Things I talked about: colloidal silver, argyria, Paul Karason (below) (video), Power Boy, trade dress.
Year: 2010
See Ya, Helen!
So Helen Thomas has resigned.
Fine with me. I always found her obnoxious, abrasive, partisan, rude, and mean-spirited.
But don’t count her out just yet. She previously resigned from UPI in 2000 but had a new gig at Hearst Newspapers within a few months, so we may see her again.
Though she is gone (at least for now), the question remains: Was what she said in the video clip anti-Semitic or merely anti-Zionist?
In the combox of my previous post, many commenters disagreed with me and said that the clip did provide proof of Thomas’s anti-Semitism.
That’s fine. I don’t have a problem with disagreement.
Other commenters agreed that the video didn’t provide proof of anti-Semitism and said that I was right to distinguish anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism.
That’s fine, too. I also don’t have a problem with people agreeing.
Even though Thomas has resigned, the issues involved in the exchange are still with us—and will be in the future—and that makes them still worth talking about. So I’d like to explore them a little further.
Specifically, I’d like to evaluate the following claims by critics:
1) That wishing a group of people would leave a particular land automatically constitutes racism
2) That the Jewish people have legitimate title to the land of Israel
These issues were not created by Helen Thomas. They have been with us for a long time, and they will be with us for a long time in the future. I can’t treat them in a single post, but let’s tackle the racism charge in this one.
Some commenters suggested that “Go home!” is the unmistakable cry of the racist, and at first glance, this seems plausible. But does this claim hold up to careful consideration?
It certainly doesn’t apply to all racists. Some racists don’t want those against whom they are prejudiced to leave at all. The runaway slave laws that used to exist in America are proof of that.
But what about the reverse? If you do want a group of people to leave, does that automatically make you a racist?
As is often the case, a matter of principle like this can be demonstrated by changing the scale of the problem. Suppose that we aren’t talking about a whole nation full of people, like Israel, laying claim to a particular territory. Suppose it’s just one person and a much smaller territory.
Specifically: suppose that you are in your house and one night someone breaks in. Further suppose that you are a member of race X and the home invader is a member of race Y. You naturally want the person to leave. But—and here is the key question—why do you want him to leave?
Is it because of his race? Because you don’t like race Y as a whole and don’t want its members around? If so then you are a racist with regard to race Y. No doubt about it.
But the reason you want the person to leave may have nothing to do with the home invader’s race. You may want him to go because you don’t want people invading your home. In that case, your motive is not racism but anti-home-invasion-ism.
Now let’s scale the issue up to where groups of people large enough to control national territories are in play.
Suppose, that you are a citizen of Vichy France and the Nazis have rolled in on their tanks and taken control.
If you want the Germans to leave, are you a racist?
It depends. If you hate all Germans and want them to leave simply because of that fact, then yes, you are an anti-German racist. (Be sure to remember that the word “race” originally applied not just to skin color but to national/ethnic/cultural origin, as in “the German race,” “the British race,” “the Japanese race,” etc.)
If you want Germans out because they are Germans, then yes, you are a racist.
But if you want them out because you don’t like people occupying your homeland—and if you would object whether they were German or British or Japanese—then you are not a racist. You are an anti-occupationist.
In the same way, if it’s 1800 and you are a Native American and you don’t like people of European descent—British, Spanish, or Portugese—occupying your homeland then you are a racist if you hate all British, all Spanish, or all Portugese—even the ones who aren’t occupying your homeland; but you are not a racist if you just hate foreign occupiers.
Or if it’s A.D. 60 and you are a Jewish person in Jerusalem, you may well hate the Romans occupying Judea and Galilee. If you hate all Romans everywhere, then you are an anti-Roman racist. But if you don’t mind Romans that aren’t supporters of the occupation then you are just an anti-occupationist.
They key is whether you want someone to leave because they are an occupier (of whatever race) or whether you want them to leave because they are of a specific race, apart from the occupation issue.
It should be pointed out that hating occupiers and lead to racism.
* If you are a Jew in second century B.C. Judea and you hate the Greek occupiers, you may be led to hate all Greeks.
* If you are a Jew in first century A.D. Judea and you hate the Roman occupiers, you may be led to hate all Romans.
* If you are a Native American in the nineteenth century A.D. Americas, you hate the European occupiers, you may be led to hate all Europeans.
* If you are a twentieth century Frenchman and you hate the German occupiers, you may be led to hate all Germans.
* If you are a twentieth century Palestinian and you hate the Jewish occupiers, you may be led to hate all Jews.
If so, your hatred of occupiers has led you into racism.
But just because occupation can lead one into racism doesn’t mean that it always does lead one into racism.
Should we assume that Maria von Trapp became an anti-German racist just because the Nazis perpetrated the Anschluss and seized control of Austria?
This seems implausible.
We can’t just assume racism on the part of a person who opposes a particular occupation. We can’t just leap to conclusions. We must strive to be fair and accurate about others, even if we don’t like them.
Specifically, we need to watch out for potential offenses against the Eighth Commandment (“Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor”; Exodus 20:16). One commits calumny who “by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them”; also, if on the basis of an emotional reaction one leaps to an unwarranted conclusion, one commits the sin of rash judgment who “even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2477).
I understand how easy it is to get caught up with emotion when one encounters the kind of venom that Thomas displayed in her recent remarks (even chuckling—or as some have said, cackling—at her own provocation). That’s human. But it is at precisely such times that we have to check ourselves and make sure we are not being misled by our emotions (see above on rash judgment).
That’s why Scripture is full of exhortations like:
* “Reckon others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3)—i.e., give them the befit of the doubt
* “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12)—would you want to be given the benefit of the doubt, or to have people stop and check their emotions before lashing out at you?
* “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18, Mark 12:31)
These are part of the Jewish tradition as much as the Christian, as illustrated not just by the quote from Leviticus, but also by Hillel the Elder’s teaching a Gentile, “What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow man: this is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary” (Shab. 31a).
The ethical requirements of both Judaism and Christianity thus require us to be careful in this area and make sure that we are not being swept up by our emotions. But that’s not the only consideration here.
In America today, in the wake of the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany, there are few more damning things that one can say against a person than that they are an anti-Semite.
The only things that compare with it are calling someone a racist, a sexist, or a pedophile.
But that’s changing . . . rapidly . . . because the word “racist” is loosing its punch. The word has been so over-used that its force is wearing off, just as “Help! Wolf!” lost its punch in the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
If you use an emotionally-charged term too often, when it isn’t clearly warranted, it will lose the charge it has. People will start rolling their eyes when you use it, and their sympathies will shift from those who make the accusation to those against whom it is made.
If you don’t want that to happen to the word “anti-Semitism” then you don’t want it over used.
So there is one more reason we should be careful when charging someone with anti-Semitism.
This applies especially to Helen Thomas when you look at the things she said in the video, because she specifically suggests that Israelis who immigrated from America should return to America.
America is Helen’s native country. It’s her own neighborhood. Her own back yard.
And by saying that Israelis who came from America should return to America, she’s saying, “Let’s have more Jews here!”
If she hated Jewish people in general and wanted them to “just go away” on that basis then she wouldn’t be inviting them here. She’d want them to all die or something—or move to Antarctica, or the moon. But none of those is what she says. She just wants them out of a particular plot of ground in the Middle East, and she’s happy to have those of American origin come back to America, where she lives.
That shows she’s anti-occupationist, but it does not show that she’s anti-Semitic.
You can argue that what’s going on in Israel isn’t an occupation. That goes to the issue of who has proper title to the land in question (the subject of an upcoming post). But Helen perceives it as an occupation, and that’s what she’s objecting to.
So at least from what we see in the video, Thomas is clearly an anti-Zionist, but if you want to charge her with anti-Semitism, you’ll need to provide additional evidence.
What are your thoughts?
Shopping Expedition
This weekend I went to a local Middle Eastern food market and got some stuff.
I also made a couple of videos about the experience.
Links to the things I was talking about: Fava Beans; The Lord Chancellor’s Nightmare Song [video] (from Iolanthe; with Mixed Pickles); and Peter Piper.
More links: hummus, tahini, baba ghanoush, imam bayeldi, paneer, dolma
Is Helen Thomas an Anti-Semite
On May 27, long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas made remarks that have caused an uproar.
At the time, she was outside the White House, which was hosting a Jewish heritage event. An interviewer asked her if she had any comments on Israel.
Her reply was, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.”
She went on to say that “they” (meaning the Palestinian people) are an occupied people and that Palestine is “their land.”
When asked where Israelis should go, Thomas said that they should “Go home” and went on to identify “home” as “Poland, Germany . . . and America . . . and everywhere else.”
Thomas’s remarks caused an uproar in which many have called her remarks offensive, disgusting, anti-Semitic, hateful, and so forth. Some have been demanding that the White House strip her of her press credentials. Others have suggested that she should be fired from Hearst Newspapers, for which she currently works.
I’d like to look at one characterization of her remarks—that they were anti-Semitic.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have a long-standing disapproval of Helen Thomas. I don’t like her reporting. She strikes me as excessively partisan, mean, rude, and unpleasant. But if she’s anti-Semitic, I don’t see sufficient evidence of it in this clip.
Watch for yourself and then let’s discuss . . .
There are anti-Semites in the world, but “anti-Semite” is a term that one has to use with caution. After the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, calling someone an anti-Semite is to throw them in league with the Nazis. It has the emotional punch of calling someone a racist. In fact, anti-Semitism can be seen as a form of racism: racism directed toward Jewish people.
Terms like “anti-Semite” and “racist” are such damning terms that they should only be used when the facts justify them. They should not be tossed around willy-nilly, at whomever you happen to dislike. However convenient they may be for torpedoing your opponent’s reputation, indiscriminate use of these words only cheapens them and takes the focus off the horrors of real anti-Semitism and real racism.
So is Thomas an anti-Semite?
I don’t know. I don’t know her heart (or even her track record of publicly expressed opinions about Jewish people), but I don’t see evidence of anti-Semitism in the clip.
Why do I say that?
Well, for a start, she never even mentions the term “Jew.” Her comments are directed at Israel, which is not synonymous with the Jewish people as a whole. Her problem—at least as she articulates it in the clip—is not with Jewish people in general but with those Jewish people who are present in the modern state of Israel and who, in her view, are oppressing the Palestinian people.
That’s not anti-Semitism. It may by anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism, but it is not racism directed toward the Jewish people.
Her complaint in the vid is of a political and historical nature, not a racial or even a religious one.
She does not display hostility to Jews outside of Israel. If they went to other countries—“Poland, Germany, and America, and everywhere else”—then she would not appear to have a problem.
And note that she includes America in the list of where he wishes the people of Israel would go. It seems she would not mind more Jewish neighbors right here in her own country.
So I’m not seeing evidence for anti-Semitism—hatred (or whatever) of Jewish people as Jewish people. She is expressing—cantankerously (and taking delight in her own cantankerousness)—a historical/political opinion that is common among many people with her background.
For those who may not know, Thomas is a Maronite Catholic [UPDATE: I’ve since run across additional claims that say she is Greek Orthodox, so I’m not sure what is accurate here] whose parents were immigrants from Lebanon (so technically she is a Semite, though ironically not as the term is used in “anti-Semitic,” where “Semite” is improperly treated as a synonym for “Jew”). She was born in 1920 and growing up as a girl and a young woman hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were immigrating to Palestine, with increasingly tense relations between them and the Palestinians. She was a grown woman—age 28—when Israel became an independent state, and subsequently has seen—and felt in a personal way—the subsequent history of pain and violence of the region, including in particular the horrors that have befallen Lebanon on account of its proximity to Israel.
There is another side to that story—the Jewish side. (In fact, there are many sides to this story, including multiple ones within each ethnic group.) But it is understandable if someone like Thomas were to think, “Y’know, things would have been better off if all those immigrants and refugees had never come to Palestine. I wish they’d all go back to their previous homelands.”
Actually deconstructing the state of Israel and returning its citizens to other countries is not something that is presently on the table (though who knows what will happen if Middle Eastern states start getting nukes), and I don’t know that Thomas was literally proposing it. She may well have just been giving voice to an angry wish or fantasy scenario.
But that kind of thing is not uncommon or unexpected. In history people have conflicts, some people lose, and those who lose often harbor such wishes—sometimes for generations. It’s human nature.
Beyond that, the opinions one might reasonably attribute to Thomas on the basis of the clip—that it would be better if the Jewish migration to Palestine had never occurred and the state of Israel had never been founded, that the Palestinians have some kind of still-existing claim to the territory of Israel, and that it would be better if the Israelis migrated to other countries—are opinions which one could reasonably hold.
That’s not to say that they’re right, just that one could reasonably hold them. (I.e., they don’t flatly contradict the clear dictates of reason.) One also can reasonably hold diametrically opposite views. These are subjects of a historical and political nature that people can disagree about.
Were Thomas’ remarks inopportune? As they were made outside of a Jewish heritage celebration, oooooh yes.
Were they phrased with unnecessary cantankerousness? Uh-huh.
Was she foolish to make them? Most definitely.
Should she lose her job or White House credentials over them? One may reasonably hold this opinion.
But was she being anti-Semitic in her remarks? Not from what we see in the clip.
You can hold that Helen Thomas is as hateful, offensive, mean, venomous, outrageous, embarrassing a woman as you wish, but if you want to accuse her of anti-Semitism, you’ll need more than this clip. One can be angry about a historical situation without hating an entire people.
She is clearly an anti-Zionist—and an angry one!—but Zionism and the Jewish people are not the same thing. An angry anti-Zionist is not the same thing as an anti-Semite.
Unless evidence emerges that she hates Jewish people as an entire people (not just those Jewish people she views as occupiers of Palestine), let’s not call her an anti-Semite. It cheapens the word and thus makes it easier for real anti-Semitism to occur.
What are your thoughts?
New Awesome Win!
Great new vid from the folks at Eepybird.com! (CHT: GreenAutoBlog)
Amazing new automotive fuel source . . . Diet Coke + Mentos! (Technically, Coke Zero, but, y'know.)
Behold . . . Experiment #321!
Impressive as always!
(And I had the same thought about a next destination as the guys in the video did, though I don't guess we'll get to see that one.)
Mind you, Experiment #321 is definitely awesome win, but it's no Experiment #214, which was truly epic win.
In case your memory needs refreshing, let's take a pause that refreshes.
Up from the archives . . .
You see? Totally epic! Experiment #214 is not only cutting-edge science, it also has amazing healing properties. It's the kind of thing that you want to keep bookmarked so that any time you're feeling down or hurt, you can watch it and remember how much there is to celebrate in the world.
Obama Asks *You* To Celebrate Gay Pride Month!
IT'S TRUE!
The President has asked all Americans to observe this month, so if you're an American, this means he is asking you to do so.
In a proclamation posted on the White House web site, he writes:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2010 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month by fighting prejudice and discrimination in their own lives and everywhere it exists.
Earlier in the proclamation he detailed all the things he has done on behalf of these favored citizens:
America’s Secret Crypto-Dance Culture Exposed!
A reader writes:
Hi, Jimmy,
You square dance. What is an old brass wagon and why would it circle to the right and left so much?
Let me take a guess at the context in which the reader encountered the old brass wagon . . . it was at a grade school or grade-school aged function.
Taking the first part of the question literally, an old brass wagon would be a wagon that is made out of a copper-zinc alloy and that is endowed with the property of not having been made recently.
It's also an American play party game.
Play parties are something that most people today don't have any knowledge of, but they used to be quite common.
As you may know, some Fundamentalist Christians disapprove of dancing and even the playing of musical instruments–or certain musical instruments, at least in certain contexts.
Well, 200 years ago those kind of views were mainstream in a lot of American Protestantism, and in many communities it was socially taboo to dance. You couldn't find dances to go to anywhere.
Which was a problem because the Internet hadn't yet been invented, and people needed something to do in their free time other than read the Bible (not that they shouldn't have read the Bible, just that they needed to do something in addition to that).
Another problem is that God wired into human nature the desire both to make music and to move to music (i.e., dance). So human nature was compelling people toward doing something that was socially taboo.
Fortunately, human creativity was equal to the occasion, and a solution was found: the play party.
Play parties were, as you'd guess, parties that were held at people's homes (often with the curtains drawn to keep pesky, holier-than-thou neighbors from watching) in which the participants would sing and clap (providing music and a dance beat) and "play" children's "games" (i.e., dances–without the name).
"We can't dance, a'course. Tha'd be wrong. But we have all'a our friends over for a play party and 'play' a bunch a' 'games.'"
Naturally, the dances used at play parties could be very simple (being forced to practice any art form in secrecy is going to have a hindering effect on the development of the art form).
And that's why the Old Brass Wagon that the reader encountered involved so much circling to the left and right. It's a rudimentary dance that is designed for people who don't have extensive dancing experience.
Circle Left and Circle Right are no-teach dance moves. You don't have to engage in lengthy explanations of them. With adults, you just have to say the move and people do it. The most you ever have to say is, "Join hands; Circle to the Left; just walk to the beat of the music"–which is why Circle Left and Circle Right are the first two moves I use when I'm calling for a beginner party. Then I quickly add other moves that I can teach without stopping the music, so people get the most dancing out of the least instruction. (People came to dance, not to hear a lecture.)
Old Brass Wagon is a particular dance set to a particular tune (.pdf) (whose lyrics include the phrase "old brass wagon") that begins with a Circle Left and a Circle Right and then goes into whatever other simple dance moves the leader wants that are within the capability of small children.
It is very simple and very repetitive, and the only context in which you are likely to encounter it today–now that play parties are gone with the wind–is when adults are trying to get children to dance. Hence: grade school or a grade-school aged function. (Or possibly something like a father/daughter or mother/son or all-family dance, where you have a mix of adults and grade-school aged children.)
Old Brass Wagon is thus not something you'd encounter at a typical Modern Western Square Dance. Not only would a western square dancer not have any idea what you were talking about, if you tried to get them to do it they would hate it and would be bored silly in the first 90 seconds. (Modern Western Square Dance is based on rapidly changing, substantially unpredictable choreography and attracts the kind of dancers who crave complexity, whether they realize it or not.)
Also, Old Brass Wagon isn't a square dance. It's a no-partner circle dance . . . as illustrated by the facts that you don't need a partner for it and it's performed in a circle. (You can also do it as a partner circle dance; in the video below, you'll see the kids doing elbow swings with their partners, though partners aren't required for the basic dance.)
It's also cornpone as heck.
Still, it's a survival of America's secret, crypto-dance culture, even if today you won't see it in the movies or on Dancing with the Stars but only in proud-parent YouTube videos.
BTW, another–probably more familiar–play party "game" is Skip to My Lou.
What Do Italian Priests’ Mistresses Want You To Know?
A group of 40 or so mistresses of Italian priests, including Stefania Solomone (pictured), want you—and especially Pope Benedict—to know that they don’t like priestly celibacy.
That’s why they’ve written the Pope a letter (Italian original) on the subject.
The occasion was Pope Benedict’s statement that
“The horizon of the ontological belonging to God also constitutes the proper framework for understanding and reaffirming, in our day too, the value of sacred celibacy which in the Latin Church is a charism required for Sacred Orders and is held in very great consideration in the Eastern Churches . . .
“It is an authentic prophecy of the Kingdom, a sign of consecration with undivided heart to the Lord and to “the affairs of the Lord”, the expression of their gift of self to God and to others. The priest’s vocation is thus most exalted and remains a great mystery, even to us who have received it as a gift. Our limitations and weaknesses must prompt us to live out and preserve with deep faith this precious gift with which Christ has configured us to him, making us sharers in his saving Mission.”
The mistresses particularly objected to the phrase “sacred celibacy,” who seem to have determined to write their letter “from the moment we heard the reaffirmation of the sacredness of what is not sacred in the least.”
This episode just fills me with sadness.
The discipline of celibacy (i.e., remaining unmarried, which implies continence, or abstaining from sexual relations as its corollary in Christian morality) for the service of the Kingdom has been part of Christian patrimony since the time of the apostles. Jesus himself recommended it in the Gospels, though he noted that it was not a gift given to everyone.
How that discipline is applied in particular ages and in particular spheres of the Church is something that has changed over time.
There is no reason in principle why the Church could not change its discipline regarding clerical celibacy in the future. The question is whether it would be prudent to do so, and what form of revision—if any—would be beneficial.
A Catholic can thus legitimately hold the opinion that the Church should modify or even abolish the discipline of clerical celibacy.
There was a period after Vatican II where there was a great expectation that a change in the discipline would be coming in the near future, which created unrealistic hopes in many. It also, no doubt, helped alienate many priests when these unrealistic expectations were not fulfilled, leading many of them into sexual sin (with adult women; wanting permission to marry a woman doesn’t correlate with desires to have sex with children) or out of the priesthood entirely.
The pressure was so great that John Paul II judged it prudent to take the subject off the table, even though it is a matter of Church discipline rather than dogma, and so he and others at the Vatican repeatedly stressed that the subject was not up for discussion.
Pope Benedict has taken a somewhat different tack. In the 2007 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, he allowed the subject to be discussed among the participants. As one might expect, reports at the time indicated that some of the Eastern bishops, who deal with the practical difficulties of a married clergy, were the most vocal in stressing that the Latin Church should not abolish its discipline on this point. So the topic was discussed, and that bishops recommended that it not be pursued further (at least at this time). That’s right there in the propositions that the bishops delivered to the pope as recommendations (see Proposition 11).
So on the one hand, my heart goes out to Pope Benedict, who has been singularly unafraid of dialog on points where the Church could change its discipline, including dialog on this point in particular. Yet as this story gains traction in the world press, he stands to be shoved into the media mold of “mean old celibate pope”—when in reality he has been willing to have the subject of revising the Latin Church’s celibacy discipline be seriously discussed!
My heart also goes out to the mistresses, because they have a human desire to marry those to whom they are romantically attached and are genuinely pained at the situation in which they find themselves.
That’s the position in which mistresses commonly find themselves.
But the thing is . . . they’re mistresses.
They are living a life that is objectively sinful.
They are violating very basic and well-known elements of Christian morality. It’s hard to claim innocent ignorance in this case.
The same thing goes—even moreso—for the priests with whom they are involved.
One can feel for the emotional distress over the situation in which they find themselves, and one can understand their petition for a change in Church law that would allow them to regularize their situations, but at the same time there is a tragic dimension to their situation that remains unacknowledged in their letter: They are, in fact, living in sin.
And it’s a big one, overlaid with sacrilege because priests are involved—a factor that weighs even more heavily on the priest in the relationship than one the mistress, because the priest is responsible for his consecrated person in a way that others are not.
It is a tragedy that these people attached romantic feelings to each other—something that they knew from the beginning was wrong.
So reading the letter is a mixed experience.
In certain passages they make insightful points (particularly regarding the psychological dynamics of their situation). In other passages they articulate positions that a Catholic may legitimately hold.
But then they get into stuff that is flat-out rationalization.
They play the victim card repeatedly, and there is an element of truth to the idea that they are victims—but not as much victims of the law of celibacy (as they would maintain) but rather victims of the men who have been playing with their affections to fulfill their own psychological and sexual impulses.
I’m sorry, but there are lots of people in the world who are romantically off limits to every single one of us. These people include all children, all members of our own sex, all married members of the opposite sex except our spouse, and—if we are married—every other person on the planet except our spouse.
To become romantically or sexually involved with any one of these people is a sin, and anybody with even a basic education in Christian morality knows that.
Not being able to marry or to become romantically involved with someone is not something surprising. It is the norm for every single human being with respect to almost every single other human being.
If you want to marry someone, great. Go out and look for someone you legitimately could marry, but you are not a victim because a particular person you’d like to marry has already taken a vow (or made a promise) of celibacy any more than you are a victim if the person you’d like to marry has already taken marriage vows to someone and is thus one among the billions of people not romantically available to you.
This is just life.
And I’m not sure that’s something the authors of the letter get. At times reading it, describing the struggles that they and their paramours experience, one hears echoes of what ordinary people face and fear. Do priests get lonely? Sure. So do lots of non-priests, including lots of married people. Do they get depressed? Of course. So do lots of people of every age and every condition.
We all experience unpleasant things in life, we all have struggles and pain, and we all encounter situations that would be different in a more perfect world. But the ability to claim victimhood is limited when one has become involved with a person who is not lawfully available to you and with whom you are conducting an objectively sinful affair.
It’s one thing to advocate a change in the Latin Church’s discipline of clerical celibacy (or the Eastern Churches’, for that matter, because they have a version of it, too). It’s another thing to portray oneself as the victim because you are engaging in a relationship that is objectively sinful from the beginning and which you knew to be objectively sinful when you entered it.
If you want to advocate a change, fine. But don’t do so portraying yourself and your paramour as victims and ignoring the real and objectively sinful character of your relationship. You are in control of your actions and your choices. Don’t pretend that you’re not.
As St. Paul, who knew a thing or two about celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, wrote: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
What are your thoughts?
Attention Losties! I Need Your Help!
I've got a problem.
A few years ago, when the first season of LOST came out on DVD, I watched a few episodes and concluded several things:
1) This is a really good show.
2) This is a really demanding show.
3) This is a show I really don't have time to watch right now.
So I decided that I'd wait until it was all done and watch it all on DVD (or download, or whatever). That's what I'm planning to do now.
And I know that when I'm done with it, I'll want to hear about what everyone thought of he finale.
Trouble is . . . everyone wants to talk about the finale right now, not when I'm done with it and everyone's memories are dim and the excitement about talking about it isn't there.
On the other hand, I don't want to read others comments on the end now, because I don't want to be spoiled!
Fortunately, Mother Technology provides a solution . . . this blog post!
I'd like to invite Losties to opine in the combox about what they thought of the finale. That way, you get to have your say here on the blog now, while it's fresh in your mind and you're all excited and/or full of loathing, and I get to read your comments later on, without being spoiled before I've seen the show. (I'll also let you know what I thought once I've finished it.)
Sound like a fair deal?
I hope so. It's better than waiting a year for a Battlestar Galactica finale review, anyway.
So I hope you'll become a willing co-conspirator in this plan.
If you need some Catholic LOST analysis to get you started, I suggest this piece by my fellow blogger over at the Register, Danielle Bean.
What do you think?
Bishop Olmsted an Evil Monster?
I thought I would take the opportunity to offer a few thoughts on some of the issues raised in the combox of my previous postregarding the situation in the Diocese of Phoenix.
A sizeable number of commenters strongly deplored Bishop Thomas Olmsted’s actions regarding Sr. Margaret McBride.
So far as I can tell based on the known facts, Bishop Olmsted had done three, possibly four, things regarding Sr. McBride:
1) He has contacted Sr. McBride to get her side of the story regarding the abortion she approved.
2) He has informed her that, based on the facts as he understands them, she has triggered the provision of canon law that provides a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication connected with abortion.
3) After the excommunication was reported in the press, Bishop Olmsted allowed his communications director to confirm the excommunication.
4) Bishop Olmsted *may* (or may not, we don’t know since nobody official is discussing this) have had a role in the reassignment of Sr. McBride to other duties at St. Joseph’s (the Catholic hospital where she works and where the abortion occurred).
I don’t see how anybody can object to Action #1. If a Catholic bishop is informed that an abortion has taken place at a Catholic hospital in his diocese, he is supposed to investigate it and find out what happened. Contacting people for their side of the story is always a good thing, so I don’t see grounds for outrage on this one.
Action #2 is something I think people may misunderstand. I’ve seen reports elsewhere on the Net where people are saying things like “the Bishop automatically excommunicated her when he found out.” This is not what happened. It’s a misunderstanding. He didn’t “automatically excommunicate” her. According to the Bishop, she “automatically excommunicated” herself. He informed her of this fact.
Canon law provides an automatic excommunication for a small number of offenses (e.g., abortion, throwing away the consecrated species of the Eucharist, assaulting the pope). When a person commits one of these actions (all things being equal) the person automatically incurs the censure of excommunication by the commission of the act itself.
If Sr. McBride incurred this penalty, it was by her own action, not the bishop’s.
Based on his reading of the facts, Bishop Olmsted concluded that she had incurred the penalty and made her aware of this.
That is not an act of cruelty.
It is a spiritual work of mercy because it gives her occasion to pause, reflect, and take the steps necessary to be reconciled with the Church (which is the purpose of excommunication to begin with; it is medicinal in nature, intended to facilitate repentance and reconciliation).
One could argue that perhaps Bishop Olmsted was wrong in his assessment of the facts and that Sr. McBride did not excommunicate herself. I’m not a canon lawyer, but depending on the facts of the case I can imagine a number of different potential lines of defense in Sr. McBride’s favor (i.e., that she did not excommunicate herself).
So can others.
Coming from very different places on the Catholic spectrum, Michael Liccione and Thomas Doyle both offer potential lines of defense.
As I am sure they can, I can also think of additional lines of defense they don’t mention in their articles.
But I am not in possession of the full facts of the case because so many of them are confidential.
Bishop Olmsted is in possession of the facts, and, unlike me, he is a canonist.
Based on what is known, I can understand why people would question whether Sr. McBride excommunicated herself, but we’re dealing with something at several removes, and we need to be cautious in making judgments about situations on which we do not have all the facts.
On the other hand, I could imagine one saying, “I defer to Bishop Olmsted on the question of whether Sr. McBride excommunicated herself. Let’s say that she did violate the law in this way. But I think it’s a bad law.”
That’s a position a Catholic (or anyone else) can legitimately hold.
Some canonists have argued that penalties that take effect automatically are a bad idea anyway. At his blog, canonist Edward Peters writes:
I have long held that latae sententiae penalties are unsustainable in a modern legal system, that their use inevitably distracts attention from the underlying offense and redirects it toward the complexities of the canonical legal system (which most folks are not prepared to assess), and that the 150 year trend toward reducing automatic penalties in the Church is good and should be maintained. Still other issues, such as authority to remit sins and sanctions, are unnecessary complicated by automatic sanctions as well.
And, one may note, the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches (CCEO), which is the equivalent of the Code of Canon Law (CIC) for Eastern Catholics, has no latae sententiae penalties at all and handles the same issues in other ways (cf. CCEO 1402).
So it is perfectly possible for the Church not to even have this kind of law—or to configure it differently so that it would have a broader or narrower scope regarding abortion—or to add new offenses (e.g., sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric)—or to delete existing ones.
All of these are legitimate opinions one can reasonably hold and discuss and advocate.
But in such cases, one’s disagreement is with the law, not with Bishop Olmsted.
He has to deal with the law the way it is, not the way he—or anyone else—might wish it to be, just as every cop and every judge has to deal with the law as it is in his jurisdiction.
So I don’t see grounds for faulting Bishop Olmsted for seeking to apply the law—as it is, not in some other way—to events in his diocese. That’s his job.
Action #3 (confirming the excommunication after the press began reported on it) seems to be a reasonable thing for a bishop to do, lest confusion result. The press has a hard enough time getting religion stories right, and it’s entirely understandable that the bishop would want to head misunderstandings off.
Action #4—which is only speculative, but which involves reasonable speculation—seems to naturally follow from the previous actions.
Sr. McBride’s position was “vice president of mission integration” at the hospital. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I suppose it means helping ensure that the hospital undertakes its medical services in fulfillment of its mission as a Catholic entity, in keeping with the Church’s vision of human rights, including and in a special way the foundation of all rights, the right to life.
If it is true that Sr. McBride had such a grave lapse of judgment as to approve of a direct abortion taking place in the facility then it is easy to see how this would be inconsistent with her job duties regarding mission integration. It is also easy to see how excommunicating oneself is inconsistent with a job involving mission integration.
Again, one could disagree with Bishop Olmsted and argue that Sr. McBride did not approve of a direct abortion (the kind that is intrinsically evil) or that for various reasons she did not automatically excommunicate herself, but those matters pertain to his judgment involved in Action #2. If one grants that he is right about Action #2, then Action #4 follows from it as a logical consequence, so there is no special ill will manifest in having her duties changed given the established assessment of her actions.
I thus don’t understand the outrage being expressed toward Bishop Olmsted.
If you want to disagree with him, okay. But do so with some reserve, because we are not privy to the facts of this case. We only know them partially.
If you want to disagree with the law and suggest what you think would be a better formulation, fine. But recognize that your objection is to the law, not the Bishop.
There is ample room here for Catholics and other people of good will to discuss and even disagree, but let’s do it with caution and respect.
I’ve got more to come on this issue, including the medical situation involved and the ethics of direct vs. indirect abortion, but in the meantime . . .
What do you think?