"You’re no friend of mine!"

There’s a line in Ecclesiastes that says:

with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief (Eccl. 1:18).

I don’t know how much I wisdom I’ve accumulated in my short span of years, but I have accumulated knowledge of certain subjects, and it can indeed cause grief. This frequently comes home to me when I am at Mass and listening to the way the standard American liturgical translation butchers what is said in the Scriptures. A few years ago, this really drove me nuts, and every time I would go to Mass (which was basically daily), I would tense up at the readings, waiting to see what would be translated wrong this time.

But I got over it.

I realized with time that God doesn’t want us to give away our peace to others, including incompetent translators. Getting mad has a purpose if there is something one can do about it, but if one can’t do anything to bring about positive change then it only hurts oneself. God doesn’t want that. So I chilled out, and these days it takes a bit more to rattle me. But it does happen from time to time.

Yesterday, Palm Sunday, it did.

You may recall how a few years ago a new lectionary for Sunday Mass and there was a big hullabaloo about the use of gender-revisionist language in it. The Holy See appointed a commission of three American cardinals to go over the text and strip out the revisionist language. This they did–almost. They left in some allegedly "minor" instances of "horizontal" revisionist language, such as representing St. Paul as having said "brothers and sisters," where in fact he said "brothers."

I’ve never been happy with this. Any tampering with Scripture to suit a social-political agenda is sacrilege, as far as I’m concerned. The text should be translated as faithfully as possible, given the capacities of the receptor language, and any needed side explanations (like the fact that Paul includes female Christians when he says "brothers") should be made as needed in the homily. It is, after all the function of the homily to explain the readings (not to share jokes and anecdotes and bland exhortations to niceness).

Well, yesterday at Mass I ran into another–particularly inept–manifestation of gender-revisionism in the readings at Mass. Here’s the relevant passage:

They lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it, and Peter sat down with them. When a maid saw him seated in the light, she looked intently at him and said, "This man too was with him."

But he denied it saying, "Woman, I do not know him."

A short while later someone else saw him and said, "You too are one of them"; but Peter answered, "My friend, I am not."

About an hour later, still another insisted, "Assuredly, this man too was with him, for he also is a Galilean."

But Peter said, "My friend, I do not know what you are talking about." Just as he was saying this, the cock crowed [Luke 22:55-60].

When I heard those "my friend"s in the text, I said to myself, "There’s no way that that’s what’s in the Greek," and indeed, it’s not. What Peter says is anthrōpe (pronounced AN-throw-peh), which is a form of direct address translating as "O man" or just "man." There is no way it means "friend," much less "my friend." That’s simply not what Peter said (and if he had, the guys might have turned to him and said, "You’re no friend of mine!"–not wanting to be associated with a follower of Jesus).

What makes this instance of revisionist language particularly inept is that the text has not been consistently gender-sanitized. Notice that Peter is left saying "Woman" to the maiden, which is what he does say in Greek (gunai, pronounced GOO-nai). This suggests that the gender revisionists who were at work on this text had a specific agenda. They weren’t trying to bring about gender "neutrality" in the texts, but to eliminate references to men.

The final twist in this is that there is another gender bungle in the text. You will notice that Peter is twice identified as "this man." Yet the word "man" is not in the Greek. The word is the pronoun houtos (HOO-toss), which just means "this." It’s true that this is the masculine form of the word, so you’d use it for a man (or a boy, or a thing referred to by a noun of the masculine grammatical gender), but the word "man" isn’t there. I’d want my Greek students to translate it as "this one" and save the word "man" for when the word anthrōpos or anēr is in the original.

What a mess. Too bad the cardinals didn’t get it completely cleaned up.

A Hard Spanish Lesson

As I’m sure y’all know, the Spanish recently suffered the tragedy of a terrorist attack on their rail lines, killing hundreds of people. As a result, some are now referring to the event as "Europe’s 9/11," though the comparison is somewhat inappropriate. The American 9/11 was larger by a factor of ten. As tragic as the Spanish event was, it is not on the same plane. Let’s hope that Europe doesn’t have to feel the pain of a true 9/11-size event.

As I’m sure y’all also know, the Spanish then responded very inappropriately in the wake of their attack, when came just before a national election. The Spanish electorate kicked out their incumbent government, which had supported the War on Terror and the liberation of Iraq, and chose an appeasement-oriented government whose prime minister-elect promptly took to scolding the U.S. and promising the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.

This was criminally stupid for all kinds of reasons.

What did the Spanish get for their efforts in sending appeasement signals to the terrorists? More terror. How they could have expected anything else? Did they think that the terrorists would say, "Oh, now that the Spanish have turned tail and shown their cowardice, we’ll leave them alone"? Couldn’t they see that instead the terrorists would say, "Now that the Spaniards have shown they are cowards, let us press the advantage"?

You can’t play appeasement games with such people. All it does is embolden them. They want you to be afraid. That’s why they’re called terror-ists. If you give in to the terror then all you do is turn them into successful terrorists, and that will encourage them to keep going after you so that they can get more concessions from you.

What is jaw-dropping about this situation is how the Spanish, of all Europeans, thought appeasing Islamic terrorists would work. Don’t they know their own history? Don’t they know that their land was under Muslim rule for centuries until it was taken back shortly before the discovery of the New World? Don’t they know that Usama bin Laden has referred to "the tragedy of Andalusia"–by which he means the fact that the Spainiards’ ancestors kicked out the Muslims occupying the country–as one of the things stuck in his craw about the way the world is right now?

Spain, of all places in Europe, is the part Muslim Fundamentalists most want back in their hands, because it is an embarrassment to them. They had it, and they lost it. In their view, it is by rights part of Muslim territory, currently occupied by Christian infidels. As a result, the Spanish need to show more strength and resolve of will in dealing with Muslim Fundamentalists than other Europeans.

But apparently the Spanish do not realize this. They have been lulled into the same lazy stupor of fear and appeasement as the rest of Europe.

This creates problems, and not just for them. For us. The reason is that the terrorists don’t understand the difference between Europeans and Americans, and they are likely to try the same tactics on us that they tried on the Spanish. These won’t work. Americans have more resolve in dealing with the problem than Europeans, and attacks on us will only serve to further enrage us and redouble our efforts against the terrorists. But the fact is that the terrorists aren’t very bright guys. If they were, they would realize that there are better ways to get what you want in life than what they’re trying. Terrorists are just violent criminals with an ideology, and criminals in general aren’t a bright sort. As a result, terrorists are likely to try the tactics on us that worked on Spain.

We must now be extra vigilant.

Thanks for nothing, Spain.

Meat On Lenten Fridays: A Mortal Sin?

A common question at this time of year is whether or not deliberately violating the law of abstinence is a mortal sin. It is. The relevant law is found in Paul VI’s 1966 apostolic constitution Paenitemini, which provides that:

The time of Lent preserves its penitential character. The days of penitence to be observed under obligation through-out the Church are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday, that is to say the first days of "Grande Quaresima" (Great Lent), according to the diversity of the rite. Their substantial observance binds gravely [Norm II §1, emphasis added].

That the keeping of abstinence (and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) is part of the substantial observance of these days is evident from the fact that the second half of Norm II names this as the chief requirement of observing these days:

Apart from the faculties referred to in VI and VIII regarding the manner of fulfilling the precept of penitence on such days, abstinence is to be observed on every Friday which does not fall on a day of obligation, while abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday or, according to local practice, on the first day of ‘Great Lent’ and on Good Friday [Norm II §2, emphasis added].

The faculties mentioned "regarding the manner of fulfilling the precept of penitence on such days" have to do with the ability of pastors to dispense the faithful from the obligation of abstinence and fast or commuting it to something else. If such dispensation or commutation is not obtained then "the manner of fulfilling the precept" is abstinence.

Thus one must substantially observe the law of abstinence on such days, and the obligation to do so is a grave one, meaning that it satisfies the condition of grave matter required for mortal sin. If one knowingly and deliberately fails in this obligation then one has committed mortal sin.

As to the reason for this, the Code of Canon Law notes that:

The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way. In order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance of penance, however, penitential days are prescribed on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence, according to the norm of the following canons [Can.  1249, emphasis added].

It is thus a matter of divine law that the faithful are to do penance (a fact we could have determined from Scripture), and the regulations regarding fast and abstinence are simply the Church’s specification of this divine requirement, made in keeping with Jesus giving the church the power to bind and loose (Matt. 16:18, 18:18).

Curse of the Black Widow

Participated in a debate today. It was a tightly-structured panel discussion at Southwestern College here in the San Diego area. The topic was homosexual "marriages," and the participants were me, a law instructor, a psychology instructor, and a lawyer from the ACLU who was also a lesbian. The debate largely turned into a discussion between me and the lawyer lady, with a little input from the others.

It went quite well. The main arguments of both sides got put forward, we had a chance to rejoin each other’s arguments, threw in some humor, and got the audience engaged (as illustrated by their applause after telling points were made). I’m going to try to contact the lawyer lady and thank her for a good debate. (She got out of there very quickly after the event.)

In preparing for debates and major interviews, I try to "game out" the discussion ahead of time in my mind. (This can cause problems, because it can leave me awake in bed at 2 a.m. twisting arguments around in my head, but that’s an occupational hazard; it’s what you have to do to get the job done right.) Today’s debate was the first one I’ve done on homosexual "marriage," and the first occasion I’ve had to debate homosexuality in a number of years, so for a day or two ahead of time I gave myself a mental workout on the subject.

One of the arguments I was particularly concerned to have a solid, snappy answer for is the claim–which was sure to come up–that homosexuality exists in the animal world and that this makes it "natural" for humans as well. This is an argument that must be convincingly rebutted, because otherwise it undermines the natural law argument against homosexuality, leaving only a religious argument, which in the present, secular public sphere is doomed to fail.

Since it is true that animals do sometimes display homosexual behavior, the obvious rejoinder to the "animals do it too" argument is that just because animals do something, that doesn’t mean it’s good for humans to do. This answer has the benefit of being true, but stated in that form it has the detriment of being boring. It’s not a "grabber," and it smacks too much of your parents saying, "If all the other kids wanted to jump off a bridge, would you jump off too?" That kind of argument probably caused you to stop paying attention when you were a kid, and the same danger presents itself here. It doesn’t matter how true the rejoinder is; if it isn’t presented in an arresting manner then the audience will stop paying attention and won’t take it seriously.

So I ruminated on the charge, and in the wee morning hours, the answer revealed itself to me. I had a good, snappy way of presenting the argument that would grab the audience’s attention and force them to take it seriously. Here’s what I came up with, and ended up using in the debate:

It’s true that some animals do display homosexual behavior, but that doesn’t mean that it is morally justified for humans to engage in it.

Black widow spiders try to kill and eat their mates after copulating, but I assume that you’re not in favor of that among humans.

Further, in many species copulation amounts to rape. A male will capture and force himself on a female. Or sometimes a group of males will do it. I also assume that you’re not in favor of that among human beings.

The fact is that humans, of all the creatures on earth, are rational beings aware of the moral dimension of their actions. For this reason alone (and there are other reasons), you cannot point to the existence of something in the animal kingdom and say that it is therefore justified among humans as well.

The audience really responded to this. The black widow line alone got a huge laugh. I think even people on the other side of the issue were laughing. After the point was made, there was a big round of applause in acknowledgement of its force.

There was no judging of the debate and no announcement of the winning side, but after the event a gentleman from the audience came up to me and said that he overheard some in the audience who were in favor of "gay marriage" saying of me "Man, he’s killing them (the folks on the other side) with these arguments." Perhaps that was one of the ones they were thinking of. . . . (Shrug.)

Learning Jesus' Native Language

I’m getting a number of requests these days, inspired by the movie The Passion of the Christ, for language learning resources for Aramaic.

I’ll be happy to oblige to the extent that I can, but unfortunately there aren’t a lot of good resources out there, especially for self-teaching. The problem is that there isn’t a lot of demand for knowing Aramaic in this country, and so few resources have been developed. Many of the resources that do exist can be expensive and often presuppose that you already know Hebrew, since in biblical studies one usually learns Aramaic after one already knows Hebrew.

There’s just a dearth of good, self-teaching Aramaic resources. I’m hoping to help correct this with several projects that I have in the works, but they aren’t close to being ready yet.

What I generally recommend in the meantime is that someone who wants a little exposure to Aramaic get a copy of Classical Aramaic: Book 1 by Rocco Errico and Fr. Michael J. Bazzi. This is published in workbook format, so it’s suitable for self-study, and it is very basic, so it won’t be too hard. It will teach you how to read the Eastern Aramaic script  and give you about a hundred word vocabulary, with many of the terms related to the faith.

Now, let me pose a question to you, the reader: Just how interested are you in learning Aramaic? Would you be interested, for example, in a two or three tape set that taught you how to both say the Rosary in Aramaic and understand it? How interested would you be in similar sets for saying the Rosary in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew? Would you like to use it for yourself or with your homeschool kids or your study group? If you have thoughts on any of these questions, e-mail me. I’m doing a little market research. (And note: This isn’t one of the secret projects. Those are still secret.)

Learning Jesus’ Native Language

I’m getting a number of requests these days, inspired by the movie The Passion of the Christ, for language learning resources for Aramaic.

I’ll be happy to oblige to the extent that I can, but unfortunately there aren’t a lot of good resources out there, especially for self-teaching. The problem is that there isn’t a lot of demand for knowing Aramaic in this country, and so few resources have been developed. Many of the resources that do exist can be expensive and often presuppose that you already know Hebrew, since in biblical studies one usually learns Aramaic after one already knows Hebrew.

There’s just a dearth of good, self-teaching Aramaic resources. I’m hoping to help correct this with several projects that I have in the works, but they aren’t close to being ready yet.

What I generally recommend in the meantime is that someone who wants a little exposure to Aramaic get a copy of Classical Aramaic: Book 1 by Rocco Errico and Fr. Michael J. Bazzi. This is published in workbook format, so it’s suitable for self-study, and it is very basic, so it won’t be too hard. It will teach you how to read the Eastern Aramaic script  and give you about a hundred word vocabulary, with many of the terms related to the faith.

Now, let me pose a question to you, the reader: Just how interested are you in learning Aramaic? Would you be interested, for example, in a two or three tape set that taught you how to both say the Rosary in Aramaic and understand it? How interested would you be in similar sets for saying the Rosary in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew? Would you like to use it for yourself or with your homeschool kids or your study group? If you have thoughts on any of these questions, e-mail me. I’m doing a little market research. (And note: This isn’t one of the secret projects. Those are still secret.)

Mr. Spock's Favorite Subject

A reader writes:

I have two questions.

1. What is the role of logical reasoning in Apologetics?

2. Can you please suggest an introductory book on logical reasoning?

Hrm. Question #1 is kind of general. In fact, it sounds like a homework question. You wouldn’t be taking a course in apologetics at your parish or something, would you? I’m normally hesitant to directly answer homework questions, but since I don’t know that this is one, I’ll take a crack at it. Here goes:

Logical reasoning is just another way of saying "good reasoning," the alternative being bad or illogical reasoning. (This doesn’t mean that reasoning based on emotion is bad; reason that draws on our emotions also can be good, as Mr. Spock eventually learned.)

Logic is important to every field of study, apologetics included. In fact, since apologetics deals with defending a position against contrary claims and arguments, the role of logic is perhaps brought into sharper focus in apologetics.

Basically, there are two kinds of logic, known as informal logic and symbolic logic. The former involves the analysis of ordinary language arguments, the latter recasts arguments in a "mathematical" form for purposes of analyzing their structure more closely. Both have a role to play in apologetics. Informal logic is useful in the kind of ordinary, conversational apologetics that most in the field are engaged in. Symbolic logic is useful for the higher-end, technical apologetics that is possible (e.g., among philosophers).

Though logic is important to apologetics, but it has limits. There still must be room for grace and free will. Thus Vatican I infallibly rejected the proposition that "the assent to Christian faith is not free, but is necessarily produced by arguments of human reason; or that the grace of God is necessary only for living faith which works by charity" (Dei filius canon 3:5). Logic can only take one so far, but ultimately it has to be free will enabled by God’s grace that allows one to embrace the Christian faith.

Regarding question #2, I’m only going to recommend stuff dealing with informal logic. If you’re just starting out, you don’t want to try to self-teach symbolic logic. It’s too complicated for that. Here are some resources:

Mr. Spock’s Favorite Subject

A reader writes:

I have two questions.

1. What is the role of logical reasoning in Apologetics?

2. Can you please suggest an introductory book on logical reasoning?

Hrm. Question #1 is kind of general. In fact, it sounds like a homework question. You wouldn’t be taking a course in apologetics at your parish or something, would you? I’m normally hesitant to directly answer homework questions, but since I don’t know that this is one, I’ll take a crack at it. Here goes:

Logical reasoning is just another way of saying "good reasoning," the alternative being bad or illogical reasoning. (This doesn’t mean that reasoning based on emotion is bad; reason that draws on our emotions also can be good, as Mr. Spock eventually learned.)

Logic is important to every field of study, apologetics included. In fact, since apologetics deals with defending a position against contrary claims and arguments, the role of logic is perhaps brought into sharper focus in apologetics.

Basically, there are two kinds of logic, known as informal logic and symbolic logic. The former involves the analysis of ordinary language arguments, the latter recasts arguments in a "mathematical" form for purposes of analyzing their structure more closely. Both have a role to play in apologetics. Informal logic is useful in the kind of ordinary, conversational apologetics that most in the field are engaged in. Symbolic logic is useful for the higher-end, technical apologetics that is possible (e.g., among philosophers).

Though logic is important to apologetics, but it has limits. There still must be room for grace and free will. Thus Vatican I infallibly rejected the proposition that "the assent to Christian faith is not free, but is necessarily produced by arguments of human reason; or that the grace of God is necessary only for living faith which works by charity" (Dei filius canon 3:5). Logic can only take one so far, but ultimately it has to be free will enabled by God’s grace that allows one to embrace the Christian faith.

Regarding question #2, I’m only going to recommend stuff dealing with informal logic. If you’re just starting out, you don’t want to try to self-teach symbolic logic. It’s too complicated for that. Here are some resources:

"LifeTeen Masses"?

A reader writes:

What’s the deal with ‘Life Teen’ Masses? Are they a total no-no?

The canonical status of "LifeTeen Masses" is complicated at present. Here’s a list of some of the complications:

  1. Liturgically speaking, there is no such thing as a "LifeTeen Mass." This is not a category that is recognized by Church law.
  2. As far as I have been able to determine, the LifeTeen organization has no special indults to perform Mass differently than what ordinary liturgical law provides. As a result, LifeTeen needs to celebrate its Masses in accord with liturgical law.
  3. Yet there are what appear to be clear violations of liturgical law in "LifeTeen Masses" (e.g., having teens stand around the altar during the consecration), as well as things of (at best) questionable status (e.g., saying things like "The Mass never ends" in place of "The Mass is over," the selection of music used in Mass).
  4. LifeTeen advocates might argue that they have quotes from some ecclesiastics saying nice things about them, but Church officials say nice things about all kinds of organizations without implying a blanket endorsement of everything the organization does. In particular, nice quotes from ecclesiastics do not constitute permission to vary the way in which the liturgy is celebrated, and the Holy See would not want them represented as such.
  5. LifeTeen advocates might argue that the unique features of their Masses are justified by the Directory for Masses with Children, but there are significant problems with this claim: (a) the directory in question does not appear to be intended for use with teenagers, (b) the directory does not authorize the kinds of changes found in "LifeTeen Masses," and (c) the directory makes the explicit point that children’s Masses are to be done in such a way as to lead children into the ordinary liturgy celebrated by adult Catholics; thus as the children get older, their experience of the liturgy should come to be more and more "normal," yet LifeTeen is giving them a far more divergent experience of the liturgy than normal childrens’ Masses, and just at the time they should be settling in to normal adult Masses according to the document. Also, (d) this directory is likely to be revised substantially as part of the current tightening up of liturgical law.
  6. We don’t at present have an up or down statement from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, but if they get enough inquiries from the faithful about "LifeTeen Masses," I suspect that we will. It’s always hard to predict what the Vatican would do, and it probably wouldn’t be as severe as what some might want, but I strongly suspect that LifeTeen would have to make significant adjustments as a result of one.

'Nuther Interview (Stem Cells)

Did another media interview yesterday. A start-up cable TV network called WealthTV is doing a program on stem cell research, and they came by Catholic Answers to do an interview on the Catholic perspective on fetal stem cell research.

Once they got set up (which took a while), the interview only took about 30 minutes, and went very well. Nice guys on the production staff.

Due to the nature of the network (which is supposed to be a kind of lifestyle channel for the well-heeled set, from what I understand), I made a special point of the economic benefits of embracing the culture of life and how, due to the developed world’s failure to do so thus far, we are now facing Medicare and Social Security crises due to our declining birthrate. Less people out there means less economic productivity. Hopefully it’s a point that’ll have some traction with the folks who watch the channel.

The show is supposed to air in early to mid June, when WealthTV goes on the air. I’ll let y’all know when, if I find out.