Building A Catholic Utopia

Avemarialogo_1

Newsweek eyes Tom Monaghan’s Ave Maria University and the planned surrounding town with some alarm:

"For Tom Monaghan, the devout Catholic who founded Domino’s Pizza and is now bankrolling most of the initial $400 million cost of the project, Ave Maria is the culmination of a lifetime devoted to spreading his own strict interpretation of Catholicism. Though he says nonbelievers are welcome, Monaghan clearly wants the community to embody his conservative values. He controls all the commercial real estate in town (along with his developing partner, Barron Collier Cos.) and is asking pharmacies not to carry contraceptives. If forced to choose between two otherwise comparable drugstores, Barron Collier would favor the one that honored that request, says its president and CEO, Paul Marinelli.

[…]

"The ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] of Florida is worried about how he’s playing the game. ‘It is completely naive to think this first attempt [to restrict access to contraception] will be their last,’ says executive director Howard Simon. Armed with a 1946 Supreme Court opinion that ‘ownership [of a town] does not always mean absolute dominion,’ Simon will be watching Ave Maria for any signs of Monaghan’s request’s becoming a demand. Planned Parenthood is similarly alarmed. So far, Naples Community Hospital, which plans to open a clinic in Ave Maria Town, says it will not prescribe any birth control to students. Will others be able to get the pill? ‘For the general public, the answer is probably yes, but not definitely yes,’ says hospital point man Edgardo Tenreiro. The Florida attorney general’s office says the issue of limiting access will likely have to be worked out in court. Barron Collier and Monaghan say they’re following Florida law."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to the reader who sent the link.)

So, unless contraceptives and abortion are available on every corner, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood are going to be frightened that their constituents do not have "legitimate access"? For the sake of argument, let’s briefly set aside the question of the morality of contraceptives and abortion: Who says that everything a person could be expected to have access to must be in his hometown? Surely most people have recourse to cars and other forms of transportation to take them to the products and services they demand?

Unless, of course, they are poor, and the poor are the major customersprime targets of groups like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.

“Prove Jesus Existed” Trial Thrown Out

Y’all may remember a piece back when there was word of an absurd trial in Italy where a priest was ordered to prove that Jesus existed.

Well now sanity has prevailed and that trial has been thrown out of court. (CHT to the readers who e-mailed.)

Luigi Cascioli, a 72-year-old retired agronomist, had accused the Rev.
Enrico Righi of violating two laws with the assertion [that Jesus existed], which he called
a deceptive fable propagated by the Roman Catholic Church.

In fact, Cascioli may now get in trouble for falsely accusing the priest:

Judge Gaetano Mautone said in his decision that prosecutors should investigate Cascioli for possible slander.

GET THE STORY.

Marriage In A Catholic Church After Divorce Without Annulment

We get a lot of questions at work from Catholics who got
married outside the Church and want to know if they need an annulment. The
answer is that they do.

Catholics are bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage or to get a
dispensation from it in order for their marriages to be valid. For a Catholic
to "marry outside the Church" without a dispensation thus results in
an invalid marriage, and for such a person to remarry, he needs the Church to
look at his first marriage and officially establish that it was invalid and
that he is thus free to marry someone else.

This process is commonly known as "getting an annulment." The fact
that the annulment is an open-and-shut thing in this case doesn’t mean that the
person doesn’t need one. The Church needs to look at anything that appears to
be a marriage to see if it was before it can give a person permission to marry
someone else.

But what if that doesn’t happen?

Sometimes we get people who say, "Well, our priest said that we didn’t
need an annulment because we were married outside the Church, and he went ahead
and married us anyway. Does that mean our current marriage is invalid?"

Fortunately, no it doesn’t.

The thing that determine the validity of the marriage in this case is whether
the parties were genuinely free to marry each other. If they were bound to
prior partners then they were not free and the marriage is invalid. But if they
were free then, even though they didn’t get the annulment they should have
gotten, the marriage will be valid.

Here’s how the canon law on that works: The Code of Canon Law provides as
follows,

Can.  1085
§1. A person bound by the bond of a prior marriage, even if it was not
consummated, invalidly attempts marriage.

§2. Even if the prior marriage is invalid or dissolved for any reason, it is
not on that account permitted to
contract another before the nullity. . .  of the prior marriage is
established legitimately and certainly.

The first part of this canon deals with those who are bound
by a prior bond and says that they invalidly attempt marriage.

The second part deals with those who are not bound to a prior partner, and it
says they are not permitted to attempt marriage until they receive an
annulment.

But permission only addresses the subject of liceity (conformity with the law),
not validity (objective reality). You need an annulment to get permission to
marry someone else, but if you don’t have permission, that doesn’t mean that
the new union is invalid. It means that it was illicit (not conducted in accord
with the law), but it can still be valid (objectively real).

The situation is the same as it would be if a priest celebrating the Mass fails
to say a required preface to the Eucharistic prayer. He doesn’t have permission
to omit that, and as a result his celebration of the Mass will be out of
conformity with the law and thus illicit. But the consecration of the
elements will still be valid because it isn’t the preface but the words
of consecration that bring about the consecration.

In the same way, in celebrating the sacrament of holy matrimony, under current
law it isn’t the parties having of an annulment that fundamentally determines
their ability to marry each other. It’s their objective freedom to marry.

Thus the green CLSA commentary on the Code of Canon Law notes:

If a Catholic [whose previous marriage was null] re-marries according to the canonical form after a divorce but before a declaration of nullity is granted, the marriage is illicit but valid and need not be convalidated after the previous marriage is declared null [p. 1287].

So in cases where a priest erroneously told a couple they didn’t need an
annulment and went ahead and married the parties, they will be validly married
as long as they had the freedom to marry each other.

How To Catch Up On What You Missed

Daniel_jacksonA reader writes:

You’ve helped answer a question or two in the past about Stargate physics, but now, it’s personnel. Life has really acted up for me – in a good way – where I can’t plant myself down on Sci-Fi on Monday’s to catch several episodes of SG, so I haven’t seen this. But, how did they "transfer" Jonah when Daniel came back the first time from being dead/evolved. Is there a synapsis site I can go to?

First the answer to the specific question; then more general info on how to catch up on what you missed in an episodic TV show.

Daniel was expelled from the commuity of the Ascended and returned to our plane of existence when he broke the Ancients’ non-interference directive in an attempt to defeat Anubis. This happened at the end of season 6.

At the beginning of season 7 Daniel was found back in physical form and suffering from amnesia. His memory started to return over the next couple of episodes, when he fought alongside Jonah and the rest of SG-1 as they continue the struggle against Anubis, who was threatening Jonah’s homeworld of Kelowna.

By the end of the second episode, Daniel is functional enough to resume his place on the team, and Jonah returned to his own people on Kelowna.

If you want a mini-synopsis of each episode of the series, check out THIS ONE AT GATEWORLD.

Also, TV.COM has epsiode guides for an amazing number of shows.

In fact. TV.com is usually the first place I look when seeking an episode guide for a show.

WIKIPEDIA also usually has info on individual characters in shows, as well as the shows themselves.

And if all else fails you can GOOGLE the name of the show together with "episode guide" (in quotes) and turn up something.

This works not just for SG-1, but Lost, 24, Battlestar Galactica, and even shows you dimly remember from your childhood.

Holy Terror, Batman!

Batmanlogo

Who do you turn to when U.S. military intelligence and Special Forces cannot ferret out Osama bin Laden? No, not Ghosbusters. You put out a page for Batman.

Of course.

"Bored with pitting his wits against the Joker and the Riddler, Batman is setting his sights on a more challenging target — Osama bin Laden.

"Holy Terror, Batman! an upcoming graphic novel from famed Batman writer Frank Miller, sees the caped crusader facing off against Al-Qaeda operatives who attack Gotham City.

"Miller, who has already inked his way through 120 pages of the 200-page opus, told a recent comic book convention that the novel was an unashamed "piece of propaganda" in which Batman ‘kicks Al-Qaeda’s ass’ [crudity in the original]."

GET THE STORY.

The Daily Planet has confirmed that Hollywood moguls are seeking to acquire the rights to Holy Terror, Batman! Christian Bale is expected to reprise his role as the Dark Knight from Batman Begins but there is no word yet on which actors are being considered for the role of archvillain Bin Laden.

Vere Vs. Vree

Guestblogger Ed Peters writes:

Lately it seems that ripping Dale Vree and the New Oxford Review has become many people’s favorite past time. Of course, Vree is no stranger to intellectual street-fighting, so knocking NOR is nothing new. But to this observer, the pile-on looks like it’s getting out of hand. For example, just recently, Pete Vere, an early-30s, fairly well-known, orthodox Catholic blogger from Canada, thrice taunted Dale Vree (who is twice Vere’s age) for virtually being at death’s door and therefore practically out of time to repent of his publishing sins lest he go to hell. (I am not making this up). That does it. Somebody, hold my glasses. I’m going in.

Dale Vree is not omniscient, his logical skills are not perfect, and sometimes he fails in patience and charity. In other words, he’s a lot like me. But also, I’m guessing, like Pete Vere. Furthermore, Vree’s New Oxford Review has all the strengths and all the weaknesses of an opinion journal dominated by one man’s opinions.

This means, when Dale Vree is right, he is very, very, Churchill-in-the-1930s-right; but when he is wrong, he is very, very, Chamberlain-back-from-Munich-wrong. While Dale Vree has often shown deep courage by standing up against powerful persons and forces for what is right, even when that stand costs him dearly—and some of Vree’s righteous fights have cost him dearly—at other times he seems unable to get off the merry-go-round of his own arguments long enough for the spinning to pass and his arguments to clear.

If I need to say it, I disagree with several positions Vree and the NOR have taken over the years. I have regretted seeing him go after some people I greatly respect and with whom I largely agree. But by the same token, some people I respect have gone after Dale Vree in unprofessional—and lately quite uncharitable—ways; that too causes grief. Was Rodney King all wet when he pleaded “Why can’t we all just get along?”

I’ve been reading NOR off and on for some 25 years—almost as long as Pete Vere has been alive—and there’s an old saying I just made up: “Blessed are the believing GenXers, for theirs is a world with abundant outlets for orthodox expression.” They can’t remember the bad ole days, when virtually every organ of religious and secular media was dominated by the monolithic chant of “Burn, baby, burn. The future belongs to therapy, not theology.” And, as if the flowering of alternative print and broadcast media were not enough, anybody with a keyboard and modem (technology that Vree has been slow to exploit, to his disadvantage in modern debate) can broadcast their opinions around the world in seconds. Fewer people remember when, for his articulate defense of Catholic principles, Dale Vree was perhaps the loneliest man in Catholic publishing. But I remember those days, and say that if, in the twilight of his career, Dale Vree is making some unnecessary enemies, that is a genuine matter for concern and individual confrontation by his peers, not for disrespectful rebukes from youth.

Has Vree brought some of this on by going after the wrong people, or at any rate going after the right people in the wrong way? Maybe so. But at the same time, the information age never forgets one’s earlier error: if, for example, Vree erred in publishing a critique of so-and-so’s writings, few bothered to read fairly Vree’s second, much more sophisticated, critique of the same person’s work, and instead immediately, and loudly, excoriated Vree for publishing “more of the same.”

Midway though the mediocre movie, Separate Tables (1958), there is a gem of a line: “The trouble about being on the side of right is that often one finds oneself in the company of such very questionable allies.” In a huge world made suddenly very small, I think of that line often. We who participate in public debates often find ourselves being joined by questionable allies; for that matter, we cause others to worry about being associated with us. That analysis applies to Dale Vree and NOR as much as it applies to any of us. But in the meantime, the tone of the NOR debate needs to change.

Consider: even if every criticism made against Dale Vree’s person and publication were sound—there are obviously questions about that—would that legitimate responding to him in kind and implying judgments about the state of his soul that even the holiest pope in history would not presume to make?

A New Tack On Islam?

When Cardinal Ratzinger, who had openly complained about the Vatican bureaucracy in interviews, was elected pope, it was widely expected that he would shake up the Roman curia and reform it. This may well be an agenda item of his, but so far ther hasn’t been a major overhaul publicly announced.

What he has been doing is transferring certain people in a slow, deliberate manner, and these transfers have led to widespread speculation about the significance of the moves. For example, when the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (the man under Cardinal Arinze) was transferred, it was widely regarded as a sign that the man was unsuitable for his position.

Now the president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (the body responsible for dialogue with Muslims, Buddhists, etc.) has been transferred from his position and made nuncio for Egypt.

What does this mean?

John Allen suggests that it’s a break with the approach that has been taken toward Islam in recent years. Many at the Holy See have taken an over-conciliatory approach to Islam that has failed to appreciate the challenges the Church and western society faces regarding Islam. Since being elected pontiff, B16 has shown himself willing to call attention to the need for Muslims to reject violence and terrorism, which is already a shift in emphasis, and the transfer may be more of the same.

Allen writes:

It [the transfer]’s certainly not a question of personality. Nobody dislikes Fitzgerald, who is universally admired for his graciousness, his work ethic and his content-area expertise. He is an Oxford-educated expert on Islam, probably the best mind working on Christian-Islamic relations among the senior leadership of the church.

Yet within the Roman Curia, Fitzgerald is — rightly or wrongly — identified with what was seen by some as a "soft" approach to Islam under John Paul II. That line was never fully embraced by senior figures who advocate a policy more akin to "tough love." One example is Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope’s vicar for Rome. These officials desire good relations with Islam, but also a more robust capacity to challenge and critique Islamic leaders, especially on issues of "reciprocity" — the idea that if Muslim immigrants benefit from religious freedom in the West, Christians should get the same treatment in Islamic states.

It’s a view that to some extent Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, shared while at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In that sense, Fitzgerald’s transfer could be interpreted as a choice for a somewhat different approach.

GET THE STORY.

Neocatechumenal Update: New Arinze Interview

Cardinal Arinze, the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments as given an interview in which he addresses the liturgical directives that were recently issued to the Neocatechumenal Way.

The Cardinal presents the matter in a very kind, face-saving way, but he is clear on the points (which had been disputed by some Neocatechumenal spokesmen) that these directives are not a complete vindication of the NW’s liturgical practice and that the directives ARE to be followed and are not just a working document that needs further approval in order to go into force.

EXCERPT:

Q: How did this letter [that conveyed the directives] come about?

Cardinal Arinze: It stemmed from the results of this congregation’s examination of the way in which the Neocatechumenal Way has celebrated holy Mass for many years, as, following the approval of the statutes by the Pontifical Council for the Laity — for a five-year period — the rest of the Vatican dicasteries had to effect the approvals in their domain. Our congregation’s domain is the liturgy.

To carry out this examination, we created a mixed commission of persons named by the Neocatechumenal Way and by our congregation. In the discussions, many practices emerged which they carry out during the Mass. They were examined and it was seen that many of them were not done according to the approved books.

This is the background. Everything has been examined in many sessions by the mixed commission for a period of two years or more. And a discussion also took place among seven cardinals of the Roman Curia at the request of the Holy Father, who examined everything. Therefore, this letter is the conclusion of this whole process.

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Speaking Of Reconciliations . . .

Catholic News Service has a story about the meeting that Pope Benedict had this Wednesday with curial officials about the possibility of reconciling the Society of St. Pius X.

EXCERPTS:

More than 20 heads of congregations and pontifical councils attended the Feb. 13 meeting, which was to be followed up by a similar session in late March. No details of the February meeting were made available by the Vatican press office.

Several Vatican sources said that while Cardinal Castrillon strongly supported a solution based on these points opinions were sharply divided among curial members on any concessions to the Lefebvrites.

One Vatican source who participated in the February meeting of curial heads said he thought the pope wanted to make one big push for reconciliation at the beginning of his pontificate.

"I think it’s now or never for the Lefebvrites. As time passes, an agreement will become much more difficult," he said.

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