Yes! Instead of being placed in a pillory and pelted with rotten vegetables and subjected to public scorn as a prelude to being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, the Sith lord who presided over the Terri Schiavo case is being given an award by his colleagues for his service to the bench, including the Schiavo killing.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)
CAPTION THIS PHOTO!
Ideas to get you started:
It’s not just my drinking bowl anymore!
Do you mind?!
What happens when The Owner’s away….
A reader writes:
I’m not a Catholic, but I do study Catholic theology. I find it addictive.
Cool! Me, too!
My uncle, who lives in Florida, is Catholic. My mother recently went to visit my aunt and uncle. She went to mass with them, this is the first mass she ever attended. A friend of my aunt and uncle (who happenes to be a former nun) encouraged my mother to go up recieve communion. She gave her quick instructions, and told my mother that this was okay. I told my mother that this was a big "NO, NO"! I told her that the Catholic communion was, without a doubt, closed. She said that the ex-nun assured her it was okay.
My mother hopes that she didn’t do anything wrong. Did she? Did the lady do something wrong by telling to her to partake in communion?
Based on what you’ve said about the situation, you are correct that Church law would not permit your mother to receive Communion under these circumstances. There are limited circumstances in which a non-Catholic can receive Communion, but this does not appear to be one of those cases.
So you don’t just have to take my word on it, here’s what the Code of Canon Law says:
If the danger of death is present or if, in the judgment of the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, some other grave necessity urges it, Catholic ministers administer these same sacraments [penance, the Eucharist, and the anointing of the sick] licitly also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed (Canon 844 §4).
This applies to Protestants, which I assume your mother is. (Eastern Orthodox fall under a different provision.)
The Church allows limited reception of Communion in these cases because of how important it is for a person in grave need (e.g., a dying person) to be united with Jesus eucharistically, but because of the separations which regrettably divide the Christian community at present, a regular sharing of the Eucharist would not be possible.
One reason for this, from a Catholic point of view, is that many Protestants (and certainly most in the country) do not share the Church’s faith in the Real Presence. St. Paul is emphatic about the need to recognize the Real Presence of Christ in order to receive Communion (1 Cor. 11:28-30), so it is not possible to extend the offer of Communion to a great many Protestants without violating St. Paul’s injunction.
That being said, your mother should not feel guilty. She was assured by someone who she should have been able to count on to tell her the truth about this matter, and thus she acted in good conscience. She was doing something that she thought was appropriate and, I assume, was trying to please God in so doing. God honors and accepts her good motives and attempt to please him.
The ex-nun, on the other hand, did objectively mislead your mother. Whether the ex-nun is culpable for this, I cannot say. Her training in Church teaching and law may have been so poor that she is not culpable for having misrepresented matters to your mother. On the other hand, she may harbor a dissident attitude that rejects and seeks to undermine the sacramental discipline of the Church. Ultimately, only she and God know her heart.
Hope this helps!
20
Michael Crichston will be hacked. The journals Science and Nature have been refusing to publish papers showing that climatologists are not agreed that global warming is occurring or that, if it is, it is caused by humans.
This follows the publication of a previous paper claiming that climatologists are in agreement on these points.
EXCERPT:
The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.
The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.
Dr Oreskes’s study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser.
However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.
They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.
Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication – but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".
So the scientific discourse can be summarized like this:
SCIENCE: Climatologists agree! Humans clause global warming! Look at all these papers that say so!
CLIMATOLOGIST: Um, actually we don’t. Y’all have misread the papers.
SCIENCE REVIEWERS: Sorry, everybody knows about the point your making. No publication for you.
MORE:
Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It’s pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It’s the news value that is most important."
He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review – despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.
As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."
Michael Crichston will be hacked. The journals Science and Nature have been refusing to publish papers showing that climatologists are not agreed that global warming is occurring or that, if it is, it is caused by humans.
This follows the publication of a previous paper claiming that climatologists are in agreement on these points.
EXCERPT:
The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.
The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.
Dr Oreskes’s study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser.
However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.
They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.
Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication – but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".
So the scientific discourse can be summarized like this:
SCIENCE: Climatologists agree! Humans clause global warming! Look at all these papers that say so!
CLIMATOLOGIST: Um, actually we don’t. Y’all have misread the papers.
SCIENCE REVIEWERS: Sorry, everybody knows about the point your making. No publication for you.
MORE:
Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It’s pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It’s the news value that is most important."
He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review – despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.
As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."
Furious over the election of Pope Benedict XVI, whom they have venomously called a "liar" and an "aggressive homophobe," members of the so-called Rainbow Sash movement — a calls-itself-Catholic, pro-homosexual movement — are calling for their members to disrupt Catholic Masses around the United States on the Feast of Pentecost on Sunday, May 15:
"The Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM) with its supporters will be entering Cathedrals and parishes around the nation on Pentecost Sunday, May 15. We are inviting our supporters to join us, and wear the Rainbow Sash as a symbol of dignity and inclusion.
"We continue to call for public dialogue with Cardinal Francis George Vice President of the National Council of Catholic Bishops.
[…]
"We hope that our presence will also counter the lies that Pope Benedict XVI is promoting about our community. We are Catholic, and will raise our voices to speak to the truth of our lives from the pews. We will no longer be silent in the face of this injustice."
Actually, all they will succeed in doing is demonstrating their own irrelevance while profaning the Blessed Sacrament. Stories like this can make it a very difficult trial for orthodox Catholics who know they must separate contempt for the sin from contempt for the sinner.
I’ve been wondering what Thomas Sowell would have to say about the current illegal immigration controversy that’s brewing.
It seemed to me that, as a free market advocate, Sowell might be, not favorable toward illegal immigration, but favorable toward broadening the American market whereby migrants would be able to do work here in America legally on a much larger scale than as been the case heretofore.
If the free exchange of goods and services is the best way to foster economic development then ceteris paribus expanding the U.S. labor market to include neighboring countries might make sense.
One could argue, though, that this is not the case. Having a free market, labor or otherwise, presupposes a kind of institutional openness and level playing field that may not exist between America and Mexico. I haven’t thought through the situation with sufficient thoroughness or researched the America-Mexico situation enough to know whether that relationship would make sense. (Which is why I’m interested in what Sowell has to say. He’s the expert; not me.)
I do know that I am opposed to folks entering America illegally. I especially don’t like long, porous borders in an age of global terrorism with us as the main target of the terrorists’ efforts.
If people want to come here to improve their economic condition and America can handle the influx, fine. But breaking laws is not a good thing. The law might need to be changed to better facilitate matters, but lawbreaking itself is a bad thing, especially when conducted on a massive scale. I understand that desperation can make breaking the law morally licit in extreme individual cases but if we’re talking the kind of humanitarian crisis that would justify mass disregard for the law then something needs to be done to address that desperation. (Massive disregard for the law being itself a huge societal "bad.")
What needs to be fixed in such a case should not be too hastily assumed to be American immigration law. If America has worked out a system that makes it attractive enough that folks want to come here because of the economic opportunities that it offers that their own homeland doesn’t then it seems to me that the logical thing to do is change the country of origin’s system so it it more closely approximates the American model and thus creates economic opportunities that don’t require immigration to a foreign land (which is itself a cost to the immigrants).
For example, if it’s easier to get a business license in America than Mexico, resulting in greater economic opportunity in the former than in the latter, then it seems that the logical first thing to do is not to demand that America change its immigration policy but to change Mexican law so that it’s easier to get a business license there, too.
Indeed, this would seem to be a justice issue. It would seem unjust to ask one country to bear the costs of accepting massive immigration when this immigration is being driven by disordered economic policies in the migrants’ country of origin.
Fixing the situation back home so people aren’t desperate to migrate to a foreign land is the real solution to the problem. Bettering economic conditions back home so that immigration to a foreign land is a matter of personal choice rather than of economic necessity is the real way to help people.
Now, some folks may pick up on one point I just mentioned–the cost of absorbing massive immigration–and say "Ah! But in reality there is no cost! After all, many of the immigrants are taking jobs native-born Americans won’t do! It thus helps them by having them be employed and helps us by getting these undesirable jobs done."
Enter Thomas Sowell.
EXCERPTS:
Virtually every job in the country is work that Americans will not do, if the pay is below a certain level. And the pay will not rise to that level so long as illegal immigrants — "undocumented workers" — are available to work for less.
Even those who write editorials about how we need Mexicans to do work that Americans will not do would not be willing to write editorials for a fraction of what they are being paid. If Mexican editorial writers were coming across the border illegally and taking their jobs, maybe the issue would become clearer.
You cannot discuss jobs without discussing pay, if you are serious. And, if you are really serious, you need to discuss all the welfare state benefits available to Americans who won’t work.
When you say that Americans have a "right" to have their "basic needs" met, you are saying that when some people refuse to supply themselves with food and shelter, other Americans should be forced to supply it for them.
If you subsidize workers when they won’t work and subsidize employers by making illegal aliens available to them, then under those particular conditions it may well be true that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that Americans won’t do. But such statements conceal more than they reveal.
Hard-working immigrants may indeed be a godsend, not only to farmers and other employers, but also to families looking for someone to take care of children or an aged or ill member of the family. But Americans worked as farm laborers and as maids before there were "undocumented workers" to turn these chores over to.
If it has been done before, it can be done again. All that prevents it is the welfare state and the attitudes it spawns.
I originally wrote a form of the following as a comment down yonder, but thought I’d bump it up to the main blog area because of how interesting the idea is.
My Benedictine friend wrote:
The [Rule of St. Benedict] explicitly directs monks to avoid all greed in business, and to sell or barter their goods at prices lower than others asked.
Following which, a reader asked the very perceptive question:
I know this was really not St. Benedict’s plan, but…
If the monks were to sell their goods at prices lower than others asked, wouldn’t that undercut other purveyors of goods?
Fr. Pedrano (a Benedictine) then said:
In St. Benedict’s culture of bartering and trade (not everyone had cold, hard, cash; no one had plastic), merchants always tried to keep their "prices" high. Maybe St. Benedict’s injunction about charging low prices ended up "undercutting other purveyors. I don’t know. He did write of situations where a monastery could be too poor even to hire laborers to help them with the fields, or to keep certain cultural "dietary" standards–specifically wine–on the table. In those cases, he tells his monks to be satisfied with poverty and work, and to be consoled by the resulting fact of being "true monks."
This–the calling to be "true monks"–seems to me to hold the key to the economic dilemma.
Every free economic transaction involves the exchange of a good or service for something or some things perceived to be of comparable value.
But the things of comparable value are not necessarily money or even material. One might, for example, have a transaction in which one person will give a loaf of bread in exchange for having a song sung or in which one sings a sing in exchange for having an essay proofread.
It seems to me that in this case, the monks received some money in exchange for their goods but they also received other, non-material things of value, such as the chance to make a statement about charity, the importance of the spiritual over the temporal, the chance to themselves make a monetary sacrifice, etc.
As a result, it seems to me that, if they were willing to accept these things in exchange for particular goods or services they had to offer that it would constitute a legitimate transaction in a free market, since the market does not presuppose that all transactions are monetary (barter, for example, may be used, and having the chance to make a statement against greed would seem to be a form of non-material barter).
Should the monks carry this too far, it seems that normal market correction methods would likely address the situation. For example, if they accept so little for their goods and services that their monastery can no longer support itself then they’ll either modify their practice or go out of business as monks.
Similarly, if they are undercutting others so much that they are driving people out of business, impoverishing families who were struggling to begin with, and gravely harming the local economy and are so hardcore in their practice that they won’t modify it when this is made known to them then the amount of ill will generated against them is likely to be such that the Medieval town being harmed would would stop patronizing them, dry up their vocations, burn down the monastery, etc.
The market has a way of correcting for severely disruptive business practices, at least in the long run, since nobody has the unlimited resources needed to permanently sustain fundamentally unsound business practices.
As long as extremes are not pursued, though, it seems that the value of being able to make sacrifices and statements about greed and charity can (and even should) form a legitimate part of economic transactions.
What I want to know is: Does this mean I can get a discount next time I’m at the Prince of Peace Abbey book & gift shop? (Kidding!)
Recently I blogged about the fact that it is not morally obligatory to boycott when there is not a well-founded chance that the boycott would bring about the desired change in the behavior of the boycott’s target. For example, there is no realistic chance of getting secular booksellers (online and off) to purge its inventory of anything and everything that is out of keeping with Catholic moral and doctrinal theology.
The attempt to even begin such a boycott against secular booksellers at present would only do damage, as chronicalled in my previous post on the subject.
But not all boycotts are doomed to failure.
After it emerged that eBay did have some offensiveness exceptions in its policy regarding what can be listed on its site, it became a real possibility that pressuring eBay would result in an expansion of its policy to include a prohibition on allowing individuals to sell consecrated Hosts by their service.
And now that’s happened!
I got rumblings of this a few days ago, but now I’ve had multiple individuals e-mail me messages they received from eBay announcing a change in the policy. Here’s the one that such as <Rule 15b>Eric Giunta</Rule 15b> sent:
Hello Eric,
Thank you for your email regarding the sale of the Holy Eucharist by one of our community members. We respect and appreciate your comments regarding this sensitive matter.
As you may know, eBay does not sell items itself. Rather, we are a global marketplace for sellers and buyers who transact directly with one another. Each day eBay’s sellers list 5 million items on the site, and those sellers decide what items they want to list. eBay did not possess, list or approve the sale of the Eucharist. The buyer and seller completed the Eucharist transaction on April 11th, before eBay even became aware of the listing.
As a marketplace, we strive to respect the diverse perspectives of our sellers. We also work hard to promote an open environment for trade. That said, eBay has policies in place to remove listings for illegal items as well as highly offensive listings that promote hate or intolerance.
We understand that the listing of the Eucharist was highly upsetting to Catholic members of the eBay community and Catholics globally. Once this completed sale was brought to our attention, we consulted with a number of our users, including members of the Catholic Church, concerning what course we should take in the future should a similar listing appear on our site. We also consulted with members of other religions about items that might also be highly sacred and inappropriate for sale. As a result of this dialogue, we have concluded that sales of the Eucharist, and similar highly sacred items, are not appropriate on eBay. We have, therefore, broadened our policies and will remove those types of listings should they appear on the site in the future.
As always, we welcome and appreciate the assistance of the community in upholding the rules of our site. Should you see another Eucharist listed on our site, we encourage you to notify us so we can take appropriate action. Further, we encourage you to directly communicate with the seller. Members are often unaware that a particular item is offensive to others. A respectful e-mail to the seller is often all that is needed for the seller to voluntarily remove the item. We believe this modification strikes the appropriate balance between respect for our community’s values and our goal of providing an open marketplace offering practically anything on earth.
Again, we sincerely appreciate your concern and thank you for communicating your views with us. Your input has helped us frame a policy that will enable us to better serve our diverse community of users around the world.
Regards,
Oscar on behalf of Bill Cobb
Community Watch Team
eBay Trust & Safety
And there was much rejoicing!
Unlike Michael Schiavo, who actively sought to kill his disabled wife, Dr. Yacov Tabak fought for his wife’s life:
"Dr. Tabak couldn’t bear the term ‘vegetable’ when it was first presented to him, and since the Terry [sic] Schiavo ruling, says that some in the medical community have shown an ulterior, ugly side regarding this appellation. ‘There is a medical agenda with this term,’ Dr. Tabak contends. ‘It’s very difficult to get emotionally involved with a vegetable. To have a relationship with a carrot goes against human nature. But there is an underlying subtext here. If a person is a vegetable, he can be sliced up like a vegetable for a higher purpose. Perhaps for research, or for organ appropriation. His guardian can decide if he has the right to live or die. If value of life is now being determined by a subjective definition of quality of life, who’s to stop hospitals from having a mandatory tissue-type registry for ‘vegetables’ in case a person with a defined "better" quality of life needs an organ? This is a steep, slippery slope.’
[…]
"All the proof he needed came two days after Marsi [Tabak] opened her eyes for the first time. Shani Tabak, then 24, was at her mother’s side, speaking to her heart. ‘Mom,’ she said, ‘you have to get better. I can’t get married and stand under the chuppah without you.’
"And then Marsi began to cry.
"’Then I knew she was with us,’ says Yacov. ‘Her hearing was intact — the auditory nerves were apparently not injured. Her memory was intact, she knew who was speaking to her, and her emotions were intact. That was a pretty good inventory to start with. But our joy was limited by the sudden realization of the great danger Marsi was now in. The doctors could destroy her will to live. I went to her and said "Marsi, we know you can hear us, we are with you, we’re going to help you get well. Now, the doctors are going to say some pretty terrible things that you will hear, things like, ‘This patient is a vegetable and has no hope for recovery, we are going to suggest to the family that she be put away in a facility, she’ll be a vegetable for the rest of her life….’" Imagine if a person hears this and his cognition is intact. It’s like a person waking up and realizing he’s in a coffin and the lid is being nailed shut. He wants to shout, "I’m not dead yet!" but no sound comes out. Marsi was in such a state. For the first four months she suffered from cortical blindness, so she not only couldn’t move but couldn’t even see, and the outside world couldn’t hear her silent scream.’"
(Nod to Ut Unum Sint for the link.)
