Pope Benedict Day: The Book

Last week I blogged about Pope Benedict’s forthcoming book about Jesus. The story I referenced had some brief excerpts from the introduction to the book.

Now Zenit has posted all of the preface (or as much of it has been made public).

HERE ‘TIS.

It’s also posted an excerpt from the book’s introduction (it apparently has both an preface and an introduction).

HEREZAT.

One of the interesting things to me about the book is that B16 appears to wish to read the gospels in light of both historical criticism and faith. Too often these approaches have been seen as mutually exclusive, so that one must either accept historical criticism and reject the perspective of faith in Christ or one must accept faith in Christ and therefore reject historical criticism. Pope Benedict proposes to reject this either/or solution in favor of a both/and solution, and I for one am interested in seeing the model that he proposes for how the two approaches can be harmonized.

Here’s a taste of his approach, from a passage in the Preface:

I believe, in fact, that this Jesus — the one of the Gospels — is
a historically honest and convincing figure. The Crucifixion and its
efficacy can only be explained if something extraordinary happened, if
Jesus’ figure and words radically exceeded all the hopes and
expectations of the age.

Approximately twenty years after Jesus’ death, we find fully
displayed in the great hymn to Christ that is the Letter to the
Philippians (2:6-8) a Christology which says that Jesus was equal to
God but that he stripped himself, became man, humbled himself unto
death on the cross and that to him is owed the homage of creation, the
adoration that in the prophet Isaiah (45:23) God proclaimed is owed
only to Him.

With good judgment, critical research asks the question: What
happened in the twenty years after Jesus’ Crucifixion? How was this
Christology arrived at?

The action of anonymous community formations, of which attempts are
made to find exponents, in fact does not explain anything. How would it
be possible for groups of unknowns to be so creative, so convincing to
the point of imposing themselves in this way? Is it not more logical,
also from the historical point of view, that greatness be found in the
origin and that the figure of Jesus break all available categories and
thus be understood only from the mystery of God?

Of course, to believe that though being man He "was" God and to
make this known shrouding it in parables and in an ever clearer way,
goes beyond the possibilities of the historical method. On the
contrary, if from this conviction of faith the texts are read with the
historical method and the opening is greater, the texts open to reveal
a path and a figure that are worthy of faith. Also clarified then is
the struggle at other levels present in the writings of the New
Testament around the figure of Jesus and despite all the differences,
one comes to profound agreement with these writings.

Of course with this vision of the figure of Jesus I go beyond what,
for example, Schnackenburg says in representation of the greater part
of contemporary exegesis. I hope, on the contrary, that the reader will
understand that this book has not been written against modern exegesis,
but with great recognition of all that it continues to give us.

Pope Benedict Day: The Trip

John Allen ("The Other JA") is in the papal entourage for the trip to Turkey and has been blogging extensively about it (allowing for the fact that NCR doesn’t actually seem to call his blog what it is . . . a blog).

HERE’S A GENERAL BACKGROUNDER ON THE CHALLENGES FACING THE POPE.

And there are many updates as well.

CHECK HERE FOR DAILY UPDATES DURING THE TRIP.

I REALLY hope that the pro-papal safety parts of the following quotation from this piece prove to be accurate:

Security experts said that while the pope’s physical safety can almost certainly be assured, it’s much more difficult to protect other Christian targets in the country – churches, Christian-owned businesses and private homes, which could be placed in harm’s way if there is significant negative reaction to the pope’s presence, or his message.

Ely Karmon, an anti-terrorism expert in Herzliya, Israel, said, “I don’t expect threats against the person of the pope. The real risk is actions on the part of Islamic extremists against churches, religious institutes or other significant sites. It would ruin the trip, striking the pope and replying to what these groups considered anti-Islamic declarations at Regensburg.”

Let’s also pray for the safety of other Christians and their churches in Turkey during the trip!

And here’s a non-endorsement endorsement that the Vatican has apparently settled on regarding Turkey’s admission to the EU:

Without the pope having left Rome, the Vatican on Sunday took an enormous step towards making the Turkey trip a success, effectively neutralizing the issue of Turkey’s candidacy to join the European Union.

The ANSA news agency quoted Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as saying, “I hope that Turkey can fulfill the conditions for entry into the EU and integration into Europe.”

Bertone added that the question of EU membership is a political matter, and that the Vatican will remain neutral.

Suggesting that the Vatican has crafted a corporate response on the EU question, spokesperson Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi said much the same thing in an interview with the Turkish news ageny Anatolia.

"Turkey’s membership in the EU depends on its ability to meet the EU criteria. If Turkey fulfils its obligations and meets the requirements of the EU criteria, why shouldn’t it become a full member of the EU?" Lombardi said.

That strikes a significantly different stance from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s opposition to Turkey’s admission prior to his election as pope. Ratzinger told Le Figaro in 2004, “Making the two continents identical would be a mistake. It would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of the cultural to the benefit of economics.”

I recognize the good diplomatic effects of this announcement, though I don’t think it really signals that the Holy Father is warm to the idea of Turkey joining the EU.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m heartened to see the Holy See not weighing in on a political issue for once; on the other hand, I think this is one where (due to the religious dimension of the situation) it could do so with significant legitimacy. I don’t know what the effects of including Turkey in the European Union would be, but I could see the presence of a populous Muslim country in the Union serving an advocacy role that would prevent other European countries from doing what they need to in order to deal with the problem of radical Islam in Europe.

That’s something that’ll have to be left in God’s hands. In the meantime,

GET THE STORIES.

MORE ON TURKEY JOINING THE EU.

Pope Benedict Day: Prayer

Yesterday was Torture Day, but today is Pope Benedict Today. As folks likely know, His Most Awesomeness B16 is embarking on a trip to Turkey–which has a lot of folks (me included) nervous. I hope that you will take time to pray for him during this trip, using whatever form of prayer you feel led to use.

In that regard, a reader has a suggestion and writes:

I am extremely concerned about Pope Benedict’s trip to Turkey, especially amid the vast number of fanatical Muslims protesting. And since the Pope said that he is releasing the first 10 chapters of his book since he isn’t sure how much energy or time he has left has only added to my uneasy feeling. Attached is a beautiful prayer (Novena from 11/28 – 12/1) by Bishop Lori.  Would yo please post this on your website or blog. Today I stood outside church and handed out about 100 and people were so pleased to be able to pray the novena for the Pope. And it is such a beautiful prayer.

Here’s the prayer:

SPIRITUAL PILGRIMAGE WITH HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI ON HIS PASTORAL VISIT TO TURKEY

NOV. 28 – DEC. 1, 2006

Heavenly Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, we humbly ask that you sustain, inspire, and protect your servant, Pope Benedict XVI, as he goes on pilgrimage to Turkey – a land to which St. Paul brought the Gospel of your Son; a land where once the Mother of your Son, the Seat of Wisdom, dwelt; a land where faith in your Son’s true divinity was  definitively professed. Bless our Holy Father, who comes as a messenger of truth and love to all people of faith and good will dwelling in this land so rich in history. In the power of the Holy Spirit, may this visit of the Holy Father bring about deeper ties of understanding, cooperation, and peace among Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and those who profess Islam. May the prayers and events of these historic days greatly contribute both to greater accord among those who worship you, the living and true God, and also to peace in our world so often torn apart by war and sectarian violence. We also ask, O Heavenly Father, that you watch over and protect Pope Benedict and entrust him to the loving care of Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Fatima, a title cherished both by Catholics and Muslims. Through her prayers and maternal love, may Pope Benedict be kept safe from all harm as he prays, bears witness to the Gospel, and invites all peoples to a dialogue of faith, reason, and love. We make our prayer through Christ, our Lord.  Amen.      

Prayer composed by Bishop William E. Lori,
Knights of Columbus Supreme Chaplain

Xenocide

A reader writes:

On last weeks Battlestar Galactica they had to wrestle with whether to commit genocide against the Cylons.  Let’s posit that the Cylons are living beings rather than just machines.  As we know they have tried to commit genocide against the humans.  Would it be just under Catholic teaching to commit genocide against the Cylons?  Might be good to get this decided before the Borg show up on our collective front door.  🙂

Uh . . . I think you mean our non-collective front doors. 🙂

That being said, if (God forbid) we were living in the Battlestar Galactica universe, I would feel compelled to argue that Cylons (at least the humanoid ones) must be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether they are living beings with rational souls–given all that we (or at least we, the viewers) know about them–and so the question of genocide becomes relevant.

Genocide is killing people because they belong to a particular genus (ancestry, race, kind). If you were to kill Cylons simply because they are Cylons then this would be genocide and it would be wrong.

However, if an entire species consists of aggressors then it is not genocide to kill all of the aggressors. The fact that they happen to constitute a species is extrinsic to the essential moral character of the act. What you are doing is eliminating aggressors, which is legitimate defense.

It may help to think of this in the small scale. Suppose one day a
flying saucer showed up above Earth and started using a mass driver to
destroy our cities. We would be morally justified in nuking the saucer
out of our sky. But suppose we discovered that the saucer had only
one occupant, and he was the last member of his race, so eliminating
him meant killing a whole species. He would not thereby possess an
exemption from legitimate defense. If he had a few more members of his
species helping him work the weapons, that wouldn’t change matters.
Neither would it if he had billions of fellow-helpers in a fleet of
saucers.

In real life, some argued during World War II that the entire population of Japan was functioning as combatants and so we could nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is not tenable, given human nature, but when it comes to the Cylons or the Borg, you really do have a species (or meta-species) that consists entirely or almost entirely of aggressors, and releasing a virus to kill the aggressors would be legitimate defense.

Of course, one would want to protect individual members of the species who are not aggressors (e.g., Athena and 7 of 9), but the mass elimination of aggressors, even when the aggressors form a single species or meta-species, would be legitimate in principle.

Please remember this during the next alien invasion.

P.S.  Be careful, though, that you aren’t dealing with aliens like the Jaffa
or the Tok’ra, who may seem like aggressors but who actually can be turned into valuable allies.

6 Imams Removed From Flight

Y’know, I really find my sympathy significantly limited when it comes to

THIS STORY.

The facts, so far as I can discern them, appear to be these:

Six imams returning from an imam conference got on a plane headed to Phoenix and then–prior to takeoff–three of them stood up and started reciting standard evening Muslim prayers in Arabic. The other passengers, however, didn’t speak Arabic or understand the significance of the prayers and got nervous. One of them then passed a note to the flight crew, following which the imams were asked by the captain and airport security to leave the plane so that they could be re-screened. At this point the imams refused to deplane. Following this the police were called and the men were removed from the plane and questioned for several hours. Everyone else was also deplaned and re-screened, and the flight took off three hours late.

Now the imams are crying victimization and blaming the incident on western "ignorance of Islam."

The imams have my sympathy for being in a situation in which it is difficult to fulfill their ordinary religious duties and wanting to do so anyway, but my sympathy ends there.

The fact is that you cannot act on a flight in America like you would on a flight in Saudi Arabia. America is not a Muslim-majority country, and the attacks on it by fanatics of your religion using commandeered airplanes are seared into American memory. You therefore cannot stand up on an airplane in America and start ritualized prayers in Arabic–a language the locals don’t understand–and then refuse the orders of the captain and security to get off the plane and be re-screened–and then go around crying about victimization and blaming Americans for the situation.

The fact is that the Americans on the flight were needlessly alarmed and then forced to wait three additional hours before takeoff due to your arrogant, resentful, high-handed behavior and refusal to make even minimal attempts to adjust to the local culture.

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do" goes the old saying. You cannot expect the people of a country with a different cultural background to understand everything about your culture and accomodate all of it. You must make reasonable adjustments to the culture around you. The thing to do would have been to close your eyes and say your prayers silently in your heads, so as not to needlessly provoke and alarm people who had an entirely human reaction to the situation.

If I were in Saudi Arabia and made open displays of my Catholicism–behavior that would be entirely normal here in America–I would get a much, much worse reaction than what you guys got on the plane–and Saudi Arabia hasn’t even been attacked by Americans. On the contrary, it’s been defended by them.

You guys got off lucky by comparison. You created an entirely predictable situation by your unacceptably rigid and pig-headed behavior, and you have no grounds on which to act like crybabies afterwards.

You have my sympathy for being in a situation that doesn’t allow you to fulfill your religious duties in the way you ordinarily would, and you have my respect for wanting to fulfill them anyway, but that’s it. You handled the situation atrociously.

You created the situation. You needlessly scared and delayed numerous people. You get no sympathy for that.

You shouldn’t get it from your fellow Muslims, either, because your disgraceful public performance only serves to make Islam look bad and reinforce western perceptions of it.

UPDATE: The NYT is reporting that there may be more to what the imams were doing than just evening prayers:

Detailed accounts of the incident varied. Witnesses, including a number of passengers and US Airways employees, said they heard some of the men making anti-American remarks and chanting “Allah,” first as they boarded the plane and then when led off, Mr. Hogan said.

Others said the men behaved strangely once on board, with some asking for seat belt extensions, the police report said. “I did not see they actually needed them,” one flight attendant wrote in a statement given to the police. “They were not overweight.”

Dr. Shahin disagreed, saying the extensions were necessary for their “big bodies.”

In another statement, a gate agent said some of the imams had been praying in Arabic in the gate area. “I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud,” the agent said.

CHT: Powerline. More.

I’m wondering if the imams didn’t deliberately provoke the situation so that they could play the victim card afterwards.

Stupid Definition Of Planet To Get Revisited

Planet
I predicted that the International Astronomical Union’s ABSURD definition of what counts as a planet would not stand the test of time and would get revised.

Now others are saying the same thing (EXCERPTS):

Rather than crafting an acceptable definition, the IAU alienated members, put the group’s authority in jeopardy and fueled schisms among astronomers on theoretical grounds and even nationality.

The controversial planet-definition resolution, passed Aug. 24 in a vote of just 424 IAU members, will not stand as worded. Some 300 astronomers have pledged not to use it, and many others say it must be redone to eliminate contradictions. It will be reworked, at the least, and possibly overturned at the 2009 IAU General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Great Pluto War alienated many of the roughly 10,000 professional astronomers around the world who did not have a chance to cast a vote.

Good. Now let their voices be heard.

It really is appalling to me that the IAU adopted such a boneheadedly short-sighted definition that only covers objects in our solar system and is based on irrelevancies such as what kind of orbit it has as whether or not it has cleared its orbit of competitor bodies.

The author of the piece makes some very good points, though I don’t agree with everything he says. He is of the opinion, for example, that we will never have a definition for what counts as a planet. I don’t think we’ll have one soon, but eventually common sense will prevail.

There is a perfectly common-sense definition of "planet" that is easy to understand and will unambiguously apply to the vast majority of planets we find outside the solar system, regardless of what kind of orbit (if any) that they have: A planet is something big enough to be round because of its own gravity but not big enough to start nuclear fusion and become a star.

With the progression of time, the obviousness of this definition will force itself more and more on the astronomical mind and, in coming years and decades and centuries, the definition of planet will more and more approximate what I just wrote.

Yes, this definition leads to our solar system having considerably more planets than the ancients thought.

So what.

You don’t want to know more than the ancients did?

Yes, it leads to the Moon being a sister planet of Earth’s.

So what.

The Moon was one of the seven classical planets recognized by the ancients. Mankind has thought of the Moon as a planet before and–if common sense prevails–it will so again. Modern attempts to define what a planet is and discover more of them are attempts to build on the nature of the classical planets, and the definition I gave above fits six of the seven classical planets.

I’m willing to concede, of course, that further learning since ancient times has revealed that the sun is more like the stars in its nature and not the other planets, and so we today think of the sun as a star.

We should, however, think of the Moon as a sister-planet.

Because that’s what it is.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)