Punditry

Forgotten to recycle any newspapers or tin cans recently? Feeling guilty because you neglected to carbon offset your flight to somewhere, anywhere, outside England this summer?

The Roman Catholic Church is at hand with a new line in “green confessions” to help eco-sinners to find forgiveness.

Dom Anthony Sutch, the Benedictine monk who resigned as head of Downside School to become a parish priest in Suffolk, will be at the county’s Waveney Greenpeace festival this weekend to hear eco-confessions in what is thought to be the first dedicated confessional booth of its kind.

Vested in a green chasuble-style garment made from recycled curtains, and in a booth constructed of recycled doors, he will hear the sins of of those who have not recycled the things they ought to have done and who have consumed the things they ought not to have done.

…“I’ve had one or two comments about abuse of the confessional. One or two people have said, ‘Father, is this quite right?’ Luckily, more people see it as an excellent idea.

Some days a parodist can get quite depressed. If I had wrote a parody that had included "Vested in a green chasuble-style garment made from recycled curtains, and in a booth constructed of recycled doors" people might have had a quick laugh but it wouldn’t seem all that plausible. Good parody makes you wonder if something might be a real story. The problem is too many real stories make you wonder if it might be a parody.

Only one or two people have questioned this as an abuse?

Canon 964
+1. The proper place to hear sacramental confessions is a church or
an oratory. +2. The conference of bishops is to issue norms
concerning the confessional, seeing to it that confessionals with a
fixed grille between penitent and the faithful who wish to make use of
them may do so freely. +3. Confessions are not to be heard outside
the confessional without (nisi) a just cause.

You also have to wonder what kind of penances he would give? Say three Hail Al Gore’s? Though you could admit to clubbing a seal and he couldn’t tell anybody because of the seal of confession. Much is always made of what is called Catholic guilt (use to be called a conscience), but this seems like something tailor made for liberal guilt. Though this is not surprising that they would apply confession in the matter since they already have indulgences for your carbon footprint called a carbon offset.

I think though that this is a serious abuse of the sacrament to have a theme to confess on. As important as true stewardship is of what God has given us the solutions given by so many environmentalists are often junk science or just plain ineffective.

The Blake Prize entry titled "Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross" by artist Priscilla Bracks is exhibited in Sydney August 30, 2007. The "double vision" print, which depicts both Jesus Christ and Osama bin Laden, in a Christ-like pose, depending on which side.

I saw this story this morning and then some more information at Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex where the articles explains her motive.

When you observe these two people, Osama Bin Ladin and Jesus, their ethics could not be more different. But they were both pursued by two of the world’s most powerful armies – the US and the Roman armies. Jesus is clearly defined by history, but I am interested in how history will treat the image of Osama.

This work has quite an open text so people are likely to read the image in many different ways. Some have mentioned they see it as a juxtaposition of good and evil, whilst others are interested in its comment on how iconic figures are created.

Well I think it would be more correct to say that Jesus pursued the Roman army (as he pursues all of us) and not that he was pursued by them. Though members of the Roman army did pursue Jesus at times such as the Centurion with great faith who requested that his slave be healed or the other Centurion that at Jesus’ death said "Surely He was the Son of God." This artist though has totally missed the fact that the Roman army as a whole had little to do with Jesus nor any other army.

One thing about this painting though is that it does show a truth despite the artist’s intention. We should see Christ in everybody, especially our enemies when it is the hardest and most difficult to discern. Bin Laden’s actions in no real way reflect Jesus and any parallels are of the reverse type. But Bin Laden like all of us is is created in the image of God. Unfortunately for Bin Laden his message is "Spread the Koran always and if necessary use bombs." It is quite difficult to pray for our enemies and is almost impossible in the case of this terrorist if we can’t discern Christ’s image in him by at least recognizing that Jesus actively wants him to be saved.

Australian artist, Priscilla Bracks, insisted that her Jesus- bin Laden “art”, was not meant to offend but a medium in which to promote discussions and to ask questions about how we think about our world and what is accepted and what is not accepted.

Well you just know that the "promote discussion" excuse would be offered and shelray says it well.

As children, how many of us didn’t enjoy any opportunity to provoke or take a jab those who we did not agree with nor like? I wonder how the crowd who supports her “art”work would be just as supportive if, in the name of promoting discussion and questions, she morphed Margarett Sanger/Planned Parenthood with Hitler or Stalin?

Paul Cat at Alive and Young is a resident of New Orleans and writes about how much still needs to be done and the swarms of politicians now swarming there with empty promises. As usual we only get the news that fits a narrative and since the lack of progress can’t be blamed on FEMA and the Federal government as much anymore we will not see stories on New Orleans and the rest of the areas severely damaged by New Orleans. I heard Raymond Arroyo, a former resident of New Orleans, the other day on the Laura Ingraham show talk about the current condition and how despite massive amounts of money little is being done towards a future hurricane.

A leading animal rights group has estimated that 60,000 black cats are killed every year by Italians who believe that they bring bad luck.

The Italian Association for the Protection of Animals and the Environment claims that some are also killed as part of black magic rituals.

While black cats are seen as being lucky in the UK, many people in Italy believe that if a black cat crosses their path it indicates the devil is present. The association calculated its figure from observations of the stray cat population and from monitoring of animal ownership registers. The group said it had evidence that thousands of black cats vanished or were found dead each year.

Across large parts of Europe, black cats have been associated with witchcraft since the Middle Ages and were said to be the favourite companions for witches.

Lorenzo Croce, the association’s president, blamed the Church for spreading myths about the animals.

“The Catholic Church has perpetuated this idea for centuries and it is now deeply implanted in people’s minds,” he said.

“For centuries black cats were massacred at the order of priests.”

I must have missed those Church documents on black cats. You would think it would be in the Cat-echism and I wonder if they were killed via a Purr-ifier?

This accusation strikes me as being particularly silly. The greatest animus towards cats (and dogs) was during the Black Plague where they were blamed as plague carriers, though the animals killed were certainly not at the order of the Church. Then of course there were rumors of cats being familiars for witches such as portrayed in Shakespeare’s MacBeth. But even during the height of the largely exaggerated witch trials in Europe, Italy doomed no more than a handful of witches. So the idea that it is the Catholic Church responsible for the supposed mass executions of black cats in Italy is quite ridiculous. Somehow they are both suppose to largely ignore Church teaching and yet at the same time respond to what is superstition from the Middle Ages which was suppose to have been instigated by the Church.

Besides I think the Pope’s black and white cat Chico would be quite upset if his master was the head of a large cat killing organization.

Mr Croce added that many of the cats disappeared around Hallowe’en. He blamed "strange rituals for worshipping evil", and said the perpetrators "need to sacrifice black cats while performing their rituals".

I think the whole article is likely an exaggeration. There is an urban legend here in the states which claims the same thing, but is in fact false.

By the way for information on the witch trials check out historian Sandra Miesel’s article.

Kelly Clark posted on the Oregon priestess Toni Tortorilla and then linked to a response by Archbishop John Vlazny in The Catholic Sentinel. As I commented on her site – I found his statement to be rather lame. For one thing reading, it if I didn’t know better, I would think the problem with the ordination was that it was wrong because it occurred "without the proper authorization from church authorities." You would have no idea from his message that if just wasn’t possible to ordain women in the first place. Though to be fair he did forthrightly say "there was no ordination of a Roman Catholic priest at Zion United Church of Christ in Gresham on July 28"

Kelly though in response to my comment wrote another post where she imagines Archbishop John Viazny’s alternative comment.

In a story on yet some more faux-ordinations I have a feeling this is not a direct quotation by Monsignor Art Valenzano.

The pope has determined that some church dogma can’t change, Valenzano said, and this includes a male-only priesthood.

Pretty funny though
to anyone who knows the definition of dogma and it would be interesting how a revealed truth could become an unrevealed truth – sort of a theological mulligan.

Lack of ordination doesn’t automatically bar women from authority in the church, he said.

For example, Mother Teresa had tremendous authority, Valenzano said.

But according to the newly ordained women, females are a disenfranchised caste within the church.

Mother Teresa had moral authority in the church, Johnson said, but no legal authority.

Anybody that reduces the priesthood to the issue of legal authority has no idea of what the priesthood is in the first place. Once again it is seen as a position of power.

"We’re not setting up a new church," Carpeneto said. "We’re not a schismatic movement."

Hey I pertinaciously refuse to submit to the Supreme Pontiff on women’s ordination, but don’t call me schismatic!

Carpeneto talked about church community as a circle of equals, not a hierarchy.

"Just the fact that we’re still using the word ‘father’ [to describe clergy] is beyond a joke," she said. "We want to raise a generation of people who aren’t infantilized."

What?

And while it might appear as if it would take a miracle for the official church to accept their ordination, stranger things have happened and people once despised are accepted into the fold, Carpeneto said.

"The hierarchical church does a lot of posturing and huffing, but we can hold a lot of people in," she said. "Don’t discount the work of the Holy Spirit in this."

And don’t discount another spirit. One that once worked as an apple salesman in a famous garden. It is rather funny for a group that continually seeks publicity and issuing press releases (the source article was based on one) talks about posturing and huffing.

Robert T. Miller in First Things writes:

Tiny Muskens, the Roman Catholic bishop of Breda in the Netherlands, says that Dutch Catholics ought to pray using the word Allah rather than God or its synonyms in Dutch. Muskens argues that it makes no inherent theological difference in which language one prays, and he notes that in countries where the word Allah is in common usage as a name for God, Christians already often use the word in their prayers. Adopting the word Allah, Muskens thinks, will eliminate “discussions and bickerings” between Muslims and Christians and so improve relations between the religions.

Muskens is right that, from a Catholic point of view, there is nothing inherently wrong in saying “Allah” for “God,” just as there would be nothing inherently wrong in saying “Miny Tuskens” or “Tuny Miskens” for “Tiny Muskens.” The problem, of course, is Tiny Muskens’ name is Tiny Muskens, and anyone who called Tiny Tuny or Muskens Miskens would be making fun of him. So, too, in theology; despite the conventionality by which strings of phonemes get their meaning, once names have been established, people who change them are doing so for a reason, and the nature of that reason counts in determining whether the change is reasonable or unreasonable, advisable or inadvisable.

In this case, even from a Catholic point of view, the name of God is not a pure triviality. When at the burning bush Moses asked God for his name, the Lord gave a very particular answer. “God said to Moses, I am who am. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations” (Exod. 3:14–15). Many devout Jews treat this name, especially in Hebrew, with such reverence that they will not speak it aloud. And when Christ appropriated this name to himself (John 8:58), everyone understood that he was proclaiming his own divinity.

…Our blessed Lord told his disciples that he was sending them “out as sheep in the midst of wolves” and so they “should be as wise as serpents but as innocent as doves” (Matt. 10: 16). I am happy to acknowledge the innocence of Tiny Muskens, but he is exactly the kind of sheep who, if he ever met a wolf, would likely get eaten by it.

I haven’t commented on Bishop Muskens calling for the use of Allah by Dutch Catholics mainly because I think it hasn’t quite deserved the acrimony it has received. I believe his request is not very prudent and rather naive as a way to eliminate “discussions and bickerings” between Muslims and Christians. Besides considering what has come from Dutch bishops over the years since the infamous Dutch catechism, the use of Allah is rather tame by comparison. At least this time he isn’t calling for the use of condoms.

But debating the merits of Muskens’ suggestion misses the larger point here. Muskens makes it sound as if the problems in Muslim–Catholic relations were merely silly arguments about semantics that distract from the truly important things on which we all agree. In fact, there is a serious, substantive problem dominating Christian–Muslim relations at the moment, the same problem that dominates Muslim–Jewish, Muslim–Buddhist, Muslim–Hindu, and Muslim–Orthodox relations, and that problem is that Muslim fanatics keep murdering innocents of all faiths, including their own, in terror attacks.

Christians using the Arabic word Allah for God is not going to help change things for the better and I think in fact can just be seen as just more capitulations and weakness. Using Allah instead would not have kept a Muslim fanatic from killing filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Holland or even improve dialogue among saner Muslims. The problem is not the use of the word Allah, but the naivety in display in the reasoning for its call to usage.

In another story:

There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him.

With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven.

The one-hour special, commissioned and narrated by Melvyn Bragg, is thought to be the first time the subject has been dealt with on British television. Lord Bragg said: "I was fascinated by the idea … Jesus was such a prominent figure in Islam but most people don’t know that."

…However, Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican canon and spokesman for the Barnabas Fund, which works with persecuted Christians, accused broadcasters of double standards. Mr Sookhdeo, who was born a Muslim and converted to Christianity in 1969, said: "How would the Muslim community respond if ITV made a programme challenging Muhammad as the last prophet?"

I am shocked I tell you that such a documentary is to be made. I mean it isn’t even Christmas or Easter the traditional time for such shows.

Though it is interesting to see the Muslim perspective on Jesus, but of course there is not one Muslim perspective since some claim that it was Judas who was crucified in a last minute switcheroo. Since Islam is cobbled together from Catholic sources such as early heresies and other religious ideas at the time of Mohammed you can expect a lot of inconsistencies in the Islamic view of Jesus. Hilaire Belloc writes about Islam in The Great Heresies as being a great and enduring Christian heresy.

Islam views Jesus as one of God’s most beloved messengers and the Koran has stories of Jesus performing miracles when he was still a child (which was probably taken from Gnostic gospels).Once inconsistency I have been curious about is the Muslim respect for Jesus’s mother Mary and their belief in the Virgin birth of Jesus. In Islam there are miracles associated with both the birth of Jesus and his early childhood and then his death. Yet Mohammed who is suppose to be the greatest thing since toast bread prophet-wise was orphaned at a young age with no miraculous birth, no miracles as a child, and then dies after falling ill and suffering for several days with head pain and weakness. Just from an Islamic view Mohammed seems to be sort of a let down after Jesus. You would think for the "last messenger and prophet of God" that God could have come up with a finale to at least equal the Islamic view of Jesus.

CARDINAL George Pell is among a group of Catholic leaders calling on the church’s schools to maximise their enrolment of Catholic children.

According to News Limited today, Dr Pell and his group want preference given to children from a school’s parish, followed by other Catholics, then other Christians and then finally to students with other religions.

The schools have been urged, in an edict reportedly signed by Dr Pell, to “re-examine how they might maximise enrolment of Catholic students”.

They have also been urged to increase the proportion of school staff who are “practising and knowledgeable Catholics”.

Catholic families will also be urged to “maximise their participation”.

The letter, with Dr Pell as head signatory, said: “Half the students of Catholic families are enrolled in state schools and a growing proportion go to non-Catholic independent schools.

“Another enrolment trend of particular concern has been the decline in representation in our schools of students from both poorer and wealthier families.”

I think that you could write a program to determine the bias in a news story based on the words used. Certainly the word "edict" would be a highly weighted word in this context. A document you like is called a letter or instruction, one you don’t like is called an edict.

I wonder how long it will take before some Australian columnist links this to the new CDF document as another attack on non-Catholics. What the Cardinal is requesting is of course common sense and when you get a high index on non-Catholic students and teachers you are usually going to end up with a non-Catholic school or one with a "Catholic Identity" but hardly any actual Catholic content.

A writer in another column that gives two views on this writes:

Catholic schools exist not only because of a percentage of government funding, but also because of sacrifices and donations made by previous generations of Catholics, many working class.

The more non-Catholics they take, the more Catholic schools risk weakening the importance of the Church’s teachings and philosophy alongside academia.

While the opposing writer says:

But at the risk of getting into a biblical slanging match with any member of the clergy, there seems to be a pretty convincing argument that Jesus wouldn’t be falling over Himself to endorse the Church’s present line of thinking.

In the Gospel of St Mark, His views on the issue seem pretty unequivocal: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners," he said.

No one is suggesting Catholic children shouldn’t be brought up in the faith, or that Catholic parents shouldn’t enrol their kids in schools catering to their beliefs.

But to encourage the inclusion of some children more than others seems to fly in the face of everything I was taught at school.

I was not surprised to see her ending line to be "As a product of the Catholic education system, I find that pretty extraordinary." I find her scriptural argument to be rather weak since as every Catholic parent knows their children are sinners also.

The last two years were somewhat more pleasant after Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, and Frank Rich were made subscriber only access at $50 a year. Though of course we can always thank Maureen Dowd for coming up with Gerald’s blog title. Unfortunately they have now dropped their paid access.

Now if the NYT whose stock and reputation are going downhill wanted a good income source maybe they could just have a fund drive once a year to raise money to put their columnist back behind a firewall.

Fr. Neuhaus has criticized the NAB translation for years and his latest post at First Things continues it:

The New American Bible (NAB), an unfortunate translation episcopally imposed upon Catholics for readings at Mass, has prompted earlier comment in First Things (see here and here). The problem keeps coming back, not least in pastoral counseling. Take the woman who had had it with her husband’s lying to her. I mentioned to her Our Lord’s admonition to forgive “seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22). That’s the way it reads in every widely used English translation, including the Douay-Rheims, an earlier English translation used by Catholics. Jesus obviously intended hyperbole, indicating that forgiveness is open-ended. Keep on forgiving as you are forgiven by God, for God’s forgiving is beyond measure or counting.

But this woman had been reading her NAB, according to which Jesus said we should forgive not “seventy times seven,” but “seventy times.” She had been keeping count, and her husband was well over his quota. Then there is Matt. 5:32 and 19:9, where in both passages Jesus says: “But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress.” In other widely used English translations, it is “unfaithfulness” or “marital unfaithfulness.” The Douay-Rheims says “excepting in the case of fornication.”

In both passages, the NAB puts it this way: “But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery.” Meaning a previous marriage had not been annulled by the diocesan marriage tribunal? Whatever.

Now to be perfectly fair, in the three passages mentioned there are ancient authorities that lend some support for the NAB translation. For instance, some ancient texts of Matthew 19 read “he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery,” which is closer to the NAB version. But in the tradition of translation, scholars have overwhelmingly decided that the manuscripts referring to unchastity or unfaithfulness are to be preferred.

Again and again, when manuscript authorities differ from one another, the NAB chooses against the scholarly consensus and the centuries-old tradition of English translation. Why is that? Is the purpose to deliberately destabilize the faithful’s already shaky familiarity with biblical texts? Maybe the idea is just to be different. What’s the point of a new translation if it isn’t very different from other translations?

The NAB is a banal, linguistically inept, and misleading translation. Why did the bishops force it upon the Catholic people, demanding that it and it alone be used in the readings of the Mass? Various answers are given: Because it was produced by the guild of Catholic biblical scholars and, while it may not be very good, at least it is ours. Because the bishops hold the copyright, and charges for using the NAB in Mass guides and elsewhere is a cash cow for the financially strapped bishops conference. Because the bishops really don’t care whether Catholics use a worthy and reliable translation of the Bible.

If the NCCB needs a revenue stream maybe they can request parishes to pay a fee so that they don’t have to use the NAB. A kind of reverse royalty. When the new English translation is finally available it will be an odd contrast to still have those stilted readings from the NAB. It would be so much better to be able to use a translation such as the RSV-CE 2nd edition.

Fr. Neuhaus does not even mention just how bad the notes are for the NAB in this post. I remember early in my conversion I saw a study edition of the NAB at a book store and I was quite excited to get it. My excitement diminished over time as I read through it and looked at the footnotes. I often thought "that can’t be right." Only later did I find that some of the footnotes portrayed a very modernist and almost Jesus Seminar feel and a fruit of the seventies in which they were written in. The footnotes have a "no it didn’t happen" that way tone to them. They reminded me of a priest I met at my Mother’s parish in the seventies who explained to me how all those biblical miracles really weren’t miracles.

Jimmy Akin previously reviewed the NAB.