Jimmy Akin – Page 471

Flying Under The Influence

Class, for today’s Journalism 101 lesson we’ll learn how to meet deadlines by plumping up odd incidents into gripping news events.

The story of a sick pelican crashing into a car may not seem to the layman to make for particularly interesting news. But on a slow news day you too can learn how to massage it into headline-worthy material. Let’s see…. How about saying the pelican was intoxicated and is now being held on suspicion of flying under the influence? But nobody would believe it! Or would they?

Calif. pelicans held on suspicion of being drunk

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — "Four pelicans suspected of being drunk on sea algae were being tested at a Southern California wildlife centre on Saturday after one of them crashed headlong into a car.

"Three of the California brown pelicans were found wandering dazed in the streets of Laguna Beach after another pelican struck a vehicle’s windscreen on a nearby coast road.

"It suffered internal injuries and a long gash in its pouch and was undergoing toxicology tests.

"Officials at the Wildlife Care Centre said the seabirds may have been under the influence of algae in the ocean that can produce domoic acid poisoning when eaten."

GET THE STORY.

And that, my young journalistic apprentices, is how you turn a Non-Story into a Story.

Attending Invalid Baptisms

A reader writes:

My brother in law is expecting to be "baptized" as a JW in September. I fear that my in-laws, although they don’t agree with this "religion", feel that it has done my brother in law good, and would like all of us (me, my husband and our 4 children) to go. I am planning on declining on attending, and insist that my children stay home with me. I think my husband may go too. What do I do if arguments ensue? I feel that, as a Catholic, I cannot attend because then I would be giving my approval of this. I certainly don’t want my children attending this “baptism”.

If arguments ensue, I would point out that our presence at a ceremonial life event says something. If we attend a wedding, a baptism, or a similar event, we are in a sense lending our endorsement to it or to some aspect of it.

To show up at a Jehovah’s Witness baptism would communicate either approval of the fact that the person is becoming a Jehovah’s Witness or–at a minimum–that one recognizes that there is some kind of legitimacy to the baptism that is being performed, even if one doesn’t approve of the fact it is JWs who are doing it.

To show up at such an event thus would constitute a form of false witness. It would deceive people (either the brother-in-law or others who were at or knew about your attendance at the event) into thinking one of the above things.

Even if one tells the person that you do not approve or do not regard this as a valid baptism, the message will remain that it obviously wasn’t important enough to you to keep you from coming and thus you value what the person will think of you was more important than your concerns about the baptism or the person’s new religion.

And telling the person getting baptized that you think the baptism is invalid doesn’t tell that to all the other people who will see you at the event or who will learn of your presence there.

My policy is that if a sacrament will be valid then it will be possible in principle to attend. My reasoning is that if God is going to show up at the sacrament (in the sense of his action to make the sacrament valid) then it is in principle permitted for me to show up and watch as God does this.

If God isn’t going to "show up," though (meaning: the sacrament will be invalid) then I shouldn’t either.

To do so would send the wrong message, no matter what I might say with my lips.

In the end, it is more loving to an individual (and others) to be honest with them about the fact that a sacrament is not valid–and to prove that you’re serious about that by not showing up–than to paper over the matter and send the message that you’re not really serious or even that you approve.

Hentoff On Abortion

Nat Hentoff is an interesting fella. According to Wikipedia,

Nat Hentoff (born June 10, 1925) is an American civil libertarian, free speech absolutist, pro-life advocate, anti-death penalty advocate, jazz critic, historian, biographer and anecdotist, and columnist for the Village Voice, Legal Times, Washington Times, The Progressive, Editor & Publisher, Free Inquiry and Jewish World Review. He was named as one of six 2004 NEA Jazz Masters, the first non-musician to win this prestigious award [SOURCE].

He’s also a critic of both the ACLU and the Bush administration.

One of the things that makes Hentoff interesting is that he came from and is subsantially aligned with the American "Left," but he came to hold pro-life views and has been forthright in stating them.

LIKE IN THIS RECENT COLUMN,

in which he shares some interesting thoughts regarding Jesse Jackson, the Hemlock Society, and a 9-year old boy’s insights on abortion.

It’s worthwhile reading.

On The Road

I thought I’d share with y’all a couple of pictures I took on my recent trip to go square dancing in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago.

The first is a picture of the sign you see when you enter the town of Gila Bend, Arizona. A number of desert communities have humorous or otherwise interesting signs, and I particularly like Gila Bend’s (click to enlarge):

The second picture is one I took in Imperial County, California, where the Salton Sea is located. The Salton Sea is the lowest body of water in the United States–a couple hundred feet below sea level, making it American’s equivalent to the Dead Sea. But you don’t have a body of water be that low without the surrounding land being low, too, and so on many various buildings in Imperial County you’ll see elevation markers like this one (click to enlarge):

GREELEY: “Give B16 A Break!”

Is it just me or does it seem to anyone else that Fr. Andrew Greeley — priest, novelist, sociologist, Catholic progressive — is mellowing in his old age? A few months ago, he was in the press defending Francis Cardinal George of Chicago against unfounded allegations of apathy on the priest abuse issue; now he’s come out swinging for Pope Benedict XVI:

"These have been rough days for the pope. It was inevitable his visit to Auschwitz would stir up complaints from Jewish spokespersons and commentators. No matter what he did or said, they had to criticize. The critics were a minority. Moreover, one can hardly blame Jews for sticking it to Christians for the long history of anti-Semitism and to Catholics for the long history of anti-Semitic popes. If I were Jewish I might be reluctant to believe the stand of the Second Vatican Council even after 40 years, especially if I had read some of the debates that preceded the endorsement of the document on anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, one would hope that they would give Pope Benedict a break.

"In a major article in the New Yorker, ironically titled "Forgiveness," the case was made that the pope has been complicit in the Holocaust because he prayed at cemeteries in which SS troops were buried and did not indict the whole German people for the Nazis’ crimes. The complaints against his failure to condemn the whole German people during his visit to Poland follow the same theme, accompanied by a picture of the pope as a frightened-looking teenage conscript in his Wehrmacht uniform.

"The Catholic Church, one must insist, is committed to forgiveness by the very words of the Lord’s Prayer. It cannot accept the notion of unforgivable collective guilt because it believes that final judgments on guilt belong to God. (Moreover, if everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty.) We pray for all the dead in hope that God’s mercy and love embraced them before it was too late — even if they were members of the SS.

"If we are good Christians, we pray for Islamic terrorists who have blown themselves up in the act of murdering innocent women and children. We should pray even for the World Trade Center assassins. We do not put any limits on God’s mercy. Do not expect this pope or any pope to condemn the Christian theory of forgiveness or embrace the notion of collective guilt."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Mark Shea for the link.)

I might bracket out and quibble with bits and pieces of Fr. Greeley’s analysis. For example, he really ought to read Rabbi David G. Dalin’s The Myth of Hitler’s Pope before making unqualified statements about "the long history of anti-Semitic popes." But for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised and cheered by Fr. Greeley’s defense of B16.

I’ve also found it interesting that, in the months since Pope Benedict’s election, more often than not Catholic progressives have been defending the Pope while those commonly thought to be orthodox (click here and here for examples) have been raking him over the coals. Is it perhaps because the orthodox were indeed expecting SuperPope?

Sciencs Vs. Magic: Hawking Vs. Potter?

The comments he made regarding John Paul II weren’t the only things that Stephen Hawking had to say recently.

ACCORDING TO THIS STORY,

he stated a number of other interesting things, such as humans needing to start establishing offworld colonies that can function independently from earth if we want to survive long term.

That project might take awhile–longer than most of us will be around–but Hawking also mentioned a much shorter-term project he’s involved in:

Hawking said he’s teaming up with his daughter to write a children’s book about the universe, aimed at the same age range as the Harry Potter books.

"It is a story for children, which explains the wonders of the universe," his daughter, Lucy, added.

They didn’t provide other details.

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

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.