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Okay, I didn't get a post done Saturday, so let's do a second one today and talk about the Copper Scroll, one part of which is pictured (left).

The Copper Scroll is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and one of the most unusual.

Why?

Well, for a start, it's made out of copper. That's very unusual, suggesting it was very important and meant to be durable. It required special work to make the thing (it being harder to engrave on copper than to write on parchment or papyrus).

It's also unusual because it contains a cryptic list of locations where treasure is hidden.

What treasure?

Answer Unclear. Ask Again Later.

Perhaps the treasure of the Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans. Some have suggested the treasure of the First Temple (destroyed by the Babylonians). Perhaps treasure owned by the Qumran Community.

Hard to say.

Has the treasure been found?

Possibly. It's quite possible that all or virtually all of it has been found over the ages by people who quietly used it to fund their own lifestyles.

It's also possible that it never existed. Some have suggested the whole thing was a hoax, though personally I'm inclined to doubt that. Why would someone go to the bother of making a copper scroll (difficult work, that; expensive copper sheet, hammers and chisels and all that)?

Have any of the treasure items mentioned on the scroll be found in modern times, providing authentication for the list?

Maybe.

Some have argued that one of the sites mentioned in the copper scroll is to be found in a place known as the Cave of Letters, near the Dead Sea.

The Cave of Letters is so-named because letters dating from the time of the Second Jewish War (A.D. 130s) were found there. In fact, documents authored by the revolt's leader–Simon bar-Kokhba–were found there. Also, a notable cache of personal documents belonging to a woman named Babatha were also found.

More on Babatha and her personal documents.

Interview with man who helped find the documents.

The claim that one of the copper scroll sites has been found, like everything about biblical archaeology, is controversial, and quite debatable.

BUT THAT DIDN'T STOP NOVA FROM DOING A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT IT. (Transcript if you don't want video.)

Interesting stuff, regardless of whose theory may be true.

  Generally not.

Or at least that’s the answer of Bishop Gianfranco Girotti (pictured) of the Apostolic Penitentiary.

According to Catholic News Service:

A priest who confesses sexual abuse in the sacrament of penance should be absolved and should generally not be encouraged by the confessor to disclose his acts publicly or to his superiors, a Vatican official said.

Likewise, the confessor should not make the contents of such a confession public, said Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican court that handles issues related to the sacrament of penance. . . .

When a priest confesses such acts, “the confession can only have absolution as a consequence,” he said.

This may be an eye-opening response, but there are some qualifiers. The first is this:

Bishop Girotti spoke strictly about the response of a confessor, and not about the wider responsibility to acknowledge and investigate priestly sexual abuse outside the confessional.

So he’s not saying that everything possible shouldn’t be done outside the confessional to investigate abuse. He’s dealing with what goes on under the seal of confession, which—among other things—prohibits the confessor from himself revealing the penitent’s sin.

Then there is this:

“It is not up to the confessor to make them public or to ask the penitent to incriminate himself in front of superiors. This is true because, on one hand, the sacramental seal remains inviolable and, on the other hand, one cannot provoke mistrust in the penitent,” he said.

“From the confessor, (the penitent) can only expect absolution, certainly not a sentence nor the order to confess his crime in public,” he said.

In the first quotation Bishop Girotti seems to be saying that (a) the confessor cannot make the sins public because of the seal and (b) he should not ask the penitent to incriminate himself because to do so would provoke mistrust in the penitent.

(a) is very certainly true. (b) would seem to be questionable.

In the second quotation Bishop Girotti refers to “a sentence” and “the order” to confess publicly. There may be a translation issue here, but he may be alluding to one of a number of things.

Perhaps by “a sentence” he means (c) sentencing the penitent to self-incriminate as part of the act of penance required for absolution.

Perhaps by “the order” he refers to (d) demanding that the penitent self-incriminate but not as a condition of absolution.

If he is saying that a confessor must not require the penitent to self-incriminate as a condition of absolution then he is absolutely correct. If that were possible then any priest in the world would be able to circumvent the seal of confession by simply requiring penitents to publicly self-incriminate. It would defeat the whole purpose of the seal.

“You committed a sexual sin? I think it would be spiritually advantageous in motivating you not to do it again by admitting it publicly. Your penance is to admit it on YouTube.”

“You stole something? It would serve you well in motivating you not to do it again by self-incriminating. Your penance is to go turn yourself in to the cops.”

While public self-accusation was sometimes practiced in the early years of the Christian faith, the pastoral experience of the Church has been that it is much more pastorally advisable to assure penitents that they will not be publicly exposed, which is why the seal was created in the first place. To require penitents to publicly reveal their sins would defeat its whole purpose.

Rome is very serious about the integrity of the seal, and to keep anybody from even thinking about ways to circumvent it, the Code of Canon Law bluntly states:

Can.  983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

§2. The interpreter, if there is one, and all others who in any way have knowledge of sins from confession are also obliged to observe secrecy.

Can.  984 §1. A confessor is prohibited completely from using knowledge acquired from confession to the detriment of the penitent even when any danger of revelation is excluded.

§2. A person who has been placed in authority cannot use in any manner for external governance the knowledge about sins which he has received in confession at any time.

So the priest could not sentence a penitent to self-incrimination as a requirement of absolution.

Could he order him to self-incriminate?

Apart from the elements required for the sacrament, such as the assignment of a penance, the confessor does not have authority over the penitent. A confessor could not say, “For your penance say three Hail Marys. Oh, and apart from your penance, I also order you to take up a career in journalism (or fill in the blank with some other act that isn’t part of the penance).”

For lack of ability to order the penitent to do something, the most the confessor would be able to do would be to implore, encourage, urge, etc., the penitent to self-incriminate, either before Church or civil authorities.

To what extent should he do that?

Here there is room for debate.

From the news story, Bishop Girotti appears to think that this should not generally be done out of concern that it could alienate the penitent—to discourage him from seeking God’s mercy in the way that is ordinarily required for the forgiveness of mortal sin.

To answer the question one would need to take into account both the goods to be achieved by encouraging the penitent to turn himself in and the harms that could result.

So I’m wondering what the readers think.

How strongly and in what circumstances should a confessor urge a penitent to turn himself in? Does it matter whether the penitent is a priest or a layman? If it is you? Does it matter whether the sin is sexual abuse or something else? What sins should be ones that a confessor encourages self-incrimination for? What ones shouldn’t he? How can we distinguish the two? And what would happen to your willingness to go to confession if you knew you would meet with a strong encouragement to self-incriminate?

It’s official.

The Holy See has announced the creation of a new commission, under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and led by retired archbishop Camillo Ruini, to investigate the reported apparitions associated with Medjugorje.

Here’s a translation of the announcement, provided by Catholic News Agency:

Under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the presidency of Cardinal Camillo Ruini, an international commission of investigation on Medjugorje has been constituted. Said Commission, composed of cardinals, bishops and experts will work in a reserved manner, subjecting the results of their studies to the authority of the Dicastery.

And here’s the original in Italian.

Details are sketchy. Fr. Federico Lombardi—the Vatican press spokesman—had little to add, though he indicated,

As the commission carries out their activities, Fr. Lombardi continued, they will decide whether or not to communicate information regarding their findings. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that it will be a “very discreet” project “given the sensitivity of the subject,” he remarked.

Speaking in Italian, he said to expect that investigations will take “a good while” to reach their completion and emphasized that the results of the commission’s activities will be submitted to the CDF, under whose mandate they are operating. The commission will only offer their technical findings to the Congregation, which in turn will “make decisions on the case.”

For now, the composition of the commission is “reserved,” as is the method they will pursue in their investigations, Fr. Lombardi said in closing.

So we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

But at the moment, I have a few questions that I’d be interested in the readers’ reactions to:

1) How long do you think we will have to wait before an announcement is made?

2) Being as objective as possible, what do you think the announcement will say?

3) What will happen to you personally if the announcement is contrary to your present view of Medjugorje?

There are a lot of myths about the life of St. Patrick.

One of them is that he was Protestant.

Or at least that he wasn't Catholic but was instead, I guess, a kind of proto-Protestant.

This kind of thinking is found in some Evangelical circles, where some of those of Irish descent have a desire to claim St. Patrick as one of their own.

This kind of thinking is understandable, based in human emotions.

It's also nonsense, historically.

So if you encounter folks at work–or wherever–denying that St. Patrick was Catholic, you might want to check out a piece I did lo some 13 years ago.

GET THE STORY.

Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna is the promoter of justice for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in handling cases where priests are accused of sexual abuse, which effectively makes him the prosecutor in such cases.

That’s the message that some in the media are rapidly trying to spin.

The Times carried the blaring headline,

Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry

From that we would expect the kind of story that has appeared in the media over and over in recent years: Back when the Pope was still a bishop, one of his priests was a paedophile but rather than bounce him from the ministry, the future pope instead covered up his crimes and allowed him to continue in ministry, perhaps by transferring him to one or more locations.

That’s the narrative we are expected to infer from the headline.

But when you read the story, the details don’t fit.

For a start, it wasn’t one of then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s priests. He was the cardinal archbishop of Munich, but the priest was from the diocese of Essen.

And Cardinal Ratzinger did not, contrary to some reports, send the priest for therapy—or return him to ministry.

He allowed the priest to stay in a rectory so that he could receive treatment in Munich.

According to Phil Lawler,

There is no evidence that the Pope was aware the accused priest was an accused pedophile; he was evidently informed only that the priest had been guilty of sexual improprieties.

So what we have, apparently, is a situation in which the bishop of Essen (or someone) came to Cardinal Ratzinger and said, “There’s a priest from the diocese of Essen who has committed sexual improprieties and needs to receive counselling. Can you put him up in a rectory while he is given psychological therapy in Munich?”

And Ratzinger said yes.

How sinister is that?

This wasn’t his priest. Whether the priest would return to ministry after counselling wasn’t his decision. All he’s doing is allowing the man to have a room in a local rectory while he undergoes therapy.

And what if it turns out he did know that the sexual improprieties involved children?

At that time (1980) it was commonly thought that paedophiles could be cured through psychological counselling.

Even the British religion reporter Ruth Gledhill, writes:

What is often forgotten is how little was known of paedophilia. It was believed it could be cured, and that penitence was tantamount to recovery.

So, the narrative of a bishop secretively transferring his priests—who he knows are incurable, repeat offenders—from parish to parish does not apply.

However, at some point, Lawler notes,

the vicar general of the Munich archdiocese made the decision to let the accused priest help out at a parish. That vicar general, Msgr. Gerhard Gruber, says that he made that decision on his own, without consulting the cardinal. The future Pope never knew about it, he testifies. Several years later, long after Cardinal Ratzinger had moved to a new assignment at the Vatican, the priest was again accused of sexual abuse.

That time the priest was convicted and punished according to German law.

But we still don’t have a set of facts that supports the pope-as-paedophile-enabler narrative that the Times wants to suggest.

Even Ruth Gledhill (employed by the Times) acknowledges:

The latest scandal coming out of Germany is not enough to threaten the Pope or the Church. But on top of a succession of damaging revelations it can only increase the damage being done to its moral authority on the world stage. The killer fact that could bring down the Pope or Church probably does not even exist.

The Pope is pretty unassailable. He is not elected, he is a monarch, and the centralisation that has taken place under the last two Popes has cemented that power. Pope Benedict XVI has also indicated in his three encyclicals the depths of his own integrity and intellectual rigour.

Setting aside Gledhill’s failure to note basic facts of the subject she reports on (the pope is elected; remember that conclave thingie in 2005? how we got Pope Benedict? presumably she means that he doesn’t have to face re-election), I think she’s right.

Based on what we know today, there isn’t enough “there” there.

What do you think?

Archbishop Chaput deserves another round of kudos for a stand he has taken regarding a school in his archdiocese.

Basically, he backed the school up when it refused to allow two children of lesbian “parents” to renew their enrollment.

This should cause no controversy whatsoever, but of course it has.

GET THE STORY.

I’m not surprised at the controversy, because a few years ago I blogged about a similar case in Orange County, California. The amount of blowback was a bit startling, given my readership. That led to a follow-up post, and then another follow-up post as we sorted through the arguments.

A key issue that was raised at the time—and that, indeed, kicked off the discussion—was the question of where Catholic schools should draw the line regarding what is acceptable in parental behavior.

And—no surprise—that argument is being trotted out now.

You see, an awful lot of parents of kids in Catholic school aren’t morally perfect, and if children were to be excluded on the mere grounds that their parents are sinners then enrollment would be quite low indeed.

And this is true. If a Catholic school applied that kind of test in determining enrollment then it would thwart its principal mission, which is providing a Catholic education to students to help them be more holy and closer to God.

So, “Your child can’t enroll because you’re a sinner” is a nonstarter as a principle of enrollment.

But does it follow from this that a parents’ actions should have no bearing on the enrollment of their children? Couldn’t certain actions of the parents cause such a problem that it would fundamentally interfere with the school’s mission?

Suppose that the parents insisted that their child attend the school naked (and suppose that civil law allowed this, for purposes of the thought experiment).

This fundamental rejection of the school’s dress code would cause such severe problems that the school would be entirely warranted in saying, “I’m sorry, but your child cannot come to school if you’re going to insist on nakedness.”

That’s an extreme, but it’s not hard to see how having a child in class whose “parents” are of the same gender could interfere with the mission of the school:

1) It will impede the ability of teachers to be frank about the nature of marriage due to the problems that will ensue with a child in this situation in the classroom.

2) The child will also become a proselytizer for homosexual “marriage” and/or be tormented relentlessly by other children.

3) The other children will be scandalized (in both the proper and the colloquial senses) by knowledge of the child’s situation.

4) All of the above will be exacerbated to the extent that the “parents” have any presence at or try to play any role in the life of the school.

So . . . bad idea.

It’s not the fact that the “parents” are sinners that makes it rational for the school to deny their children entrance. It is the fact that the nature of their public relationship is such that either the school would have to refrain from teaching the fullness of Christian doctrine regarding the nature of matrimony or tremendous problems would arise with a child in this situation in the student body.

At least that’s how I see it.

How do you?

There are new reports that the Holy See is preparing a commission to investigate the reported Marian phenomena at Medjugorje.

We’ll see.

There have been such reports before. Three years ago, for example, it was reported that . . .

Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, announced a commission would be formed to review the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje and pastoral provisions for the thousands of pilgrims who visit the town each year.

“The commission members have not been named yet,” Cardinal Puljic told Catholic News Service in a July 24 telephone interview. “I am awaiting suggestions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” on theologians to appoint.

“But this commission will be under the (Bosnian) bishops’ conference” as is the usual practice with alleged apparitions, he said.

The cardinal said he did not expect the commission to be established until sometime in September because of the summer holidays.

Such an announcement would seem to have a high degree of reliability, but as far as I know, nothing came of it. (I could be wrong on this point and would love to find out the details if so.)

Assuming the plan was to do something back then, what might have held it up?

Well, last year there were reports that the CDF was preparing a new document for the evaluation of apparitions. But the sourcing was very thin. On the other hand, Medjugorje is such a massive phenomenon that before re-examining it the Holy See might want to re-look at the criteria for judging apparitions, which (so far as we know) were last dealt with in a 1978 document.

So if they got the document done then it might explain why, last October, Cardinal Puljic told Reuters that they were awaiting some kind of action from the Holy See on Medjugorge:

We are now awaiting a new directive on this issue,” said Puljic, the Sarajevo archbishop who survived the city’s long wartime siege in the 1990s. “I don’t think we must wait for a long time, I think it will be this year, but that is not clear… I am going to Rome in November and we must discuss this.”

Then, when he did go to Rome the next month, he apparently denied the existence of a new document or that the would be a commission created by the Holy See to investigate Medjugorje. Also

Nevertheless, he reiterated, “for the moment, everything is under the jurisdiction of the local bishops.”

“Still, at any given moment, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith could establish an International Commission in order to study the case of Medjugorje,” the cardinal remarked.

So we fast forward two months to January 2010 and Cardinal Schonborn, after his controversial visit to Medjugorje (for which he apologized to the local bishop for not following protocol), is talking as if there is a commission:

KATH.NET: In the past few days, you visited Pope Benedict XVI. Did you tell him about your positive experiences of Medjugorje? Did he express any opinion about it?

Cardinal Schönborn: It’s not customary to talk about audiences. But I can naturally say this much: that Medjugorje was a topic in Rome during those days, due to the public awareness of my pilgrimage. I reported about my impressions in Rome. And I am very confident that the Commission, which the Holy Father is setting up to examine the events of Medjugorje, is very good and will work very conscious of its responsibility, and that the result will certainly be good. And I am confident that it will proceed with great prudence and great sensitivity to a phenomenon that has attracted about 30 million pilgrims and brings very many good fruits, but certainly also some open questions.

Jump ahead another two months, to now, and the Italian paper Panorama is reporting:

Benedict XVI wants a clear understanding about the apparitions of the Madonna of Medjugorje. That’s why he has decided to form a commission of inquiry, led by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, associated with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

And then it’s reported that Bishop Ratko Peric of the diocese of Mostar, where Medjugorje is located, has been called to Rome, possibly about Medjugorje.

Maybe more about this commission will be known in the coming days because Dr. Ratko Peri?, the bishop of the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno and apostolic administrator of Trebinsko-Mrkan has been invited to Rome.

Well . . . we’ll have to see, won’t we?

We’ve seen this kind of reporting before, and thus far it hasn’t materialized . . . but maybe it will.

If so, should we expect—as Cardinal Schonborn seems to—that the results of such a commission would be positive toward the reported phenomena?

I wouldn’t be quick to assume that. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be quick to assume the opposite.

Rather than pre-judging the matter based on what one’s own personal opinion of the phenomena is, I think people on both sides of the issue should be prepared for a judgment—if one comes—that is contrary to their opinion.

Your thoughts?

 . . . they always picture holograms as free-standing, 3-D projections? (Frequently blurry, with lines running through them, like on a badly adjusted, low-def TV set? I'm thinking of you, George Lucas.)

Actually, real-world holograms tend to be flat (e.g., printed on a flat surface, like your credit card), but you see the 3-D effect if you stare into them.

The other kind, the kind you see in sci-fi, is known as a volumetric display.

We only have the beginnings of that technology now.

In sci-fi, volumetric displays are often portrayed as insubstantial projections, presumably of laser light.

But there are other alternatives. . . 

MORE INFO HERE.

A reader writes:

Could you recommend some good materials on understanding prophecy in Scripture? I found myself in a discussion with a Seventh-Day Adventist who is delving into how Daniel and Revelation are both meant clearly for today. 

I'm familiar enough with SDA and their narrative in National Sunday Law to know that they're laser-focused on the Second Coming, but they weave the prophets together in such a complex narrative that it's tough to unweave for them despite the rhetorical errors. 

I pointed out that it's contrived and perhaps egocentric to think the Spirit would give prophecies to 3rd century BC Jews that would only become relevant for 19th century Americans, but he just throws more Scripture at me and then links to yet another retelling of the National Sunday Law. So I need to speak in their language in order to proceed.

The point you make contains a great deal of validity regarding when in history most biblical prophecy refers to. Though there certainly are parts that refer to the distant future from the viewpoint of the original audience, most of it–at least on the literal level–was meant to have its primary application either to their own day or within a generation or two of their own day. Unless the nature of a particular passage shows otherwise, the default assumption should be that the primary fulfillment was ancient.

This is not to say that prophecies can't have secondary fulfillments. They can, and many may have secondary fulfillments close to the end of time, but normally the primary fulfillment happened near the time of the ancient audience–because that was usually the driving force in biblical prophecy: Helping people know how to live in their own day (turn away from those idols! stop oppressing the poor and the widow and the orphan!) and how to deal with calamities that could result (the Babylonians are going to kick your behinds if you fight them! here's how you should do instead!).

In terms of where to read more, I can suggest several things I've written: HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Though not dealing with Adventism specifically, these do offer the framework of a Catholic way of viewing the issue (there is lots of room for other opinion, though).

Regarding Seventh-Day Adventism and how to respond to it, you can find more information HERE.

Hope this helps!

(NOTE: Image Source.)