Reversion Issues

A Catholic reader who left the faith, was baptized in a Protestant church, and then returned to the faith writes:

I realize that the baptism I sought in a Protestant Church did not invalidate my original baptism since baptism is an indelible mark on the soul.  Yet, since I publicly rejected the Faith, is there anything that must be done, aside from Sacramental Confession, to demonstrate my return to communion with the Catholic Church?

No, making a good sacramental confession is all that is needed (i.e., one mentioning that you had left the faith and attempted baptism outside the Church).

Is there anything that can be done optionally?

Buy a really big crucifix and put it on your wall?

There are no Church-approved optional ceremonies for a person returning in this fashion, but there is no reason you can’t do something concrete–such as getting a really big crucifix–to symbolize your return to the faith.

Secondly, if I was in a state of mortal sin by having formally rejected the Catholic Faith, and yet continued to receive the Eucharist and go to confession at the same time, are the confessions I made in the period between when I was baptised outside the Church and when I returned to full communion with the Church (and finally confessed the baptism outside of the Church) invalid?  If so do I need to make a general confession for this time period?

This is a more complicated question. You begin it with the supposition that you committed a mortal sin in your rejection of the faith. That’s not at all an unreasonable supposition, for you were beyond the age of reason when you left (based on other things you say in your e-mail), but the Church would not teach that you automatically were in a state of mortal sin.

*IF* you were in mortal sin due to your repudiation of the faith and your attempted re-baptism *AND* you knew that you needed to mention this in confession *AND* if you didn’t mention it *THEN* the confessions were invalid and a general confession for the period would be mandatory (including the times you went to Communion and confession knowing that you shouldn’t).

On the other hand, there are a significant number of conditions there complicating matters.

My advice would be to go ahead and do a general confession for the period. Rather than try to nail down exactly what you were responsible for and in what degree, though, I would suggest that you name the objective acts you did (repudiate the faith, attempt baptism outside the church, continue to go to Communion and occasionally confession in the Church) and then say that you are not entirely sure of your culpability for each of these at the time (assuming that is the case), but that you wish to confess them *IN CASE* you need to do so.

Hope this helps, and welcome back!

20

Limbo In Limbo

Several readers have e-mailed links to stories in the British press concerning the doctrine of limbo.

These articles reveal that Ruth "I’m Too Dangerously Unqualified To Keep My Job" Gledhill is not the only religion reporter from Great Britain who is too dangerously unqualified to keep her job.

A piece in The Guardian, for example, is titled "Babies to be freed from limbo"–as if the Church had the power to free babies from limbo and was preparing to do a mass baby-freeing.

Another piece in The Scotsman is headlined "Pope to abandon idea of unbaptized babies forever in limbo"–as if this were something the pope was teaching but has decided to chuck.

Both articles are chock full of errors. (Have fun spotting them & chronicling them in the combox if you want.)

Here’s the real story:

  • Unlike purgatory, the existence of limbo is not a defined doctrine of the Catholic faith. Though it has been mentioned in important documents (e.g., the Catechism of Pius X), it has always had the status of a theological speculation.
  • The speculation was an effort to explain what would happen to babies and others who depart this world without baptism (providing the sanctifying grace needed to be united with God in the afterlife) and also without personal sin (thus meaning it would be unjust for them to suffer in the afterlife). A variety of different understandings of limbo were proposed, including some versions in which those present there would have great natural happiness but not the supernatural happiness of seeing God.
  • There were also other speculations about what might happen to such children, incluidng the ideas that God might give them enlightenment at the moment of death, enabling them to choose for or against God, and that God might count someone else’s desire for their baptism (e.g., the Church’s desire) as a kind of proxy baptism of desire so that they could go to heaven.
  • The basis for limbo was significantly undercut at the Second Vatican Council, which taught that God offers everyone the possibility of salvation, even if is in a mysterious way that we can’t perceive (GS 22). If that’s true and if it includes unbaptized babies then there would be no need for limbo since they would either accept the offer of salvation or reject if (if they are capable of rejecting it).
  • The doctrine of limbo thus is not mentioned in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which simply says that we can entrust unbaptized babies to the mercy of God.
  • A few years ago, John Paul II asked the International Theological Commission to look into the question of limbo, and that is what’s happening now. The ITC has been having a meeting where they’re discussing this.
  • The ITC is an advisory body that does not (typically) exercise Magisterial authority, therefore what it says is not official Church teaching. What B16 might choose to do with whatever they come up with is anybody’s guess.
  • The commission has not announced that it will recommend repudiating the doctrine of limbo. It might or might not do that. Typically they’d want to nuance the whole question in a big way. They also might hold open the door for people to still believe this speculation if they want, though endorsing other speculations as well. Or they might wish to reject it more directly. We’ll just have to wait and see.

HERE’S A STORY THAT GETS MORE OF THE FACTS RIGHT.

Speak Up, Please!

A reader writes:

OK, so tell me where it says that this priest who says the whole Eucharistic part of the mass under his breath is wrong.  The only parts you can hear are where you need to have a response from the people. Other than that, he is whispering to himself.  Its very annoying.  The kids are like, "Mom — what is he doing up there??".

The priest might be imitating the way it was done under the former rite of Mass (prior to 1970), when there was much more of the liturgy said in a low tone, but in the current rite of Mass these prayers are supposed to be said loudly enough that they can be easily heard.

From the current edition of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal:

30. Among the parts assigned to the priest, the foremost is the Eucharistic Prayer, which is the high point of the entire celebration. Next are the orations: that is to say, the collect, the prayer over the offerings, and the prayer after Communion. These prayers are addressed to God in the name of the entire holy people and all present, by the priest who presides over the assembly in the person of Christ.   It is with good reason, therefore, that they are called the "presidential prayers."

32. The nature of the "presidential" texts demands that they be spoken in a loud and clear voice and that everyone listen with attention.   Thus, while the priest is speaking these texts, there should be no other prayers or singing, and the organ or other musical instruments should be silent.

The Return Of Christmas

Xmasangel

Christmas is stealthily making its way back into the hurly-burly of the "Winter Holiday" shopping frenzy as canny merchants are catering to the desire of Christian customers to see the word Christmas alongside Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

"The word ‘Christmas,’ nearly absent in marketing by major retailers in recent years, has been quietly revived by some stores. Retail expert Jim Lucas says they are responding to consumers’ desire to make the holidays more personal – whether they observe Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.

"’They are saying this has become very commercial and they want to reclaim the holiday season and make it relevant,’ says Lucas, head of strategic planning at ad agency Draft Worldwide.

[…]

"’If you are going to make your earnings on the year because of Christmas, why should you be ashamed to call it Christmas?’ asks AFA [American Family Association] President Tim Wildmon."

GET THE STORY.

Steve Kellmeyer recently made the point that Christians themselves are largely responsible for the death throes of Christmas in Western culture.

"For nearly half of the last millennium, Christians have slowly been chipping away at Christmas. Now, in imitation of Alexander the Great who wept because he had no more worlds to conquer, they caterwaul because they have nearly completed their task. Are they upset because it took so long or because it’s almost gone?

"America’s Christians have fought long and hard for this day. Why aren’t they celebrating?"

GET THE POST.

Perhaps Christmas will finally be reborn as a religious holiday, rather than a secular tug-of-war, when both Christ and the Mass are put back into Christmas.

Help Participate In An Unscientific Scientific Study!

Last Friday I got up and was getting ready for work. Just before I climbed in my pickup, I had the tune Soldier’s Joy running through my head. (This is a catchy melody that you often hear done instrumentally–such as by Willie Nelson or the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band–it’s also present in some versions that have semi-nonsense lyrics).

I fired up my pickup and turned on the CD reader (which I had turned off during lunch of the previous day). The CD reader started reading the CD in it and then, lo and behold, the tune Soldier’s Joy starts playing.

I realized that Soldier’s Joy had been the last song I was listening to the previous day at lunch.

Now, you might think it was just a coincidence that I had Soldier’s Joy running through my head before I got in the truck and that it happened to be the last song I had been listening in my truck the previous day.

But it’s not.

This kind of thing happens to me ALL THE TIME.

It doesn’t matter what the tune is. It can be Soldier’s Joy or anything else. I just have a melody running through my mind when I’m about to get in the truck, then when I turn it on THAT song comes up on the CD player, and I realize that it was the last one I’d been listening to.

And it’s not like I’m doing this consciously. If you asked me "What was the last song you were listening to in your truck?" I would have absolutely NO IDEA.

But my subconscious knows and starts prepping me for a truck trip by calling up that melody.

What I want to know is: Is this just me or is it everybody?

So I’d like to conduct a little unscientific scientific survey. Could y’all use the combox to note whether you often, sometimes, or never have this happen to you?

Thanks! It’s for the cause of SCIENCE!

Round Dancing

Y’all know that I go square dancing, but this week I also went round dancing.

No really!

There is such a thing as round dance. The defining difference (though not the only difference) being that the couple aren’t arranged in a square but a ring (hence: "round").

I also went contra dancing, which despite its name is not a form of protest against the concept of dance but is itself a type of dance.

Lemme ‘splain:

In order for people to do square dancing, you (normally) need groups of eight people, consisting of four men and four women. These four couples form a square.

If you have eight people of the right genders, you can form one square. If you have sixteen people of the right genders you can do two squares. Twenty-four people of the right genders and you can do three squares, and so on.

But what if you don’t have the right number and mix of people?

If you’ve got less than you need for a single square then nobody gets to square dance.

If you’ve got between the number you need for a square and an additional square then some people will have to sit out and not dance.

Or you can get creative.

I’ve been in a situation where we had six couples, which was not the eight couples needed for two squares, and so the caller put us in a rectangle and we did a kind of "rectangle dance" using a subset of the square dance calls (since not all calls designed for a square will work with a rectangle).

There are other ways of getting creative, too. F’rinstance: Doing different forms of dance that are related to square dance. That’s where contra and round dancing come in.

Square dance evolved out of the same mix of dance types as English country dance, Morris dancing, quadrilles, and contra dance, so it uses many of the same moves.

This week when I showed up for square dancing, we didn’t have enough people for a whole square. We only had three couples–not the four you need for a full square–so instead the caller taught us a contra dance.

Contra dancing consists of couples in lines (meaning that, yes, it is a form of line dance), and since we had three couples we could do a dance with two lines of three persons each.

Virginia_reelIf you’ve seen Gone with the Wind, you’ve seen contra dancing. In one scene, Scarlett and Rhett participate in the Virginia Reel–a famous contra dance (also classified as an English country dance).

This week the caller didn’t teach us the Virginia Reel (though that would have been fun), but he walked us through the steps for a contra dance a couple of times using square dance terminology for the different moves, and then we were ready to do it on our own.

It was fun! (Simpler than square dancing, but fun.)

Then enough folks arrived for us to have a full square and we switched to square dancing.

And then more folks arrived.

Soon we had seven couples–one couple shy of the number we’d need for two squares.

Rather than have three couples sit out, the caller switched us to round dancing and taught us a round dance called the "pattycake polka."

It too was fun!

Buzz afterward among the dancers suggested the conclusion that it was energetic and fun, but simple.

Why’s that?

Well, you’ll notice that I said that the caller taught us a dance–not a move. After he walked us through the moves of the pattycake polka two or three times, we were ready to do the dance–the whole dance–without him calling it. At that point, we knew the dance. We might need to practice it a few times to do it good, but we knew it.

That’s not the way it works with square dancing. With square dancing you learn moves, not dances.

Square dancing is the most challenging form of folk dance on the planet since (after you’re past the beginner level) you have to be ready to perform any of a hundred-plus moves at a moment’s notice (don’t worry; they work you up to that level slowly, so you don’t even realize how many moves you’ve learned).

Square dance is improvisational. Not even the caller knows in advance what moves he’s going to call. He makes it up as he goes along.

So for an experienced group of square dancers, any normal set-form dance is going to be simple by comparison.

It took us two minutes to learn all there is to know about the pattycake polka.* After five minutes we were performing it fluidly as a group. That’s all there is to it!

It was energetic and fun–but simple.

So this week I not only went square dancing but also round dancing and contra dancing.

PattycakepolkaIncidentally, I found a video clip of some grade school students in Japan doing the pattycake polka (badly–but, hey, they’re grade students).

WATCH THE CLIP.

*: For the record, all there is to know about the pattycake polka is that it involves you and your partner doing these moves:

(Man’s left) HEEL–TOE–HEEL–TOE–slide LEFT–slide LEFT
(Man’s right) HEEL–TOE–HEEL–TOE–slide RIGHT–slide RIGHT
CLAP RIGHT HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP LEFT HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP BOTH HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP YOUR KNEES (3x quickly)
RIGHT ARM TURN to a new partner
REPEAT (over and over again)!

See! Hours later and I still remember everything there is to know about the dance. Simple by comparison!

Beginning A Low-Carb Diet

A reader writes:

I was on you site and hope you can help me. I need to lose 40 lbs. I am a women 5’7 and weigh 190. My age is 50 . I would like to go on the Atkins diet but for me it is hard to sit down and write a meal plan for every day can you please help me?

Buy the book.

Do not say buy the book. I have a busy life style with foster children and not much time for myself.

Oh, okay.

The good news is that if you want to do the Atkins diet you won’t have to write out a meal plan for every day. You only have to keep certain principles in mind:

  1. Eating carbohydrates causes your body to manufacture insulin, which prevents you from burning fat. If you eliminate carbohydrates then your body will be able to burn fat better.
  2. Your body has three sources of fuel it can burn: carbohydrates, fat, and protein. If you get rid of the carbs then your body will have no choice but to burn fat and protein.
  3. Atkins recommends that you eat no more than 20 grams of digestible carbohydrates per day for your first two weeks on the diet (the Protein Power Diet recommends 30 grams instead if you feel 20 is too restrictive). This will virtually guarantee that you go into fat burning mode.
  4. After the first two weeks, you can increase the number of digestible carbs you eat per day to a higher level (perhaps 40-60 carbs per day) as long as you don’t stop losing weight. If you do stop losing weight (over a period of a few weeks) then reduce the number of carbs till you start losing again.
  5. After you’ve lost the weight you want to lose, you can increase your daily carbs again, so long as you don’t start gaining weight. If you start gaining weight, reduce your carbs till you get back to where you need to be weight-wise.
  6. If you go off the diet completely then you are likely to gain back all your weight. This happens when you go off any diet, so don’t view the diet as a temporary thing but as a long-term change in how you eat.
  7. To figure out the digestible carbs you are eating, look at the number of carbs listed on the product label and subtract those that are due to fiber (which you can’t digest) or which are listed as "sugar alcohols" (technically, you can digest these, but they don’t spike your insulin up). For example: If the package says that a serving has 11 grams of carbs, 4 of which are fiber and 2 of which are sugar alcohols then the total digestible carbs in a serving are 5 grams (11 – 4 – 2 = 5). It’s the total digestible carbs (not total carbs) that you want to keep low. DEGESTIBLE CARBS ARE ALSO SOMETIMES CALLED "NET" CARBS ON PRODUCT LABELS.
  8. The fact that you are counting carbs means that you are NOT counting calories. Eat whenever you are hungry and eat as much as you need to satisfy your hunger (NOT MORE). Just keep the carb count low. You are counting carbs, not calories. This makes the diet much easier than calorie-restriction diets since you can eat whenever you are hungry and thus avoid hunger pains.
  9. The upshot of lowering carbs in this way means that you need to avoid things made from sugar or grain (wheat, rice, corn) or anything starchy (potatoes).
  10. You can eat beef, pork, chicken, fish, eggs, butter, oils, and cheese, though, since these have virtually NO carbs. (Eating meats–which have protein–is better than lots of butter, oils, and cheese, though, since meats will give your body protein to burn so that your body only burns fat rather than the protein stored in your muscles.)
  11. Eating green vegetables is generally good (but not corn, which is a grain, or potatoes, which are starchy).
  12. Eating fiber is good. I recommend drinking a powdered fiber supplement  mixed with water (not a pill)–such as the ones make by Yerba Prima. This will fill you up without adding calories (you can’t digest fiber). DO NOT drink fiber supplements mixed with sugar since the sugar will spike your insulin and hinder your weight loss. If you can get 25 or more grams of fiber a day it will make your weight loss easier, but build up to this level slowly or you may feel bloated while your body gets used to the new level of fiber.
  13. Take a good multi-vitamin EVERY DAY to make sure you’re getting enough vitamins. If possible, take a multi-vitamin designed for people on low-carb diets.
  14. Get some exercise. Just twenty minutes of brisk walking three times a week will really jump up your metabolism and make you burn fat better. (Take the kids walking with you if you need to; it’ll help THEM get exercise they need, too!) Do in-home walking if you want. I recommend Leslie Sansone’s in-home walking DVDs to help keep you happy and motivated. She’s so friendly and supportive of you ask you walk away the pounds. She’ll make you feel good about exercise and not bored by it.
  15. Learn about low-carb substitutes for foods you like. There are TONS of these now. There are good low-carb breads, tortillas, pastas, pizzas, chips, cereals, meal bars, diet shakes, ice creams, candies & candy bars. Just make sure you don’t go crazy with them and eat more digestible carbs than you should. Keep that daily carb-count low. These same low-carb products can be ordred online (do a Google search for them) if they aren’t in your local grocery, nutritional, or health-food stores.
  16. You may have carb cravings for a few days but these generally go away
    in two weeks, and you can eat low-carb foods like the ones mentioned in
    point #15 to stop them.
  17. You may feel tired the first few days on the diet. This is normal, but your energy will snap back in a few days and you’ll feel GREAT–like you have more energy than you’ve had in years.
  18. Once you have settled into a routine, you likely won’t need to count carbs any more. You’ll know instinctively from what you’re eating that you are below your weight-loss threshhold. And you WON’T need to do a daily meal plan or deprive yourself if you start feeling hungy.
  19. Your weight can go up and down a good bit over the course of a day or a few days. Therefore, don’t get discouraged if you see it fluctuating in this fashion. To avoid this, some dieters recommend weighing yourself only once a week so you’ll see less of the fluctuation. What counts is that you are losing weight over the course of several weeks, not that you seem to be losing it every time you step on the scale.
  20. To the extent you can, spread out your consumption of digestible carbs throught the day. This will minimize your insulin reaction to the food you’re eating. Don’t eat one big, high-carb meal if you can avoid it.
  21. For low-carb milk buy the low-carb milk in your grocer’s freezer or use (and, if needed, dilute with water) heavy cream or whipping cream or half-and-half. Sour cream is also low-carb.
  22. For low-carb crunch eat celery, pork rinds (chicharrones), nuts (without honey-roasting! always watch the digestible carbs on the label!–macadamias are the best, though peanuts and almonds are good), or small amounts of raw carrots or popcorn–or specially-designed low-carb chips.

Also, few other notes:

  1. If you have a major health problem, check with your doctor before starting the diet (or any diet).
  2. To smooth your transition into the diet, take 2-3 days to adjust to the low levels of carbs you’ll be eating at first.  Decrease your carbs over these 2-3 days until you’re at the 20 (or 30) grams of digestible carbs per day that the diets recommend.
  3. Consider taking nutritional supplements that will help you lose weight–like chromium picolinate and L-carnitine. Here’s a good book on the subject.
  4. Poke around my diet section for additional suggestions (like drinking flax seed oil, cranberry juice, and lemon juice–or how to make low-carb mashed potatoes or low-carb hash browns). These may be a help.
  5. Buy the book. It really will help. Just treat it as a source of ideas rather than something you have to read from cover-to-cover.
  6. Get a low-carb cookbook or two. The recipe ideas will help keep the diet from getting old and will help you discover low-carb equivalents for your favorite foods. The standard low-carb diet books (like the Atkins book) also include recipe sections to give you ideas. Many low-carb recipes are also available online for free. Just Google "low-carb recipes."
  7. When you have time (amidst your busy schedule), check out some similar low-carb diets, like the Protein Power Diet, the South Beach Diet, and the Fat-Flush Diet. They can give you good tips and recipe ideas, too.

Finally, BE CONFIDENT! You CAN do this!–and without feeling hungry.

I spent YEARS trying to lose weight before my doctor told me about the Atkins Diet, but when I discovered it, it changed my life. I lost a HUGE amount of weight on it, I’ve KEPT THE WEIGHT OFF (despite some slips and plateaus), and I’m fitter and feeling better than I did for YEARS.

You can feel that way, TOO! Go forth and CONQUER!

Born Again Abortionist

Prematurebaby_1

Sometimes when you read articles about abortion, you forget exactly what is at stake. When I read the following article about an Arkansas abortionist with a messiah complex — he believes that with abortion he destroys life but that by doing so his patients are "born again" — I noted that this abortionist "draws his own moral line" at 26 weeks, or the end of the second trimester.

I went to Google Images and searched out an image of a 26-week-old fetus to accompany this post. I was jolted when what I found was an image of a premature baby who had been born between 25 and 27 weeks gestation. That is the image I chose to include.

"The 17-year-old in for a consultation this morning assures the nurse that she does not consider the embryo inside her a baby.

"’Not until it’s developed,’ she says. ‘That would be about three months?’

"’It’s completely formed about nine weeks,’ the nurse tells her. ‘Yours is more like a chicken yolk.’

"The girl, who is five weeks pregnant, looks relieved. ‘Then no,’ she says, ‘it’s not a baby.’ Her mother sits in the corner wiping her tears.

"[Dr. William F.] Harrison draws his own moral line at the end of the second trimester, or 26 weeks since the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period. Until that point, he will abort for any reason.

"’It’s not a baby to me until the mother tells me it’s a baby,’ he says."

GET THE (FRIGHTENING) STORY.