Month: March 2007

Michiganders, What’s On Your Menu Friday?

Muskrat
I was glad to see Catholic News Service run

THIS STORY

about a practice that I’ve heard about before, and that I believe has shown up here on the blog about before, but which I haven’t seen the paper trail on: the local practice of eating muskrat on Fridays during Lent.

I’m always a little cautious about reports of local exceptions like this and whether they are still allowed. I want to be able to see the documentation rather than just taking someone’s word or taking the word of an old written source that may not reflect current Church law.

The article linked above doesn’t provide what I’d like in the ideal–a quotation from a legal document issued by one or more dioceses in Michigan. It doesn’t do that because–apparently–there isn’t such a document. That’s okay (legally), though, because canon law recognizes the possibility of custom attaining the force of law, and it seems to me that in this case that’s the current basis for the Michigan muskrat exception. In other words, unless someone produces a legal document that we don’t currently know about, it looks like the faithful in some areas of Michigan are allowed to eat muskrat on days of abstinence, according to legitimate local custom.

A Pound of Flesh

Whatever happened to making license plates? In a scenario that seems to take the Chinese model as an inspiration,

Apparently, South Carolina is considering allowing prisoners to trade body parts for time off their sentences.

Being that the political and ethical problems with this are smell-able from a couple of furlongs, the only question in my mind is how an idea this grisly and morally tone-deaf could get this far along. Who the heck thought this is a good idea? I’m speaking as someone who’s niece underwent a heart transplant yesterday!

"Mary Jo Cagle, chief medical officer of Bon Secours St. Francis Health
System in Greenville, urged senators to find an allowable incentive.
"We have a huge need for organs and bone marrow," Cagle said."

Oh. I see. Well, that makes it okay, then. It’s a market-driven thing, I guess. To be fair, the legislative committee that has worked on the proposal is not sold on the idea of an incentive program to encourage inmates to cut their incarceration by donating organs or tissue. They are not even sure it’s legal (obviously some outdated legal aberration, like in Hartford, Connecticut, where it’s illegal to kiss your wife on Sunday).

In an advanced society such as ours, we understand that it is WRONG to ask an inmate to trade his/her very flesh for a reduced prison sentence (this could give a whole new dimension to the Plea Bargain), or to be so crass as to just write a check for someone’s internal organs. We prefer to steal valuable tissue from anonymous, microscopic people. Far fewer entanglements.

GET THE STORY.

Does God Feel Pain?

A reader writes:

A friend just sent me the following question and I’m not sure how to answer. I’m almost certain Aquinas or one of the Church fathers must have addressed this, but for various reasons I can’t find it right now. Can you help? Thanks.

Does God the Father feel pain?   If pain is a consequence of the fall, then is it possible for God to feel pain?  Did God the Father experience pain of a father watching his son be tortured and killed, or is the Creator immune from pain?  Pain exists because it it a component of the punishment He pronounced on a fallen creation.  Pain therefore is part of creation.  As the Creator is not creature, does he feel pain?  God the Son most certainly did.  Can God the Holy Spirit feel the pain of rejection?  I assume the Holy Spirit knows the pain of Christ’s suffering since He was within Christ at the time.  The Holy Spirit is also in us, and therefore one could assume that He can experience our pain as well.  But does God the Father – God the Creator – feel pain?

Pain can be understood in two ways: The sensation we experience when certain parts of our nervous system are stimulated and the physiological sensation of pain is produced–as when a person accidentally slams his hand in a door. We may call this physical pain.

This kind of pain is possible only for being that beings with nervous systems. Since the divine essence does not include a nervous system, this kind of pain is impossible for God apart from the acquisition of a second nature, as in the Incarnation. Thus only God the Son can experience physical pain, and then not in his divine nature.

Being omniscient, the other two Persons of the Trinity know about the Son’s experience of physical pain, but it does not cause them physical pain any more than my slamming my hand in a door causes you physical pain. You recognize that I am in physical pain, but that doesn’t put you in physical pain.

The second way in which pain may be conceived is as mental pain. For example, when a person experiences  painful emotions, such as sadness or anger. In living humans this is closely tied to the operation of the nervous system, and particularly the central nervous system (especially the brain), but it seems that it is also possible for humans to feel it without physical form–as in the case of damned souls that have not yet been resurrected.

This also seems to be possible for fallen angels, who are completely free of physical form. At least, Scripture speaks of their being tormended following the last day, and this torment must consist of something at least analogous to the mental anguish that we experience in this life.

Scripture also speaks of God experiencing sadness and anger, but Christian theology has historically understood this to be non-literal language.

God in his divine essence experiences infinite beatitude, and this beatitude would be marred if he experienced anguish in his divine essence. This is analogous to the way in which, once we are glorified in heaven, we will be aware of the fact that not all humans are saved, but it will not "ruin heaven for us."

Further, Catholic theologically has historically understood God as not containing passions. There are things in God that may be said to correspond to the passions, but he doesn’t experience them the same way that we do.

HERE’S AQUINAS ON THAT POINT.

God does have DELIGHT AND JOY and LOVE, but he doesn’t HATE anything. He is HAPPY, is HIS OWN HAPPINESS, and has the SUPREME FORM OF HAPPINESS.

In understanding these realities in God, we must recognize the vast difference between him and us and that these things aren’t the same in him as they are in us. For example, in the case of love, we love things by recognizing the good qualities someone has and being attracted to those good qualities. In God’s case, Aquinas would say, God’s love is not attracted to the good qualities someone already possesses. Instead, it is manifest in bestowing those good qualities on the person. His love is active, whereas our is reactive.

When it comes to things like sadness or anger on the part of God, these have been historically understood as signifying things in a different manner as well, not as things that are literally painful to God, marring his beatitude. Thus when Scripture speaks of God being grieved by men’s sins, it is understood that he recognizes the reality and severity of their sins, and when it speaks of him being angry, it is understood that bad consequences are visited on those who are sinning or that bad consequences would be visited on them or they are liable for bad consequences, even if something happens to stop those bad consequences from happening (e.g., someone making atonement or intercession that shields the sinner, as with Job and his sons and daughters or Moses and Israel or Jesus and the whole human race).

Ludwig Ott has more on this in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma if you have a copy of that.

Allison Update

Tim Jones, here. My niece, Allison, about whom I posted recently, has just headed into surgery to receive a heart transplant.

Your prayers are coveted by her family.

This news will not be reflected on her web page for some time, probably, but here it is for those who might like to find out a little more about her.

ALLISON’S PAGE

Humble thanks to all in advance.

Apostolic Exhortation!

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.

READ SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS.

Catholic News Service reports.

Catholic News Agency reports.

CWNews reports. (Warning! Subscriber access requirement!)

Diogenes reports on reports.

What An Evangelical Appreciates About Catholics

I was delighted yesterday to receive the following e-mail from blogger extraordinare Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost:

Hey Jimmy,

Since I don’t have any Catholic readers of my own I thought I’d share this with you. ; )

http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/003497.html

What’s found at the link is a post Joe wrote in which, though he doesn’t feel able to cross the Tiber, expresses sincere and thoughtful appreciation for Catholics. Specifically, he appreciates their emphasis on the sanctity of life, ecumenism, and Mary.

CHECK IT OUT.

And be sure to leave him comments in the same spirit of thoughtful respect and appreciation.

Flying Family Fun

Flsquirrel Hey, Tim Jones, here. I have said before that our family has a thing for aviation, but this post isn’t about that kind of flying. This post concerns the flying squirrel, at left.

A little background; We have animals. As of this past Christmas, we have a domestic mammal to human ratio of exactly 1:1. Living with, and sponging off the four of us, we have 2 cats and 2 dogs. The dogs don’t really come into this story.

Our latest arrival is my daughter’s prim, slender and graceful grey tabby. Being new, she has been kept mostly inside. Our other cat, Ozzie (named for the character Ozymandias, of the Tripods trilogy) is an outdoor veteran, and comes and goes as he pleases. He’s also huge. This Maine Coon cat has actually been mistaken for a real racoon on more than one occasion. One thing I like about him is that he doesn’t seem to need us, but hangs around, anyway. I figure he must like us.

He likes us so much, in fact, that he sometimes brings us "presents". He most often leaves these presents on the front doorstep, and they are most often dead.

Most often.

Occasionally, they are "only mostly dead", and rarely (when he wants something to play with, I guess) Ozzie brings us an animal that is apparently not even injured. Not even a little. This has led to a few memorable episodes, one of which involved a huge field rat, a pair of weenie tongs, and a Big Gulp cup.

This last week, Ozzie brought us, at 5:00 in the morning, the above pictured living, healthy flying squirrel, in full vigor. He promptly let it loose. Now, flying squirrels are really cute, as well as fast, and they are jumpy. I’m just here to say, that unless your whole family have chased a flying squirrel aound the house in your pajamas, you have just never had any fun. We were all nearly in tears of laughter by the time the little dickens was succesfully captured (first we had to hustle our domestic furries into various bedrooms, in order to prevent them tearing Francis to bits… that’s what we named it – a fine unisex name, could be "Francis" or "Frances", and, you know, invoking a saint in these situations can never hurt).

The whole point, of course, was to capture Francis without injury. In the end, I managed to pop a Tupperware tub over him, and shortly we all gathered outside in the dark to watch him scamper off. I couldn’t help but think that it was a lot like an alien abduction story, and wondered if he had a family to whom he would have to explain the whole episode. I expect that coming in with the strong scent of cat on your fur would be a little unusual in squirrel society.

Anyway, the operation was successful. We rescued from a grisly end a creature of a species we were not even aware lived in the neighborhood. I always thought flying squirrels were kind of exotic. It turns out they are pretty common, but rarely seen, because they are nocturnal. Nocturnal animals are cool.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THESE AMAZING CREATIONS OF GOD.

Lent Resources From The Holy See Itself

The Holy See’s web site has really improvedin recent years. They still need to get rid of that text-obscuring background, and it’s still poorly organized and hard to navigate, but at least they’re starting to get a lot of useful resources on the site.

Take, for example,

THESE EXCELLENT RESOURCES FOR LENT.

I wish I’d known about these at the beginning of Lent, ’cause I would have advertised them then, but they’re still really cool and could add a bunch to your celebration of Lent.

One thing I’d especially like to compliment is their inclusion of a whole series of mp3 files of Lenten music that you can listen to online or–via a simple right-click–download and listen to on your computer or mp3 player. Even if they are all in Italian, music can touch the heart across the langauge barrier.

THEY ALSO HAVE MP3S IN LATIN HERE.

(It’s after writing sentences like that that I find myself contemplating explaining to a medieval ecclesiastic the concept of downloading a Latin mp3 from the Vatican web site. They’d never have guessed that the Holy See would be doing this one day.)

Enjoy!

Discovery Moves To Bury Tomb

Well, the Discovery Channel, seems to be waking up to the blunder it made in getting behind James Cameron’s titanic fiasco about Jesus’ family tomb.

EXCERPTS:

Discovery Channel’s controversial James Cameron-produced documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" drew the largest audience for the network in more than a year on Sunday night, but the network has taken several recent steps to downplay the project.

Departing from normal procedures, the cable network didn’t tout its big
ratings win. The network also scheduled a last-minute special that
harshly criticized its own documentary, and has yanked a planned repeat
of "Tomb."

"This is not one where you necessarily beat the
drum, from a business perspective," said David Leavy, executive VP of
corporate communications at Discovery. "It’s not necessarily about
making money, or making ratings, or shouting from the highest office
building. Sometimes having some maturity and perspective is more
important than getting picked up in all the ratings highlights."

Although Mr. Leavy said the network stands by the documentary "100
percent," the company took several unusual steps in the wake of the
controversy that could be seen as distancing itself from the content.

Last
week, Discovery abruptly scheduled a panel debate to air after the
documentary, moderated by Discovery newsman Ted Koppel. Discovery’s
announcement of the panel emphasized that Mr. Koppel "has no connection
to the production of ‘The Lost Tomb of Jesus’" and that "the panel will
explore the filmmakers’ profound assertions and challenge their
assumptions and suggested conclusions."

When the panel discussion aired, guests criticized the documentary as "archaeo-porn" that played fast and loose with the facts.

The
day after the March 4 airing, Discovery yanked a planned repeat of
"Tomb" from its more hard-news-branded Discovery Times Channel.

When
the Nielsen ratings revealed that "Tomb" averaged 4.1 million viewers –
Discovery’s largest audience since September 2005 – the network
declined to put out a press release touting the numbers, as would be
standard practice for a highly successful premiere. The second-season
premiere of Discovery Channel’s "Future Weapons," for instance, earned
a media announcement for its audience of 2.5 million. A network
representative, however, insisted Discovery was not trying to bury
"Tomb."

The Discovery official issues a lot of spin trying to save face for the network, and they still haven’t done all they need to to distance themselves from this stinkburger, but the overall message is clear: They screwed up and they know it. Now they’re trying to avoid getting more egg on their collective face.

GET THE STORY.

OH, AND I WONDER IF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT.

They just got a new CEO two months ago, and the Jesus tomb thing was certainly in motion before then. If his new broom is sweeping clean, some of the execs who signed off on Cameron’s nonsense may want not to be swept away along with it.