Enter The Spongers

Dolphin_spongerA few years ago, scientists were all shook up when they discovered primates making and using simple tools.

(Stripping the twigs off branches so they could stick them down holes to get yummy, high-protein termintes to eat, as I recall.)

This was regarded as important because humans had been regarded as the only critters that made tools (as opposed to simply finding something and using it) since the de-twigging move involved modifying something found.

Wel it looks like monkeys may not be the only non-human tool-makers (or users) around.

It seems that certain dolphins Down Under have taken to making protective nose coverings out of sponges which they rip from the ocean floor (thus modifying them, much to the horror of the sponge, if sponges were able to think).

The dolphins who use the nose coverings have been dubbed "spongers" by the humans studying them, and they use them (the nose coverings, not the humans) to protect their noses when foraging for food on the ocean floor so they don’t get stung by stonefish, etc.

Unlike canary songs, which are passed down through the male-line and is largely genetic, sponging behavior in dolphins appears to be passed down through the female line and seems not to be a genetically-determined behavior since most (even most females) don’t do it.

Only one male was observed using a sponge. Kruetzen noted that, as
adults, male and female dolphins have very different lifestyles.

Adult
males form small groups of two or three individuals that chase females
in reproductive condition, he explained. "I would think that they do
not have time to engage in such a time-consuming foraging activity as
adults, as they are busy herding females."

 
 
 

GET THE STORY.

SCIENTISTS: Link Between Bonding And Babies!

Scientists are beginning to discover a link between killing fertility and killing sexual desire. Next to be studied: Is there a link between regular watering and the growth of plants?

"Taking the Pill for as little as six months could destroy a woman’s sex drive for ever, say scientists.

"The oral contraceptive dramatically reduces the levels of a hormone responsible for desire and simply stopping taking it fails to reverse the effect, it is feared.

"A survey produced such dramatic results that lead researcher Dr. Irwin Goldstein advised any woman on the Pill who has sexual problems to stop taking it and try another method of birth control.

"’There is a possibility it is imprinting a woman for the rest of her life,’ he said."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Zippy Catholic for the link.)

Hmmm. I wonder if scientists will eventually offer an apology to the Church for the secular world’s scorn of the Church’s age-old teaching on artificial contraception…. After all, fair’s fair. John Paul II apologized for the Church’s handling of the Galileo affair.

Remind me when I can let out that gulp of air I’m holding.

Singing Like A Canary

Tariq_azizWord is that Saddam Hussein’s evil foreign minister Tariq Aziz has been singing "like a canary."

GET THE STORY.

This, of course, only raises the question: How do canaries sing?

The answer is more interesting than you might suppose. Turns out that male canaries (the kind that are noted for their song) have a very definite grammar to what they do.

EXCERPTS:

There’s a sort of universal grammar for canary songs, and canaries follow it strictly. First, songs consist of specific syllables, similar to the phonemes in human language. Canaries know 30 to 40 of these elementary units.


Second, when constructing a song, canaries repeat a syllable for one second before jumping quickly to a different note.


"It’s as though you have 26 letters of the alphabet and it’s as if the bird goes CCCCC, HHHHH, QQQQQ. They use 60 to 70 percent of their syllables per song," Tim Gardner of MIT told LiveScience.

Or, to put it another way, it’s as if male canaries go "So So So So So! Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa! Do Do Do Do Do! Mi Mi Mi Mi Mi!"

LISTEN TO A CANARY DO THIS (.wav file).

Turns out also that this is genetically hard-wired into canaries:

[A] canary born deaf, or raised alone in a soundproof box, will grow up to sing a normal adult song. Also, canary chicks beg for food with added gusto when a song specific to their species is played, even if they’ve never heard it before.

Canary_1Now, normally male canaries learn their songs from their dads, but they can learn them from other males or even things that aren’t canaries. Just for fun, scientists raised canaries with computer-generated artifical songs.

The result? Young male canaries tried to imitate the artificial songs.

LIKE ON THIS HERE PAGE.

They also played sounds for them that sounded like they came from video games, and once again the canaries imitated them.

LIKE ON THIS HERE OTHER PAGE.

But then something happened: The young male canaries hit puberty. And sounding like an X-Box or the canary equivalent of Hal 9000 just wasn’t sexy enough for the young female canaries, and so the guys switched back to traditional canary song style right quick!

Actually, the story gives the impression they did that even before encountering females, with just the onset of marriageable age converting these young synthpop males into traditionalist canary folksingers:

The second surprise was that when the canaries reached adulthood, when they would woo females with their songs, the innate cues kicked in and they began singing traditional songs.


"As they entered adulthood, they entered a process of rearranging. They used computer syllables, but sang them with traditional canary syntax, repeating each one for one second," Gardner said.


The canaries may have sung with mixed strategies early on, but once they hit 6 to 8 months of age, the emphasis on traditional song structure drastically increased. In two cases, where the researchers induced adulthood by injecting the canary with testosterone, and setting the mood for mating by altering the length of day, the canaries changed their tune in as few as five days.

But, like many who have made the transition from rock to country, the canaries still liked pulling out their old records once in a while:

Even though they predominantly sang the traditional songs, every once and a while they would bust out with a computer inspired tune.

GET THE OTHER STORY.

Supremely Speculative

Southern Appeal has some delightful speculation on who may be Pres. Bush’s picks for the next additions to the Supremes. Here’s the first two possibilities:

Who? Judge Wapner

Famous from? The People’s Court

Pros? Excellent legal reasoning in his decision on The Angry Landlord v. The Deadbeat Renter
Cons? His 6th Amendment jurisprudence as demonstrated in Fluffy v. Spot while he was judge on Animal Planet’s Animal Court. Plus he’s really, really old.

Who? Judge Judy

Famous from? Her TV show
Pros? She and Scalia would get along famously. Has a tough, no nonsense personality.
Cons? She probably wouldn’t accept since it would be a pay cut, plus Supreme Court hearings aren’t televised.

GET THE WHOLE LIST.

For It Stopped Short…

Unlike Grandfather’s clock, which stopped short never to run again when the old man died, it appears that London’s Big Ben will continue running after a brief rest.

"Big Ben, the landmark London clock renowned for its accuracy and chimes, stopped ticking for 90 minutes, an engineer said Saturday.

"Officials do not know why the 147-year-old clock on the banks of the River Thames stopped at 10:07 p.m. Friday. It resumed keeping time, but stalled again at 10:20 p.m. and remained still for about 90 minutes before starting up again, a spokeswoman for the House of Commons said on condition of anonymity, citing government policy.

"There has been speculation a recent spell of hot weather may have been to blame. Temperatures in London reached 90 Saturday, and forecasters called it England’s hottest day in May since 1953."

GET THE STORY.

By the way, if the musical allusion interests you, GET THE LYRICS. My grandparents occasionally sang this song for me when I was a child and the idea of a clock stopping to mark someone’s death — time standing still in mourning — always fascinated me.

Divorce, Remarriage, & Confession

A reader writes:

Can my wife or myself go to confession?

Our story is this, both are cradle Catholics. I left the Church when I was seventeen-eighteen for Evangelical Protestantism and return to the Catholic church about one year ago, thanks be to God.  Married for the first time in my twenties, then divorced ten years later. I have two children from that marriage. I was married in a Protestant church. My wife was also married ten years then divorced but my wife was married in a Catholic church, no children from that marriage. This is our second marriage. We were married in a Lutheran church four years ago. We both have yet to start the paper work towards an annulment.

First, let me assure of you of God’s love for you and your wife. No matter what has led to your current situation, it remains true that God loves the both of you and sent his Son to die for all of us–y’all included–so that we could go to heaven.

Also, no matter what has led up to the present situation, it can be rectified. What needs to be done to rectify it is something that depends on the facts of the situation, but God always make possible a way for us to get right with him. This is as true of the two of you as it is everyone else.

With that in mind, let’s look at the situation at hand, and I’ll offer what help I can.

First, regarding your prior marriage, it is difficult to tell what the Church would judge its status to be. There is a signficant likelihood that the Church would presume (until the contrary is proven) that your first marriage is valid. Whether the Church would presume this depends on a number of factors that would be rather complex to go into here (e.g., whether in becoming an Evangelical you defected from the Catholic Church by a formal act, what year your first marriage occurred in). Assume for the moment, though, that the Church would presume your first marriage valid.

Before looking at your wife’s first marriage, I should also say a couple of things about the children that came from your first marriage:

First, the fact that children came from this marriage does not affect its validity. Marriages are either valid at the time they are contracted or they are not. If children arrive later this does not reach back in time and cause a marriage to become valid.

Second, even if your first marriage was invalid, this does not make your children illegitimate. Legitimacy is a category of human law used for determining things like inheritance rights, and under Church law the children of any putatively valid marriage are considered legitimate. For practical purposes, this means that if either your or your spouse entered the marriage in good faith–even if it was invalid–then the children are legitimate. You should not worry yourself on this point. (Also, even if they weren’t legitimate, that would only tell us something about their status under human law. It says nothing about how God views them. God loves them just as much as he does you or your wife or the pope.)

Regarding your current wife’s first marriage, it sounds as if the Church will regard it as valid until the contrary is proven.

It thus looks as if the Church may presume that your first marriage was valid and that it probably would presume that your current wife’s first marriage was valid. This means that the Church must assume that the two of you were not free to marry each other when you attempted to contract marriage four years ago.

If, however, the two of you were not free to marry each other because one or both of you were bound to previous spouses then your case falls into the situation Jesus warned about:

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another,  commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her  husband and marries another, she commits adultery [Mark 10:11-12].

The adultery in this case refers to the sexual relations that are assumed to be occurring between two persons living as husband and wife.

If two people are having adulterous relations then they are not able to go to confession for that reason until the situation is repaired.

This can occur a number of ways.

One way is to apply for annulments and, if necessary, having your current marriage convalidated ("blessed"). At that point you would be regarded as married to each other and thus the relations you have would not be adulterous, meaning that you could go to confession and participate in the normal sacramental life of the Church.

Another way to repair the situation is to cease having the relations that put one in danger of violating Jesus’ command. In other words, to live as brother and sister until such time as one’s marital situation has been properly addressed. In that case there would be no barrier to one going to confession and participating in the sacramental life of the Church.

The reader continues:

I understand the importance of marriage and family but would like an explanation why divorce is treated as almost an unforgivable sin. Seems that murderers who repent can ask for forgiveness but not the divorced.

I am sorry for a failed marriage and divorce. But what is the status of our soul if we cannot go to confession?

First, regarding divorce as an "unforgivable sin." I understand why it may seem this way at the moment, but this is not the best way to look at the situation. The problem really is not the divorces. The Church recognizes that there are legitimate reasons why one may need to seek a civil divorce. In those cases a person does not sin in divorce. Even apart from those circumstances–which is to say, even when a divorce was sinful–divorce is as forgivable as any other sin in confession.

The thing that prevents one from going to confession is thus not the divorce, it having ongoing sexual relations that fall afoul of Jesus’ prohibition on remarriage following divorce. Adulterous relations are themselves as forgivable as any other sin in confession, but one must repent of them as one must repent of any other mortal sin that one wishes to be forgiven of. As long as they are ongoing, one has not repented of them, and so one could not be absolved of them in confession.

It is not the divorces in the past that pose a problem for going to confession, it is the sexual relations being had in the present between parties who were not free to marry each other.

Regarding the state of your souls in the present situation, this is something that ultimately only God can say. He alone has knowledge needed. No human being does, and so the Church does not presume to pass judgment on the state of your souls.

What it can do, and must do, as part of its pastoral responsibility, though, is to be frank with you about how your situation appears to square–or fail to square–with God’s law and to warn you of the need to rectify matters if there appears to be one. This is what the Church is doing by pointing to Christ’s teachings on marriage and the seriousness of engaging in what, at least from the facts at hand, appear to be adulterous relations.

The Church wants to do everything possible to help the two of you address the situation, which is why it makes available the annulment process to examine your first marriages to see if they were valid or not. It is why, assuming the two of you are free to marry, it makes available the possibility of having your present union convalidated ("blessed"). And it is why, even before such eventualities, the Church offers sacramental absolution in confession if you choose to live as brother and sister until your marital situation can be rectified.

The Church is thus doing its best to both hold out the message of God’s grace while also holding fast to his teachings regarding marriage.

More can be said about all this, but let me add two points that I hope will help.

First, I strongly recommend that you get a copy of Ed Peters’ book

ANNULMENTS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: STRAIGHT ANSWERS TO TOUGH QUESTIONS.

It’s the best book on the subject, bar none, and I’m sure it could help you get a better handle on the situation.

Second, because folks always wonder about what would happen if their lives were suddenly in jeopardy. In this situation there would be three things to do: (1) Resolve to do whatever is necessary to rectify your situation and live as God wants should you survive (i.e., repent), (2) implore God’s mercy and make an act of perfect contrition (i.e., turn from one’s sins based on love of God–a consideration of God’s infinite goodness being sufficient), and (3) go to confession if there is time for this before the end.

If one repents of one’s sins and makes an act of perfect contrition, one is reconciled with God even before one is able to go to confession. If there is time for a priest to be summoned and one can go to confession, the sacrament completes the work already done in one’s heart through repentance and perfect contrition.

Having said all that, let me once again reassure you of God’s love and the Church’s love. It is wonderful that you have already responded to God’s grace to the extent that you have and have resumed life as a Catholic. God will help bring you the rest of the way that needs to be gone.  I’ve tried to be straight with you about the situation, and I hope the answers help. Please do not hesitate to write back if I can be of service.

Divorce, Remarriage, & Confession

A reader writes:

Can my wife or myself go to confession?
Our story is this, both are cradle Catholics. I left the Church when I was seventeen-eighteen for Evangelical Protestantism and return to the Catholic church about one year ago, thanks be to God.  Married for the first time in my twenties, then divorced ten years later. I have two children from that marriage. I was married in a Protestant church. My wife was also married ten years then divorced but my wife was married in a Catholic church, no children from that marriage. This is our second marriage. We were married in a Lutheran church four years ago. We both have yet to start the paper work towards an annulment.

First, let me assure of you of God’s love for you and your wife. No matter what has led to your current situation, it remains true that God loves the both of you and sent his Son to die for all of us–y’all included–so that we could go to heaven.

Also, no matter what has led up to the present situation, it can be rectified. What needs to be done to rectify it is something that depends on the facts of the situation, but God always make possible a way for us to get right with him. This is as true of the two of you as it is everyone else.

With that in mind, let’s look at the situation at hand, and I’ll offer what help I can.

First, regarding your prior marriage, it is difficult to tell what the Church would judge its status to be. There is a signficant likelihood that the Church would presume (until the contrary is proven) that your first marriage is valid. Whether the Church would presume this depends on a number of factors that would be rather complex to go into here (e.g., whether in becoming an Evangelical you defected from the Catholic Church by a formal act, what year your first marriage occurred in). Assume for the moment, though, that the Church would presume your first marriage valid.

Before looking at your wife’s first marriage, I should also say a couple of things about the children that came from your first marriage:

First, the fact that children came from this marriage does not affect its validity. Marriages are either valid at the time they are contracted or they are not. If children arrive later this does not reach back in time and cause a marriage to become valid.

Second, even if your first marriage was invalid, this does not make your children illegitimate. Legitimacy is a category of human law used for determining things like inheritance rights, and under Church law the children of any putatively valid marriage are considered legitimate. For practical purposes, this means that if either your or your spouse entered the marriage in good faith–even if it was invalid–then the children are legitimate. You should not worry yourself on this point. (Also, even if they weren’t legitimate, that would only tell us something about their status under human law. It says nothing about how God views them. God loves them just as much as he does you or your wife or the pope.)

Regarding your current wife’s first marriage, it sounds as if the Church will regard it as valid until the contrary is proven.

It thus looks as if the Church may presume that your first marriage was valid and that it probably would presume that your current wife’s first marriage was valid. This means that the Church must assume that the two of you were not free to marry each other when you attempted to contract marriage four years ago.

If, however, the two of you were not free to marry each other because one or both of you were bound to previous spouses then your case falls into the situation Jesus warned about:

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another,  commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her  husband and marries another, she commits adultery [Mark 10:11-12].

The adultery in this case refers to the sexual relations that are assumed to be occurring between two persons living as husband and wife.

If two people are having adulterous relations then they are not able to go to confession for that reason until the situation is repaired.

This can occur a number of ways.

One way is to apply for annulments and, if necessary, having your current marriage convalidated ("blessed"). At that point you would be regarded as married to each other and thus the relations you have would not be adulterous, meaning that you could go to confession and participate in the normal sacramental life of the Church.

Another way to repair the situation is to cease having the relations that put one in danger of violating Jesus’ command. In other words, to live as brother and sister until such time as one’s marital situation has been properly addressed. In that case there would be no barrier to one going to confession and participating in the sacramental life of the Church.

The reader continues:

I understand the importance of marriage and family but would like an explanation why divorce is treated as almost an unforgivable sin. Seems that murderers who repent can ask for forgiveness but not the divorced.

I am sorry for a failed marriage and divorce. But what is the status of our soul if we cannot go to confession?

First, regarding divorce as an "unforgivable sin." I understand why it may seem this way at the moment, but this is not the best way to look at the situation. The problem really is not the divorces. The Church recognizes that there are legitimate reasons why one may need to seek a civil divorce. In those cases a person does not sin in divorce. Even apart from those circumstances–which is to say, even when a divorce was sinful–divorce is as forgivable as any other sin in confession.

The thing that prevents one from going to confession is thus not the divorce, it having ongoing sexual relations that fall afoul of Jesus’ prohibition on remarriage following divorce. Adulterous relations are themselves as forgivable as any other sin in confession, but one must repent of them as one must repent of any other mortal sin that one wishes to be forgiven of. As long as they are ongoing, one has not repented of them, and so one could not be absolved of them in confession.

It is not the divorces in the past that pose a problem for going to confession, it is the sexual relations being had in the present between parties who were not free to marry each other.

Regarding the state of your souls in the present situation, this is something that ultimately only God can say. He alone has knowledge needed. No human being does, and so the Church does not presume to pass judgment on the state of your souls.

What it can do, and must do, as part of its pastoral responsibility, though, is to be frank with you about how your situation appears to square–or fail to square–with God’s law and to warn you of the need to rectify matters if there appears to be one. This is what the Church is doing by pointing to Christ’s teachings on marriage and the seriousness of engaging in what, at least from the facts at hand, appear to be adulterous relations.

The Church wants to do everything possible to help the two of you address the situation, which is why it makes available the annulment process to examine your first marriages to see if they were valid or not. It is why, assuming the two of you are free to marry, it makes available the possibility of having your present union convalidated ("blessed"). And it is why, even before such eventualities, the Church offers sacramental absolution in confession if you choose to live as brother and sister until your marital situation can be rectified.

The Church is thus doing its best to both hold out the message of God’s grace while also holding fast to his teachings regarding marriage.

More can be said about all this, but let me add two points that I hope will help.

First, I strongly recommend that you get a copy of Ed Peters’ book

ANNULMENTS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: STRAIGHT ANSWERS TO TOUGH QUESTIONS.

It’s the best book on the subject, bar none, and I’m sure it could help you get a better handle on the situation.

Second, because folks always wonder about what would happen if their lives were suddenly in jeopardy. In this situation there would be three things to do: (1) Resolve to do whatever is necessary to rectify your situation and live as God wants should you survive (i.e., repent), (2) implore God’s mercy and make an act of perfect contrition (i.e., turn from one’s sins based on love of God–a consideration of God’s infinite goodness being sufficient), and (3) go to confession if there is time for this before the end.

If one repents of one’s sins and makes an act of perfect contrition, one is reconciled with God even before one is able to go to confession. If there is time for a priest to be summoned and one can go to confession, the sacrament completes the work already done in one’s heart through repentance and perfect contrition.

Having said all that, let me once again reassure you of God’s love and the Church’s love. It is wonderful that you have already responded to God’s grace to the extent that you have and have resumed life as a Catholic. God will help bring you the rest of the way that needs to be gone.  I’ve tried to be straight with you about the situation, and I hope the answers help. Please do not hesitate to write back if I can be of service.

Saying The Old Divine Office

A reader writes:

Is it licit to use the pre-vatican ii divine office? I cannot see why the use of the old divine office as a private devotion would be contrary to church, though I am sure that it would not count as the official prayer of the church.

My preference would be to use the new Liturgia Horarum issued by the Vatican, but the cost is prohibitive–each of the 4 volumes is 85 dollars!–and it does not have an English translation. The English Liturgy of the Hours is quite expensive too but the principal reason I’d prefer to use the angelus press edition is that I’d like to pray the hours in Latin.

To sum up, my question is: Is it licit to use the angelus press officium divinum as a private devotion?

I am unaware of any law that would prohibit the saying of the old form of the divine office as a personal form of devotion. The content of the older form of the office was certainly in conformity with the Catholic faith, and the Church permits personal forms of devotion that are in conformity with the Catholic faith as long as they have not been specifically reprobated. I am unaware of anything that would reprobate this as a personal devotion, and so I see no reason why you cannot do so.

That being said, the older form of the divine office is not the same as the current form and, as a result–unless there is a provision out there allowing this–my understanding is that saying it according to the old form would not count as a participation in the Church’s liturgical prayer. If you want to do that, you need to say the prayer in the form that the Church presently prays.