Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Motu Proprio! Motu Proprio! Motu Proprio! For Real This Time!

Pope Benedict XVI has released the long-awaited document granting permission for the older form of Mass, which was in general use in Catholic churches before the Second Vatican Council.

This move will prove controversial in some quarters, and the pope refers to the controvery that has already been generated in a letter he issued that accompanies the document.

The pope comments:

News reports and judgments made without sufficient information have created no little confusion.  There have been very divergent reactions ranging from joyful acceptance to harsh opposition, about a plan whose contents were in reality unknown.

Here are links to the document itself (the "motu proprio"–a document issued by the pope’s "own initiative"), the accompanying letter from the pope, and analysis by others.

TEXT OF THE MOTU PROPRIO. (AND IN LATIN.)

TEXT OF THE ACCOMPANYING LETTER.

ANALYSIS.

MORE ANALYSIS.

YET MORE ANALYSIS!

UPDATE: AND STILL YET MORE ANALYSIS (THIS TIME FROM FR. Z–CHT TO THE READER WHO COMMENTED).

HOW THE CONTROVERSY MAY PLAY OUT.

Lay Ecclesial Ministry & the Feminization of the Church

John Allen had some interesting commentary last Friday on lay ecclesial ministry and the feminization of the Church.

GET THE STORY.

He describes the basic phenomenon of increased lay ministry well (for good or ill), and much of what he has to say is quite insightful.

I’d like to write a longer commentary on what he has to say than I can at the moment (perhaps I can revisit the subject another time), but I’d call attention to at least a few points, briefly:

Allen notes (correctly) that in both the Catholic Church and in Protestant churches (even those that allow women ministers), the top level of leadership consists of men, but the level below this is largely women. That’s to be expected for several reasons:

a) Women are–in all cultures and times–more religious than men, meaning that they’re more likely to sign up/volunteer/whatever. However,

b) Men are not biologically equipped to bear and nurse children the way women are, which makes them the natural primary caregivers for children, which takes women out of the work/volunteer pool for a considerable length of time (at least until the children don’t require constant supervision). In humans, bearing and raising young requires an intense personal investment (compared to some species, where the young are on their own from the moment they’re hatched), which means–and this is especially true historically–that if a human family has to make a choice about who is the primary caregiver for the children and who is the primary breadwinner, the choices that most families will make, and have made historically, are obvious. This has an impact on human psychology, specifically:

c) Women are on average more psychologically oriented toward caregiving within the family and men are more psychologically oriented toward interacting with the outside world, which means things like pursuing a career (income for the family), fighting wars (protecting the family), and pursuing leadership (securing a place for the family in the broader social situation). Men have an innate leadership instinct that is stronger–on
average–than the same instinct is in women.

Because of factors (b) and (c), men disproportionately form the leadership of almost every institution: the family, the state, the business world, and the religious world. Men have a stronger drive to achieve in these areas, and because of their biological inability to bear and nurse children, they aren’t taking time off to do those activities and can devote themselves more fully to their careers.

You might even expect men to be even more dominant in the religious world than they are except for factor (a): Women are more religious than men, which ensures them a prominent place in religious institutions.

What I have said thus far, of course, is based on the law of averages.
It’s not true of every individual. Some women are more driven to lead
than some men and some men are more nurturing than some women in the
same way that some women are taller than some men and some men live
longer than some women (greater height being a male thing on average
and greater longevity being a female thing on average). Similarly, some men are more religious than some women. It’s all averages.

So the pattern that we actually see is to be expected: Men outnumber women in the top leadership roles in religious institutions, but women outnumber men in the next layer down.

In the Catholic Church, this reality has been reflected from the very beginning: Christ appointed apostles (leaders) who were all men, but we then read about there being a group of women (not men!) who ministered to their needs in turn.

Based on this defining, founding experience, the Church recognizes that the priesthood is something that can be held only by men, but it allows for a prominent place for women religious (think: priests and nuns).

In contemporary Protestant churches there have been some that have allowed women ministers, but the same pattern holds: Senior ministers are disproportionately male, while other church workers (including junior pastors) have a higher female representation, and sometimes are disproportionately female.

That’s just the way the human species is. This pattern is straight out of human biology and psychology. It’s part of our species’ reproductive strategy. It’s how God designed us.

But there can be fluctuations in how this gender dynamic plays out. Different religious bodies may have a more masculine or a more feminine orientation, and it’s not hard to see how some churches have become so oriented toward one gender–by tilting toward a masculine spirituality or a feminine spirituality–that the environment becomes uncongenial to the other sex.

At one time there was much more of a stress on masculine spirituality in the Catholic Church than there is now. That’s why we still speak of the Church militant as its earthly embodiment. But today the situation is changed, and it raises questions about how congenial an environment the Church is today for men.

Allen writes:

[S]ome recent writers have voiced concern that Christianity actually alienates men. David Murrow’s Why Men Hate Going to Church (Nelson Books, 2004) and Leon J. Podles’ The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity (Spence, 1999), illustrate the point. Murrow is a Presbyterian and Podles a Catholic, but both have noticed something similar about their respective denominations.

As Podles put it succinctly, "Women go to church, men go to football games."

Podles believes that Western Christianity has been feminizing itself for the better part of 1,000 years, beginning with medieval imagery about the church as the "Bride of Christ," which he associates with St. Bernard of Clairvaux and exhortations to "fall in love" with Jesus. While that kind of imagery has a powerful impact on women, Podles wrote, it’s off-putting for men. Podles argued that Christian men have sublimated their religious instincts into sports, soldiering, fraternal organizations, and even fascism. When they do engage in religious activity, he wrote, it’s more likely to be in a more masculine para-church organization such as the Knights of Columbus (note the martial imagery) or Promise-Keepers.

Even reviewers who didn’t buy Podles’ historical arguments generally conceded that he was onto something in terms of Christian sociology.

On a less theoretical note, Murrow, a media and advertising specialist, said he looked around after attending weekly church services for almost 30 years, and drew what to him seemed an obvious conclusion: "It’s not too hard to discern the target audience of the modern church," he wrote. "It’s a middle-aged to elderly woman."

This was never anyone’s intention, Murrow said, but it’s the inevitable result of the fact that these women have two things every church needs: time and money. In that light, he said, it’s no surprise that "church culture has subtly evolved to meet women’s needs." Murrow agreed with Podles that "contemporary churches are heavily tilted toward feminine themes in the preaching, the music and the sentiments expressed in worship."

"If our definition of a ‘good Christian’ is someone who’s nurturing, tender, gentle, receptive and guilt-driven, it’s going to be a lot easier to find women who will sign up," Murrow wrote.

I don’t agree with everything Allen says in the piece. In particular, I have some qualifications that I’d make in his final section regarding salaries and gender, but the dominance of feminine spirituality today in the Catholic Church is a concern to me. As a former Evangelical, I have an experience of what it’s like to be in a church that has a more masculine spirituality, and the Catholic Church’s early zeal to evangelize was driven by a masculine impulse ("Convert those heathen!"). I have a concern that the Catholic Church today is in danger of–and, indeed, has already become–too oriented towards a feminine mode of spirituality.

Both modes are essential for the Church to function optimally, just as both a man and a woman are essential for a family to function optimally.

It’s how God designed us.

After all, in the beginning there was Adam and Eve. It was "not good" that man should be alone, and it also is not good that woman should be alone. God meant for mankind to exist with the two sexes working together–bringing both of their viewpoints to the experiences they encounter–and when one viewpoint begins to crowd out the other, it’s not a good thing.

Sowell on America

Thomas Sowell generally does a 4th of July column on America and our need to appreciate the fact that, unlike many nations–or to a greater degree than many nations–it works. (Or at least he did such a column last year, if I recall correctly.) Sure, America has got lots of problems, but every nation has lots of problems because of . . . well, you know that thing a long time ago with the apple. But despite its problems, America is a functional society, or at least is functional in important ways that are uncommon or even unique.

This year he writes:

There is nothing automatic about the way of life achieved in this country. It is very unusual among the nations of the world today and rarer than four-leaf clovers in the long view of history.

It didn’t just happen. People made it happen — and they and those who came after them paid a price in blood and treasure to create and preserve this nation that we now take for granted.

More important, this country’s survival is not automatic. What we do will determine that.

Too many Americans today are not only unconcerned about what it will take to preserve this country but are busy dismantling the things that make it America.

GET THE STORY.

Wired Writer Gets Points For Trying

Unfortunately, I can’t give him full marks, because while he’s trying to think through the stem cell problem in a careful way that is open to the perspective of faith, he makes some wrong turns as he weaves his way through the issue.

First,

GET THE STORY.

It concerns whether stem cells generated from unfertilized ova would have souls.

The short answer is: It depends on whether the technique involved produces a human being. A human being is a living human organism.

It’s clear that the embryos are living (and growing), so that criterion is met.

Are the embryos in this case human? Well, they have at least half of a human genetic code. It wasn’t clear to me from the scientific paper the author linked whether the embryos the researchers produced were the result of fusing two ova or if they were produced from single ova. If the former then they have a full human genetic code and are undeniably human, so let’s assume the latter case–that they somehow stimulated a single ovum into becoming an embryo–which is the harder case since the embryo would have only half a human genetic code. How much of a human genetic code you need to qualify as a human isn’t yet clear, so it isn’t clear if the human criteria is fulfilled, meaning the Deerhunter Principle is involved (see below).

Are they organisms? If they develop into blastocysts–as the ones in this case do–then yes, they’re organisms. They’re not just a mass of cells but groups of cells that shows the developmental organization that the cells of an organism do.

So we’ve got a living organism that may or may not qualify as a human, given its limited genetic code.

Thus the Deerhunter Principle applies.

What’s that?

If you’re out hunting deer and you see something in the woods that might be a deer but might be a human you are not allowed to shoot it.

You can only shoot it if you are certain it is not a human being.

Same principle applies whenever you have something that you’re not sure if it’s a human.

So the stem cell procedure must be presumed to be objectively immoral and thus impermissible until such time (if ever) that we know more about how much human DNA something needs to qualify as human.

That addresses the central question of the piece. Now let’s look at how the author (Brandon Keim) wrestles through it:

[Fr. Tad] Pacholczyk, of course, doesn’t speak for all Catholics, but the essence
of his argument is doctrinaire: life begins at the moment of
conception. That the conception didn’t involve fusion with another cell
is irrelevant, as the potential for full life is there: so-called parthenogetic or virgin births
have been observed in nature, most recently in sharks (and wouldn’t it
be a kicker if it happened, say, at one other highly fortuitous moment
in Middle Eastern history?)

The label "doctrinaire" is pejorative, but perhaps the author merely used the wrong word and meant something like "based on doctrine" or "doctrinal."

BTW, Fr. Pacholczyk nailed the issue in the story.

The bit about Jesus having a naturally parthenogenic birth is offensive to pious sensibilities and also is a non-starter, because a naturally parthenogenic birth will not produce a Y chromosome, which we must presume Jesus (as a man) had (quibbles on this point notwithstanding).

The question, then, resolves around the meaning of life, of Pacholczyk’s "human being." The blastocyst — the scientific term for the group of  cells descended from a fertilized egg at four to five days of age — contains about one hundred cells. It has nothing resembling a brain; but even if this is not considered a privileged locus of personhood, neither does the blastocyst have anything resembling … well, anything. The basis of its moral value, in Christian eyes, must reside in the cells and their potential to become a sentient being.

No. It is the fact that the organism is a member of a species that, under normal conditions, acquires sentience as part of its natural development. It is not the case that each member of that species must have this potential. A person with a genetic defect that will cause them to be significantly retarded is not thereby deprived of the status of a person who must be treated with respect and compassion and whose right to life must be honored.

And what is this basis? It must be the soul.

More properly, the basis of human dignity is the rational soul. Other types of organisms have non-rational souls, but we need not be further detained by this on the understanding that wherever the author says "soul" he means "rational soul."

Belief in the soul is, of course, an article of faith, and not an easily shaken one. Nor, perhaps, should it be; wrongs have been committed under a perversion of Christian values, but acts of courage and kindness have also been inspired by a system of beliefs that treats life as sacred. How these wrongs and rights balance is another question altogether, but faith in the soul would surely be a sorely felt price to pay for stem cell therapies — and not, perhaps, a reasonable one.

Here the author gets points for trying.

My only comment would be that it is not necessary to believe in the soul to believe that killing human beings is morally impermissible. You are more likely to believe that killing human beings is morally impermissible if you believe in a soul, but this belief is not required. Many soul-disbelievers are also murder-opposers, though not quite as many (which is why the great atheistic dictatorships of the 20th century killed so many of their own subjects).

But even granting the soul — does harvesting stem cells really destroy it?

Uh . . . that would be a no, from a Christian perspective. In no case are souls destroyed. They’re immortal. The question is whether they are embodied or not, and the answer to that question vis-a-vis stem cells, is whether so many stem cells have been removed that there is no longer an organism or so many that the organism dies. In that case you’ve got a dead organism and a separated immortal soul. Causing this condition to come about deliberately on an innocent human being is what constitutes murder.

From the Christian view, a soul comes into being at the moment of conception. A single fertilized egg cell, if it divides into two cells, can be said to have had a soul.

True, though division is not a necessary condition. A one cell human that dies is still a human.

So do the cells that form after.

Yes, if this statement is taken in the sense that the organism composed of the cells–that is to say, the cells as a whole–has a soul.

Soul-ness is thus innate to the process of growth, the sustenance of life. That it isn’t yet sentient doesn’t matter; and neither does it matter if some cells fail to divide, at five days or fifty years.

I’m not sure what the author means by saying that having a soul is innate to the process of growth. It would be true if he means that souls are the principle of life and thus involved in the process of growth, since life normally involves growth. He’s got the fact down, though, that how long it takes before cell division stops occurring is not an indicator of whether a soul was ever present.

If that’s the case, then it follows that a stem cell line derived from a few cells plucked out of the blastocyst also has a soul. After all, it’s engaged in the process of life through cell division, and is descended in a continuous line from the original fertilized egg. The cells left behind in the process shouldn’t be lamented any more than a single cell that stopped dividing or a skin cell flaking from an adult.

The author’s reasoning here is notably unclear, but part of what he is saying is clearly false. Life and cell division are not sufficient conditions for the presence of a soul. Remember: A human being is a living human organism. If you’ve got living human cells that are dividing, that doesn’t make them an organism. If they’re dividing chaotically, what you’ve got is a cancer. If you’re causing skin cells to divide in a petri dish, what you’ve got are skin cells, not an organism, and thus not a human being. Thus a human stem cell line would not have a soul (or souls) unless there is a living human organism (or organisms) in it, just as skin cells flaking off an adult do not have souls and are not human beings (nor did they have souls when they were alive, before they flaked off).

As for the continuing life of the stem cells, it’s clear that their soul is not equivalent to that of a mature person, or even a baby within the womb.

In terms of the right to life, it is equivalent. Souls can’t be ranked by developmental stages in this way. All human beings–regardless of their age or state of development–have the same right to life. You can’t murder any of them.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that’s it’s worth less — merely that it’s at a different stage, with different characteristics. Might it be said that, in a hypothetical stem cell therapy, as stem cells mature and replace damaged tissue, the soul of the cells fuses with the soul of their recipient? And that the soul of those cells, their life potential, isn’t lost, but instead is preserved?

Stem cells do not have rational souls because they are not organisms. Putting stem cells into a person thus does not cause their soul to merge with somebody elses any more than putting blood cells or bone marrow cells (which, incidentally, contain stem cells) into another person causes their souls to merge.

Think of souls as the equivalent of persons. If you take my blood cells out of my veins, what you have is not a person. Putting my blood cells in your body does not merge a person into your person.

That the immortal essence of a soul can become part of another soul through deliverance in a fragmentary vessel is has a precedent in Catholic tradition. It’s the basis of Communion, when bread and wine — the body and blood of Christ — are consumed.

Okay, #1, they aren’t bread and wine any more. Transubstantiation = Real Presence of Christ + real absence of bread and wine.

#2 Christ’s human soul does not merge with ours in Communion. We are united to him in a mystical manner, but our souls remain distinct from his soul, which is why he can be in heaven while we might be in heaven or hell.

Souls do not divide or merge. They are a quantum phenomenon. (Okay, there’s one for Tim Powers.)

I don’t know whether this line of reasoning would hold up to theological scrutiny, but it’s certainly worth trying to figure out how to debate embryos and stem cells without bluntly categorizing them as either inertly utilitarian material or fully human beings.

The author’s line of reasoning does not stand up to theological scrutiny, but he deserves credit for trying to think the issue through in the way he does. He’s also right that it’s worth trying to figure out how to debate embryonic stem cells for those who do not accept the fact that embryos are human beings. They are human beings, an undeniably so from a scientific perspective (keeping the question of souls entirely out of it; they’re undeniably living human organisms), but if someone who rejects this fact can be convinced that–even from their position–embryos should not be treated in a utilitarian manner then it’ll at least help stop murders.

Curial Reform

Sandro Magister has a piece on one of the unexpected developments of B16’s pontificate–the fact that he hasn’t substantially reformed the Roman Curia.

Before being elected, Cardinal Ratzinger was openly critical of the way the curia operates. As an outsider who had spent years working in the curia and learning how it operates–and fails to operate–he was widely expected to initiate a thorough reform.

Early moves in his reign seemed to indicate that that was happening, only he was doing it in a piece-by-piece fashion.

Yet we’re now in the third year of his pontificate, and there is a notable absence of signs that a big reform is coming.

GET THE STORY.

Here’s a hopeful sign though:

Much more than curia appointments, Benedict XVI has at heart the appointment of bishops.

He dedicates much greater attention to these than John Paul II did. Before giving his permission, the pope keeps the dossiers of the designates on his desk for up to two or three weeks. And sometimes he rejects them, without giving an explanation to the competent curia dicastery presided over by cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.

Pope Ratzinger is very demanding; he wants bishops of quality, and doesn’t always find them. The pace of episcopal appointments has fallen by a quarter with him, in comparison with the previous pontificate.

Note that that’s by a quarter, not to a quarter.

Motu Proprio “Within a Few Days”

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.
Link:
Tridentine Mass: Pope looks for bridge to tradition

A statement from the Vatican press office confirms the meeting B16 had with various bishops on the Tridentine rite Mass:

"The publication of the document — which will be accompanied by an extensive personal letter from the Holy Father to individual bishops — is expected within a few days, when the document itself will be sent to all the bishops with an indication for its implementation," the statement said.

GET THE STORY.

SO WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT THE TWO RITES OF MASS, ANYWAY?

Easy . . . Easy . . . There!

Wpisa128aNewsflash!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa has been straightened!

It’s true!

And not by the Evil Superman from Superman III!

Of course, they didn’t straighten it all the way, but they returned it to the angle it was leaning at in 1838.

Why?

EXCERPT:

[British rescue committee engineering] Prof Burland said it could have collapsed "at any moment". However, it took nine years of bureaucratic wrangling before any work was done. "That was the difficult bit, getting the work going," Prof Burland said.

Yeah, big surprise on that last part. Italy.

Oh, and the Italian estimate of when it would have collapsed differed:

"If we had not stepped in the tower would have collapsed between 2030 and 2040," said Salvatore Settis, the president of the committee. "This is crucial for the tower’s stability and it was a totally Italian success."

Uhh . . . except for that British guy who worked on the project.

Oh, and there was a particularly tense moment:

Before the digging started, the tower was anchored with steel cables and 600 tonnes of lead weights.

However, halfway through the project, concerns at the ugliness of the weights led to their removal and the tower lurched dramatically. "In one night, the tower moved more than it had averaged in an entire year," said Prof Burland. The weights were hastily reattached.

Good idea!

GET THE STORY.

MORE ON THE LEANING TOWER.