you as thorough an answer as I can.

First, regarding the commands to exterminate particular populations, these are, indeed, horriffic from a modern-day point of view. Such commands are incompatible with the Christian age, and anyone today who would claim to have received such commands–such as the terrorists you mention–is wrong. God does not work that way today.

The question is whether he ever worked that way, and the answer to this question must be either yes or no. We will look at both possibilities.

Continue reading “Hard Sayings Of The Old Testament”

The Nine Choirs Of Angels

A reader writes:

I would like a brief description each of the 9 choirs of angels.  Thanks you.

St. Thomas offers the best brief description of the nine choirs that I know of. It’s found in two articles in the Summa Theologiae: HERE and HERE.

You also might want to read Pseudo-Dionysius’s THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY, which was the work that kicked off the whole nine choirs business.

There’s a brief treatment of the subject in THE ARTICLE IN THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA.

And WIKIPEDIA’S ARTICLE may have some useful bits, but it’s got a bunch of unreliable junk mixed in, so be careful.

In fact, I’d urge caution regarding the whole idea of nine choirs of angels. This is a highly speculative way of classifying angels and is not part of Church teaching (you will note, for example, that it’s not mentioned in the Catechism). The foundations of it are also shaky, biblically. It rests on stitching together several different passages of Scripture and then making the assumptions that the things mentioned in them (1) are all angels and (2) are all different types of angels.

Both of these assumptions are open to challenge.

For example, I am not convinced that there is a difference in kind between an angel and an archangel. The term archangelos in Greek simply indicates a high ranking angel. Archangels may differ from ordinary angels in the same way that high ranking officials differ from low ranking officials or the way that high ranking military officers differ from low ranking military officers. In other words: The difference is one of rank, not of essence.

Indeed, that is what suggested by the very terms. "Angel" in the biblical languages simply means "messenger," with the understanding that the angels are the messengers one would find in God’s heavenly court, just as earthly kings have messengers in their courts. In earthly courts, some messengers may hold higher rank than others, but they’re all human beings. In the same way, the distinction between a messenger and a high-ranking messenger would seem to be one of rank rather than kind.

When we come to cherubim and seraphim, we’re on a little bit firmer ground. These at least look different when they appear in Scripture, though because of the way visionary experience works, I can’t rule out the possibility that there is one underlying class of beings behind both, and sometimes it manifests in a way that conveys one visionary impression and sometimes it manifests in a way that conveys another.

Even if we grant that seraphim and cherubim are different from each other, though, that doesn’t mean that they are distinct from the choir or choirs of angels and archangels. It might turn out that all angels are either seraphim or cherubim (that there isn’t another class). And it might turn out that there are high ranking angels (archangels) among both the seraphim and the cherubim.

So these classes may all co-penetrate each other. They may not be four distinct classes, contrary to assumption (2), above.

When we look at the other five classes–thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, virtues–we’re on even shakier ground because it isn’t clear from Scripture that these are angelic beings at all. These names are derived from three passages in St. Paul’s writings (I’ll stick the relevant names after the key terms where it isn’t obvious in the English translation):

[God] raised [Christ] from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the  heavenly places, far above all rule [principality] and authority [power] and power [virtue] and dominion, and above
every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which
is to come [Eph. 1:20-21].

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his  might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be  able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 
For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the
principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this
present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places [Eph. 6:10-12].

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities [powers; it’s the same word in Greek as in the former passage: exousiai]– all things were created through him and for him [Col. 1:15-16].

It is not obvious in these passages that Paul is talking about distinct types of angels. That rests on a chain of assumptions that are open to challenge. It is not clear, for example, that he is thinking exclusively of the heavenly realm here. He may have earthly rulers in mind ("in heaven and on earth"), in which case some of these terms may be being used to describe humans. Even if we could identify which terms he’s thinking of as referring to spiritual things, he may not be thinking of angels but of Greco-Roman religious concepts that use the same terms (e.g., virtues like Piety were often worshipped as deities, and the Roman emperor and many other rulers were worshipped as well), with the message being that Christ is superior to all of these and that we struggle against them as Christians. Even if we could show that these terms all referred to angels, this still wouldn’t show that they are distinct classes of angels, any more than the fact that some humans could be described as principalities and some as powers wouldn’t mean that they weren’t all humans.

It strikes me as much more likely that Paul is speaking in a generalized way here, piling up near-synonyms that are intended to overlap–and overlap both the earthly and the heavenly spheres–in a way that makes it impossible to use this as a technical listing of different kinds of non-overlapping groups of angels that differ from each other in essence.

A Cure For Cancer?

A reader writes:

Is this for real?

I know it is from a student newspaper, but if this is for real… yikes!

HERE’S THE LINK THE READER IS TALKING ABOUT.

And despite the fact that it’s from a student newspaper, it is indeed for real. I did some checking and found other references to the same possible cancer cure, and it’s been picked up by other news outlets.

HERE’S THE ARTICLE ON IT IN NEW SCIENTIST.

And, of course, it’s found its way onto Wikipedia.

HERE’S THEIR ENTRY ON THE REPORTED CURE.

For those who haven’t immediately zoomed off to read the above links, here’s a synopsis of the story: Researchers in Alberta have found a chemical–dichloroacetate or DCA–that appears to kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells unaffected. The links above contain details on precisely how it does this, but there are two striking things about this chemical: (1) It appears to work on a wide variety of different types of cancer cells and (2) it’s cheap–really cheap–because it can’t be patented.

The latter point is a significant part of the story because, since it can’t be patented, it can’t make a boatload of money for some drug company. Consequently, drug companies aren’t interested in doing the research needed to find out if it actually works in humans, what the therapeutic dosages are, what the side-effects are, etc.

This is not a new story in medicine, though it may be the first time some readers have run across this phenomenon. In fact, drug companies spend millions and millions of dollars so that they can produce near-knockoffs of natural or already-known substances so that they can patent the near-knockoff and use it to make money, when the already-existing substance that they’re imitating would treat the same condition just as well or better.

THAT’S ONE OF THE REASONS THAT I OFTEN RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not down on drugs or conventional medicine. I simply recognize the distorting effects that economic interests can have in this area, as in every other. Sometimes a drug is the best way to treat something. Sometimes a nutritional approach is better. It just depends.

Having said that, I am very intrigued by the reports concerning DCA and will be trying to find out more.

The odds are always against something like this panning out, but I would love it if this one did! A cheap and effective cancer cure would be the answer to countless prayers throughout the world.

One note: For people who are suffering from cancer or who know someone who is, there is going to be a huge desire to try personal therapies with DCA even before human clinical trials are done. It’s understandable that people would want to do this. I do not yet know if DCA is commercially and legally available in the US, but even if it is available and legal, caution is warranted here. There are side-effects if DCA is taken in the wrong dosages.

Remember the first law of toxicology: "The poison is in the dose."