St. Paul-Minneapolist Man Excommunicates Self?

Earlier this month the Rainbow-Sashers attempted to receive Communion in the cathedral in the Diocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

Fortunately, they were denied Communion.

Unfortunately, some of them got it anyway.

GET THE STORY.

EXCERPT:

In an act that some witnesses called a "sacrilege" and others called a sign of "solidarity," a man who was not wearing a sash received a Communion wafer from a priest, broke it into pieces and handed it to some of the sash wearers, who consumed it on the spot.

Ushers threatened to call the police, and a church employee burst into tears when the unidentified man re-distributed the consecrated wafer, which Catholics consider the body of Christ. But the Mass was not interrupted, and the incident ended peacefully, said Dennis McGrath, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

"It was confrontational, but we decided not to try to arrest the guy," he said.

I’m not sure of all of the details of the incident, and I’m not sure on what grounds the guy could have been arrested, but this situation has potential canonical implications that go beyond civil law.

The man who took the host and then used it to give Communion to the Rainbow-Sashers may have excommunicated himself and incurred an excommunication that can only be lifted by the Holy See.

The Code of Canon Law provides:

Can. 1367

A person who throws away the consecrated species or takes or retains them for a sacrilegious purpose incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; moreover, a cleric can be punished with another penalty, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state.

Now, the unnamed man in the Diocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis clearly took the consecrated species, and on the face of the matter, he took them for purposes of distributing Communion to the Rainbow-Sashers, so the question becomes whether this was a sacrilegious purpose.

Normally, sacreligious purposes would be things like using the consecrated Host in a "black Mass" or similar act of overt and unambiguous desecration, but what the man did may count.

The Rainbow Sash movement is in open opposition to the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, and wearing a raindbow sash at Mass signals this opposition. It is thus no surprise that the Cardinal Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has intervened to prevent Communion from being distributed to them.

The Code would certainly back him up:

Can.  915

Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.

To publicly oppose the Church’s teachings on homosexuality at the very moment Communion is being distributed is, by its nature, manifest grave sin, and since the Rainbow-Sashers persist in doing it, they also appear to be doing so obstinately.

This means that the man who gave them Communion was taking the sacred species for purposes of distributing Comunion to those who are canonically prohibited from receiving Communion on the grounds that they were obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.

That sounds like he had a sacrilegious purpose to me.

Further, his action has the appearance of itself being an act of public opposition to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality (or at least its pastoral practice in the distribution of the sacraments) and thus itself appears to be an act of manifest grave sin. The quality of obstinacy may not be present here, but the act of taking the sacred species in order to commit an act of manifest grave sin (publicly defying the Church’s teaching on homosexuality/publicly defying its law regarding the distribution of Communion) would itself seem to be a sacrilegious purpose.

So it sounds to me like this gentleman may have excommunicated himself, and done so in a way that will require the action of the Holy See to undo (since this offense is reserved to the Holy See).

If this is the case, then it happened automatically, without any intervention on the part of the Diocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

Quote Of The Day

Johnxxiii_2

Because I don’t want the feature to become stale, I ordinarily try to keep the Quote of the Day posts to once per month. (Don’t ask me why I haven’t changed the title to Quote of the Month. As Ralph Waldo Emerson liked to say, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) The following quote though tickled me so much I just had to share it now rather than wait for some future date.

"It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope." –Pope John XXIII

Who was Blessed Pope John XXIII? I know you know, but in order to be foolishly consistent with the pattern of these quote posts, I’ll tell you anyway.

CLICK HERE.

By the way, did you know that John XXIII kept a diary that has been published, titled Journal of a Soul?  If not, now you do.

GET THE BOOK.

Apocalypse Soon?

The date of the Last Day may be unknown, but some religious groups are seeking to speed up its arrival. The twist is that its not just some Christians who are working out plans for welcoming the End Times, but some Muslims and Jews as well:

“With that goal in mind, mega-church [Christian] pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus’ message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.

“In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a far different vision. As mayor of Tehran in 2004, he spent millions on improvements to make the city more welcoming for the return of a Muslim messiah known as the Mahdi, according to a recent report by the American Foreign Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

[…]

“Ahmadinejad hopes to welcome the Mahdi to Tehran within two years.

“Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam’s holiest shrines.”

GET THE STORY.

If the Jewish groups mentioned in the story actually are trying to displace the Dome of the Rock, I can well see how such a plan might culminate in Apocalypse Now.

For more information on apocalyptic questions, see Jimmy Akin’s “Apocalypse Not,” which ran in the January 2000 issue of This Rock.

GET THE ARTICLE.

If Breast Is Best…

Babybottle_1

… why is it that so many mothers bottle-feed their babies in developed countries? I’m don’t consider myself a "lactivist" — someone who is hysterical in support of breastfeeding to the point of scorning mothers who feel they must bottle-feed, as unfortunately a few breastfeeding activists can be — but I found the following article from The Ecologist to be fascinating:

"Infant formulas were never intended to be consumed on the widespread basis that they are today. They were conceived in the late 1800s as a means of providing necessary sustenance for foundlings and orphans who would otherwise have starved. In this narrow context — where no other food was available — formula was a lifesaver.

"However, as time went on, and the subject of human nutrition in general — and infant nutrition, in particular — became more ‘scientific,’ manufactured breastmilk substitutes were sold to the general public as a technological improvement on breastmilk."

What was the result of this alleged scientific advance?

GET THE (SOMETIMES SCARY) STORY.

Hawking On JP2 On Creation

Stephen Hawking raised eyebrows recently when he said that Pope John Paul II had said scientists should not inquire into the moment the universe was created, because it was the work of God. It’s thus natural that a reader would write:

I’m somewhat suspect of THIS ARTICLE, specifically when Hawking quotes a dead man, but I thought I’d get your take on what JP2 might have meant when he said:

"It’s OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not enquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God."

I’m not sure I understand the distinction here.

Please elucidate.

I’ll do what I can. We have a problem, though, in that we don’t have the full text remarks of what Hawking said, only the snipped you quoted above from the press. There’s also the problem that Hawking said that JP2 said this at "a cosmology conference at the Vatican" (no date given, making it hard to look up what the pope may have said) and he then joked that "I was glad he didn’t realize I had presented a paper at the conference suggesting how the universe began. I didn’t fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo."

In view of the last comment, the whole thing might have been a joke on Hawking’s part that got taken literally. Or it may be that he’s stretching the truth in order to serve the joke or he’s misremembering. He’s certainly not giving a verbatim quotation from the pope, who would not be expected to use the English colloquialism "OK" in an address to cosmologists.

The conference that JP2 addressed may have been THIS ONE, but maybe not. The published version of JP2’s remarks certainly don’t have anything in them like what Hawking reported.

The perplexing statement that we can examine "where" the universe began but not "the beginning itself" suggests that we are dealing with a badly remembered articulation of JP2’s thought, and in the absence of further info from Dr. Hawking or someone coming up with a plausible candidate for the text of the pope’s remarks, I can only speculate on what the pontiff may have been trying to communicate.

But I’m not averse to speculation (as long as it is flagged as such), so here goes: I would conjecture that JP2 encouraged scientists to study the origin of the universe but not to try to force the origin of the universe into a materialistic model that would reduce its existence to purely natural forces, without any Creator. Science must respect its own in-built limits, I conjecture JP2 as communicating, and not presume to preclude the action of the Creator by the theories it proposes. Science must speak to its own realm without trying to settle theological questions, just as theology must speak to its own realm without trying to settle scientific questions.

Or something along those lines.

That’s my guess, anyway.

PRE-PUBLICATION UPDATE: THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE THINKS IT HAS IDENTIFIED WHAT CONFERENCE HAWKING WAS TALKING ABOUT AND THUS WHAT JP2 SAID.

The Obesity Epidemic

It’s no secret that in the developed world there is a widespread problem with . . . being widespread.

I have to struggle with weight issues myself, and it’s certainly something I’m familiar with.

The question is what is causing this, and there are several obvious factors that undoubtedly play a role, such as the fact there is just a lot more food available today than there was in the past and the fact that the American diet is loaded with insulin-provoking carbohydrates, and particularly lots of refined, "Give me Type-II diabetes, please!" carbohydrates like those in flour and table sugar.

Dietary conditions are not the only reason that people struggle with weight issues. There are also hormonal and even genetic influences that incline certain individuals toward obesity.

And then there may be something else.

The obesity "epidemic" may be part epidemic in an unexpected sense.

It turns out that there is at least one virus that may be related to weight gain in humans.

EXCERPT:

Unpublished studies in humans show that 20 to 30 percent of overweight people are infected with adenovirus-36, compared to about 5 percent of the lean population.

GET THE STORY.

The Unreconstructed Family

If a list of qualifications were drawn up for a stay-at-home mom, some radical secular feminists would add to the list "Intelligent human beings need not apply":

"Linda Hirshman, a feminist US writer on cultural issues, has told the world why she thinks staying at home with the children is an occupation ‘not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings.’ She complains at length that the feminist movement, while making some gains in public life through legal activism, has largely failed in the one area where it counts most: the family.

"She upbraids women who stay at home for failing the feminist agenda, saying, ‘They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings.’

"Writing in the November 2005 edition of The American Prospect [sic, it was the December 2005 issue], Hirshman admitted that the real intention of the feminist movement was not ‘equality,’ but to destroy what she calls ‘the unreconstructed family’ of a husband and wife rearing children. She writes that the goal was to see as many women as possible abandoning family life for high-level professions and politics."

GET THE STORY.

It wouldn’t surprise me if radical secular feminists of the Hirshman mold would prefer that children be hatched from pods and raised by Big Brother.  In any event, such sentiments certainly demonstrate the raw hatred of children that makes more understandable — though not any more excusable — the commitment of radical secular feminism to abortion.  After all, if Intelligent Human Beings cannot be bothered to raise children, why should the IHBs among us suffer the indignity of bringing preborn children to birth in the first place?

Confidential Aside to Lifesite.net:  It would be extremely helpful to your readership to provide links to the articles in question.  I thought that there was only one link — to The American Prospect article — to search out.  Turns out there were two.  The older article from TAP and a recent article from The Washington Post, the Post article and not the TAP article per se being the reason why the current brouhaha is raging.

Feel The Solstice!

Stonehengecrowd

St. Augustine of Canterbury, as distinguished from his more famous predecessor, may have supposed that however bad the state of religion had become in England that at least the Brits were no longer pagan.

If so, he’d be wrong.

St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for them:

"Cloudy skies, dense fog and spurts of rain did not seem to dampen the energy of smiling revelers who bobbed and swayed to cheerful beats with arms outstretched and shouts of ‘Feel the solstice!’

"About 19,000 New Agers, present-day druids and partygoers gathered inside and around the ancient circle of towering stones [of Stonehenge] to greet the longest day in the northern hemisphere as the sun struggled to peek out against a smoky gray sky at 4:58 a.m. …

"’This is the nearest thing I’ve got to religion,’ said Ray Meadows, 34, of Bristol, England. The solstice ‘is a way of giving thanks to the earth and the universe.’

"Meadows, wearing a wreath of pink carnations over long pink hair-wrapped braids, identified herself as a fairy of the Tribe of Frog."

GET THE STORY.

"A fairy of the Tribe of Frog"? Just how exactly does one become a Fairy of the Tribe of Frog? Is one born a frog and become a fairy? Is one adopted by a tribe of fairy frogs? Inquiring minds want to know.