Dulles On Ratzinger On Vatican II

Avery Cardinal Dulles has  a recent article on the subject of Joseph Ratzinger and Vatican II. The article covers Ratzinger’s involvement in the Council, his early thoughts on it afterwards, and his more mature thought.

EXCERPTS:

In his many publications Ratzinger continued to debate questions that arose during the council and in some cases expressed dissatisfaction with the council’s documents. In this respect he differs from Pope John Paul, who consistently praised the council and never (to my knowledge) criticized it. The material conveniently divides into three stages: his participation at the council, his early commentaries on the council’s documents, and his later reflections on the reception of the council. And then there are his changing reactions to the four great constitutions: on the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium), on revelation (Dei Verbum), on the Church (Lumen Gentium), and on the Church in the modern world (Gaudium et Spes).

As a personalist in philosophy and as a theologian in the Augustinian tradition, he expects the Church to maintain a posture of prayer and worship. He is suspicious of technology, of social activism, and of human claims to be building the Kingdom of God. For this reason he most appreciates the council documents on the liturgy and revelation, and has reservations about the constitution on the Church in the modern world, while giving it credit for some solid achievements.

The contrast between Pope Benedict and his predecessor is striking. John Paul II was a social ethicist, anxious to involve the Church in shaping a world order of peace, justice, and fraternal love. Among the documents of Vatican II, John Paul’s favorite was surely the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes. Benedict XVI, who looks upon Gaudium et Spes as the weakest of the four constitutions, shows a clear preference for the other three.

I really enjoy reading Dulles’ articles for their characteristic clarity, frankness, and informative value. His willingness to take on the subject of Ratzinger’s awareness of the shortcomings of Vatican II and the criticisms that Cardinal Ratzinger made of certain passages in the Council is refreshing.

I’ve had access to some of Ratzinger’s early commentaries on the Council, but after reading Dulles’ summary of these, I’m going to have to try to look up the passage in which Ratzinger referred to one statement in Gaudium et Spes as "downright Pelagian."

That’s a statement that is eye-opening enough to make almost any theologically sensitive person to want to

GET THE STORY.

The Mound. . . . Visited!

The mystery photo from earlier today was a site that I’ve written about before. In fact, I’ve even published a picture of it before–but it was a picture taken from orbit.

Here’s that photo:

Mound2_3_1In case that doesn’t jog your memory, what you’re looking at here is a geological feature outside Binger, Oklahoma known as the "Ghost Mound."

Ghost Mound is one of a number of mounds that have names in Caddo County, Oklahoma–though there seem to be an even larger number of mounds that don’t have names.

It also appears to be the basis of the mound that is featured in H. P. Lovecraft’s story The Mound, which he (appropriately enough) ghostwrote for a woman named Zealia Bishop.

The Mound is considered the most impressive of all of the stories that Lovecraft is known to have ghostwritten for others–so impressive, in fact, that it’s often grouped with the stories that he published under his own name.

Lovecraft was given a minimal plot kernel to work with on this story. Here is all Bishop gave him to work with:

There is an Indian mound near here, which is haunted by a headless ghost. Sometimes it is a woman (S. T Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 467).

Lovecraft hated having to solve plot problems, and it particularly irked him that he had to write this story basically from scratch. (The fact he had trouble getting Bishop to pay him for the stories he ghosted for her also irked him.)

But the fact that she gave him so little to work with probably made the story what it is: one of Lovecraft’s best. The more he was given to work with by his literary clients, the worse the stories usually turned out. It was when he was left alone to wrestle through the story on his own that he did his best work, and The Mound is definitely one of his better stories.

It doesn’t actually feature ghosts, though. By this point in his career, Lovecraft was doing more science-oriented weird fiction and less supernatural-oriented weird fiction, so he doesn’t have conventional ghosts in the story. Instead, he provides an entire ancient, technologically-advanced civilization underneath the mound in his story.

To find out what the ghost-like entities actually are, you’ll have to

GET THE STORY.

If you do, you’ll note that Lovecraft’s description of the mound varies considreably from what it looks like in real life (because Lovecraft hadn’t visited the site and certainly wasn’t going to for the piddling wages he stood to make from the writing project–if he could even collect them).

In the story, he describes the mound as

a huge, lone mound or small hill that rose above the plain about a third of a mile west of the village—a mound which some thought a product of Nature, but which others believed to be a burial-place or ceremonial dais constructed by prehistoric tribes. This mound, the villagers said, was constantly haunted by, two Indian figures which appeared in alternation; an old man who paced back and forth along the top from dawn till dusk, regardless of the weather and with only brief intervals of disappearance, and a squaw who took his place at night with a blue-flamed torch that glimmered quite continuously till morning. When the moon was bright the squaw’s peculiar figure could be seen fairly plainly, and over half the villagers agreed that the apparition was headless.

He then has his protagonist climb up on top of the mound and start digging:

As I turned up the soil with my trench-knife I could not help wondering at the relative thinness of the reddish regional layer. The country as a whole was all red sandstone earth, but here I found a strange black loam less than a foot down.

Most of this doesn’t correspond to the actual mound the story is based on. First, it ain’t a third of a mile west of the town (not village) of Binger. It’s miles away and is actually closer to Hydro, Oklahoma. It also is clearly natural rather than artificial, and there is no soil–red or otherwise–up on top of it to be dug, if one could even get to the top of the thing.

I was disappointed when I got there and saw that I wouldn’t be able to climb the thing (not without way more time than I had, special climbing gear, and the permission of the landowner on whose property it is located). I’d hoped to go to the top of it, like the character in the story, and retrieve a soil sample.

Still, the mound is still the basis of a ripping weird fiction story!

Nice To See The Catholic Press Getting It Right . . .

. . . where the MSM has been getting it wrong.

Despite numerous secular press reports yesterday, the new Chinese bishops have not been declared excommuicate by the Holy See (EXCERPTS):

The threat of excommunication hangs over two Chinese bishops ordained without papal approval, but only if they acted knowingly and freely, said a canon lawyer.

And even if they incurred excommunication automatically by acting of their own free will, the penalty is limited until Pope Benedict XVI publicly declares their excommunication to the bishops and their faithful, said Jesuit Father James Conn, a professor of canon law at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

Excommunication "may have been incurred, but we do not know that because we do not know their consciences or the external factors involved," Father Conn said.

If they were automatically excommunicated, they immediately are forbidden to celebrate the sacraments, receive the sacraments or perform the functions of a bishop unless the good of souls requires them to do so, he said.

Father Conn said the penalty is formal and more extensive once it is publicly declared by the pope, the only person in the church with the authority to impose penal sanctions on a bishop.

Public notification is not simply a formality, he said, but it is "for the good of the people of God," who have a right to know when a minister is celebrating the sacraments illicitly.

"There cannot be just a vague declaration because the good of souls is at stake," Father Conn said.

GET THE STORY.

Mystery Map

Gas_pricesTake a look at this map.

Lots of reds and greens with some yellows in there.

Now mentally sub in some other colors.

Change the reds and yellows to blue, and change the greens to red.

If you do that, what does the map start to look like? Rather a lot like the election map from 2004. Not perfect, but close.

But this map isn’t a map of voting results. It’s a map of gas prices.

The redder the color of a county, the higher the gas prices. The greener the county, the less gas costs there.

Some of the factors affecting gas prices may be geographic (it’s harder to get gas to some places than others), but the political aspect is not to be ignored.

Big government folks like their governments . . . well . . big, and to fund those big governments they need big taxes. That’s one of the reasons California consistently charges so much more for gas than Arizona. California has a HUGE gas tax compared to other states, and there are gas stations right over the border in Arizona that advertise the fact that you can fill up there without paying the California gas tax.

It works! If I’m heading east, I wait till I get to Arizona to fill up my tank for long road trips. It’s only two hours away, and I’ve usually got enough in the tank to get there before filling up.

It was interesting on my recent trip to see what the gas prices were elsewhere. At one truck stop, a trucker I ran into was positively livid about them and used vulgarity to express himself. At numerous stops people commented to me about how high the prices were.

To me, they weren’t nothin.’

I live in California.

We always have the worst gas prices in the  nation.

Thanks to our lovely blue-state legislature.

HERE’S THE SITE THE MAP IS FROM.

AND HERE ARE THEIR TIPS ON HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON GAS.

The Duty Of Office

In the comments section of a post by Mark Shea that took note of a blogger’s letter in response to a priest who waxed conflicted about homosexual identity and same-sex marriage in a parish bulletin, Chris Durnell offered some words of wisdom worth reprinting here so they are not eaten by Haloscan at some point down the line:

"The very real distinction between one’s public responsibilities and private feelings has been very overriden [sic] these days. Few seem to notice or care that the office one holds is not for one’s private use, but to fulfill the obligations of that office."

Amen.

Caprica!

Caprica_1YEE-HAW!!!

A big, TEXAS-SIZED CHT to the readers who e-mailed the following story:

SCI FI Channel announced the development of Caprica, a spinoff prequel of its hit Battlestar Galactica, in presentations to advertisers in New York on April 26. Caprica would come from Galactica executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, writer Remi Aubuchon (24) and NBC Universal Television Studio.

Caprica would take place more than half a century before the events that play out in Battlestar Galactica. The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better.

But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot: a Cylon. Following the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama, who will one day become the commander of the Battlestar Galactica), Caprica will weave together corporate intrigue, techno-action and sexual politics into television’s first science fiction family saga, the channel announced [SOURCE].

SWEET!

(Except for that sexual politics thing. Let’s hope that gets minimized quickly, the way it did in BSG.)

Incidentally, this may explain why the third season of BSG is being delayed by a few months–so they can get the new series up and running.

The Stamp Act

15centstamp

A mere five months ago postal rates rose from 37 cents to 39 cents. Unsatisfied, the Post Office is seeking to raise them yet again — to 42 cents. Fearing reprisals from an angry mob of customers waving around packages they need to mail, the Post Office has hit upon a plan: Create a Forever Stamp that can be used "forever," no matter the current rate of postage.

"Here’s how it would work. If the 3-cent increase takes effect next year, the forever stamp would be made available for 42 cents, the same as other first-class stamps. If the first-class rate were to rise to 45 cents in a few years, the 42-cent forever stamp would still be honored for postage on letters. Once the new price took effect, forever stamps would then sell for 45 cents."

GET THE STORY.

I remember when first-class rates were 15 cents and, dagnabit, I’m not that old! Looks to me like I should consider Internet bill-paying after all.

Ex Post Facto Laws By Another Name

I was really interested to read THIS ARTICLE BY THOMAS SOWELL ABOUT JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS.

Sowell is my favorite economist, and Thomas is my favorite justice. I mean, he totally ROCKS! He’s even better than Scalia. It’s too bad cloning is immoral (and takes too long, and doesn’t transfer memories), because I’d love to have a court packed with nine of him.

Here’s a neat piece in Sowell’s article that hits the nail on the head regarding how judicial activism amounts to the creation of ex post facto laws:

In one of his dissenting opinions, Justice Thomas declared that the Supreme Court was making "policy-laden judgments that we are ill equipped and arguably unauthorized to make" — and that this represented "functioning more as legislators than as judges."

He added: "The outcome of constitutional cases ought to rest on firmer ground than the personal preferences of judges."

That firmer ground is the original meaning of a law when it was passed. If that meaning needs to be changed, then it is up to elected officials to change it, not judges. That is what the democratic process is for.

When legislators change a law, that change is announced, so that everyone knows what is and is not illegal from now on. But when judges change the law by reinterpreting it, based on the "evolving standards" of a "living constitution," nobody knows that they have violated the law until after the fact, when it is too late.

Retrospective laws are expressly forbidden by the constitution. But the "evolving standards" of a "living constitution" amount to retrospective laws by another name.

Quite so.

Also, here’s a nice bit regarding whether Ten Commandments displays constitute an establishment of religion (which in the Constitution means creating an official state religion equivalent to the Church of England but which has been obscenely misinterpreted by the Supreme Court in recent years):

Justice Thomas has . . . refused to read the constitution’s ban on an "establishment of religion" as if it meant a "wall of separation" between church and state, requiring the obliteration of religious symbols from public property.

There is no such wall in the constitution, and an "establishment of religion" had a very plain and limited meaning when those words were written — a coerced support for a government-designated religion. Justice Thomas’ opinions often go back into history to show what the constitution’s original meaning was.

In response to someone who wanted the Ten Commandments removed from a courthouse, Justice Thomas said: "He need not stop to read it or even look at it, let alone express support for it or adopt the Commandments as guides for his life." There was "no coercion" as there was when there was an establishment of religion.

READ THE WHOLE THING.