Jimmy Akin – Page 521

The Asian Pope

Who’s the #1 religious leader in the world?

The pope . . . of course.

Who’s the #2?

Well, probably the dalai lama.

There a bit of assymetry, though. The pope is the figurehead of Christianity, which is the world’s largest religion. The dalai lama is the most famous Buddhist leader, but depending on what you count as a religion, Buddhism is only the fourth to the sixth largest religion (after Islam and Hinduism, for example).

But the other major religions don’t have generally recognized figureheads, and so the dalai lama gets second billing alongside the pope, without comparable religious leaders in the picture.

The result is that the media treats the Dalai Lama as kind of "the Asian pope."

The assymetry goes a bit deeper than what I’ve indicated, though, since the position of the pope and the dalai lama are assymeterical within their respetive religions. The pope is the head of the Catholic Church, which the original Christian communion and by far the largest. The communion that the dalai lama heads, though, is neither the original nor the largest Buddhist communion. He is the most influential leader in the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, though even then he is not its head (that would be the ganden tripa).

All of this assymetry encourages one to recognize the uniqueness of the pope as a religious leader, though that isn’t my point in writing.

I simply thought folks might be interested to read an interview (linked below) with the Dalai Lama and to know a little more about him since he makes such frequent appearances in the media.

The title "dalai lama" means something like "the ocean teacher" with the term "ocean" referring to the expansiveness of his teaching. The title is regarded as belonging to the successive reincarnations of a particular individual. The first dalai lama (though the title was not used in his day) was called Gedun Drub, who lived in the 1400s. The present dalai lama (Tenzin Gyatso) is the fourteenth dalai lama. (Dalai lamas have much longer reigns than popes since the office is a life-long one.)

When a dalai lama dies a search is conducted for his reincarnation, and this usually takes a few years. To help find the reincarnation, various children are shown personal belongings of the previous dalai lama, and if one of the children shows familiarity with these belongings, it is a sign that he may be the reincarnation.

To avoid disputes, the reincarnation of the dalai lama is officially recognized by another lama–known as the panchen lama. (Reciprocally, when the panchen lama dies, the dalai lama recognizes his reincarnation. The dalai lama also appoints the ganden tripa, which is a non-reincarnating office.)

At the moment there is a looming problem with the succession arrangements for the next dalai lama and that problem can be summed up in one word: China.

China took over Tibet when the current dalai lama was a teenager, and he has lived in exile in India for decades. It is probably this fact that accounts for much of the dalai lama’s recognition in the media. If China had never seized control of Tibet, he would just be the local major religious leader of Tibet, but the state of his country has projected him onto the world stage in a much more substantial way.

Now here’s the problem: The communist government of China has reserved to itself the approval of high-level reincarnations in Tibet (citing previous involvement by a Chinese emperor in the selection of the panchen lama).
After the takeover of Tibet, China put the previous panchen lama under house arrest for years and may have murdered him after he gave a speech critical of the communist government. His death led to a split in that the Chinese government now recognizes a different panchen lama than the dalai lama does.

Rather than be reincarnated in Chinese controlled territory, the dalai lama has also announced that he will be reborn in a free country, outside of Chinese control. He’s also suggested that he may not reincarnate at all.

This means that the stage is set for the coming of a false dalai lama–an Asian anti-pope, if you will. In the interview linked below, the present dalai lama states frankly:

As I’ve said earlier, whether this institution [of the dalai lama] will continue depends on the people. Under the best of circumstances, I think that the institution should continue. First, the maintenance of the institution is important. Then, there is the personal history. Both options should be kept open. If the Tibetan people want another reincarnation, then logically while we’re outside, the successor should be someone who can carry out this task, which has not yet been accomplished by the previous Dalai Lama. That means that he must come in a free country. But the Chinese government will also appoint a Dalai Lama. So there’ll be two Dalai Lamas. One Dalai Lama—the Chinese official Dalai Lama—the Tibetan people will have no faith in. Even the ordinary Chinese will have no faith in him. He’ll be a false Dalai Lama.

Another dimension of the problem is that the dalai lama is the head of the Tibetan government in exile, and China is deathly afraid that he or his successors could lead Tibet to attempt to separate from Chinese rule. In response the dalai lama has said that he is willing to renounce (including for his future incarnations) any political role in Tibet if it can have autonomy and freedom.

He is not shooting for independence, though. (That would send the Chinese government into orbit.) Instead, he is looking for something much more modest:

Meaningful autonomy. Autonomy is provided for in the Chinese constitution for minorities and special rights are guaranteed for Tibet. In communist states, sometimes the constitutions they write are not sincerely practiced. It’s a special sort of case with Tibet. It becomes possible to have one country, two systems. Why not? Let’s consider Tibet historically: Different language, different culture, different geographical location. So in order to get maximum satisfaction for the Tibetan people, I think a higher degree of autonomy should be given. Then Tibetan loyalty to the people of China will naturally come. Tibetans will enjoy true autonomy. That is the guarantee for preservation of our identity, our culture, our spirituality, our environment.

In Quebec in Canada, some politicians wanted independence, but when the people were asked, they saw that their greater interest, their greater benefit, was by staying within Canada. It’s similar with Scotland, also. Their high degree of autonomy within Great Britain gives them satisfaction. So giving a higher degree of autonomy brings no danger of separation.

It’s interesting reading the interview it the dalai lama, because on certain issues he seems to have a realistic understanding of the situation (e.g., the coming succession problem, the fact that some kind of autonomy but not full independence is all that can be hoped for at the moment). But on other issues he sounds completely unrealistic. (His suggestion that the U.S. should have had a non-violent response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, for example, was from outer space.)

One item that was of particular interest in the interview was an equivalent to the woment’s ordination issue. While women can theoretically attain the highest forms of ordination in the dalai lama’s sect, they have not yet achieved such ordinations in comparable numbers, and this is a source of discomfort.

In any event,

GET THE INTERVIEW.

FINALLY! Command Line Info For Windows Explorer

I was going to put up a bleg about this but I found the answer myself and thought I’d share it with others.

For those of y’all using Windows XP (that’s probably most of you), I recently found out how to correct an annoying feature of the OS that I first ran across when I switched to XP.

I use Windows Explorer (NOT Internet Explorer) a lot to find files on my hard drive, but I’ve been annoyed with the fact that whenever I open it in XP it wouldn’t show me a hierarchy of folders in the left hand column but instead would show me a bunch of options for what I might do with files (like make a new folder, upload a file to the web, share a folder, etc.). This was VERY annoying as I had to click the "Folders" icon at the top to get the nested folder hierarchy so I could navigate it.

I figured there was a command line switch that I could set to correct this, but I never knew what it was.

Now I do.

To fix the problem, all you have to do is:

Right click on the icon you use to bring up Windows Explorer (I use one that I put in my Quick Launch bar at the bottom of my screen).
Select "Properties."
Select "Shortcut" (if it isn’t already selected).
Go into the field marked "Target:" and scroll to the end of it.
At the end type " /e" (that’s SPACE-SLASH-little e).
Close it all up and you’re done.

This way Windows Explorer will open with something USEFUL (the left nav folder hierarchy) instead of all those stupid "File and Folder Tasks" that you never use.

MORE THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH COMMAND-LINE SWITCHES FOR WINDOWS EXPLORER.

Be sure to note that you can also use a "/root" switch to set it to open a particular favorite location of yours (e.g., "My Documents").

Happy Leap Second!

Some person in authority–I don’t know who, very likely the astronomer royal–has decided that although for such a beastly month as February twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty, one year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty.

That’s what we call "Leap Year"–when we get an extra day in the year (making it kind of a misnomer–and yes, I know that it wasn’t the astronomer royal who decided this).

This year, though, we get a leap second.

At 7 p.m. EST (4 p.m. PST), we’ll have an extra second inserted to account for the fact that the earth is slowing down its rotation (but ever so slowly, so we don’t notice).

Have fun with your extra second!

Be sure to party like it’s 1999!

GET THE STORY (WHICH WILL TAKE YOU LONGER THAN A SECOND TO READ).

1.5 Mil

Just passed the 1.5 millionth page view here on the blog.

YEE-HAW!!!

Next stop: 2 million!

BTW, I just made a couple of changes in the style sheet for the blog to (a) make who wrote what post more obvious and (b) make the font for entries larger. Feedback welcome.

Prenatal Testing

A reader writes:

Jimmy. My wife and I are quite pleased that she is expecting our second child. We found out that she was pregnant and the first ultrasound/OB visit is coming up soon.

We did not do any fetal testing with our first child and don’t plan on doing any fetal testing with this child, but I have been unable to find any official church teaching on fetal testing. Obviously there is opposition to almost all abortion, but do you have a good resource for what would be acceptable?

Obviously amnio increases the risk for miscarriage.

Thanks in advance.

First, let me clarify what you wrote regarding abortion. Any deliberate killing of the unborn–either as a means or an end–is homicide and cannot be done, no matter the circumstances. Thus it does not matter if prenatal testing showed that the unborn had a horrible genetic disease. He still has a right to life and can’t be killed.

When and whether prenatal testing is okay depends on two things: (1) the good to be achieved by doing the test and (2) the danger the test itself poses to the child.

If (1) is proportionate to (2) the the test is morally licit. If it is not (i.e., if the danger to the child is proportionately greater than the good to be achieved by the test) then the test is immoral.

Some tests seem to pose little risk to the child and can be done as long as one isn’t tempted to do something immoral (like have an abortion) if one finds out that there is a problem with the child. I gather that ultrasound generally falls into this category.

Other tests, like amniocentesis, pose more of a risk to the child. Such riskier procedures could be performed if there is a proportionate good to be achieved, such as the ability to treat the child in utero and cure the problem. That isn’t possible in many cases yet, but with the growth of gene therapy and nanotechnology it will be possible to help more children in utero.

Things like doing an amnio just so you can find out if the kid has Downs so that he can be whacked, however, are immoral.

So would be (in a few years) doing gene therapy on the kid not to correct genetic flaws but to produce a "designer baby."

HERE’S A STATEMENT FROM THE USCCB FROM 1996 ON THE SUBJECT OF GENETIC TESTING.

From what I can tell, this statement doesn’t seem to have Magisterial authority, but it does contain a helpful summary of recent Magisterial interventions on this topic:

More and more frequently, expectant mothers are undergoing amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, and other tests to detect genetic anomalies in their unborn children.

The most detailed Catholic teaching on this and related subjects appears in a 1987 statement from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith called The Gift of Life (Donum Vitae). It asks: “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).

The Holy Father builds on this declaration in his recent encyclical The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae), holding that prenatal diagnostic techniques are morally permissible “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” (no. 63).

However, some prenatal testing poses significant risks to the unborn child, especially when performed on embryos before selection for implantation in the womb. Disturbing test results can also tempt individuals to make decisions not in accord with sound morality. The Holy Father goes on to note:

But since the possibilities of prenatal therapy are today still limited, it not infrequently happens that these techniques are used with a eugenic intention which accepts selective abortion in order to prevent the birth of children affected by various types of anomalies. Such an attitude is shameful and utterly reprehensible, since it presumes to measure the value of a human life only within the parameters of “normality” and physical well-being, thus opening the way to legitimizing infanticide and euthanasia. (no. 63)

Hope this helps, and congratulations on your new pre-born baby!

B16’s Visit To Cologne Synagogue

You may remember that during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cologne, Germany, for World Youth Day last August, he also set aside time to visit the synagogue in Cologne, which was reminiscent of John Paul II’s historic visit to Rome’s synagogue in 1986. Although the pictures were posted by a German news site at the link below in August, I recently found the link when I dropped in on a sedevacantist site that was still in a lather over the event four months later. I thought the pictures lovely and couldn’t resist posting one of my favorites here: a picture of a Jewish man wearing a commemorative yarmulke (i.e., a Jewish skullcap that looks similar to the episcopal zucchetto) that had been made in honor of Pope Benedict’s visit.

SEE THE PICTURES.

(NOTE: To better see the lettering on the yarmulke, you can click on the image to see the full-size photograph.)

But, Is It Art? Part I

Hey, Tim Jones, here.

I’ve been asked by some commenters here at JA.O what I thought about abstract art, and whether I appreciate any modern art (like that of Robert Motherwell, shown at left).

Now, I am no expert on anything. I am a practicing artist (a painter ) *begin hypnosis – VISIT MY WEBSITE – end hypnosis* with a Master’s degree in Fine Art. Maybe something worthwhile rubbed off while I was in college, but I do not present myself as any kind of Art Pundit.

I am also really not that well-read, so I can’t lay claim to any great depth of historical knowledge.

What I can try to do is to clarify some terms and state, in very simple language, what I believe art is and is supposed to "do". Art should not be presented (in my view) as the exclusive purview of highly trained experts. If you have to read a paper to understand a painting, it has already failed as a work of art, in my opinion.

I had a professor once, who traced the meaning of the word art back to it’s Latin root ars, pointing out that this was also the root of the word artificial. He went on to say that, in a sense, everything that is not from nature, that is "man-made", could be called "art".

This was received with knowing nods of approval at the time, probably even from me. It is an idea that still holds a great deal of sway in the world of modern art. The idea was that we should not take a narrow view of what is and is not art, which sounds okay, until you try to really begin talking about art.

The truth is, this is just not the way that people think and talk. In this broad, philosophical view of art, the tissue that I just used is "art". So is the notepad I just scribbled on, my shoelace, and every other human artifact you can think of.

The logical conclusion to this kind of thinking led the Dada-ists to hang latrines in museums, and still resonates to this day.

So, what separates art and fine art from non-art? Here is where it might help to draw and define some broad categories. You will see that there will be a good deal of possible overlap between them.

To get the ball rolling, I offer these working categories:

DESIGN – Everything that people make has a design. A tent, a spear point (like the one pictured) a clay pot, a mocassin, a tissue – all are made with an ideal design in mind. The actual object may be more or less close to the ideal, but the design is still evident. The design of an object can be pleasing, but this is not necessary. While some man-made objects may incidentally strike people as pleasing, the same is true of non-man-made objects. Design – in itself, then – would not be what we would call "art" in any commonly understood usage of the word. Art certainly incorporates design, but art is more than just design. Some design is so consciously elegant, though, that it becomes…

DECORATION – You might think that early in human history, people made plain things and gradually began to decorate them over time. There is no evidence for this, in fact. People have always decorated things. It’s what we do, and part of what makes us qualitatively different from the animals. From the beginning, people wanted to make their stuff look cool. So, clay pots received etched, painted or stamped decoration. Clothing was beaded and fringed and dyed. Spears were hung with feathers. People tattooed their skin. Decoration is just built into human beings.

Some of these decorations had symbolic meaning, and some did not. Decoration could be a simple geometric pattern, or an actual picture of something else. The purpose of the decoration, though, was always to add something (appeal, interest, information, etc…) to an already existing object, and was not there to be appreciated simply for itself. So while art can incorporate elements of decoration, decoration – by itself – does not constitute art. Decoration can, however, begin to take on the characteristics of…

ILLUSTRATION – Now we come to the real magic of art; that is, the ability to invoke, or to make present (in a way that is truly mysterious) something that is not there. Not only objects and creatures, but events and environments can be re-presented, merely by the etching of lines or the arrangement of pigment. You probably already have an intuitive grasp of something else that separates illustration from decoration – storytelling. Where do we generally find illustrations? In books.

Illustration exists, not to enliven some existing object or tool, but at the service of a story, or narrative. Many great pieces of art are illustrations, including so many of the wonderful religious icons you are familiar with. Norman Rockwell was proud to be called an illustrator. The strong narrative (story) element in his art makes it very illustrative. All illustration is art, then, but at times it can be elevated to…

FINE ART – What sets fine art apart from illustration is the way it treats this element of narrative or story. All images tell some kind of story, of course, but in fine art the narrative element is subordinated to the visual, sensual properties of the depicted objects (like in the piece at left, by artist Jeff Legg).

It might be a landscape, a woman, a bowl of fruit… but a piece of fine art exists as an homage to some discreet part of creation. Fine art is meant to be appreciated in itself, and by itself. It needs no underlying narrative (as a religious icon or other illustration does) to make sense of it.

Many great illustrations (like Michelangelo’s Pieta) cross over into the area of fine art, owing to the importance that they give to the native visual properties of the depicted objects, environments or people. Great artists often walk a line between illustration and fine art.

There is a danger, in pushing an illustration toward becoming fine art, that the visual elements of the image will overwhelm or detract from the desired narrative. This is why many religious icons are so graphic and simple. Too much attention to realism would actually serve as a distraction. As long as people can readily recognize who the icon symbolically represents, things like realistic shading or accurate anatomy are unnecessary.

There is, conversly, also a danger in allowing a piece of fine art to become bogged down in sentiment and narrative, to the detriment of the image. If an object can’t stand on it’s visual properties alone, then it’s presence in a piece of fine art becomes questionable.

Now, because of the arrangement of the above categories, you may have the idea that I think that fine art is superior to illustration, illustration to decoration, etc… . This is not the case. All of these things are good and necessary in their own right. The reason they are placed in a kind of ascending order is because each successive category comprehends, or incorporates, all the previous categories. So, all art involves design, but not all design is art. This will also be important in the next post…

BEYOND? – There are those who posit another kind of art that passes beyond mere illustration or representation, and becomes something greater. I will examine that idea in my next post, where I discuss Realism, Abstraction and Non-Objective Art.

There will be a quiz next Thursday. Bring two #2 pencils.

If you have read this far, God Bless You!!

De Nada

Michelle here.

My high-school Spanish is pretty sketchy, but I do know that de nada is the Spanish response to "thank you" (gracias). Literally, it means "of nothing," which would be roughly translated to the English colloquialism "It was nothing."

It seems that a good many generous Americans should consider taking up the phrase "It was nothing" rather than "You’re welcome" if and when they receive a modern thank-you note. The notes they’re receiving are often worse than having received nothing at all in response to a gift they’ve given.

"In fact, that’s what many generous Americans will receive during this season of giving: absolutely nothing in return. This time of year, when virtually everyone owes someone a thank-you, many people assume that if they open a present in the presence of the giver, no formal thank-you is required.

"Even when it comes to expensive baby shower and wedding gifts, the thank-you note increasingly is becoming the thank-you not. Putting fountain pen to ecru eggshell has just about gone the way of plunking IBM Selectric keys onto onion skin.

"It’s not just that people don’t write as many personal notes as they used to. Today, when gratitude is expressed in writing, it’s often done grudgingly, as obligation rather than art — via a casual card or e-mail with a generic, hastily scribbled message: ‘Thank you for the present.’"

GET THE STORY.

I recently read a great book on the art of thank-you notes. Among other interesting factoids, it reprinted a lovely letter that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis managed to write to President Lyndon B. Johnson within days of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. At the time I reflected that if she could set aside the enormous hardships she was suffering at the time to write what today would be considered a "gratuitous" thank-you letter (not a note), lesser excuses for failing to write thank-yous do not suffice.

GET THE BOOK.

Civil Law & Mass Attendance

A reader writes:

I was just reading http://www.jimmyakin.org/2005/01/attention_cold_.html, and thought about the preparations the New Zealand government has made for a Bird Flu outbreak. One of the precautions is to ban all public meetings.

How would this effect the moral requirement of mass attendance?

There are two dimensions to this question.

The first is the question of whether a potential global pandemic really will be furthered–in a particular area–by attending Mass.

If the answer to that question is "yes" then, regardless of what the civil government says, one is not obliged to go to Mass. In fact, one would be positivley obliged NOT to go. If there is a significant risk (as opposed to a trivial risk) that one will contract or transmit a potentially fatal illness then one simply should not be going to Mass until the danger is past.

The second question is what impact civil laws against public gatherings have on this question.

If the civil law is reasonable the one is not obliged to go–but then that already would be the case since one is not obliged to go if there is a significant risk of disease transmission.

What if the civil law is unreasonable? What if the civil government has flown off the handle and wildly overestimated the danger (and you know this because you are a supergenius doctor specializing in the communicability of bird flu).

In that case, it depends on HOW unreasonable the civil law is.

If you’re going to be fined a penny if you get caught attending–and if a penny is a trivial sum of money to you–then you would not be excused from your Sunday obligation because the penalty of a penny is trivial to you and trivial reasons do not excuse one from Mass.

On the other hand, if getting caught has more serious consequences (e.g., substantial fines, jail time, a criminal record that could harm your ability to get a job) then you definitely WOULD be excused–not in this case because of the bird flu risk (the law is unreasonable, remember?) but because the law itself creates a hardship in going to Mass that is sufficient to excuse one from the Sunday obligation.

In the latter case, the situation is similar to that of lands where the Church is persecuted and Christians face hardship if they attend Mass. In those situations Christians are not bound to attend (though doing so can be meritorious, even heroically so). If your government is behaving irrationally by prohibiting public gatherings in disproportion to the risk then you similarly are excused if you face a non-trivial penalty for attendance.

I don’t know what the bird flu situation is in New Zealand, or whether the government there really has banned public meetings, but flu pandemics can be EXTREMELY deadly, and I’m inclined to cut the government slack and err on the side of caution in preventing anything that could cause MILLIONS of deaths worldwide.

Imprimaturs

A reader writes:

I am currently reading your book The Salvation Controversy, which I received as a Christmas gift. I am enjoying it very much by the way. It is very clearly written and easy to understand.

Thanks! Glad you’re enjoying it!

My question is why it does not appear to have an imprimatur. I trust your scholarship and your work generally in this area; I’m just wondering whether there is something I don’t understand about principles regarding whether or not an imprimatur should be applied for, and how readers should regard its presence or absence. I always check for the imprimatur in books I am considering reading as a “safety check” on whether the material is reliable from a Catholic perspective.

An imprimatur is not required for a book like The Salvation Controversy. The relevant passage in the Code of Canon Law is as follows:

Can. 827 §1. To
be published, catechisms and other writings pertaining to catechetical
instruction or their translations require the approval of the local ordinary,
without prejudice to the prescript of can. 775, §2.

§2. Books which regard questions pertaining to
sacred scripture, theology, canon law, ecclesiastical history, and religious or
moral disciplines cannot be used as texts on which instruction is based in
elementary, middle, or higher schools unless they have been published with the
approval of competent ecclesiastical authority or have been approved by it
subsequently.

§3. It is recommended that books dealing with the
matters mentioned in §2, although not used as texts in instruction, as well as
writings which especially concern religion or good morals are submitted to the
judgment of the local ordinary.

Since The Salvation Controversy is not meant as a textbook for instruction in Catholic schools, it does not require an imprimatur under §2, which puts it under §3.

Works falling under §3 are not required to have an imprimatur, though the Code does recommend that they be submitted for one.

This recommendation is not generally exercised by Catholic publishers because there are far too many books on these subjects written today and dioceses are simply not set up to handle the in a timely manner–which is the reason that the law was changed in the first place. Previously many more books were required to have an imprimatur, but the publishing explosion of the 20th century made this impracticable. The situation has only accelerated in the twenty years since the revised Code was issued in 1983, and dioceses simply couldn’t handle the load if all books by Catholic that touched on religious matters were submitted for imprimaturs.

As a result, publishers often only submit books for imprimaturs if the nature of the work requires one or if there is a special marketing reason to do so.

Conversely, dioceses are at times resistant to accepting works into the imprimatur process if the nature of the work doesn’t require one, since dioceses don’t generally have full-time censors and so each imprimatur-bound project means that a censor must work on the project in and around whatever other work the censor has to do.

Because of the crunch of work that already exists, some dioceses have waiting lists because they only do imprimaturs during certain times of the year (e.g., during a window in the summer when things are slower), which can play havoc with a publisher’s ability to get the book to market in a timely manner and hit needed sales windows (e.g., the Christmas window).

As a result, publishers and dioceses try to work together to pursue imprimaturs for the projects that require them, but they both try not to overtax the system, which produces problems for both.

The current situation is the reasult of a historical process that is still in motion. The amount of Catholic publishing is growing and is only going to grow further (e.g., on the Internet and via blogs like this one) and there is simply going to be no way to run it all through the imprimatur process. As a result, the future will generate even greater pressures to submit ONLY those works that require an imprimatur, as well as pressure to decrease the number of KINDS of works that require one and to DECENTRALIZE the granting of them even further than it already has been.

Stay tuned.