Ultrasound

A correspondent writes:

Have you ever heard that the Church teaches that ultra-sounds are immoral? My wife had one to determine the age of our new child and she was exorted by one of the gals at our parish that my wife should not be doing ultra-sounds and if she does one that would constitute active sin and lending herself to the "abortion culture in general."  In fact her and her husband were so upset by it that they called us yesterday and told us that if my wife chose to have the ultrasound that they would not longer be able to remain friends with us.

Unfortunately after the ultra-sound that my wife had we found out yesterday that she lost the baby. He or she was 8 weeks old.

First, let me say how sorry I am that the baby passed on. It is a human tragedy, and the Church knows the pain that you are feeling. To try to help those who have experienced miscarriage, the Church has a special blessing for those who have had a miscarriage. It’s in the Book of Blessings (every parish has one of those), and you and your wife may wish to have this blessing done. You can ask about having it done at your parish.

As regards to ultrasound, your friends are misinformed.

The Church most definitely does not teach that ultrasound is immoral or that it fosters the culture of death. To the contrary, the Church recognizes the moral legitimacy of pre-natal testing methods, even (in some cases) where there is no therapy available for a condition that the testing may reveal (see below).

The Church does have a problem with is prenatal testing that poses a disproportionate risk to the health of the mother or child, but ultrasound is a routine medical procedure that has been used for decades, and we would know it if it were fundamentally unsafe.

The Church also has a problem with using prenatal testing as a means of determining whether a child should be aborted, but that obviously is not what you and your wife were doing in this case.

Let me give you a couple of quotations from magisterial documents.

The first comes from a document that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued when Cardinal Ratzinger was its head. The document, Donum Vitae ("The Gift of Life"), states:

Is prenatal diagnosis morally licit? If prenatal diagnosis
respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and
is directed toward its safeguarding or healing as an individual, then
the answer is affirmative [sec. I, no. 2].

John Paul II also addressed the subject in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae ("The Gospel of Life"). Regarding prenatal diagnostic techniques, he wrote:

When they do not involve disproportionate risks for the child and the mother, and are meant to make possible early therapy or even to favor a serene and informed acceptance of the child not yet born, these techniques are morally licit (63).

You’ll note that he says they can be legitimate even just to "favor a
serene and informed acceptance of the child not yet born.” That means that you don’t even have to have a therapeutic goal for the procedure. As long as the procedure doesn’t pose disproportinoate risks to the child and as long as you aren’t going to abort, it can be used even if there is no therapeutic goal in view.

Notice something else, here: The parents’ ability to emotionally adjust to the child and his situation can be a valid motive for prenatal diagnostic techniques. John Paul II applied this to the case of parents facing the possibility of a child with an untreatable birth defect, so that they don’t have the emotional shock of learning about it only at birth but have some time to adjust emotionally.

It seems to me, however, that the principle can be applied in other situations. For example, many parents who see their child in 3D or 4D ultrasound have their emotional attachment to the child fostered. As long as the procedure is safe for the baby (and we have no reason to think this one isn’t after who knows how many tens or hundreds of millions of ultrasounds have been performed in the last thirty years) and the parents aren’t going to abort then it seems to me that the procedure is legitimate for those purposes.

Determining the age of the child is also a valid reason, since this can enable one to better plan the prenatal care of the child and to better plan for the birth.

(I recognize the importance of that in a special way because of my role at Catholic Answers. I oversee our speakers’ bureau, and whenever one of the speakers or one of the speaker’s wives gets pregnant we need to accomodate that in the calendar since speaking events are planned months in advance. Since speaking events won’t be able to be accepted for a certain period before and after birth, knowing when delivery is likely to occur enables us to plan things so that the speakers can have the time they need for the joyful event and parishes don’t have conferences cancelled on them at the last minute so that speakers can care for their family needs.)

In any event, the idea that the Church considers ultrasound immoral and a fostering of the culture of death is simply false.

God bless you, and I encourage readers to pray for you and for the baby, who is now in the merciful hands of God.

20

Japheth?

A correspondent writes:

1. Noah had three sons. What order were they in birth (who was oldest, second and youngest)?

It is commonly thought that the order is Shem, Ham, and then Japheth. The main reason is that this the the order the names are given in when they are introduced in Genesis 5:32 and elsewhere. Also, Genesis 10:21 explicitly states that Shem is Japheth’s elder brother.

I have seen it argued that Ham was the oldest but lost his birthright due to the incident where Noah got drunk, but the arguments for this are not convincing.

2. Does the birth order in this case have any theological significance ?

It shows Israel being descended from the firstborn (actual or legal, depending on the birth order theory you take).

3. One of the sons was the father of the chosen people, the other the Canaanites.    What happened to the descendants of the third son ? 

They went a variety of places, many of which were overseas from Israel, which is why Genesis 10:5 describes them as being maritime peoples, since that is how the Israelites encountered them (via the sea). They also went other places, generally to the north, northeast , and northwest from Israel’s perspective.

One thing you should be aware of regarding ancient near eastern genealogies like the one in Genesis 10 is that they aren’t exclusively biological in nature. They also include legal adoptions of peoples and tribes. If two tribes formed an alliance or merged culturally then they one tribe would be adopted into the lineage of the other. This is similar to how in our modern genealogies we don’t separate out people who were adopted. Grandma is still Grandma whether your mother was physically born to Grandma or whether she was adopted by her. The ancient near easterners did the same thing, only they did it with tribes instead of just individuals, and they allowed the adoptions to take place after the original patriarch of the lineage was dead. (We can see these kind of adoptions happening elsewhere in the genealogies of Israel in the Bible, as when Caleb is reckoned both as a Kennizite and as a descendant of Judah.)

As a result, the table of nations given in Genesis 10 isn’t simply a biological record. It includes biological factors as well as cultural and political affiliations, resulting in adoptions of tribes into lineages that aren’t necessarily biologically related. This kind of genalogization is how patriarchical cultures keep track of everybody and how they relate to each other.

The upshot is that the decendants of Japheth aren’t necessarily all biological descendants of his. Some may be descendants attributed to him by adoption even after his death.

In general, the Japhethites represent speakers of Indo-European languages like Greek.

Catholic News Service Slimes Organization In Act Of Irresponsible “Hit Piece” Journalism

Suppose that a conservative Catholic newspaper–let’s say The Wanderer–approached Tony Spence, the editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service (which operates under the auspices of the USCCB) and asked him to respond to unsourced allegations that Catholic News Service is infested by theological dissidents.

Suppose that The Wanderer then ran a piece headlined "Editor denies Catholic News Service ‘infested by theological dissidents.’"

And suppose that nowhere in this piece did it cite anyone as having made this allegation. It simply seems to be something that The Wanderer wants to suggest even though there is apparently no one willing to go on record making the claim.

Would that be responsible journalism? Of course not. That’s an attack piece.

Why then has Catholic News Service just used this exact tactic in an article on the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization that points out problems in various Catholic universities?

Disclosure: I have no connection to the Cardinal Newman Society, nor have I been more than dimly aware of its existence prior to the publication of this piece. I know next to nothing about it, have no prior impression of it, and have no opinion on it one way or the other. I support fostering the Catholic identity of Catholic universities, but whether the Cardinal Newman Society does so in a constructive manner is something I do not at this point know.

That being said. . . .

As soon as I started reading the CNS piece–titled Cardinal Newman Society head says group operates within magisterium–it was immediately obvious that the piece represented a hit piece apparently written in gross violation of journalistic ethics (either that or it’s gross journalistic incompetence). Both the reporter who wrote it (Agostino Bono) and the editor who approved it are severely at fault.

Here’s how the article begins:

WASHINGTON (CNS) — A self-described watchdog organization that claims many Catholic colleges are losing their Catholic identity is not setting up a teaching authority independent of the bishops, said the head of the group.

The Cardinal Newman Society is exercising a "concurrent magisterium" in keeping with the church’s teaching authority, said Patrick Reilly, the society’s president.

You’ll note that the article goes after the Cardinal Newman Society from the very beginning. It lobs allegations at them and does so without naming anyone who is making these allegations.

Nor does it go on to name those making these allegations in subsequent paragraphs. They are completley unattributed.

This is a hallmark of hit piece journalism. You simply cannot lob unsourced allegations at someone and claim to be doing responsible journalism.

A reporter’s job is — get this — to report the news. If some
bishop or university president has accused the Cardinal Newman Society
of setting up its own teaching authority, and a reporter gets a
statement from the Cardinal Newman Society denying said charges, that is reporting the news.

If as far as we know nobody
has accused the Cardinal Newman Society of setting up its own teaching
authority — at least, not on the record, not in any way that would
make it a news story — and a reporter up and decides out of the blue
to ask the president of the Cardinal Newman Society whether his group
is setting up its own teaching authority, then runs a story all about
how the Cardinal Newman Society denies setting up its own authority,
then that is not reporting the news, that is slime journalism.

This is a breathtaking lapse of ethics (or a breathtaking act of incompetence). Even secular journalists wanting to slime a group have the brains not to make such a blatant attempt. They at least go out and find someone willing to publicly mouth the accusation that the reporter wants to lob at the group.

The fact that the piece was a brazen attempt to slime the Cardinal Newman Society was thus immediately apparent, though I also recognized that if Patrick Reilly really said some of the things attributed to him in the article that he did himself no favors, and I began to form a negative impression of his group.

The comment about the society seeking to exercise a "concurrent magisterium," for example, was an immediate danger signal, as were other commenets attributed to him, and I began to view him and his society in a negative light.

But it turns out that Mr. Reilly disputes the attribution of these quotations. A response on the Cardinal Newman Society web site denies that Reilly said this, and it makes some of the same points I would in critiquing the phrase "concurrent magisterium."

READ THE RESPONSE.

The response on the Cardinal Newman Society web site also mentions a prior encounter with the Catholic News Service, in which the latter attempted to get the former to stop using the acronym CNS, as if there weren’t at least fifty-two other uses of that acronym.

This further calls into question the motivations of Catholic News Service in running the piece.

One can only hope that Tony Spence or his superiors will immediately take steps to correct and apologize for this outrageous breach of journalistic ethics and to discipline the reporter and any subordinate editor who approved the piece.

If Spence is himself the editor who approved it then he needs to be disciplined by his superiors.

Standard contact info:

Catholic News Service
(202) 541-3250
cns@catholicnews.com

You Heard It Here First

Down yonder, Mark Brumley of Ignatius Press writes in part:

The second edition of the RSV is an Ignatius Press exclusive. It is
the *only* English language translation of the Bible updated
specifically to correspond to Liturgiam Authenticam. Some of the
"tweaking" to which I refer above is to bring the RSV into line with
Liturgiam Authenticam.

Ignatius Press is also publishing a new English lectionary based on
the RSV, 2nd Catholic edition. This lectionary may not, at present, be
used in the Liturgy in the U.S., although it is approved for use in the
Antilles and the Holy Father was presented with a copy in December.
Whether the USCCB will permit it to be used remains to be seen, but
other episcopal conferences of English-speaking Catholics may. We’ll
see.

Sweet!

Mark told me about this project a good bit ago, but I didn’t know that it had come to fruition. Let’s pray that the Ignatius lectionary gets approved for use in the U.S. so that we (or some of us) can get some relief from the tin-eared translations found in the current lectionary.

Revised Ignatius Bible

A reader writes:

Are you familiar with this 2nd Edition of the Ignatius Catholic Leather Bible that has just been released?  It is leather and I would like to get one, but I am never sure on what will be considered a "good" translation.   I have read your tracts on Bible translations already and know that you recommend the RSV, so is the 2nd Edition RSV going to be pretty much the same thing and trustworthy?

I had not previously been familiar with the 2nd edition of the Ignatius Bible, though my confidence in the publishing house is such that I would have been able to recommend it anyway.

By a strange coincidence, however, I happened to have the chance to examine a copy of it today. (Our purchaser at Catholic Answers wanted me to look over a copy to see if it was something we want to carry.)

As a result, I now have more familiarity with it and can give a more specific response.

It appears that they have done three basic things:

  1. They re-typeset it so that it looks better than it did before on the page.
  2. They took the notes that used to appear in appendices at the end of the Old and New Testaments and put them on the pages that the notes apply to, so you no longer have to flip to the back of the book.
  3. They made minor changes to confusing and archaic language at a very small number of points in the translation.

Here’s how the Ignatius web site (www.ignatius.com) describes this edition:

A completely new typeset and designed edition of the popular Ignatius Revised Standard Version Bible, with minor revisions to some of the archaic language used in the first edition. This revised version is a contemporary English translation without dumbing-down the text. This second edition of the RSV doesn’t put the biblical text through a filter to make it acceptable to current tastes and prejudices, and it retains the beauty of the RSV language that has made it such a joy to read and reflect on the Word of God. Now the only Catholic Bible in standard English is even more beautiful in word and design!

Note the clause that I’ve highlighted in blue. This is code for "this Bible does not make feminist revisions to the genders that are found in the biblical text."

That’s a good thing.

And I’d have no problem recommending this edition.

Passover & Transubstantiation

A reader writes:

During the last supper Jesus offered bread and wine to the apostles and said this is my body and blood, do this in rememberance of  Me . At the jewish seder meal, food and elements are presented for rememberance, to bring forth the struggles of the Hebrew peoples. My question is at the supper Jesus could of created a new seder memory for future Passovers. Mr. Akins this is a troubleing topic for me, I’m catholic and believe in the real presents.

The seder passover meal is a recreation of the jewish struggle by presenting elements at the table to eat and remember the past. Could Jesus have introduced a new element to the seder on his last night with the Jewish apostles for them to add his memory to the Jewish table.  Not actual real presents which would have been difficult for a jew, but for the seder meal this would have been very  easy to accept.

If I understand correctly, there are two questions here. The first is whether by instituting the Eucharist Jesus simply meant to add an additional new rite to the Passover meal. The second is whether the Eucharist is to be understood symbolically or realistically.

Let’s deal with the first question first.

Jesus certainly could have simply added a new rite to the Passover meal if that is what he had wanted to do. He’s God, so he can do anything he wants. But the question for us is: What evidence do we have that he simply wanted to add a new rite to the Passover meal? Not much.

Since none of us has a time travelling De Lorean, we can’t go back to the Last Supper and see everything that Jesus said. (NOTE: If anyone does have a time-travelling De Lorean, or other workable time travel device, please contact me via e-mail. There are several events in world history that I need to go back and change.) As a result, we have to rely on what the apostles said and understood Jesus to say.

It seems clear that they did not understand Jesus to simply be instituting a new element in the ritual of the Passover meal. We know this because the evidence that we have points to the early Church celebrating the Lord’s Supper on a frequent basis–not just once a year, like Passover.

The evidence strongly suggests that the early Christians celebrated the Eucharist at least weekly, in which case it could not simply have been an addition to the Passover rite. It was something based on Passover (with Jesus taking the place of the lamb as the true Lamb of God), but it was independent from Passover and could be celebrated much more frequently.

So the evidence we have indicates that Jesus wasn’t just making an addition to the Passover rite. He was making a much more radical change. The question is: How radical? How much was he changing?

That leads to question #2: Could he have meant the Eucharist to simply be symbolic of his body and blood rather than really being his body and blood?

Again, he could have. He’s God, and he can do what he wants. But once more the question is: How did the people who heard him–who heard all of what he said (not just the parts recorded in Scripture)–understand him?

They understood him in terms that went way beyond symbolism. If you read John 6, for example, you’ll see that some people did resist Jesus’ declaration that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. What was Jesus’ response? Did he say, "Hey, guys, it’s only a metaphor. Don’t sweat it?" No. Instead, he repeated his assertion, causing some people who had been following him up to that point to quit following him.

Did he explain the metaphor privately to his core disciples, as he had various metaphors that he used on other occasions? No. Instead, he asked them if they too wanted to quit following him. This means that Jesus was willing to lose his core disciples rather than water down the assertion he made about eating his flesh and blood.

This would be inexplicable if he was just using a metaphor. On occasions when he used metaphors that the apostles didn’t understand, he explained them to the apostles privately. He didn’t draw a line in the sand and ask them if they wanted to leave if they didn’t accept it.

It may well have been his forcefulness on this point that prepared the disciples for what he would do at the Last Supper. He had already prepped them for the idea of literally eating his flesh and blood, so they understood the intent of his action when he actually called upon them to do it at the Last Supper.

Also remember that the apostles weren’t ordinary Jews. They had already come to recognize Jesus as the Son of God and had seen him work many miracles. They themselves had handed out the bread that he had miraculously multiplied, so they knew that he was capable of transubstantiating bread and wine if he wanted to.

And, remember, they weren’t people growing up in the anti-supernatural 21st century. They were firm believers in the miraculous and were much more prepared than people today to interpret things as miraculous rather than symbolic.

We also have the witness of the other early Christians–to whom the apostles passed on the faith and who also understood the Eucharist in realistic terms.

For more on all this.

SEE THIS LINK.

AND THIS ONE AS WELL.

I’d also like to call attention to the fact that Jesus made some pretty specific promises to the apostles and to the Church as a whole, telling them that he would send the Holy Spirit to reinforce their understanding of what he had taught them and telling us that he would be with the Church until the end of time.

This means that Jesus guided the apostles, and has guided the Church, into a correct understanding of matters that are fundmental to the Christian faith–like the nature of the Eucharist. His providential care guarantees that the Church has not misunderstood the Eucharist, either in regard to whether it is just an addition to the Passover meal or in regard to whether it is realistic or symbolic.

We have Jesus’ word on it.

(One other note: I’ve written the above on the assumption that first century Jews understood the Passover meal in a symbolic sense. That’s not altogether clear. There are strands in Jewish thought that understand the Passover meal as a real participation in the events of the Exodus in a manner not unlike a form of transubstantiation.)

Pregnancy Is Good For You! Maybe!

A big CHT to the reader who e-mailed the following story.

It turns out that, after giving birth, mothers continue to have cells from their children in their bodies.

This was a shock to scientists, who figgered that the mother’s immune system would quickly (within hours) pick off any of the baby’s cells since they have a different genetic profile than the mother’s.

But it turns out that’s not the case. The cells appear to stay in her for decades (40-50 years).

And with each new baby that a mother has, she gets new cells from it that stay in her system and float around her bloodstream.

What are they doing in there?

There are three hypotheses, any of which (or some combination of which) could be true.

The "Bystander Hypothesis" holds that they aren’t really doing anything. They’re just bystanders.

The "Bad Hypothesis" holds that they may do damage to the mother, causing autoimmune diseases in some cases.

And the "Good Hypothesis" holds that they actually help the mother out, acting as a second (or third or forth or twelfth) repair system in the mother’s body.

It isn’t certain yet which hypothesis is true, but evidence for the Bad Hypothesis appears small and evidence for the Good Hypothesis is rapidly mounting.

For example: In the case of a woman who had contracted hepatitis it was found that cells from her prior children clustered around her liver in vast quantities and seemed to be functioning like normal liver cells, helping her out.

It may be that this is a form of natural embryonic stem cell therapy, with the baby’s cells morphing into whatever kind of cells mom needs.

Sweet!

Also, for mothers who have lost children to miscarriage (or abortion) there is also the fact that these babies’ cells stay in you as well and may be helping you out, decades after the fact.

Research is still being done, but one scientist (quoted in the audio story linked below) thinks that we’ll have the answer within five years.

GET THE STORY!

NOTE: Be sure to listen to the audio story and don’t just read the text one. The audio one contains a bunch more info.

‘NUTHER NOTE: The title of this post is not to be construed as dissing other research showing that pregnancy is good for you.

In The News

Laurabush_popebenedictAnd here Pope Benedict is shown receiving a bowl of first lady Laura Bush’s five-alarm barn burner home made Texas chili, topped with shredded Monterrey Jack cheese.

Oh, wait. That’s not what’s going on here.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Actually, Mrs. Bush was in Italy for the opening of the Olympics, and she stopped by to see the pope.

They talked about terrorism and the cartoon riots.

And she brought him a silver bowl. (No chili. I’m sure the pope was disappointed.)

GET THE STORY.

LEARN MORE ABOUT CHILI.

Compendium At End Of March

The USCCB has been released that the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be released in English on March 31st–just over seven weeks from now.

Sweet!

This is gonna be good!

According to Catholic News Agency,

The new Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a 200-page synthesis of the 1992 catechism, will be available starting March 31 from the publishing office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The compendium consists of 598 questions and answers, a format similar to the very popular Baltimore Catechism, which was a standard text in many Catholic parishes and schools, from 1885 to the 1960s.

The compendium is structured in four parts, like the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The text has some direct quotes from the catechism used as sidebars, but the questions and answers are original text.

In addition to the questions and answers, the compendium also includes two appendices. The first is a list of Catholic prayers. The second appendix contains “Formulas of Catholic Doctrine,” including the Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, theological and cardinal virtues, and spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Fourteen masterpieces of Christian art are also reproduced in the text.

GET THE STORY.

For those who can’t wait till then, I’d note that the Compendium is already online . . . but in Italian.

HERE’S THE LINK.