The Church – Jimmy Akin

5 Things to Know About the Pope, St. Vincent of Lérins and Doctrinal Development

In a recent interview, Pope Francis invoked St. Vincent of Lérins in relation to the concept of doctrinal development — especially as a remedy to what the Pope called indietrismo (an attitude of “being backward-looking”) among some Catholics. He has done so previously.

The linkage of doctrinal development to Vincent of Lérins may come as a surprise for two reasons. One is that the concept is commonly linked to St. John Henry Newman, and the other is that Vincent is most famous for a quotation that some might take as rejecting doctrinal development.

Here are five things to know and share.

1) Who was St. Vincent of Lérins?

Vincent of Lérins was a French monk who lived in the early 400s. He belonged to a monastery on the Island of St. Honorat, one of the Lérins Islands off the southern coast of France.

When Vincent was born is unknown. His death occurred sometime between A.D. 434 and 450.

One of the controversies of his time centered on questions of grace, free will, predestination and original sin. The two poles of this debate were the British monk Pelagius and the North African bishop St. Augustine. The former stressed free will and minimized the role of grace in the Christian life, while the latter did the reverse.

Many in this time were not fully satisfied with the positions proposed by either Pelagius or Augustine, and some advocated middle positions, some of which were later deemed heretical and referred to as “semi-Pelagianism.”

Like many in France at this time, Vincent has been regarded as a semi-Pelagian, but it is unclear what his exact position was. Further, since semi-Pelagianism had not been condemned in his day, he was not blocked from being regarded as a saint.

His feast day in the Roman Martyrology is May 24.

2) What is St. Vincent famous for writing?

We may have more than one work that Vincent penned, but the only one regarded as certainly by him is called the Commonitories (from a Latin term meaning “remembrances” or “warnings”).

He wrote it under the pen name Peregrinus (Latin, “the Pilgrim”), and he composed it about the year 434 — three years after the Council of Ephesus declared that the Blessed Virgin Mary can be referred to as the Theotokos (Greek, “God-Bearer” or “Mother of God”).

This title is not found in Scripture and arose from popular piety. As a result, some viewed it as an impermissible addition to Christian faith and practice.

Between the Theotokos controversy and the Pelagian-Augustinian controversy, the topic of whether developments of doctrine were legitimate or heretical was under discussion at the time.

It was in this context that Vincent wrote the Commonitories, and he set before himself the task of determining how to distinguish the true Catholic faith from heresies, writing:

With great zeal and full attention I often inquired from many men, outstanding in sanctity and doctrinal knowledge, how, in a concise and, so to speak, general and ordinary way, I might be able to discern the truth of the Catholic faith from the falsity of heretical corruption.

From almost all of them I always received the answer that if I or someone else wanted to expose the frauds of the heretics and escape their snares and remain sound in the integrity of faith, I had, with the help of the Lord, to fortify that faith in a twofold manner: first, by the authority of the divine Law; second, by the tradition of the Catholic Church.

Vincent thus appeals to both Scripture and Tradition, and the Commonitories has passages that have been cited both by those who are cautious about the idea of doctrinal development and by those who are enthusiastic about it.

3) What did Vincent write that those who are cautious about doctrinal development cite?

Vincent explains that, although Scripture is “more than sufficient in itself,” it is interpreted in different and heretical ways by some people, and so he explains that one must interpret it in light of how it has been read in the Church. He states:

In the Catholic Church itself, every care should be taken to hold fast to what has been believed everywhere, always and by all [quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus].

This is truly and properly ‘Catholic,’ as indicated by the force and etymology of the name itself, which comprises everything truly universal.

This general rule will be truly applied if we follow the principles of universality, antiquity and consent.

This is the most famous passage in St. Vincent. It is an expression of what has become known as the “Vincentian Canon” and — taken on its own — it could be read as putting a firm break on any doctrinal development.

If we must “hold fast to what has been believed everywhere, always and by all,” then that could seem to leave no room for development in Catholic teaching over time.

The passage thus has been cited by those who wish to deemphasize the possibility of doctrinal development.

However, this is not the only thing that Vincent has to say on the subject.

4) What did Vincent write that those who are enthusiastic about doctrinal development cite?

Later in the Commonitories, Vincent makes it clear that he believes in the idea of doctrinal development, which he refers to as “progress [profectus] of religion.” He writes:

Teach precisely what you have learned; do not say new things even if you say them in a new manner.

At this point, the question may be asked: If this is right, then is no progress of religion possible within the Church of Christ?

To be sure, there has to be progress, even exceedingly great progress.

You’ll notice that one of the things Vincent mentions is the possibility of teaching things one has learned in the past but saying them “in a new manner.”

This refers to the controversies the Church had gone through in which new vocabulary was introduced to express ideas handed down from the apostles — such as saying that Christ is homoousios (Greek, “consubstantial”) with the Father or that Mary is Theotokos.

This teaching of ancient things “in a new manner” thus refers to a form of what is today called doctrinal development. He later refers to this as “presenting in new words the old interpretation of the faith.”

To explain his idea of progress or development, Vincent states that:

It must be progress in the proper sense of the word, and not a change in faith.

Progress means that each thing grows within itself, whereas change implies that one thing is transformed into another.

Hence, it must be that understanding, knowledge and wisdom grow and advance mightily and strongly in individuals as well as in the community, in a single person as well as in the Church as a whole, and this gradually according to age and history.

Vincent then offers an analogy:

The growth of religion in the soul should be like the growth of the body, which in the course of years develops and unfolds, yet remains the same as it was.

Much happens between the prime of childhood and the maturity of old age.

But the old men of today who were the adolescents of yesterday, although the figure and appearance of one and the same person have changed, are identical.

There remains one and the same nature and one and the same person.

The limbs of infants are small, those of young men large — yet they are the same.

By contrast, he states:

If, on the other hand, the human form were turned into a shape of another kind, or if the number of members of the body were increased or decreased, then the whole body would necessarily perish, or become a monstrosity, or be in some way disabled.

In the same way, the dogma of the Christian religion ought to follow these laws of progress, so that it may be consolidated in the course of years, developed in the sequence of time, and sublimated by age [ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate] — yet remain incorrupt and unimpaired, complete and perfect in all the proportions of its parts and in all its essentials.

Finally, he states:

It is right that those ancient dogmas of heavenly philosophy should in the course of time be thoroughly cared for, filed and polished; but it is sinful to change them, sinful to behead them or mutilate them.

They may take on more evidence, clarity and distinctness, but it is absolutely necessary that they retain their plenitude, integrity and basic character.

Vincent thus believes in a form of doctrinal development whereby what has been passed down from ancient times can be expressed in new words that provide greater clarity and distinctness but that leave its fundamental substance unaltered.

5) What should we make of St. Vincent’s discussion of these points?

It is clear that Vincent is aware the Catholic faith can be expressed (and has come to be expressed) in ways that were not used in the past, and thus that a form of doctrinal development occurs.

However, this is not a form of development without limits. For Vincent, something is only a genuine development if it preserves what was authoritatively handed down from the beginning — at least implicitly, similar to the way men may grow beards even though babies don’t have them.

Vincent thus seeks to strike a balance that acknowledges the necessity of doctrinal continuity with the past and the need for variability of expression with time in order to bring out ancient truths more clearly in the present.

This is essentially the form of doctrinal development endorsed by St. John Henry Newman and — more recently — by Benedict XVI.

In the Commonitories, Vincent has more to say about the application of the principles he describes — and applying the principles correctly is the real challenge.

However, it would be a mistake to focus on the Vincentian Canon to the exclusion of doctrinal development — as if all development is illegitimate — or to focus on his statements about doctrinal development to the exclusion of the Vincentian Canon — as if we could engage in a form of development untethered from the teaching of Christ and the apostles.

Vincent believed in both continuity and development.

Blessings: 7 Things to Know and Share

There is currently considerable discussion about whether it is possible to bless persons in same-sex unions.

In light of this, it can be useful to step back and take a look at the topic in general.

Here are 7 things to know and share about blessings.

1) What are blessings?

The English word bless is used to translate the Latin word benedicere and the Greek word eulogein. Both of these mean “to speak good.”

In Scripture, the terms have a variety of uses. For example, one may bless God by speaking good of God—i.e., praising him (Ps. 68:26, Jas. 3:9, etc.).

However, another prominent use of the term is speaking good about something other than God in hopes of bringing about good effects. Thus the patriarch Isaac intended to bless his son Esau to bring good things upon him, but through Rebekah’s intervention, this blessing was stolen by Jacob (Gen. 27).

To bless is the opposite of to curse (Latin, malidicere, “to speak evil”). When a person curses something, he speaks evil about it in order to bring about evil or bad effects. Thus the Moabite king Balak sought to have the prophet Balaam curse Israel to harm the nation, but through God’s intervention the curse was turned into a blessing (Num. 22-24).

Blessings and curses of this type are sometimes called invocative because they invoke either good or evil upon the person or thing.

Whether the blessing or curse ultimately achieves its effect depends on the will of God, who is the one being invoked and asked to help or harm someone.

Another kind of blessing has developed which involves permanently changing the status of someone or something by setting it apart for a holy purpose. This type of blessing is sometimes called constitutive because it constitutes the person or thing in its new, holy status. This form of blessing is also sometimes referred to as a consecration.

The Catechism states:

Certain blessings have a lasting importance because they consecrate persons to God, or reserve objects and places for liturgical use.

Among those blessings which are intended for persons—not to be confused with sacramental ordination—are the blessing of the abbot or abbess of a monastery, the consecration of virgins and widows, the rite of religious profession, and the blessing of certain ministries of the Church (readers, acolytes, catechists, etc.).

The dedication or blessing of a church or an altar, the blessing of holy oils, vessels, and vestments, bells, etc., can be mentioned as examples of blessings that concern objects (CCC 1672).

2) What can be blessed?

A wide variety of people and things can be blessed. The Catechism specifically mentions persons, meals, objects, and places (CCC 1671).

3) Who are the parties involved in a blessing?

There are several parties that can be involved in a blessing. They include:

- The person being blessed (or those that are helped by a blessed object or thing)
- The person who performs the blessing
- The Church, which has authorized some blessings to be given in its name
- God, who is the ultimate source of all blessing (Jas. 1:17)

The Church is not involved in all blessings but only those it has authorized. These may be considered official blessings. They involve the intercession of the Church, as expressed through the authorized person performing the blessing.

Other blessings—such as those performed by ordinary people (e.g., when we say “God bless you” to someone)—may be considered unofficial.

4) Do blessings take effect automatically?

The standard answer is no, but careful reflection suggests that the answer is more complex than that.

In the case of constitutive blessings—such as the blessing of an abbot or abbess or the blessing of a church or an altar—the answer would appear to be yes.

If the Church’s official rite of blessing has been used for an abbot or abbess, that person really has been consecrated or set aside for a holy office, even if the man or woman is personally unworthy. Similarly, if a church or altar has been consecrated, it really has been set apart for sacred use.

When it comes to invocative blessings, the matter is different. Blessings are not sacraments but sacramentals. In fact, the Catechism notes that “Among sacramentals blessings . . . come first” (CCC 1671).

Sacraments are rites instituted by Jesus that God has promised to use to distribute his grace—especially sanctifying grace—so long as the recipient does not put a barrier in the way of receiving it.

Sacramentals are rites instituted by the Church, and so God has not promised to distribute his grace on each and every occasion that they are performed. The 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia states:

Blessings are not sacraments; they are not of divine institution; they do not confer sanctifying grace; and they do not produce their effects in virtue of the rite itself, or ex opere operato. They are sacramentals.

Similarly, the Catechism states:

Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it (CCC 1670).

In general, whether an invocative blessing has its intended effect will depend on the piety of the one receiving the blessing and whether it is God’s will for the person to receive the intended good.

5) What effects do blessings have?

The Catholic Encyclopedia states:

[T]hey produce the following specific effects:

1. 1. 1. Excitation of pious emotions and affections of the heart and, by means of these, remission of venial sin and of the temporal punishment due to it;
    2. freedom from power of evil spirits;
    3. preservation and restoration of bodily health.
    4. various other benefits, temporal or spiritual.

All these effects are not necessarily inherent in any one blessing; some are caused by one formula, and others by another, according to the intentions of the Church.

The particular effects that a blessing involves will depend on the words used in the blessing—i.e., what does the blessing ask God to do?

One should consult The Book of Blessings for the words used in official blessings.

6) Who can perform blessings?

There has long been an association between blessings and the priesthood. Thus Numbers 6:22-27 states:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,“Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

‘The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’

So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

However, blessings were not restricted to priests. In the Old Testament, the patriarchs gave blessings to their children, and various prophets (including Balaam) pronounced blessings also.

Also, Israel—like the Church—was called to be “a kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6, Rev. 1:6; cf. 1 Pet. 2:9). As a result, there are situations in which laity also can give blessings. The Catechism explains:

Sacramentals derive from the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a “blessing,” and to bless.

Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons) (CCC 1669).

The Church’s Book of Blessings notes who can perform which individual blessings. Sometimes this will be the bishop, sometimes a priest, sometimes a deacon, sometimes a lay person, and sometimes a combination of these.

Among others, laity are authorized to perform the blessing of an Advent wreath, a Christmas manger or Nativity scene, a Christmas tree, and throats on St. Blase’s Day (Feb. 3). They also are authorized to help with the distribution of ashes on Ash Wednesday, though the blessing of the ashes is reserved to a priest or deacon.

There are no limits to who may perform unofficial blessings. Any person can say, “God bless you” to another, bless a meal, or bless their children.

7) Where can I learn more?

The single most authoritative source on blessings is the Church’s Book of Blessings. It contains not only the texts used for individual, official blessings, it also contains introductions to the individual texts, as well as a general introduction to the subject of blessings.

Also helpful is Fr. Stephen J. Rossetti’s book The Priestly Blessing: Recovering the Gift. It contains a discussion of the history of blessings in light of Church teaching and the opinions of theologians.

Has the Church Abolished Third Class Relics?

Here is a traditional way of categorizing relics:

- First class relics consist of the bodies or parts of the bodies of saints or blesseds.
- Second class relics consist of clothing or other articles used by the saint or blesseds.
- Third class relics consist of objects touched to a first class relic (or, according to some accounts, also to a second class relic).

These categories are familiar to many Catholics in the English-speaking world, but (at the time of writing), Wikipedia says something interesting in its article on relics:

In 2017, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints abolished the relics of the third degree, introducing a two-stage scale of classification of relics: significant (insigni) and non-significant (non insigni) relics.

Is this true? Has the Vatican changed the way relics are categorized? And have third class relics been abolished?

The Three-Fold System

To answer this question, we need to ask about the history of the three-fold system of classification.

Despite considerable searching, I have been unable to locate any official Church document that uses the terms “first class,” “second class,” and “third class” for relics.

Neither do the terms appear in scholarly sources where you might expect it to appear. For example, the article on relics in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia does not use these terms. Similarly, the terms are not used in the 1970 encyclopedia Sacramentum Mundi.

What Church Documents Say

What do we find in official Church documents when relics are discussed?

According to the 1917 Code of Canon Law:

The important [Latin, insignes] relics of saints or blesseds are the body, head, arm, forearm, heart, tongue, hand, leg, or other part of the body that suffered in a martyr, provided it is intact and is not little (can. 1281 §2).

Here we have only a definition of important relics, but the implication would be that there also are less important ones.

The parallel canon in the 1983 Code of Canon Law (can. 1190) does not provide a definition of important relics, but it does refer to “relics of great significance,” implying that there also are relics of lesser significance.

The 1977 rite for the Dedication of a Church and an Altar discusses placing relics beneath a church’s altar and notes:

Such relics should be of size sufficient for them to be recognized as parts of human bodies.

Hence excessively small relics of one or more saints must not be placed beneath the altar (II:5a).

The requirement that relics should be “of sufficient size . . . to be recognized as parts of human bodies” also corresponds to the 1917 Code’s requirement that an important relic be “intact” and “not little.”

Another discussion is found in the Congregation for Divine Worship’s 2002 Directory for Popular Piety and the Liturgy, which states:

The term “relics of the saints” principally signifies the bodies—or notable parts of the bodies—of the saints who, as distinguished members of Christ’s mystical body and as temples of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 3, 16; 6, 19; 2 Cor 6, 16) in virtue of their heroic sanctity, now dwell in heaven, but who once lived on earth.

Objects which belonged to the saints, such as personal objects, clothes, and manuscripts are also considered relics, as are objects which have touched their bodies or tombs such as oils, cloths, and images (n. 236).

The Directory covers what the term relics “principally signifies”—i.e., “bodies—or notable parts of the bodies” of saints.

This largely corresponds to what the 1917 Code referred to as “important relics,” except that the latter named only eight body parts (head, arm, forearm, heart, tongue, hand, leg, or part that suffered in martyrdom).

The 2002 document extended this to any part of the body, provided it is “notable”—corresponding to the 1917 Code’s requirement, “provided [that] it is intact and is not little.”

The Directory also covers other things besides what the term “principally” means. It also includes things owned by the saints or touched to their bodies or tombs.

Evaluating the Three-Fold System

If you look at the discussion provided by the Directory for Popular Piety, it would be easy to read the first class/second class/third class system onto it:

- First, the Directory mentions bodies and parts of them.
- Second, it mentions things that belonged to the saints.
- Third, it mentions objects touched to bodies.

However, there are some differences. One is that the Directory mentions “notable” parts of bodies—not very small ones—so the latter would not be within what the term relics “principally signifies.”

And second, the Directory refers to “objects which have touched their bodies” as relics. It does not discuss whether an object touched to just a part of the saint’s body is a relic. If you touch the object to the substantially intact body of the saint, it clearly would count, but if you just touched it to a saint’s finger (or something smaller), it might not.

Finally, the Directory also includes objects touch to the tombs of saints—not just their bodies—as relics.

Despite these differences, the three-fold classification system approximates what the Directory says, and it is a useful way of categorizing relics.

Yet it does not appear that the three-fold system is an official one. The fact that Church documents don’t use it and that it does not appear in various scholarly resources suggest that this is instead a popular system of categorization and that the terms “first class,” “second class,” and “third class” are non-official.

Each of the Church sources that we’ve looked at uses primarily a two-category system. Into the first category goes what the 1917 Code called “important relics,” what the 1977 rite of dedication considered relics suitable for putting under altars, and what the 2002 Directory said that the term relics “principally signifies.”

Into the second category goes everything else. By implication of the 1917 Code, this would include non-enumerated body parts or ones that are small or non-intact. By implication of the 1977 rite, it would include body parts that are too small to be recognized as parts of the human body. And according to the 2002 Directory, it would include non-notable body parts, objects that belonged to the saints, and objects touched to their bodies or tombs.

Introducing a Two-Stage System?

Now let’s look at what the Congregation for Divine Worship did recently. In 2017, it published an instruction titled Relics in the Church: Authenticity and Preservation. The introduction to this document states:

The body of the blesseds and of the saints or notable parts of the bodies themselves or the sum total of the ashes obtained by their cremation are traditionally considered significant relics [Italian, reliquie insigni]. . . .

Little fragments of the body of the blesseds and of the saints as well as objects that have come in direct contact with their person are considered non-significant relics [Italian, reliquie non insigni].

Here we see the same two-fold classification system we’ve seen in other Church documents: the important relics and everything else.

The English translation uses the term “significant,” but you’ll note that the Italian original uses the adjective insigni, which is a cognate of the Latin term insignes, which was used in the 1917 Code (quoted above). It also could be translated distinguished, eminent, great, or important.

But we’re talking about the same, two-fold classification system that Church documents have traditionally used.

Wikipedia is wrong in saying that the Congregation “introduce[ed] a two-stage scale of classification of relics.”

Abolishing Third Class Relics?

Did the Congregation abolish third class relics?

Clearly, it did not. Among the non-significant relics it included (1) “little fragments of the body” and (2) “objects that have come into direct contact with their person.”

The second of these two categories would include both what English-speakers commonly call second class relics (objects owned by the saints, since obviously they touched the things that belong to them) and third class relics (since the document does not say that the saint must have touched them during life).

Wikipedia is thus wrong (or at least its current article is). All the 2017 instruction did was repeat the same two-fold classification system that Church documents have traditionally employed, and it elaborated the same sub-categories that are evident from the 2002 Directory on Popular Piety.

The first class/second class/third class categorization is simply an unofficial system that overlaps with and approximates the official one.

Here is how the two systems compare:

Item	Church System	Unoffical System
Body	Significant	First Class
Notable body part	Significant	First Class
Small body part	Non-significant	First Class
Object owned by saint	Non-significant	Second Class
Object touched directly to saint or tomb	Non-significant	Third Class

Pope Francis Celebrates Blaise Pascal

The French mathematician, philosopher, and apologist Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was born 400 years ago. The anniversary of his birth was recently celebrated by Pope Francis in an apostolic letter titled Sublimitas et Miseria Hominis (“The Grandeur and Misery of Man”)—reflecting one of the themes in Pascal’s writing.

Recent popes, such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have expressed appreciation for Pascal, and in 2017 Pope Francis reportedly said that he “deserves beatification.”

The pope’s 5,400-word apostolic letter makes for interesting reading. Papal documents like this are commonly ghost written, and the pope then makes the words his own when he signs and issues the document. The same is presumably true of this letter, and it is clear that whoever drafted it knows Pascal’s life and thought very well. It’s a quality read!

At least in Catholic circles, Pascal is best known today for two things: his Provincial Letters, which are a defense of the Jansenists against their Jesuit opponents, and his Pensees (French, “Thoughts”), which consists of notes that he took in preparation for an apology defending the Christian faith that he wanted to write.

However, these writings come from the later period of Pascal’s life, and he is remembered outside Catholic circles for other contributions. As the letter notes, “In 1642, at the age of nineteen, he invented an arithmetic machine, the ancestor of our modern computers.”

Pascal also made contributions in other areas, including physics (specifically, fluid dynamics, where he proposed what is now known as Pascal’s law) and mathematics (where he made numerous contributions, including being one of the founders of probability theory).

Pope Francis’s apostolic letter touches briefly on such contributions, but it focuses on the development of Pascal’s life and his Christian faith, which became more prominent as he got older.

A turning point in this regard occurred on the night of Monday, November 23, 1654, when Pascal was 31-years old. For two hours—between 10:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m.—he had a profound mystical experience that led to a religious conversion.

Afterward, he wrote an intimate series of thoughts about this experience on a sheet of paper. How meaningful the experience was to him is illustrated by the fact that he thereafter carried the paper with him, keeping it in the lining of his coat, where it was discovered after his death.

What we know about this powerful mystical experience comes from the brief, tantalizing statements he made on the paper. It is now known as Pascal’s Memorial, and an English translation is available here.

Pope Francis’s letter discusses the Provincial Letters and the Jansenist controversy that occasioned them. Since the Jesuits were the target of the Provincial Letters, it is interesting to see what Francis—the first Jesuit pope—has to say. He writes:

Before concluding, I must mention Pascal’s relationship to Jansenism. One of his sisters, Jacqueline, had entered religious life in Port-Royal, in a religious congregation the theology of which was greatly influenced by Cornelius Jansen, whose treatise Augustinus appeared in 1640. In January 1655, following his “night of fire” [i.e., his mystical experience], Pascal made a retreat at the abbey of Port-Royal. In the months that followed, an important and lengthy dispute about the Augustinus arose between Jesuits and “Jansenists” at the Sorbonne, the university of Paris. The controversy dealt chiefly with the question of God’s grace and the relationship between grace and human nature, specifically our free will. Pascal, while not a member of the congregation of Port-Royal, nor given to taking sides—as he wrote, “I am alone. . . . I am not at all part of Port-Royal”—was charged by the Jansenists to defend them, given his outstanding rhetorical skill. He did so in 1656 and 1657, publishing a series of eighteen writings known as The Provincial Letters.

Although several propositions considered “Jansenist” were indeed contrary to the faith, a fact that Pascal himself acknowledged, he maintained that those propositions were not present in the Augustinus or held by those associated with Port-Royal. Even so, some of his own statements, such as those on predestination, drawn from the later theology of Augustine and formulated more severely by Jansen, do not ring true. We should realize, however, that, just as Saint Augustine sought in the fifth century to combat the Pelagians, who claimed that man can, by his own powers and without God’s grace, do good and be saved, so Pascal, for his part, sincerely believed that he was battling an implicit pelagianism or semipelagianism in the teachings of the “Molinist” Jesuits, named after the theologian Luis de Molina, who had died in 1600 but was still quite influential in the middle of the seventeenth century. Let us credit Pascal with the candor and sincerity of his intentions.

Pope Francis also touches on Pascal’s apologetics and his famous work, the Pensees. Interestingly, he does not mention the most famous part of the Pensees, which is a passage in which Pascal seeks to help those who feel unable to choose between skepticism and Christianity based on evidence.

He proposes what has become known as Pascal’s Wager, in which he offers a way to use practical reason to decide between the options when an evidential solution seems unavailable. In essence, Pascal argues that if one adopts or “bets” on skepticism and it turns out that skepticism is true, then one will at most reap a finite benefit. However, if one “bets” on Christianity and it turns out that Christianity is true, then one will receive an infinite benefit. It is thus in one’s interest to wager that Christianity is true if one feels unable to decide based on the evidence.

It should be noted that the Wager is designed only to decide between Christianity and skepticism. However, Wager-like reasoning can be applied to other religious options. (For example, if one is deciding between reincarnation and the view we only have one life, it is better to wager that we only have one life, so we need to make this one count.)

Pascal experienced his final illness in 1662. Shortly before his death, he said that if the doctors were correct and he would recover, he would devote the rest of his life to serving the poor.

However, he did not recover, and he passed on to his reward at the age of 39. It is not clear what he died of, but tuberculosis and stomach cancer have been proposed.

It is good to see Pascal being recognized for his contributions. He was, indeed, a genius, as well as a man of profound faith and insight. He is well worth studying by contemporary apologists.

Did Early Christians Believe in Dragons?

Today people are fascinated by cryptids—hidden creatures—like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. In the ancient world, the most famous cryptid was the dragon, so did early Christians believe in them?

The term dragon (Greek, drakôn) appears in the Greek Bible, but normally it is in a symbolic context—like when the devil appears in the form of a dragon in the book of Revelation (e.g., Rev. 12). So this doesn’t provide good evidence for belief in literal dragons.

However, the term also appears in other contexts. For example, in Daniel 14, the prophet Daniel kills a large drakôn that the Babylonians worshipped. However, in secular Greek, the term drakôn originally referred to a snake or serpent, and it did not always have monstrous connotations. This is clear in Wisdom 16:10, where the author refers back to the snakes that bit the Israelites in Numbers 21 and describes them as “venomous drakontôn.” The author of Daniel 14 may thus have expected readers to imagine a big snake, and some modern Bible translations like the Common English Bible use “snake” in the passage.

The Bible thus doesn’t provide a good basis for documenting belief in literal dragons. However, we do find some in the early Church who were open to the idea. St. Augustine writes:

As for dragons, which lack feet, they are said to take their rest in caves, and to soar up into the air. While these are not too easy to come across, this kind of animated creature is for all that definitely mentioned not only in our literature but also in that of the Gentiles (Literal Meaning of Genesis 3:9:13).

This passage may not mean what it suggests, however. You’ll note that Augustine says dragons have no feet—which would point to snakes—but that they fly. There were—indeed—references to flying snakes in ancient literature. Isaiah mentions them (14:29, 30:6), and so does the Greek historian Herodotus (Histories 2:75-76, 3:109). So Augustine is likely not referring to what we would think of as a dragon but to flying snakes. (Note: flying—or, technically, gliding—snakes do exist in some parts of Asia.)

The flying snakes that Herodotus referred to were small, but in another passage, Augustine envisions dragons that are very large:

Now dragons favor watery habitats. They emerge from caves and take to the air. They create major atmospheric disturbance, for dragons are very large creatures, the largest of all on earth. This is probably why the psalm began its consideration of earthly creatures with them (Expositions of the Psalms 148:9).

Augustine wasn’t alone in thinking about real, enormous dragons. Other Church Fathers did so also, and so did non-Christian thinkers.

The reason is obvious when you think about it. Although the term paleontology was only coined in 1822, humans have been running across fossils for as long as there have been humans. When they came across the bones of giant, monstrous animals, they correctly concluded that there used to be giant animals in the area.

In her book The First Fossil Hunters, historian Adrienne Mayor insightfully argues that it was the ancient discovery of fossils that formed the basis of the legends of dragons and similar creatures the world over.

St. Augustine himself reports finding a giant tooth on a beach, where the action of the waves presumably uncovered it:

Once, on the beach at Utica, I saw with my own eyes—and there were others to bear me witness—a human molar tooth so big that it could have been cut up, I think, into a hundred pieces each as big as one of our modern teeth. That tooth, however, I can well believe, was the tooth of a giant (City of God 15:9).

I’m not a Young Earth Creationist, but I have to agree with musician Buddy Davis’s fun children’s song D Is For Dinosaur:

When dinosaurs first roamed the earth, many years ago
People called them dragons (and just thought you’d like to know)
So dinosaurs and dragons are both the same thing
The only thing that’s different is we changed the dragon’s name

Data Is a Toaster

In the spate of recent stories on artificial intelligence (AI), Catholic News Service carries one in which they interview Fr. Phillip Larrey of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

Fr. Larrey says that Silicon Valley technology companies are now consulting with religious leaders on matters related to AI—apparently including the nature of consciousness, humanity, and the purpose of life.

When it comes to defining consciousness, good luck! This is a perennial problem that nobody has a good handle on. Consciousness is something we experience, but defining it in a way that doesn’t use other consciousness-related terms has proved nigh onto impossible, at least thus far.

It’s clear that consciousness involves processing information, but being able to process information doesn’t mean having the awareness that we refer to as consciousness. Mechanical adding machines from the 19th century can process information, but they aren’t conscious.

Neither are computers, robots, or AI. The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man” featured a line that bluntly summarized the situation: “Data is a toaster.” He may look and act human, but Mr. Data not only has no emotions, he has no consciousness (though the episode tried to pretend otherwise). He’s just a data-crunching machine.

The same will be true of any silicon-based AIs we have or will come up with in the foreseeable future. They may be programmed to sound human, and—hypothetically—they could one day process information better than a human, but all they will be doing is shuffling symbols around according to rules. They will not have genuine consciousness.

Still, it’s good that tech companies are talking to ethicists and religious leaders about the impact that they will have on human lives. According to the CNS piece:

He [Fr. Larrey] also identified potential adverse effects of AI for everyday users, noting that minors can ask chatbots for advice in committing illicit activities and students can use them to complete their assignments without performing the work of learning.

A major downside of AI, he said, is that “we become dependent on the software, and we become lazy. We no longer think things out for ourselves, we turn to the machine.”

When it comes to minors asking AIs how to commit crimes, I’m sure that tech companies will come up with ways to stop that. (“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t answer that question.”) Legal liability alone will ensure that they do.

However, education will adapt to the student use of AI—at least in some situations. Back before the 1970s, people were concerned that electronic calculators would cause kids to become lazy and not memorize their multiplication tables. But you don’t need to memorize all the stuff you used to need to when you can rely on computers to provide answers. Thus math classes today regularly include calculators.

The same thing will happen with AI in education. It will take time, and there will be some tasks for which the use of AI will be prohibited, but eventually educators will figure out ways it can be incorporated, and Fr. Larrey acknowledges this in the piece.

Perhaps the most chilling part of the story comes when it says:

The pope urged [an audience of tech leaders] to “ensure that the discriminatory use of these instruments does not take root at the expense of the most fragile and excluded” and gave an example of AI making visa decisions for asylum-seekers based on generalized data.

“It is not acceptable that the decision about someone’s life and future be entrusted to an algorithm,” said the pope.

Amen! Part of the reason is that we no longer really know how modern algorithms work. They are judged on their results (e.g., does the YouTube algorithm keep you watching videos?), but we don’t clearly understand the specifics of what’s happening under the hood.

This results in algorithms making mistakes, and companies like Google, Facebook, and YouTube are already bureaucratic black boxes that make secretive decisions to the detriment of their users.

There are thus real dangers to AI. Even assuming you don’t give them autonomous firing control in a wartime situation, nobody wants to hear, “I’m sorry, but the AI has determined that curing you would be iffy and expensive, so your fatal disease will just be allowed to run its course.”

Religious leaders need to be involved in this conversation, so it’s good to hear that tech companies are consulting them.

Data may be a toaster, but he shouldn’t become a creepy, opaque toaster with the power of life and death.

Can a Catholic Reject Transubstantiation?

A recent article by Thomas Reese, S.J. for National Catholic Reporter has attracted attention. There’s a lot to respond to in Fr. Reese’s article, but I have a word limit, so I’ll keep it short.

Under the deliberately provocative title “The Eucharist is about more than the real presence,” Reese discusses what he thinks is wrong in the contemporary Church concerning the Eucharist. And about halfway through, he states:

Since my critics often accuse me of heresy, before I go further, let me affirm that I believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I just don’t believe in transubstantiation because I don’t believe in prime matter, substantial forms and accidents that are part of Aristotelian metaphysics.

Thomas Aquinas used Aristotelianism, the avant-garde philosophy of his time, to explain the Eucharist to his generation. What worked in the 13th century will not work today. If he were alive today, he would not use Aristotelianism because nobody grasps it in the 21st century.

So, first, forget transubstantiation. Better to admit that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is an unexplainable mystery that our little minds cannot comprehend.

Reese is correct that Aristotelianism was an avant-garde philosophy in the time of Aquinas. Except for Aristotle’s work on logic, the rest of his philosophy had been unavailable in the Latin-speaking West for centuries, and it was just before and during Aquinas’s time that translations of most of Aristotle’s works were becoming available.

The major figure in synthesizing Aristotelian and Christian thought was Aquinas’s mentor, Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280), and the new ideas were considered quite daring. In 1210, 1270, and 1277, ecclesiastical authorities in Paris prohibited the teaching of various ideas connected with Aristotle’s thought, and Albert himself found it expedient to state, “I expound, I do not endorse, Aristotle.”

Aquinas’s own synthesis of Christian and Aristotelian thought was viewed with considerable suspicion, and some of the Condemnations of 1277 were directed at Aquinas’s ideas. Particularly suspect were Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics.

But what does any of this have to do with transubstantiation?

From what Reese says, you might suspect that Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came up with transubstantiation, that the concept is inextricably bound up with Aristotle’s thought, and that it’s purely optional for Catholics. However, none of these things is true.

In the first place, the term transubstantiation had been around for quite some time before Aquinas. Its first recorded use was by Hildebert of Tours, who used it around 1079—two centuries before Aquinas. The term was regarded as an apt one for expressing what people believed, and it quickly spread among theologians.

It appears—and is endorsed—in a letter of Pope Innocent III from 1202 (DH 784), and in 1215, the ecumenical council of Lateran IV taught that Christ’s “body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the appearances of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated into the body by the divine power and the wine into the blood” (DH 802).

So transubstantiation was not the brainchild of Thomas Aquinas. What about it being inextricably linked to Aristotle’s thought?

That the term was proposed before the major translation of Aristotle’s writings into Latin and the integration of Aristotelian and Christian thought should be a big clue that there’s no essential connection between the two.

So is the fact that the term had been widely adopted—including by a pope and an ecumenical council!—during the period when Aristotelianism, and especially its physics and metaphysics, were viewed with suspicion.

The term transubstantiation itself is not Aristotelian, and Aristotle did not use it. The word is Latin rather than Greek, and it comes from perfectly common Latin roots: trans, which means across or beyond, and substantia, which means substance. Any Latin speaker of the day would naturally understand it to mean a change of one substance or reality into another, as you can tell from the context in which Lateran IV used it.

Neither do we find distinctly Aristotelian terms like prime matter, substantial form, or even accidents in the Church’s articulation of transubstantiation. When the Council of Trent met, it issued the following definition:

If anyone says that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of bread and wine remains together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and denies that wonderful and unique change of the whole substance of the bread into his body and of the whole substance of the wine into his blood while only the species of bread and wine remain, a change which the Catholic Church very fittingly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema (Decree on the Sacrament of the Eucharist, can. 2; DH 1652).

There’s nothing distinctly Aristotelian in that. The Council even avoids the Aristotelian term accidents and uses the term species—which means appearances—instead. The council thus articulated the faith of the Church without endorsing any particular philosophical school of thought.

I don’t know how much catechesis Reese has done in his career, but you don’t have to sit down and give a person a mini-course in Aristotelianism—or any philosophical system—to explain transubstantiation. It’s not a familiar term outside Catholic circles, but all you have to say is, “The bread and wine become Jesus. After the consecration, bread and wine aren’t there anymore. Jesus is present under the appearances of bread and wine.”

This understanding was present in the Church’s faith before the term transubstantiation was coined. Indeed, it’s why the term was coined.

Reese’s comments about transubstantiation, Aquinas, and Aristotle are thus misinformed and misdirected, but he raises the question of whether he can be accused of heresy and professes his faith in the real presence as proof that he is not a heretic. It’s good that he believes in the real presence, but is this sufficient to avoid heresy?

The charge of heresy is a very serious one and should be made only in the gravest circumstances. It is defined as follows:

Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith (CIC 751).

A “truth which is to be believed with divine and Catholic faith” is another way of saying a dogma—that is, a truth that has been infallibly defined by the Magisterium to be divinely revealed. Dogmas are a subset of other infallible teachings, which may or may not be divinely revealed.

It is commonly held that Trent’s canon (above) contains two infallible definitions: first, that the whole substance of bread and wine is changed into Christ’s body and blood so that bread and wine do not remain and, second, that this change is fittingly called transubstantiation.

The term transubstantiation was coined in the 1000s, so it is not part of the deposit of faith and not divinely revealed. Reese would not be a heretic for denying this term.

But in rejecting transubstantiation, Reese said that “Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is an unexplainable mystery.” On its face, that appears to be a doubt of (a refusal to believe) the explanation provided by Trent—that the whole substance of bread and wine are changed into the whole substance of Christ’s body and blood.

Reese thus should clarify whether he actually accepts this change, which is divinely revealed and was made a dogma by Trent.

Doubting this dogma obstinately would make Reese guilty of heresy—and that’s for the competent ecclesial authorities to judge, not me. I thus am not in a position to accuse him of heresy, but based on what he has said, he is dancing on the edge of it.

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Getting Science and Religion Wrong (Plus COVID Vaccines)

It isn’t often that I come across an editorial filled with as much factual inaccuracy and misunderstanding as the recent one by Dr. Amesh A. Adalja.

This is striking, because he’s a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, and his editorial is on health security.

The piece is titled, “No, the New COVID Vaccine Is Not ‘Morally Compromised.’”

What’s wrong with the piece? Let’s look . . .

Pope Francis vs. U.S. Bishops?

Dr. Adalja begins by discussing the new Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine and the concerns raised about it by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He writes:

Is this group concerned about lower numerical efficacy in clinical trials? No, it seems that they have deemed the J&J vaccine “morally compromised”. The group is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and if something is “morally compromised” it is surely not the vaccine. (Notably Pope Francis has not taken such a stance).

Apart from the nasty insinuation that the bishops conference is morally compromised, what’s wrong with this is that he states Pope Francis has not taken a stand like the U.S. bishops.

Adalja bases this assertion on a news story headlined “Vatican Says Covid Vaccines ‘Morally Acceptable.’”

Here’s a piece of advice for Dr. Adalja: Don’t trust what the press says about religious topics. Always look up the original sources.

Had Dr. Adalja bothered to read the primary sources, he would have come across this document from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was authorized by Pope Francis, meaning that he put his teaching authority behind it.

The document holds that—although circumstances may permit taking vaccines like the Johnson & Johnson one—those that used cell lines derived from aborted children are morally compromised, and so the document states:

Both pharmaceutical companies and governmental health agencies are therefore encouraged to produce, approve, distribute and offer ethically acceptable vaccines that do not create problems of conscience for either health care providers or the people to be vaccinated.

So, Pope Francis takes exactly the same position as the U.S. bishops. Or rather, they’re taking the same position he is.

The Issue at Hand

Adalja then begins his case for why the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should not be considered morally compromised, so he argues that cell lines from aborted children are widely used in biotechnology and that they are used to find treatments for diseases.

These facts are not in question, but raises them does not engage the moral issue from a Catholic perspective.

The Catholic Faith holds that unborn children are people, and therefore they must be treated as such.

You could not kill an innocent person and then harvest his body for medical consumables. That is immoral, and that is what is happening with the cell lines in question.

The problem is not the cell lines themselves. It is the way they were harvested, which was—in essence—scavenging the body of a homicide victim.

If biomedicine needs cell lines to develop treatments, fine! But get them in an ethical way!

This is not impossible. There are perfectly legitimate ways of doing it. It’s just a question of being willing.

What the bishops want to see is not a banishing of cell lines from medicine.

Instead, they want to see public agencies and private companies—like Johnson & Johnson—get enough pushback that their consciences are activated, and they stop making morally tainted cell lines and replace them with ones that have been developed ethically.

Adalja Disagrees

Dr. Adalja does not recognize an unborn child as a human being. He states:

An embryo or fetus in the earlier stages of development, while harboring the potential to grow into a human being, is not the moral equivalent of a person.

Scientifically, this is nonsense. (Notice that he invokes the nonscientific category of “the moral equivalent of a person.”)

Viewed from a scientific perspective (as opposed to a faith perspective), a human being is a living human organism.

An unborn child—from the single-cell, zygote stage onward—is a living human organism:

The unborn are living (because dead fetuses don’t grow).
They are human (because they have human genetic codes).
And they are organisms (because they are organic wholes that are not part of another organism—as illustrated by the fact their genetic codes are different than those of their mothers).

Unless you want to invoke nonempirical concepts, you have to put unborn children in the same biological category as born ones, which is the category of human beings.

And unless your system of morality allows you to kill innocent human beings, you cannot kill them.

Adalja may not agree, but if he wants Catholics to disregard this purely objective viewpoint that is based on reason—and which also happens to be the teaching of their Church—he needs to provide arguments against it, which he doesn’t.

Enter the Ad Hominems

Like many who can’t produce objective arguments for their position, Adalja turns to ad hominem attacks on the Church. His overall attitude is expressed when he says:

Appeals from clerics, devoid of any need to tether their principles to this world, should not have any bearing on one’s medical decision-making.

It’s true—and irrelevant—that the bishops are clerics (as if that were a bad thing!), but they are not “devoid of any need to tether their principles to this world.”

Without invoking any nonempirical concepts, they have recognized the truth—which is entirely accessible to reason—that unborn children are human beings.

But Adalja doesn’t stop there. He then produces a brief litany of assertions that are further ad hominems.

The Dark Ages?

Adalja writes:

In the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church opposed all forms of scientific inquiry

This is factually inaccurate in the extreme. Dr. Adalja is apparently not a historian of science, for no historian of science would make such a claim.

It was—in fact—the clerical caste in the Middle Ages that contained the principal drivers of scientific inquiry, or natural philosophy, as it was then known.

Dr. Adalja should learn more about this period before he makes further assertions about it.

Allow me to recommend a good, popular level course on the subject that he should consider taking. (And so should everybody else; it’s really good.)

Lust of the Eyes?

Dr. Adalja asserts that in the Middle Ages the Church was “even castigating science and curiosity as the ‘lust of the eyes.’”

The scientific revolution didn’t occur until after the Middle Ages, so science did not exist in its present form then. Adalja’s claim that the Church was “castigating science” in the Middle Ages is thus going to be in some degree anachronistic.

But if he wants to say that “the Catholic Church” was doing this, he’s going to need to quote some official source capable of speaking for the Church—like a pope or an ecumenical council.

Yet when we click the link he has provided, we find only a statement of a single theologian: St. Augustine.

And has Adalja even understood St. Augustine?

If you read the page (from Augustine’s Confessions), you discover that the kind of curiosity he’s rejecting as trivial is the kind people have for things in theaters and circuses, about astrology, and about magic and divination. He writes:

[T]he theatres do not now carry me away, nor care I to know the courses of the stars, nor did my soul ever consult ghosts departed . . . I go not now to the circus to see a dog coursing a hare.

Those are the kinds of things Augustine considers idle curiosities.

Adalja should really read and digest the pages he’s linking.

“Because It Is Absurd”?

Adalja continues:

One early Middle Ages church father reveled in his rejection of reality and evidence, proudly declaring, “I believe because it is absurd.”

This time, Adalja gives us a link to a Wikipedia page about a quotation attributed to Tertullian.

And we have numerous problems.

First, Tertullian did not live in the “early Middle Ages.” He lived in classical antiquity.

Second, he wasn’t a Church Father. He has been denied that title because of his problematic views.

Presenting Tertullian as a reliable representative of Catholicism is like presenting Immanuel Velikovsky as a reliable representative of mainstream science.

Third—as the Wikipedia page points out—the quotation attributed to him isn’t accurate. As Wikipedia notes:

The consensus of Tertullian scholars is that the reading “I believe because it is absurd” sharply diverges from Tertullian’s own thoughts, given his placed priority on reasoned argument and rationality in his writings.

Fourth, the sentiment that Adalja tries to attribute to the Catholic Church is, in fact, rejected by the Church. As Wikipedia also notes:

The phrase does not express the Catholic Faith, as explained by Pope Benedict XVI: “The Catholic Tradition, from the outset, rejected the so-called “fideism”, which is the desire to believe against reason. Credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd) is not a formula that interprets the Catholic faith.”

Did I mention that Adalja really should read and digest the pages he links?

Finishing the Litany

Adalja finishes his litany of ad hominems by saying:

This organization, which tyrannized scientists such as Galileo and murdered the Italian cosmologist Bruno, today has shown itself to still harbor anti-science sentiments in its ranks.

The Galileo situation was much more complex that Adalja presents it—as acknowledged by Galileo scholars and historians of science. (Really, Dr. Adalja! Check out that history of science course I linked earlier!)

The case of Giordano Bruno is complicated by the fact that the needed part of the records of his trial has been lost. But his cosmological views were not the key issue. As the Wikipedia page Dr. Adalja links observes:

Starting in 1593, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno’s pantheism was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of the transmigration of the soul and reincarnation.

And, needless to say, the Catholic Church would not today support what happened to Bruno, as illustrated by its stance on the death penalty.

Back to the Future

All of this raises the issue of the extent to which any of this matters.

Rather than providing evidence that would undermine the Catholic Church’s position on unborn chidren, Dr. Adalja has been giving us a litany of historical ad hominems that don’t engage the issue.

His project at this point is simply to attack the Catholic Church rather than seeking to engage and interact with its views.

Yet—despite the problems with the historical examples he cites—let’s grant him all of them. Let’s suppose that things really were as bad as he says.

What does that have to do with today?

The Catholic Church clearly has a pro-science attitude in the present. Consider this quotation from the Catechism, which is just one among many:

The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers (CCC 283).

The Church runs its own astronomical observatory, as well as a special organization dedicated to the appreciation of science—the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Members of the academy include numerous distinguished scientists, including many Nobel laureates, and they are appointed to the academy based on their contributions to science, without respect to whether they are Catholic or whether they even believe in God.

Members have included famous scientists such as Niels Bohr, Alexander Fleming, Werner Heisenberg, Stephen Hawking, Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford, and Erwin Schrodinger.

Given all this evidence, it is clear that the charge that the Church is “against” science is sweeping and unjust hyperbole.

Conclusion

Dr. Adalja’s conclusion that the Church “has shown itself to still harbor anti-science sentiments in its ranks” is a bit underwhelming.

Every group of humans harbors “anti-science” sentiments in its ranks. Even scientists sometimes harbor “anti-science” views.

So what?

The question is whether a particular instance involves such views, and Adalja has done nothing to show that the Catholic Church’s assessment that unborn children are human beings is scientifically false.

Indeed, he cannot do so without invoking nonempirical—and thus nonscientific—criteria, because they objectively are living human organisms.

What Dr. Adalja does do is provide a compelling illustration of how to get science and religion wrong.

Instead of entering into the thought of the bishops he is criticizing, identifying the relevant, underlying premises, and then interacting with them:

He hasn’t done his research (the bishops are basing their position on Pope Francis’s)
He makes bare assertions about unborn children without providing evidence for them (i.e., that they only have the potential to grow into a human being, when they already are living human organisms)
He turns to a litany of historically oriented ad hominems that he (a) gets wrong and (b) do not reflect the Church’s stand on science

This is not how the dialogue between science and religion should proceed.

People of whatever perspective should seek to enter and understand the thought of the other before attempting to critique it. In other words, they should do their homework.

In particular, they should avoid ad hominem attacks on the other.

It’s both unfair and irrelevant to use ad hominems to attack and dismiss religious claims, just as it would be unfair and irrelevant to use ad hominems to attack and dismiss scientific claims (which could easily be done if that were desired).

Let’s hope that lessons can be learned from this unfortunate example.

What Does the Church Actually Say About “Praying to the Saints”?

Any informed, English-speaking Catholic will tell you that the Church says it’s both permissible and beneficial to pray to the saints.

But is he right? Is that what the Church actually says?

The answer is not what you might expect.

Discussions with Protestants

The topic of “praying to the saints” most commonly comes up in dialogue with Protestant Christians.

In the older branches of Christianity—Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and other forms of Eastern Christianity—it is common to ask the saints in heaven for their intercession.

However, in the 1500s, the emerging Protestant movement rejected this practice, and it is still widely rejected in Protestant circles today.

One key argument goes like this:

Prayer should be directed only to God.
The saints are not God.
Therefore, one should not pray to the saints.

The key premise in the argument is the first—that prayer should be directed only to God.

How might one support this?

A Biblical Argument

One way of supporting the premise would be to mount a biblical case, which might go something like this:

When we look in the Bible, we find that the word “pray” is used in connection with God rather than the saints.
We should model our language on the way the Bible uses language.
Therefore, we should use the word “pray” in connection with God rather than the saints.

One thing we need to be careful about when evaluating the first premise of this argument is what language we are talking about.

Just checking to see what an English translation for the word “pray” isn’t enough. All that will tell you is how the English translators thought the word should be used, not how the biblical authors used the equivalent vocabulary.

We need to check the original languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—to see what language the biblical authors used, and how.

To keep this post short(ish), we’ll focus on the Greek. In biblical Greek, the main verb for “pray” is proseukhomai, which appears 102 times in the Greek Bible, and the equivalent noun for “prayer”—proseukhê—appears 61 times.

It so happens that in Greek, these words are used exclusively to refer to communication with God or the gods. They even have that meaning in the secular Greek of the period.

In this, the Greek is like contemporary American English, which also associates prayer exclusively with God or the gods.

The initial premise of this argument thus looks good!

What about the second? In other words . . .

How Closely Must Our Language Follow the Bible’s?

In general, I think it’s a good thing to model our language after the usages found in the Bible—at least when it comes to concepts related to the Christian faith.

I don’t think we have any obligation to follow Greek usage on other terms.

For example, color terms often vary significantly from one language to another, and in dialects of ancient Greek, honey could be described as “green” (khlôros), but I don’t think that creates an obligation for English-speakers to call honey green rather than yellow or golden.

However, it is generally a good idea to model the use of faith-related words to their biblical counterparts. Thus, we’re fortunate that the English word “God/god” broadly corresponds to the Greek word theos (it corresponds less well to the Hebrew word elohim, which can refer to things we wouldn’t call gods).

Despite my sympathy for the second premise, it has limits.

The fact that languages change over time is an unstoppable phenomenon, and even when Christians try to conform their usage to what’s in the Bible, terms inevitably take on new usages over the centuries.

If we had to model our religious vocabulary strictly on biblical usage, one term we’d have to eliminate immediately is “Bible.” The Greek term this is based on is biblion, which originally referred to a sheet of papyrus and then came to mean things like “letter,” “document,” and “scroll.”

In no case did biblion mean what we refer to as “the Bible.” That’s a post-biblical usage.

Similarly, every theological community has developed religious vocabulary that differs from biblical usage in various ways.

Thus, in both Catholic and Protestant circles, the term “the elect” has taken on a theological meaning that refers to “those people who will be saved on the last day,” despite the fact that this is not how the term is used in Scripture.

In Lutheran theology, the terms “Law” and “Gospel” have taken on technical meanings that differ significantly from the way these terms are used in Scripture. (To somewhat oversimplify, Law is conceived of as any divine command, while Gospel is understood as any divine promise; but in the New Testament the most prominent usage of “Law” is for the Mosaic Law or even the Old Testament more broadly, while “Gospel” is used for the message of what God has done through Jesus.)

One may regret that these usages have developed, but the fact is that they have—and that communities are using them.

Language change over time is inevitable. The question is what to do in response.

Avoiding Word Fights

On two occasions, St. Paul warns us against “quarreling about words”:

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers (2 Tim. 2:14).

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain (1 Tim. 6:3-5)

For St. Paul, the most important thing is what is true, not the language that is used to express it.

Therefore, when a community of Christians has developed a theological usage that differs from the biblical usage, one should not fight about the terminology itself.

Complaining about an established usage is not going to change that usage. It’s only going to generate heat rather than light.

Of course, it’s fair to point out that the usage differs from what’s in the Bible.

Pointing that out can actually be helpful! It can help people remember that they need to control for the fact their theological vocabulary is different and should not be read onto the biblical text.

But once the biblical text is correctly understood, we must allow each group of Christians to express that in the language that has become established in their community.

So what about English-speaking Catholics and “prayer to the saints”?

“Prayer” in English

Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, numerous French words entered English, and one of them was what became “pray” in the early 1200s.

French is based on Latin, and so the term “pray” comes from Latin roots. Specifically, it comes from the verb precare.

Precare means things like “to ask,” “to beg,” “to implore,” “to entreat,” “to supplicate,” etc.

In Latin, it is used in religious contexts—like when you’re asking God or the gods for something—but it is also used when you’re asking human beings for something.

Both usages carried over into English. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, English-speaking Christians would use “pray” to refer to making requests of God and of other human beings—including the saints.

In the latter case, what they were doing was asking the saints to intercede with God on their behalf—to serve as their “prayer partners” in heaven.

When the Reformation occurred, English-speaking Protestants objected to asking the saints for their intercession, and so the verb “pray” came to be more associated with requests directed to God.

In colloquial American English among Protestants, “pray” came to refer exclusively to speech directed toward God.

Still, the other usage survived in British English. If you read Shakespeare or watch period dramas set as late as the early 20^th century, you’ll see characters saying things to each other like, “I pray you,” and all they mean is “I ask you.”

So, if a young gentleman in a British drama says to a young lady, “I pray your hand in marriage,” what it means is that he’s asking her to marry him—not that he’s worshipping her as a deity.

This is also where the word “prithee” comes from. It’s a contraction of “I pray thee.”

The human-directed usage even survives in American English in at least two contexts.

One is in legal settings. If you have a lawyer file a motion with a court, the motion will contain language that says, “My client prays that the court will do thus-and-so.”

It doesn’t mean that the client is worshipping the court. It means that he’s asking the court to do something.

The other context in which the human-directed usage survives in American English is among Catholics.

They have simply retained a usage that was around before English-speaking Protestants started narrowing the verb to only God-directed communications.

Thus, it is natural for English-speaking Catholics to talk about “praying to the saints”—meaning asking for their intercession.

So, how should the two groups deal with this in conversation?

Back to the Word-Fight Issue

Per St. Paul’s dictum, we should not fight about the usage of the English word “pray” and whether it should be associated only with God-directed communications.

Words mean what communities use them to mean, and the English-speaking community originally used “pray” to mean “ask,” regardless of who was being asked.

Even though the Protestant influence on English has associated the verb exclusively with God-directed communication in many contexts, other established usages remain.

A Protestant might think it would be better for those to go away, but they remain for now, and spending time complaining about them will generate heat rather than light.

To generate light, we should recognize the different usages and what they mean and, having done that, talk about the underlying truths.

For example, a Protestant might say, “In my community, ‘prayer’ is a form of worship reserved to God. When you talk about praying to the saints, are you giving them more honor than they should have as human beings?”

Of course, an informed Catholic should say, “No, and here’s why . . .” The discussion might then turn to what kind of honor human beings—especially saintly ones—should have.

Or, a Catholic might say, “In my community, ‘praying to the saints’ means asking them for their intercession. We teach that this is both permissible and beneficial.”

And, rather than getting hung up on the word “pray,” the discussion might then turn to whether it is permissible and beneficial to ask the saints for their intercession.

(As a side note, we also shouldn’t quarrel about the word “saints.” In various biblical and post-biblical usages, it can refer to the holy angels, to all Jews, to all Christians, to those Christians who are especially holy, to those Christians who are in heaven, and to those Christians who have been canonized as being in heaven. As before, we shouldn’t fight about the usage of the word but correctly note which usage is being employed and continue the discussion on that basis.)

Responding to Our Two Initial Arguments

With all this in mind, we can respond to the two initial arguments that were made—and do so in a way that generates light rather than heat.

Concerning the biblical argument, it’s true that the Greek term proseukhomai was used exclusively for God-directed communications, but that doesn’t finally determine the way “pray” is used in English.

As a result, if you want to say—as in the first argument—that “Prayer should be directed only to God,” you’ll need to clarify what you mean by “prayer.”

“Praying” to the saints is an established usage among English-speaking Catholics that means asking for their intercession.

The real question is not the term but whether it’s permissible and beneficial to ask the saints for their intercession.

So much for discussions about the English verb “pray.”

But there’s a noteworthy fact that will surprise English-speakers, both Catholic and Protestant alike.

The Language the Catholic Church Actually Uses

This is the kind of thing that you won’t notice unless you really live and breathe Church documents and think carefully about the language they do and don’t use.

It took me a while to notice and then confirm it, but if you read the documents of the Catholic Church’s Magisterium, they don’t actually talk about “praying” to the saints.

Ever.

At least not in the documents that come from Rome. (I can’t answer for every individual bishop and what he might write.)

To illustrate this, here’s a screen cap of what you find when searching the Vatican web site for “prayer to the saints”:

And here’s what we find for “praying to the saints”:

In both cases, we get no results. Zero.

It turns out that these expressions are used by English-speaking Catholics, but they are not used in official Church documents, and when those documents are translated into English, the translators are careful enough not to use colloquial English expressions like “prayer to the saints” or “praying to the saints.”

So, what do they say instead?

One thing they do is speak of “the intercession of the saints,” where the key Latin verb is intercedere (“to intercede”).

Thus, in the sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that an English-speaking Catholic would turn to for information about “praying to the saints,” you don’t find that phrase. Instead, you find “intercession of the saints” (cf. CCC 956, 2683).

However, “intercession” refers to what they do for us. What language does the Church use for what we do with respect to them?

It speaks of “the invocation of the saints,” where the key Latin verb is invocare (“to invoke,” “to call upon,” “to appeal to”).

So, we invoke (appeal to) the saints to intercede (pray for us) with God.

That’s the language the Church actually uses. “Praying to the saints” is just something we say colloquially in English.

A logical next question is: What term does the Church use in its official documents for when we talk to God?

There can be a number of them, but the key ones are the verb orare (“to speak,” “to plead,” “to supplicate,” “to pray”) and the noun oratio (“speech,” “oration,” “prayer”). These are the words you’ll find if you look in the Latin edition of the Catechism in its section on prayer.

Interestingly, in Latin these terms don’t have to be used just for communications directed to God, but they are often used that way—especially in ecclesiastical (i.e., church) Latin.

It’s thus interesting that ecclesiastical language has a preferred set of terms for God-directed communications and a different set of terms for saint-directed communications.

In that respect, it’s similar to Protestant American English.

One Last Thing About Word Fights

Given this, it could be tempting for some from the Protestant community to tell Catholics, “Hey! Your own Magisterium has a separate term for prayer that is directed to God and doesn’t use ‘prayer’ with respect to the saints! You should change your usage to fit official ecclesiastical-speak!”

Except . . . if the Magisterium was concerned that this needed to happen, it would mandate the change, and it hasn’t.

The Magisterium recognizes the organic way languages change over time, and—per St. Paul—it’s not concerned about quarrelling over every linguistic usage.

The English “praying to the saints” is a historical usage with a long pedigree—going back to when the term “pray” first came into the English language, and the Vatican isn’t concerned about it.

On the other hand, it’s fair for Catholics—in discussing the overall issue with Protestants—to say, “You know, I understand why you might want to have a term for communications directed to God that’s different from those directed to others. Both biblical Greek and ecclesiastical Latin have similar usages. English is different. ‘To pray’ originally just meant ‘to ask,’ and English-speaking Catholics have preserved this usage when it comes to the saints. But rather than quibble about English terminology, let’s go to the real issue instead: Is it a good idea ask the saints in heaven to be our prayer partners? Let’s not quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers (2 Tim. 2:14).”