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Peace

Leads to...

I've worked in science and technology almost all of my adult life (I had a flurry of varied and interesting jobs in my teens and twenties). History has always been something of a hobby for me (which is nice, because it gives me both the History Channel and the Discovery Channel to fall back on when I can't sleep), but I did not start to study Church history in any real earnest until I got older.

I started because I thought it might help me grow in my faith. On some occasions, it feels like it has. But I probably have kept it up for the simple reason that I find it exceedingly interesting.

A couple of days ago, I got involved in an online discussion about the history of Christmas. I basically cited the conventional Church history, which you would find in a textbook or the Catholic Encyclopedia. Basically, Christians did not celebrate Christmas as a feast until about 200 AD (ex. doesn't appear in Tertullian's list of feasts). From then until the mid forth century, Christians generally celebrated either the Epiphany in January, or specifically Christ's birth later in the spring (some celebrated both). Starting in the fourth century, some Christians began using December 25th, seemingly usurping pagan solstice rites, which had been largely combined in 279, and centered on the traditional birth date of Mithras.

I didn't expect this to be particularly controversial, but some heads seemed to explode. The suggestion that Christmas has not been celebrated on Dec. 25th since the beginning is a direct attack on faith - written historical records be damned!

I did try to remain kind and charitable (rather I succeeded is another matter). But one of the 'offenses' I was called to task for was noting that evergreens and wreaths are a long standing Pagan practice. I seemed to be challenged to 'prove' my presumably heretical claim. I started to give a long history of archaeological sites with seeming ties to solstice worship, going back to about 3000 B.C., then I erased that long, tedious monologue and noted simply that the Prophet Jeremiah condemned the pagan practice in about 600 BC (Jeremiah 10:2-4) and the Latin apologist Tertullian condemned it again in the third century ("On Idolatry" XV).

I had hoped (and continue to hope) that my studies would help lead me to a deeper understanding and strengthened faith. But I do sometimes wonder if the endeavor has principally lead to my being even more annoying; something I would have thought to be impossible (my wife can attest that I have long held master status in the art).

Merry Christmas and may the Peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

"How much more...."?

I have been giving a lot of thought about the latest revelations that the US's reversal on it's 'no torture' policy (dating back to George Washington) came from the top of government. There have been good posts on Street Prophets and Mark Shea's blog, so I wasn't sure what I could really add.

Several years ago, I finally started to feel the torture issue in a very visceral way. I was trying to listen to a homily, when I suddenly connected this particular incident to something in the second reading from St. Paul. Something about the reference to evil withering in the light (an analogy he used in both Romans and Galatians). I literally felt sick to my stomach and unworthy for communion.

I do not expect all Catholics to feel so strongly. After all, I took time to start to feel the matter as emotional and personal. But I am continuously baffled by Catholics who are dismissive or even supportive of the practice. I am put in mind of something that Pope Stephen V wrote late in the 9th century:

"If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a
murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a
child even one day old?" - Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz

I've actually seen this cited a few times as proof of the Church's long standing position on abortion. But the subject was actually infanticide. The Pope appears to be saying, 'look we hold that it is murder to kill a child before it is born, of course you cannot tolerate your flock burying unwanted or unhealthy newborns alive!' It is hardly a unique topic. Infanticide was a major problem among the gentile faithful for the first millennium. Thankfully, that practice has become rare and isolated among Christians. But I think the reasoning is still relevant today.

Roughly 50% of all fertilized ovum are never even born, but we hold destroying them to be gravely evil. Of course you cannot torture and murder fully formed and ensouled human beings!

We're #1!

Sometimes, coming in first is not something to be proud of.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesias for posting about this.

Context...

I've been thinking a lot lately about context and intent. The other morning I heard a report about "The Drivers" in Saudi Arabia. Basically a group of Saudi women drove vehicles until they were arrested as a form of protest. The periodically re-unite and note that the ongoing prohibition on women driving creates fiscal hardship and other problems.

An interesting story in its own right, with plenty of food for thought. For example, Rome has identified "religious freedom" as a non negotiable moral principle in voting, but what about when religious practices start to collide with social justice? It is easy to think of the Saudi situation for woman and driving as very backward and alien, but we have a similar moral conflict ourselves. We have an obligation to uphold and protect the Family, but gay unions do raise some issues of legitimate social justice.

But what really caught my attention was a statement near the end of the report:

A handful of women caught driving this year were only briefly detained, according to press reports, and a university student was called a heroine after she drove her badly burned father to the hospital.

In the right context, serious sin became a virtue. This is hardly a novel concept. If I was robbed and then hunted down the thief and killed him, I would be acting immorally, even by Old Testament standards. But if I tried to protect an elderly woman from armed robbery and the thief was accidentally killed in the struggle I would seem to be on sounder moral ground.

It appears that, even with very serious outcomes, our intent matters. In VERITATIS SPLENDOR, Pope John Paul II explains, convincingly, that we cannot, as Catholics, accept morality as a purely relative matter. Some acts are intrinsically evil, because they are never licit. I can accept this, there is no reason, not even my own life or the lives of the people I love most, for, say, genocide. But it it is still very difficult to escape context and intent.

For example, in EVANGELIUM VITAE, the pope makes it clear that direct abortion is always a grave moral disorder. Yet, when Catholics combine this seemingly infallible proclamation with the concepts of VERITATIS SPLENDOR in political discourse, we often end up with some seemingly very incoherent chains of thought.

'You cannot vote for Obama, abortion is intrinsically evil, an absolute!'

'But McCain supports abortion in some cases, so why can you vote for him?'

'That's different, I am trying to limit the harm, which is licit!'

'Yes, in the same Encyclical that the pope declared direct abortion to always be a grave moral disorder, he introduced the concept of "limiting the harm", the direct abortion is intrinsically evil, but abortion voting may or may not be licit depending on one's intent and sincere belief.'

'You're just rationalizing what you want to do! It's INTRINSICALLY EVIL, an ABSOLUTE!'

If you are patient and thick skinned, you can repeat this conversation in circular fashion until someones head explodes. I think that the core problem is that we can convince ourselves that we have good intentions, but our typical political discourse is currently one of divisiveness and demonization. People don't just disagree, They hate America, They hate Our good values...

But the point I am really trying to make is that, even with a moral absolute, it is very hard to eliminate context and intent from the equation. Even if we move from voting about abortion to actually procuring them, or tendency is still towards moral relativism. If you ask a 'pro-life political militant' about ectopic, or tubal pregnancy, the vast majority will state, in absolute terms, that such abortions are licit because of double effect. But that is hardly clear. The USCCB's Directives for Health Care Providers specifically prohibits direct abortion for ectopic pregnancies. And the 1902 decision from the Tribunal of the Holy Office seems to have prohibited indirect abortion, that is, removing the fetus unharmed and letting 'nature take its course', in the same situation.

The double effect argument concerning salpingectomy vs. salpingostomy has always been a bit dubious, and it appears that most modern Catholic Bioethicists have abandoned it. Now if you search the National Catholic Bioethics Center for "ectopic" you will find papers purporting the licit use of Methotrexate (MTX), a chemical abortificant. The argument is that some of these are not pregnancies at all, but interrupted miscarriages, so the fetus is "dead or dying". The distinction would seem important, but the issue of direct euthanasia, another absolute teaching, is not addressed...

The Church has not taken a formal position on these specific applications. But it is worth noting that in countries with Catholic majorities, such applications are generally prohibited by law and the local bishops seem wholly supportive of such laws.

In light of all this, it seems fair to say that the issue is at least morally grey, yet many of the same people who view voting for abortion as unarguably evil (at least if the voting differs from their own) will be quite adamant that abortion itself is absolutely licit in some cases. The difference, of course, is again context and intent. Could the Church really expect me, or someone I love, to risk sterility or even possible death for a pregnancy that cannot possibly reach term?

While I do not purport to have the definitive answer to that question, I would again reiterate that the only principles we truly hold dear are the ones that we are willing to stand by in a context that costs us dearly.

I'm not holding my breath...

I freely admit that George Weigel's writing consistently upsets me. I literally can taste the enamel grinding off my teeth as I clench my jaw and try to force myself to try to hear what he has to say with an open mind. My long standing complaint is that, for all the mountains of writing he has done on Iraq, he has never really discussed his relationship with PNAC, which has a much less ideological interest in Iraq occupation.

Something I have noted before is that my father believed that the only principles we really believe in are the ones we will stand by when they cost us something. Anything else is just a principle of convenience. When I saw that the Senate Armed Forces Committee has released a report on the treatment of detainees in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, I recalled this column which Weigel had once written. Interestingly, the archive copy differs a bit from the version that was published in The Tidings (I cut it out and kept it). In the version I first read, Weigel is less ambiguous, if torture is a matter of policy, not deviant behavior, then ius in bello, the rules governing the waging of a just war are broken.

The Catechism covers this succinctly in CCC 2313. We cannot mistreat detainees and the standard given is international law, not our own discretion.

It has been clear for a very long time that torture and indefinite detention have officially entered US policy. This breaks a long standing precedent going back to George Washington, who ordered his troops not to respond to atrocities by the enemy in kind, but to treat all prisoners humanely. Books like The Dark Side, whose title comes from a quote from Vice President (and fellow PNAC participant) Dick Cheney, have done a very good job of tying together all the evidence that has tricked out over the last 5 years - including President Bush's public insistence that he, personally, was involved.

So the Senate report really just confirms what we already knew. Yet, Weigel continues to write about the war in Iraq and the so-called 'war on terror' as if they are unarguably just and historically vindicated. It is not terribly Christian of me, but this makes me wonder if the problem is disassociation from reality, or insincerity when it comes to the theological principles he invokes in his columns.

I suppose the charitable interpretation is that he does not yet find the evidence of torture as official policy compelling, but when a certain threshold is met he will acknowledge the moral implications and alter his position. But like the title says...

"But even if he will not..."

A few days ago I made reference to Daniel 3, focusing on the beginning of verse 18. My point was that faith was not conditional on a good outcome. In the story, the three faithful men are saved, but the passage makes it clear that the men would not be shaken from their faith even when the situation looked dire.

I have been thinking about a lot of things lately, but I was incredibly moved by the interview with Don Yun Yoon's interview on TV the other day. I really can't imagine losing my family, and I have serious doubts about rather I would have such Christian instincts in the immediate aftermath of such a tragedy. In Daniel, the three men are saved from a fiery death, Yoon's family were not saved. There was no divine intervention. But even though 'He did not', Yoon's faith and charity can be seen even in his obvious grief.

In addition to sad, this makes the situation very humbling for me. I went searching to see if there was something Yoon or his friends wanted those of us expressing sympathy to do; donate to a charity, a fund to help with the material loss, that sort of thing. I did find this, and would encourage people to help if they can. But I was actually surprised at how little discussion Google turned up. I thought that this would be a topic for all the blogs and forums, but if that is occurring, I don't see it.

The same thing happened with the illegal immigrant who stopped and helped the boy whose mother had been killed in an accident in the desert, even though it meant his own arrest and deportation. If a high profile Catholic or politician said, in passing, "you know, if I were a woman and I was raped and beaten by Satan, I probably would at least consider an abortion..." there would be countless posts with endless pages of comments connected to them. Most from red faced people beating their own heads hard enough to make their ears bleed proclaiming that anyone not in lock step agreement with them was an obvious agent of evil...

But when we hear actually stories about people being good Christians under adversity, we do not seem very interested. My first thought was that perhaps the problem is that the people involved are not white. After all, plenty of people applauded the "fine Christian example" of Sarah Palin's unwed pregnant daughter. A more depressing thought is that, perhaps, our faith has become just another stick that we use to whack each other.

If you collapse "the least among" us to fertilized zygotes and sexual morality to not being gay, you get all the benefits of moral indignation and self righteousness, without any of the inconvenience of self realization or introspection. If the point is no longer humble service in the spirit of Christ's teachings, then stories like Yoon's are not so interesting. After all, his message is forgiveness, gratitude, and unity. Most our religious dialog is focused on establishing who is 'good' and who is 'bad' (with the people doing the speaking inevitably in the 'good' group themselves).

Another sobering possibility is that, like racism, we might be missing another of Jesus' often repeated lessons. We tend to think of the Pharisees as obviously bad people, but Jesus' audience would have considered them ultra religious war heroes. They were overt nationalists and xenophobes. So, if we are disinterested because of race, we are ignoring all Jesus' pointed references to the strangers among us, or his repeated use of despised and mistrusted foreigners as examples of righteousness in parables. But Jesus also aggressively challenged another widely held belief, that success and misfortune are closely tied to grace. A horrible disability was not an unfortunate twist of fate, but much deserved punishment from God. Spiritual and material wealth were widely seen as connected...

As far as I can tell, these ideas are very much alive and well today. You are poor because you are lazy. The idea that someone's poverty might be influenced by how the wealthy utilize their power is just 'bleeding heart excuses from people who like wasting other people's money'. I see something similar with my son. Many people still assume that his behaviors are evidence of poor parenting, not his severe neurological disability.

Similar thoughts seem to surround our concept of 'heroic'. In victory, the definition of 'hero' is pretty broad. But in failure, the word 'hero' is only used in a few narrow circumstances. Perhaps that is why we are so indifferent to all the devastating head injuries that are the symbol for the war in Iraq. A 'hero' is someone with steely eyes whose dignified bearing is marred by only the slightest of limps. A man in a wheel chair, who no longer recognizes his own children and who is fed baby food with a plastic spoon...

We are a clearly a results oriented society. Paris Hilton was born spectacularly wealthy, but making yourself more famous by glorifying selfishness and stupidity or performing sex acts with a cheeseburger on a car, that is something we can look up to... But our faith is about how we act, regardless of the outcome. It is probably best exemplified in situations like Yoon's, when we are facing tragedy or failure.

In that light, perhaps it is not so surprising that we are not interested. Yoon's spiritual victory over horrible personal tragedy just isn't the sort of 'winning' we are used to celebrating.

Update: Beauty and Depravity (which I found just yesterday searching for the Church/Autism story) asks the same question.