And Egypt, while it may one day be a democracy, is never going to be a US-style democracy.
Let us cast our minds back to the beginning of democracies and republics, back to the civilizations on which our Founding Fathers consciously modeled the current republic which we inhabit.
In short, let us meditate on the Greco-Roman empires.
As you may recall, Greek city-states had the first known examples of democracy in the world. When we think of the democracy of Athens, our hearts warm and smiles light up our cute little faces. It stays that way as long as we aren't reminded of the details.
Out of a population of perhaps 300,000 Athenians, only 30,000 adult males - that's 10% of the population, folks - were eligible to vote. Fully one-third of the population was enslaved. Half of the population were resident foreigners. Women and children under 18 were not eligible to vote.
Strictly speaking, only men who had both trained as soldiers and who owned property had the right to vote. Although the property clause was often ignored, the soldier's life was not - this was democracy run by the army. To be a citizen, you also had to be descended on both sides from citizens. The Athenian democracy ran in fits and starts, constantly descending into oligarchy or outright tyranny, and generally not lasting longer than the life of the man who managed to impose it for a time.
Given all this, even during the height of its democracy, were the Athenians "free"?
Did Athens ever subject itself to "majority rule"?
Hmmm....
Well, what of the vaunted Romans?
Ah, yes, the Roman Republic...
To begin with, Rome started with the rule of kings, dallied for roughly 450 years with the workings of a republic, and then, through a series of civil wars, returned to the rule of caesars (emperors). Rome's Republic looked very much like Athen's democracy. Unlike Athens, Rome granted many different degrees of citizenship, but only full citizenship granted the right to vote or hold office.
Again, roughly 40% of the population was enslaved. 90% of the population were not citizens. By the time of the Second Punic war, most of the citizens were (or had been at some time) under arms. Only about 10% of the population had the right to vote. Again, it was a democracy run by the army.
Egypt is run by its military.
It is perfectly positioned to have a Greco-Roman style democracy.
A country can have a democratic republic yet not give everyone the right to vote.
A country can have a democratic republic and not consider everyone equal under the law.
A country can have a democratic republic and still be ruled be ruled by a small percentage of the population, especially if that small segment has all the military training.
The idea that all men are created equal, with divine rights endowed by their Creator... this idea is not central to a democracy. It is central to Judeo-Christian thought, but has no necessary bearing on a republic.
The genius of the Founding Fathers was not in establishing a republic or a germinal democracy. Their genius was in wedding the idea of a democratic republic to the Judeo-Christian worldview.
American democracy is unique because it is both a democratic republic and Judeo-Christian.
Jews are uniquely wedded to the idea of God as Lawgiver, and society as a system of law. Christianity, as a child of Judaism, adds the unique idea of the equality of all men, man or woman, Gentile or Jew, slave or free, before God.
Together, the idea of equal and inalienable rights, rights inalienable by even the most powerful of governments, makes Western democratic republics fundamentally different from anything that has gone before. The United States is the oldest such democratic republic on the face of the earth, and we evangelized the world in this concept, we built it up on the back of the theological work on human rights pioneered by the Catholic Church.
By definition, countries which do not have this Judeo-Christian heritage will not be able to establish what we have.
A Muslim country cannot be an American-style democracy - it doesn't have a worldview which says all men are created equal and all are endowed with inalienable rights by their Creator. Insofar as America has successfully managed to export American-style democracy to non-Judeo-Christian cultures (e.g., Japan), it has generally been at the point of a gun against a polytheistic society.
Egypt may, indeed, get democracy.
But that chances that it will look much like ours are pretty grim.
Monday, February 14, 2011
A Rose By Any Other Name
"A Rose by any other Name would smell as Sweet."
So spoke Shakespeare's Juliet to Romeo, but do we all agree?
Jill Stanek highlights two columns, one by Christopher Tollefson, and another co-authored by Dawn Eden and William Doino in which all three excoriate Lila Rose, a fresh convert to Catholicism, for lying in order to film her Live Action videos. Together, the three aver that the bloom is off this particular Rose, that her acting is not acting at all, but a lie, and therefore morally prohibited.
Tollefsen argues that Lila Rose and her friends are not actors, but liars; their work is not loving: "it is predicated on a form of falsity, which is exercised in an unloving way."
Eden and Doino highlight a different dilemma: before his fall, Father Euteneuer denounced a pro-choice film group that got pro-lifers at a CPC on film by telling them that the film-makers were interested in telling the pro-life story. Eden and Doino point out that this is not morally acceptable for pro-choicers, so why would it be for pro-lifers? Their argument is much more tightly reasoned than Tollefsen's and ultimately much more compelling.
Counter-Examples
Stanek, a non-Catholic, dismisses all three by bringing forward three examples of (presumably approved) prevarication in Scripture: the Hebrew midwives lied to Pharoah (Exodus 1:15-21), Rahab the prostitute, who lies to protect Israel's spies (Joshua 2, Matthew 1:5, Hebrews 2), and Michal and Jonathan lie to King Saul in order to save young David's life (1 Samuel 19 and 20).
Stanek also quotes the wise men disobeying King Herod as a form of lying, but that example is really not on point. They just refused to obey the king, they didn't lie to him.
Furthermore, all of Stanek's examples involve coercion - the Hebrew midwives, Rahab and Michal and Jonathan were all asked point-blank by a powerful man (or armed soldiers) to provide information that would prove fatal to someone if that information were revealed. The modern equivalent to this would be lying to a Nazi soldier about the disposition of Jews. There's quite a bit of Scriptural hay that could be made in the moral legitimacy of refusing to divulge information to someone who intends to use it to commit evil.
Lila Rose and company, on the other hand, are voluntarily walking into the clinics to tell false stories. No one asked them anything, and the information they reveal will not put anyone's life at danger since it is all manufactured.
In short, Lila Rose and company aren't lying in the same way Rahab and company lied.
A More Accurate Example
The example Stanek should have brought forward, for it is the closest to being on point, is that of Nathan before David:
We cannot argue that Nathan was merely telling a parable.
King David's own response demonstrates that he thought Nathan was relating an actual event.
Indeed, it is only after Nathan's explanation of the lie that David discovers he has condemned not some unnamed rich man, but himself.
Differences to Note
Now, there are disparities between the two examples:
After all, as Eden and Doino point out, it is never the case that we can argue "the end justifies the means."
Furthermore, Old Testament examples such as those brought forward by Jill Stanek or myself, should always be treated with caution, because Jesus changed the rules on many Old Testament situations: "You were allowed writs of divorce because you were a stiff-necked people, but I say to you.... (and) Let your 'yes' mean 'yes' and your 'no' mean 'no'." Polygamy and divorce were allowed in the Old Testament, but aren't any more. The affirmation that we should speak clear "yes" and "no" is quite un-nuanced.
Christ did not abrogate the Ten Commandments, and there is a commandment against lying.
But the prophet Nathan has never been considered a liar, even though his story is at least as clearly a lie as the stories told by Michal, Jonathan and the Hebrew midwives (whose moral positions have never been as clear as Nathan's).
Nathan and Paul
Nathan clearly manufactured a story, told it to someone who had never asked for it, then hit that someone with the public "gotcha!" All of this bears close correspondence to Lila Rose's actions.
Indeed, if we were to take a New Testament example, one could be found, although it is not as on-point as Nathan's story. In Acts 23:6, Paul claims he is being put on trial because he has hope in the resurrection of the dead - a claim he knows will cause dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. In fact, as Acts 21:27ff demonstrates, he was on trial to discover if he had brought Greek Gentiles into the Temple.
Indeed, Paul was taken into protective custody precisely because his speech to the Jewish crowd about his mission to the Gentiles caused that same Jewish crowd to believe he had actually brought unclean Greeks into the Temple (Acts 21:27-Acts 22:22). So Paul clearly and deliberately mis-represented the facts in order to cause dissension amongst his enemies.
Live Action videos has done no less to the pro-abort movement.
What Is A Lie?
So, what is the status of Lila Rose and Live Action?
Several CCC articles have been brought into play on both sides, but the one that is most on point has been ignored by everyone.
Let's look at the definition:
1) speaking or acting against the truth
2) in order to lead someone into error.
Both parts must obtain in order for the speech or action to be morally illicit.
This is why acting is not a sin (although actors are frequently publicly implicated in sin).
Everyone knows the movie is just a movie.
Similarly, undercover agents and spies may only act as such as long as they don't lead anyone into error. Even an undercover agent may not participate in a gangland "hit" in order to protect his cover - if he does, he is charged with murder along with the rest.
These are not minor points.
For those of us with long memories, it should be recalled that the original CCC had its wording revised in several sections, including the section on what constitutes a lie. The original wording (I'm going from memory here, since I no longer have one of the original brown cover CCCs) said something like "It is permissible to withhold the truth from those who would mis-use it." That wording was considered problematic, and was replaced (whether with this exact article or not, I cannot recall).
The point is, we should remember that the CCC's phrasing on lies and lying received unusual care, since it even required the publication of a little pamphlet revising the text in this (and a few other areas), and eventually brought about a whole new edition (the current "green" cover CCC available in the US).
So, when we examine the CCC articles on lying, we must examine every word.
Nuance and careful reading is key here.
Did Lila Rose and company:
(a) misrepresent the truth simply (in which case they have not lied in a morally culpable way),
or
(b) did they misrepresent the truth in order to lead someone into error? (in which case, they have).
It is certainly not the case that they misrepresented the truth in order to bring about the immediate conversion of the people to whom they lied. So, they didn't lie about the Faith, about God's love or the works of salvation. They didn't misrepresent the truth of God's life or our relationship to Him.
In charity, I think we can say they also didn't misrepresent the truth in order to intentionally cause someone to sin.
Rather, they suspected that a group of people were already sinning and they presented themselves as co-sinners in this same area in order to draw out the nature of those who were sinning.
Now, Lila Rose and company hadn't committed the precise sins they presented themselves as having committed (and in this way, their story also differs from the prophet Nathan's story, although it is not so clearly different from the apostle Paul's story) but that is the only part of Lila's conversation that wasn't true.
So, now we reach a very fine point indeed.
Is the sin committed by the Planned Parenthood people as a result of the conversation a new instance of sin for them?
If it is, then Lila Rose and company are guilty as charged by Tollefsen, Eden and Doino. After all, just as each new abortion takes a human life, each new sin is an offense against God.
Or, is the sin committed by the Planned Parenthood people part of an already-established habit of sin that has infected and infused their thoughts and lifestyles?
If this latter is the case, Lila Rose and company's lie was neither designed to, nor did it, lead the Planned Parenthood employees into a new sin.
Here are a few additional CCC articles which seem to have bearing on the problem:
However, I lean towards thinking Lila Rose is not misrepresenting the truth in a morally culpable way. Rather, she is acting in the tradition of the prophet Nathan and the apostle Paul to expose the thinking of the people involved even to themselves, as Nathan did to King David.
And insofar as that is her motive, insofar as her actions conform to accomplishing that motive, then I endorse them.
Whether or not these actions actually do conform to that motive, I leave up to you, O Gentle Reader.
So spoke Shakespeare's Juliet to Romeo, but do we all agree?
Jill Stanek highlights two columns, one by Christopher Tollefson, and another co-authored by Dawn Eden and William Doino in which all three excoriate Lila Rose, a fresh convert to Catholicism, for lying in order to film her Live Action videos. Together, the three aver that the bloom is off this particular Rose, that her acting is not acting at all, but a lie, and therefore morally prohibited.
Tollefsen argues that Lila Rose and her friends are not actors, but liars; their work is not loving: "it is predicated on a form of falsity, which is exercised in an unloving way."
Eden and Doino highlight a different dilemma: before his fall, Father Euteneuer denounced a pro-choice film group that got pro-lifers at a CPC on film by telling them that the film-makers were interested in telling the pro-life story. Eden and Doino point out that this is not morally acceptable for pro-choicers, so why would it be for pro-lifers? Their argument is much more tightly reasoned than Tollefsen's and ultimately much more compelling.
Counter-Examples
Stanek, a non-Catholic, dismisses all three by bringing forward three examples of (presumably approved) prevarication in Scripture: the Hebrew midwives lied to Pharoah (Exodus 1:15-21), Rahab the prostitute, who lies to protect Israel's spies (Joshua 2, Matthew 1:5, Hebrews 2), and Michal and Jonathan lie to King Saul in order to save young David's life (1 Samuel 19 and 20).
Stanek also quotes the wise men disobeying King Herod as a form of lying, but that example is really not on point. They just refused to obey the king, they didn't lie to him.
Furthermore, all of Stanek's examples involve coercion - the Hebrew midwives, Rahab and Michal and Jonathan were all asked point-blank by a powerful man (or armed soldiers) to provide information that would prove fatal to someone if that information were revealed. The modern equivalent to this would be lying to a Nazi soldier about the disposition of Jews. There's quite a bit of Scriptural hay that could be made in the moral legitimacy of refusing to divulge information to someone who intends to use it to commit evil.
Lila Rose and company, on the other hand, are voluntarily walking into the clinics to tell false stories. No one asked them anything, and the information they reveal will not put anyone's life at danger since it is all manufactured.
In short, Lila Rose and company aren't lying in the same way Rahab and company lied.
A More Accurate Example
The example Stanek should have brought forward, for it is the closest to being on point, is that of Nathan before David:
The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.Here we have a prophet of God who tells a story that is literally false - there is no sheep, there is no traveler. Nathan tells the story in a way designed to make David believe it is true, and designed to provoke David's anger. David falls for the lie and condemns the man.4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!" (2 Samuel 12)
We cannot argue that Nathan was merely telling a parable.
King David's own response demonstrates that he thought Nathan was relating an actual event.
Indeed, it is only after Nathan's explanation of the lie that David discovers he has condemned not some unnamed rich man, but himself.
Differences to Note
Now, there are disparities between the two examples:
- Nathan is a prophet of God, Lila Rose and Live Action are not.
- Nathan was lying to one man (and, indeed, nearly all of the Scriptural examples brought forward involve mis-representing the facts to one powerful person), while Lila Rose is trying to expose an entire movement.
- The prophet clarified the story immediately after he got the response he wanted, and King David repented of his actions to boot. Lila Rose has gotten a response but no repentance from the group she and her friends lied to.
After all, as Eden and Doino point out, it is never the case that we can argue "the end justifies the means."
Furthermore, Old Testament examples such as those brought forward by Jill Stanek or myself, should always be treated with caution, because Jesus changed the rules on many Old Testament situations: "You were allowed writs of divorce because you were a stiff-necked people, but I say to you.... (and) Let your 'yes' mean 'yes' and your 'no' mean 'no'." Polygamy and divorce were allowed in the Old Testament, but aren't any more. The affirmation that we should speak clear "yes" and "no" is quite un-nuanced.
Christ did not abrogate the Ten Commandments, and there is a commandment against lying.
But the prophet Nathan has never been considered a liar, even though his story is at least as clearly a lie as the stories told by Michal, Jonathan and the Hebrew midwives (whose moral positions have never been as clear as Nathan's).
Nathan and Paul
Nathan clearly manufactured a story, told it to someone who had never asked for it, then hit that someone with the public "gotcha!" All of this bears close correspondence to Lila Rose's actions.
Indeed, if we were to take a New Testament example, one could be found, although it is not as on-point as Nathan's story. In Acts 23:6, Paul claims he is being put on trial because he has hope in the resurrection of the dead - a claim he knows will cause dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. In fact, as Acts 21:27ff demonstrates, he was on trial to discover if he had brought Greek Gentiles into the Temple.
Indeed, Paul was taken into protective custody precisely because his speech to the Jewish crowd about his mission to the Gentiles caused that same Jewish crowd to believe he had actually brought unclean Greeks into the Temple (Acts 21:27-Acts 22:22). So Paul clearly and deliberately mis-represented the facts in order to cause dissension amongst his enemies.
Live Action videos has done no less to the pro-abort movement.
What Is A Lie?
So, what is the status of Lila Rose and Live Action?
Several CCC articles have been brought into play on both sides, but the one that is most on point has been ignored by everyone.
Let's look at the definition:
2483 Lying is the most direct offense against the truth. To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error. By injuring man's relation to truth and to his neighbor, a lie offends against the fundamental relation of man and of his word to the Lord. [emphasis added]There are two parts to a lie:
1) speaking or acting against the truth
2) in order to lead someone into error.
Both parts must obtain in order for the speech or action to be morally illicit.
This is why acting is not a sin (although actors are frequently publicly implicated in sin).
Everyone knows the movie is just a movie.
Similarly, undercover agents and spies may only act as such as long as they don't lead anyone into error. Even an undercover agent may not participate in a gangland "hit" in order to protect his cover - if he does, he is charged with murder along with the rest.
These are not minor points.
For those of us with long memories, it should be recalled that the original CCC had its wording revised in several sections, including the section on what constitutes a lie. The original wording (I'm going from memory here, since I no longer have one of the original brown cover CCCs) said something like "It is permissible to withhold the truth from those who would mis-use it." That wording was considered problematic, and was replaced (whether with this exact article or not, I cannot recall).
The point is, we should remember that the CCC's phrasing on lies and lying received unusual care, since it even required the publication of a little pamphlet revising the text in this (and a few other areas), and eventually brought about a whole new edition (the current "green" cover CCC available in the US).
So, when we examine the CCC articles on lying, we must examine every word.
Nuance and careful reading is key here.
Did Lila Rose and company:
(a) misrepresent the truth simply (in which case they have not lied in a morally culpable way),
or
(b) did they misrepresent the truth in order to lead someone into error? (in which case, they have).
It is certainly not the case that they misrepresented the truth in order to bring about the immediate conversion of the people to whom they lied. So, they didn't lie about the Faith, about God's love or the works of salvation. They didn't misrepresent the truth of God's life or our relationship to Him.
In charity, I think we can say they also didn't misrepresent the truth in order to intentionally cause someone to sin.
Rather, they suspected that a group of people were already sinning and they presented themselves as co-sinners in this same area in order to draw out the nature of those who were sinning.
Now, Lila Rose and company hadn't committed the precise sins they presented themselves as having committed (and in this way, their story also differs from the prophet Nathan's story, although it is not so clearly different from the apostle Paul's story) but that is the only part of Lila's conversation that wasn't true.
So, now we reach a very fine point indeed.
Is the sin committed by the Planned Parenthood people as a result of the conversation a new instance of sin for them?
If it is, then Lila Rose and company are guilty as charged by Tollefsen, Eden and Doino. After all, just as each new abortion takes a human life, each new sin is an offense against God.
Or, is the sin committed by the Planned Parenthood people part of an already-established habit of sin that has infected and infused their thoughts and lifestyles?
If this latter is the case, Lila Rose and company's lie was neither designed to, nor did it, lead the Planned Parenthood employees into a new sin.
Here are a few additional CCC articles which seem to have bearing on the problem:
If I haven't reached a firm and vociferous conclusion in this column, it is because I can see the force of the arguments on both sides, and it is not entirely clear to me that I have reached a correct conclusion. Eden's and Doino's argument and evidence is strong (Tollefsen's not so much).1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.
1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.
1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.
1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.
However, I lean towards thinking Lila Rose is not misrepresenting the truth in a morally culpable way. Rather, she is acting in the tradition of the prophet Nathan and the apostle Paul to expose the thinking of the people involved even to themselves, as Nathan did to King David.
And insofar as that is her motive, insofar as her actions conform to accomplishing that motive, then I endorse them.
Whether or not these actions actually do conform to that motive, I leave up to you, O Gentle Reader.
Friday, February 11, 2011
A Sad Day
Today is February 11, World Day of the Sick.
A plenary indulgence is available today, but almost no one in the United States will be able to get this indulgence.
You see, in order for the faithful to obtain this plenary, your church or cathedral has to be having some kind of liturgical celebration (Mass, Liturgy of the Word, or something like it) and you have to attend it.
The plenary is available only for those who participate in the celebration of the world-wide observance.
If no parish near you is celebrating the World Day of the Sick, you can't get the plenary.
This problem doesn't just exist for this day - indult #5 in the Handbook of Indulgences states:
But that's the problem with this particular indult - it requires your pastor to know about (and care about) the days enough to put them on his calendar.
The Church establishes days of plenary indulgences and prayers with plenary indulgences in order to encourage us to participate in these days and in these prayers. It's her way of enticing us to live a liturgical life in conformance with Christ's vision for us.
But these and other indulgences aren't just an encouragement to parishioners to participate in the life of the Church, it's also an encouragement to priests and to bishops to live the life of Faith.
Unfortunately, very few priests realize that they are supposed to be doing this.
Most priests don't even know an indulgence is available today, and even if they did, many wouldn't care because they think indulgences are old-fashioned.
So, for want of a good, knowledgeable priest, an opportunity for an indulgence is lost...
In that respect, in the midst of the universal celebration, it is a day of sadness for all of us who are not able to participate as the Church intends us to.
A plenary indulgence is available today, but almost no one in the United States will be able to get this indulgence.
You see, in order for the faithful to obtain this plenary, your church or cathedral has to be having some kind of liturgical celebration (Mass, Liturgy of the Word, or something like it) and you have to attend it.
The plenary is available only for those who participate in the celebration of the world-wide observance.
If no parish near you is celebrating the World Day of the Sick, you can't get the plenary.
This problem doesn't just exist for this day - indult #5 in the Handbook of Indulgences states:
A plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who, on days universally designated to foster certain religious intentions (e.g., the promotion of priestly and religious vocations, the pastoral care of the sick and infirm, strengthening the profession of faith in young people, and assisting others to lead a holy life, etc.), piously assist at celebrations of this kind; however, those who pray for these same intentions may gain a partial indulgence. [emphasis in the original].There are several similar celebrations of the universal Church scattered throughout the year.
But that's the problem with this particular indult - it requires your pastor to know about (and care about) the days enough to put them on his calendar.
The Church establishes days of plenary indulgences and prayers with plenary indulgences in order to encourage us to participate in these days and in these prayers. It's her way of enticing us to live a liturgical life in conformance with Christ's vision for us.
But these and other indulgences aren't just an encouragement to parishioners to participate in the life of the Church, it's also an encouragement to priests and to bishops to live the life of Faith.
Unfortunately, very few priests realize that they are supposed to be doing this.
Most priests don't even know an indulgence is available today, and even if they did, many wouldn't care because they think indulgences are old-fashioned.
So, for want of a good, knowledgeable priest, an opportunity for an indulgence is lost...
In that respect, in the midst of the universal celebration, it is a day of sadness for all of us who are not able to participate as the Church intends us to.
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Muslim Riots
1968 was a magic year for the Western world.
The Baby Boom - a massive post-war increase in the number of young people - was drawing to a close and most Western societies were trying to digest the glut of young people. The economic markets strained to absorb the first Boomers as they completed their college careers and entered the job market. It was a tumultuous time.
As many may recall, that was the year of the youth riot.
Throughout the Western world, from Japan to the United States to France, Germany and Poland, youth everywhere were simmering with anger. The reasons in each situation were different, but the result was the same: frenzied explosions of violence across the globe as youth clashed with police against the perceived wrongs (whether real or imagined) dealt to them by those in authority.
The rioting in the United States grew so bad that outgoing President Lyndon Baines Johnson thoughtfully left a pile of unsigned declarations of martial law on his desk for various American cities - all that incoming President Richard Nixon need do was sign them to give them the force of law.
Today, the Muslim world seems to be facing the very same situation.
As Pew Forums illustrate, and just as had happened with the Western Baby Boom in 1968, the percentage of Muslim youth peaked a few years ago (2000) and is beginning to decline. The great mass of Muslim Boomers are of age, and are trying to assimilate themselves into society. And, as was the case in 1968, the youth in Muslim countries perceive their various countries as having created legitimate offenses against them.
The percentage of the population under 30 in most predominantly Muslim countries is enormous - in Pakistan, it is upwards of 70% of the population. As I have noted elsewhere, older populations tend not to riot if only because it takes too much energy. When a 70-year old throws a Molotov cocktail, it's generally hard to hobble away fast enough to make the protest effective. For a 17-year old, the problem is not nearly so difficult.
Youth are inherently violent. They have enormous energy and a very shallow grasp on how to harness that energy. Earlier ages harnessed the youth via the apprenticeship system, putting those between 12 and 20 to work under adult tutelage. Thus, though they had large populations of youth, the young were contributing members of society under close adult supervision. The young were useful, they knew it, and they had a stake in the social order.
Modern society threw away the ancient model. Now, we put the youth together in massive cauldrons, where they do no useful work for society. They not only feel useless, they feed on each others' discontent.
Within roughly the last year, we have seen riots break out in Iran, Tunisia and now Egypt.
Muslim leaders have long explicitly said they intend to take over Europe with the womb, not the gun. But as we now can see, that plan has it's own little difficulties.
If Muslim leaders can keep the youth focused outward, focused on exhibiting rage towards non-Muslims, then the men who run the mosques can breathe easy. The exuberance of youth will go far towards forcing the West into accepting Muslim demands, so that the West either converts to Islam or becomes the dhimmis Allah created them to be. That is the plan, anyway.
But what if those men can't keep the youth focused on anger with non-Muslims?
What if Muslim youth not only feel oppressed by their elders, but start to feel a certain kinship with the oppressed Christian minority?
What if the natural exuberance of youth couples with their natural love for fairness, justice and love for the oppressed?
Then the men in the mosques will be faced with Muslims who protect their oppressed fellows with their own bodies, Muslims who riot against the men in the mosques. That is not the result Muslim leaders hope for.
The Baby Boomers and their riots fundamentally changed the nature of Western society. What Western culture permits today was never even imagined in 1965.
The Muslim Boomers are rioting now.
Both the hard-line, orthodox Muslim clerics and the leaders of the West ask the same questions:
Who will lead the rioters?
Where will the Muslim youth take Muslim society?
These are hard questions.
No one has the answers.
The Baby Boom - a massive post-war increase in the number of young people - was drawing to a close and most Western societies were trying to digest the glut of young people. The economic markets strained to absorb the first Boomers as they completed their college careers and entered the job market. It was a tumultuous time.
As many may recall, that was the year of the youth riot.
Throughout the Western world, from Japan to the United States to France, Germany and Poland, youth everywhere were simmering with anger. The reasons in each situation were different, but the result was the same: frenzied explosions of violence across the globe as youth clashed with police against the perceived wrongs (whether real or imagined) dealt to them by those in authority.
The rioting in the United States grew so bad that outgoing President Lyndon Baines Johnson thoughtfully left a pile of unsigned declarations of martial law on his desk for various American cities - all that incoming President Richard Nixon need do was sign them to give them the force of law.
Today, the Muslim world seems to be facing the very same situation.
As Pew Forums illustrate, and just as had happened with the Western Baby Boom in 1968, the percentage of Muslim youth peaked a few years ago (2000) and is beginning to decline. The great mass of Muslim Boomers are of age, and are trying to assimilate themselves into society. And, as was the case in 1968, the youth in Muslim countries perceive their various countries as having created legitimate offenses against them.
The percentage of the population under 30 in most predominantly Muslim countries is enormous - in Pakistan, it is upwards of 70% of the population. As I have noted elsewhere, older populations tend not to riot if only because it takes too much energy. When a 70-year old throws a Molotov cocktail, it's generally hard to hobble away fast enough to make the protest effective. For a 17-year old, the problem is not nearly so difficult.
Youth are inherently violent. They have enormous energy and a very shallow grasp on how to harness that energy. Earlier ages harnessed the youth via the apprenticeship system, putting those between 12 and 20 to work under adult tutelage. Thus, though they had large populations of youth, the young were contributing members of society under close adult supervision. The young were useful, they knew it, and they had a stake in the social order.
Modern society threw away the ancient model. Now, we put the youth together in massive cauldrons, where they do no useful work for society. They not only feel useless, they feed on each others' discontent.
Within roughly the last year, we have seen riots break out in Iran, Tunisia and now Egypt.
Muslim leaders have long explicitly said they intend to take over Europe with the womb, not the gun. But as we now can see, that plan has it's own little difficulties.
If Muslim leaders can keep the youth focused outward, focused on exhibiting rage towards non-Muslims, then the men who run the mosques can breathe easy. The exuberance of youth will go far towards forcing the West into accepting Muslim demands, so that the West either converts to Islam or becomes the dhimmis Allah created them to be. That is the plan, anyway.
But what if those men can't keep the youth focused on anger with non-Muslims?
What if Muslim youth not only feel oppressed by their elders, but start to feel a certain kinship with the oppressed Christian minority?
What if the natural exuberance of youth couples with their natural love for fairness, justice and love for the oppressed?
Then the men in the mosques will be faced with Muslims who protect their oppressed fellows with their own bodies, Muslims who riot against the men in the mosques. That is not the result Muslim leaders hope for.
The Baby Boomers and their riots fundamentally changed the nature of Western society. What Western culture permits today was never even imagined in 1965.
The Muslim Boomers are rioting now.
Both the hard-line, orthodox Muslim clerics and the leaders of the West ask the same questions:
Who will lead the rioters?
Where will the Muslim youth take Muslim society?
These are hard questions.
No one has the answers.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Partial-Bullet Assassination
Barack Obama told Doug Kmiec that abortion could not be outlawed in the United States because it would favor one religious tradition over another. This argument is odd not just because it is specious - we don't apply that standard to any other act, so why do we apply it to abortion - but also because it is wrong.
American law currently DOES favor one religious faith's definition over another. According to rabbinical teaching, the baby becomes ensouled only at first breath, and not before. So the idea that abortion should remain legal until birth - which is the default position of United States law - is an embodiment of peculiarly Jewish teaching.
Gabby Giffords was both Jewish and a staunch defender of abortion rights, holding that abortion needed to be legal in all circumstances. In this regard, her political stance was perfectly in line with her religious beliefs.
She not only supported abortion in all circumstances, she supported embryonic stem cell research, was strongly supported by the pro-abort Emily's List and pushed contraception like it was going out of style.
This past Saturday, a man stirred her brains with a bullet in much the same way that an abortionist stirs the brain of unborn child with a knife during a partial-birth abortion.
In this case, the only major difference between Giffords and the babies whose death she supported is that medical professionals are trying to save her life instead of end it.
Make no mistake: the act which put Giffords at death's door was evil.
But God is good - He can draw good out of even the worst evil, as the Crucifixion shows.
Let us hope that Giffords first-hand experience with partial-birth abortion, or in this case, partial-bullet assassination, gives her a little more compassion for the children who she had once willingly consigned to the very grave she now so desperately wants to avoid.
American law currently DOES favor one religious faith's definition over another. According to rabbinical teaching, the baby becomes ensouled only at first breath, and not before. So the idea that abortion should remain legal until birth - which is the default position of United States law - is an embodiment of peculiarly Jewish teaching.
Gabby Giffords was both Jewish and a staunch defender of abortion rights, holding that abortion needed to be legal in all circumstances. In this regard, her political stance was perfectly in line with her religious beliefs.
She not only supported abortion in all circumstances, she supported embryonic stem cell research, was strongly supported by the pro-abort Emily's List and pushed contraception like it was going out of style.
This past Saturday, a man stirred her brains with a bullet in much the same way that an abortionist stirs the brain of unborn child with a knife during a partial-birth abortion.
In this case, the only major difference between Giffords and the babies whose death she supported is that medical professionals are trying to save her life instead of end it.
Make no mistake: the act which put Giffords at death's door was evil.
But God is good - He can draw good out of even the worst evil, as the Crucifixion shows.
Let us hope that Giffords first-hand experience with partial-birth abortion, or in this case, partial-bullet assassination, gives her a little more compassion for the children who she had once willingly consigned to the very grave she now so desperately wants to avoid.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
The Church Shop Sketch
As I was conversing with some atheists the other day, I managed to make one of them realize that the Church had actually made some useful contributions to society - a concept he was initially loathe to admit.
He remarked that if science were truly a child of Catholic Faith, then it was the greatest thing the Church had done, and it should toss out all those other antiquated doctrines that weren't helping humanity. So, I had to ask:
And it suddenly occurred to me that I'd seen this conversation before.
Monty Python had already examined this at enormous philosophical depth.
Imagine the Church as the bookshop owner, and the non-believer as the customer:
He remarked that if science were truly a child of Catholic Faith, then it was the greatest thing the Church had done, and it should toss out all those other antiquated doctrines that weren't helping humanity. So, I had to ask:
Which ones?
You say science is a far greater contribution than anything else Christianity has come up with.
Even greater than the ideas of:
(1) personhood,
(2) equality of all,
and
(3) individual rights given not by government but inherent to each person because it derives from God?
Do you think THESE concepts have any value? Because they are all uniquely Christian as well.
Why do you think we stopped human sacrifice? What difference does it make to a Christian if the pagans want to sacrifice one another?
According to Christian theology, we are all brothers, sprung from the same parents, and thus your baptismal status is immaterial. I have a duty to save you from an unjust death even if you aren't a Christian.
Is THAT worth anything, Pikeman?
All the Christian dogmas are tightly tied in with the above ideas. Throw away those other dogmas and you weaken these."
And it suddenly occurred to me that I'd seen this conversation before.
Monty Python had already examined this at enormous philosophical depth.
Imagine the Church as the bookshop owner, and the non-believer as the customer:
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Nothing to See Here
WBAY in Green Bay, Wisconsin reports that the Green Bay Diocese is being accused of having destroyed files associated with pedophile priests. The authorities frown on the destruction of evidence.
Notice how the diocese denies the claim:
But what if there wasn't pending litigation?
What if the charges were made privately up the chain of command in the Church and not reported to the police?
What if a private agreement was reached or the victim died or moved or... well, you get the idea.
If there was no pending litigation... well, we don't guarantee the sanctity of the files then.
Anyone who has worked in a chancery office, anyone who is ordained, knows that most bishops keep a set of files concerning very serious matters.
These files are held in very close confidence.
These files are seen only by the bishop and his right-hand man.
The files are generally destroyed shortly after a new bishop comes in or when the individuals concerned are no longer in a place where the relevant files would need to be kept.
On occasion, priests will talk amongst themselves about a few of the things that may be in those files. The occasional priest will occasionally quietly confide the fact of their existence to a lay person... but never the contents. No. After all, no one really knows the contents except the bishop. And priests are in the habit of keeping confidences.
So, while I'm quite sure no diocese destroys files when there is pending litigation, there are enough empty clauses in the diocesan statements. The diocesan reassurance is hardly going to be a comfort to SNAP.
Notice how the diocese denies the claim:
Yeah - nothing was destroyed when there was pending litigation."In 2006 the diocese issued a 146-page document that covered all diocesan departments. All files of every department are covered in this 146-page document. This was not done just to deal with clergy files; this was a matter of good management," Reilly said.
"Our record retention policy clearly states that no documents are destroyed if there is pending litigation. That practice and policy has been completely adhered to," he said.
In court testimony, Deacon Reilly explained the diocese generally keeps a priest's file indefinitely but that documents can be destroyed in accordance with the record retention policy.
But what if there wasn't pending litigation?
What if the charges were made privately up the chain of command in the Church and not reported to the police?
What if a private agreement was reached or the victim died or moved or... well, you get the idea.
If there was no pending litigation... well, we don't guarantee the sanctity of the files then.
Anyone who has worked in a chancery office, anyone who is ordained, knows that most bishops keep a set of files concerning very serious matters.
These files are held in very close confidence.
These files are seen only by the bishop and his right-hand man.
The files are generally destroyed shortly after a new bishop comes in or when the individuals concerned are no longer in a place where the relevant files would need to be kept.
On occasion, priests will talk amongst themselves about a few of the things that may be in those files. The occasional priest will occasionally quietly confide the fact of their existence to a lay person... but never the contents. No. After all, no one really knows the contents except the bishop. And priests are in the habit of keeping confidences.
So, while I'm quite sure no diocese destroys files when there is pending litigation, there are enough empty clauses in the diocesan statements. The diocesan reassurance is hardly going to be a comfort to SNAP.
The CDF On the Pope's Condom Remarks
Here is the text of the response made by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning how to interpret the Pope's private theological opinion concerning condom use.
Jimmy, Janet, Father: please call your offices.
Notice something very interesting:
It's almost as if the Church taught that the use of contraception outside of marriage was evil!
Huh.
Go figure.
After all, if all of the Church's statements were really only ever about contraception in marriage, then the CDF distinction would not be necessary. By the very fact that the CDF took the trouble to make this distinction, we see that the Church has always had two interrelated teachings: one on the morality of contraception, the other on "conjugal morality."
Thus, to argue that contraceptive use outside of marriage may be permissible is demonstrated here to be a canard.
It goes on to say:
It does not say "Do Not Fornicate."
Thus, according to some people, the Ten Commandments are really only about marriage.
They aren't really about sexual situations in which neither of the parties are married.
At least, if we were to follow the arguments of Jimmy Akin, Janet Smith and Father Martin Rhonheimer, we would be forced to into this conclusion.
But, oddly enough, the CDF doesn't appear to agree with any of these luminaries. Instead of agreeing that the Ten Commandments (and modern papal encyclicals) speak only to the problem of married sex, and not to the problem with fornication, the CDF instead conflates fornication with sins against the Sixth Commandment:
The modern papal encyclicals on contraception address both married and unmarried people.
Turns out you don't need a Ph.D. to understand Church teaching after all.
I expect Jimmy, Janet and Father will post apologies for their incorrect interpretations.
Could someone notify me when you see those apologies?
I'd like to read them.
The CDF: Unanswered Questions
But we have another question unsettled, and the CDF hasn't addressed that question:
In a heterosexual encounter, given that:
Well, according to the CDF statement, this "full conformity" riff is ONLY in regards to the disease mitigation, it is NOT a statement about the procreation-mitigation effect the condom simultaneously produces. Remember:
Now, the CDF spends a deal of time talking about proportionalism and the "lesser evil."
But the contraceptive effects are not a lesser evil, they are a GREATER evil, so the CDF commentary in that regard is completely irrelevant.
The elephant remains in the living room, and the CDF can't talk about it because if they do, the terrible secret will be revealed:
Insofar as the the Pope's private theological opinion addresses any aspect of the fecundity of the heterosexual act, that private theological opinion is most assuredly erroneous.
In short, condom use by heterosexuals, no matter what their intent, is a step only towards a minor and revocable good, not a step towards any eternal good.
The CDF "clarification" expressly refused to deal with the contraceptive aspect of condom use.
Because the contraceptive aspect cannot be divorced from the disease-mitigation aspect (both are accomplished in the same action) the CDF "clarification" is fairly useless.
The only clarifications that will ever be useful here are those that:
a) Recognize that TWO effects are being produced from the single act of using a condom in heterosexual intercourse,
b) Address BOTH aspects and their relative merits in comparison to each other and in comparison to what constitutes a movement towards the good.
So far,
the Pope hasn't done this,
the CDF hasn't done this,
none of the secular commentators have done this.
I've done it, but the answer I get when I do make this comparison is that the Pope is wrong - or he's so insignificantly right that it doesn't matter in any practical way. No one wants to hear it.
Consider: a heterosexual using a condom to reduce disease is choosing an insignificant temporal good (disease transmission) over an eternal good (new human person).
Heck, the guy chose an insignificant temporal good (venereal pleasure) to begin with - that's why he's having sex with a prostitute even though one of them may have HIV. So it's unclear to me why choosing to try to mitigate disease transmission is that much of a step in the right direction.
Sure, you can make some small moral hay depending on exactly who has the disease and exactly what transmission is trying to be mitigated, but it's really a stupid conversation to have.
So, you have your choice: the papal remarks are either wrong or inane.
Neither reflect well on Pope Benedict.
A rapist who refuses to use a condom on the grounds that he wants to participate in the procreation of a human person is making a greater step towards the good than a john who uses a condom to prevent disease transmission.
But don't expect to see that comparison on the front page of the Ignatius Press website anytime soon. It wouldn't be good for sales.
Jimmy, Janet, Father: please call your offices.
Notice something very interesting:
As is clear from an attentive reading of the pages in question, the Holy Father was talking neither about conjugal morality nor about the moral norm concerning contraception.Do you see the distinction the CDF makes?
The Holy Father was not talking about conjugal morality.Instead of just making it a flat statement about the use of the condom (with the assumption that we are only talking about its use in conjugal relationships), the CDF instead put two clauses in that statement. So, the use of contraception is seen by the CDF as a moral matter which is distinct and distinguishable from "conjugal morality."
ALSO
The Holy Father was not talking about the moral norm concerning contraception.
It's almost as if the Church taught that the use of contraception outside of marriage was evil!
Huh.
Go figure.
After all, if all of the Church's statements were really only ever about contraception in marriage, then the CDF distinction would not be necessary. By the very fact that the CDF took the trouble to make this distinction, we see that the Church has always had two interrelated teachings: one on the morality of contraception, the other on "conjugal morality."
Thus, to argue that contraceptive use outside of marriage may be permissible is demonstrated here to be a canard.
It goes on to say:
Those who know themselves to be infected with HIV and who therefore run the risk of infecting others, apart from committing a sin against the sixth commandment are also committing a sin against the fifth commandmentNow, the sixth commandment merely says "Do Not Commit Adultery."
It does not say "Do Not Fornicate."
Thus, according to some people, the Ten Commandments are really only about marriage.
They aren't really about sexual situations in which neither of the parties are married.
At least, if we were to follow the arguments of Jimmy Akin, Janet Smith and Father Martin Rhonheimer, we would be forced to into this conclusion.
But, oddly enough, the CDF doesn't appear to agree with any of these luminaries. Instead of agreeing that the Ten Commandments (and modern papal encyclicals) speak only to the problem of married sex, and not to the problem with fornication, the CDF instead conflates fornication with sins against the Sixth Commandment:
The response of the entire Christian tradition – and indeed not only of the Christian tradition – to the practice of prostitution can be summed up in the words of St. Paul: "Flee from fornication" (1 Cor 6:18).So, that settles that question rather definitively.
The modern papal encyclicals on contraception address both married and unmarried people.
Turns out you don't need a Ph.D. to understand Church teaching after all.
I expect Jimmy, Janet and Father will post apologies for their incorrect interpretations.
Could someone notify me when you see those apologies?
I'd like to read them.
The CDF: Unanswered Questions
But we have another question unsettled, and the CDF hasn't addressed that question:
In this context [a prostitute infected with AIDS], however, it cannot be denied that anyone who uses a condom in order to diminish the risk posed to another person is intending to reduce the evil connected with his or her immoral activity. In this sense the Holy Father points out that the use of a condom "with the intention of reducing the risk of infection, can be a first step in a movement towards a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality." This affirmation is clearly compatible with the Holy Father’s previous statement that this is "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection."The problem is simple.
Some commentators have interpreted the words of Benedict XVI according to the so-called theory of the "lesser evil." This theory is, however, susceptible to proportionalistic misinterpretation (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter "Veritatis splendor," No. 75-77). An action which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed.
In a heterosexual encounter, given that:
- The method used to mitigate the possibility of infection is identical to the method used to mitigate the possibility of procreation,
- An action, which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed, and
- The contraceptive effect of the condom is not only intrinsically evil, the contraceptive effect is a greater evil than the disease that the condom mitigates,
Well, according to the CDF statement, this "full conformity" riff is ONLY in regards to the disease mitigation, it is NOT a statement about the procreation-mitigation effect the condom simultaneously produces. Remember:
...the Holy Father was talking neither about conjugal morality nor about the moral norm concerning contraception.My point still stands, and the CDF "clarification" hasn't addressed it - the use of a condom by anyone, married or unmarried, in a situation where it would be contraceptive is NOT a step towards "moralization" or "respecting the life of another."
Now, the CDF spends a deal of time talking about proportionalism and the "lesser evil."
But the contraceptive effects are not a lesser evil, they are a GREATER evil, so the CDF commentary in that regard is completely irrelevant.
The elephant remains in the living room, and the CDF can't talk about it because if they do, the terrible secret will be revealed:
Insofar as the the Pope's private theological opinion addresses any aspect of the fecundity of the heterosexual act, that private theological opinion is most assuredly erroneous.
In short, condom use by heterosexuals, no matter what their intent, is a step only towards a minor and revocable good, not a step towards any eternal good.
The CDF "clarification" expressly refused to deal with the contraceptive aspect of condom use.
Because the contraceptive aspect cannot be divorced from the disease-mitigation aspect (both are accomplished in the same action) the CDF "clarification" is fairly useless.
The only clarifications that will ever be useful here are those that:
a) Recognize that TWO effects are being produced from the single act of using a condom in heterosexual intercourse,
b) Address BOTH aspects and their relative merits in comparison to each other and in comparison to what constitutes a movement towards the good.
So far,
the Pope hasn't done this,
the CDF hasn't done this,
none of the secular commentators have done this.
I've done it, but the answer I get when I do make this comparison is that the Pope is wrong - or he's so insignificantly right that it doesn't matter in any practical way. No one wants to hear it.
Consider: a heterosexual using a condom to reduce disease is choosing an insignificant temporal good (disease transmission) over an eternal good (new human person).
Heck, the guy chose an insignificant temporal good (venereal pleasure) to begin with - that's why he's having sex with a prostitute even though one of them may have HIV. So it's unclear to me why choosing to try to mitigate disease transmission is that much of a step in the right direction.
Sure, you can make some small moral hay depending on exactly who has the disease and exactly what transmission is trying to be mitigated, but it's really a stupid conversation to have.
So, you have your choice: the papal remarks are either wrong or inane.
Neither reflect well on Pope Benedict.
A rapist who refuses to use a condom on the grounds that he wants to participate in the procreation of a human person is making a greater step towards the good than a john who uses a condom to prevent disease transmission.
But don't expect to see that comparison on the front page of the Ignatius Press website anytime soon. It wouldn't be good for sales.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Latin Expert Weighs In
In an attempt to make sense of Pope Benedict's recent odd remarks on condoms, several Catholics, including Jimmy Akin, Janet Smith and Father Martin Rhonheimer, have made the indefensible argument that the Church has never actually said if condom use between non-married sexual partners was problematic.
Catholic theologian and Latin expert Ron Conte demolishes their position in a carefully written analysis of the Latin phrasing the neo-dissenters use to justify their positions.
Janet Smith's Latest Error
Just as an aside, Janet's article is well worth reading, if only to demonstrate how a once mighty defender of the Catholic teaching on contraception has now fallen into gross error. Take this gem, for instance:
Is it the handouts that are intrinsically evil?
Is it being an alcoholic that's intrinsically evil?
Being a beggar?
Being an alcoholic beggar?
Is being an alcoholic beggar an action? Or is it a state of being?
Did she mean to say being an alcoholic beggar was intrinsically disordered?
If so, which part - the alcoholic part or the beggar part? Or both together?
Contraception Not Always Evil
Then we are given this to chew on:
Janet admits the possibility that contraception is not intrinsically evil?
Since when is an action intrinsically evil for some people but not for others?
How would THAT work, exactly?
But that's where the good priest leads us, and Janet follows blindly along behind.
After all, pregnancy might, in some, cases be a "bad consequence"!
What the heck was God thinking to give such a gift to anyone?
And people will follow this witchcraft because it came out of Janet's mouth.
Newsflash: No one really cares whether "Catholic theologians" have come to a consensus. The Magisterium is quite clear.
Pregnancy Is Evil
Worse, notice how everyone is now assuming that the Church has only spoken on contraception within marriage? And notice where that assumption takes us?
Pregnancy is a "bad consequence," it's now "morally responsible", or at least more morally responsible, to fornicate in such a way that you avoid pregnancy, etc.
The only way Janet can think to walk out of the trap is to implicitly agree that pregnancy is evil, and that the evil consequence will "wake up" the fornicators.
How long before the dissenters transfer this line of thinking from outside of marriage to marriage itself?
But they already have.
You see, dissenting theologians have long given lip service to the idea that the marital act has to be both unitive and procreative. However, in their warped understanding, the unitive aspect of the act is a state of mind. The physical reality has no bearing on the unitive aspect.
"Any sexual act outside of marriage is not unitive!" they cry.
Thus, Humanae Vitae and Casti Conubii must not be talking about contraception between fornicators, because it only addresses unitive acts.
Similarly, artificial birth control is not the sin of contraception unless the actors intentionally separate the two aspects of marital relations, unitive and generative. Fornication, by definition is not a unitive act, so birth control practiced by fornicators is not a sin.
What Did You MEAN To Do?
For them, that spiritual state is ALWAYS supplied by the intention of the sexual actors.
If the actors don't intend it to be unitive, then it isn't.
If they both intend it to be unitive, then it is.
So, even if you are putting up chemical/physical walls (e.g., the condom or the hormonal contraceptive), if you intend unity, then you have it. That's where Janet pulls the rabbit out of the hat to argue that pregnancy is "not always necessarily bad" if the fornicators intend unity, that is, if they intend to get married.
This is the fruit of Westianism, which says that our intentions are the only real arbiter of what is good and what is bad. If we don't intend to have sex with that naked women in the magazine, then we can look at her all day long. Christian nudism is fine as long as we don't have wrong intentions.
But if intentions are the only thing that define the morality of an act, then there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil act at all. An act can never be evil in itself, we must always first examine the intentions of the actors.
"Unity" becomes a state of mind that occurs irrespective of any physical state that may obtain.
Now, this is really a self-refuting proposition. The people who hold this position, like the Westians, insist that only the biological act of sex can bring about the fullness of the unitive meaning.
But when you point out that the biology isn't actually unitive in the case of contraceptives or that, physically speaking, the act of marriage is just as unitive as fornication or rape, they suddenly change their minds. Logically, they are forced to insist that the contraceptives don't interfere with the unitive meaning in marriage, while the unity of the bodies in the acts of rape and fornication aren't really unitive.
So sex is necessarily unitive except when it isn't.
You have to be a special kind of stupid to believe that.
Or a Ph.D.
But I repeat myself.
Eugenics: Killing The Children of Rapists
Simply pointing to the fact of the "two-backed beast", as the unwashed describe the sexual act, is considered to be "biologism", rank ignorance, willful overlooking of the spiritual dimension. How dare anyone think that physical reality should have anything to do with theology?
Thus, for them, contraceptives are permitted in rape because rape is not a unitive act, therefore not a sexual act, therefore using contraceptives before/during/after rape isn't a contraceptive act because the victim doesn't intend unity.
God forbid any of these ignorant "biologists" point out that human life is a gift from God, that the soul is immediately created and infused by God, that the rapist's sperm can do nothing to accomplish procreation unless God intervenes.
God forbid that rape be recognized as an inherently sexual act that really can bring about the procreation of a new human being.
All of you out there conceived in rape, shut the hell up.
Your opinions are inconvenient to our theology.
We must twist God to make Him fit our narrow theological categories, and you must have pity on us for He is the worst "biologist" of them all!
What Does the Church Teach?
So, let's repeat the constant teaching of the Church again, in sequence, to make sure we have it right.
1) The procreation of human life is ALWAYS a gift from God. ALWAYS.
God is the one who immediately creates and infuses the human soul which makes conception possible. That human soul is a gift to the world. S/he is ALWAYS a good.
2) Any deliberate act taken to frustrate the procreative possibility inherent in heterosexual sexuality is an intrinsically evil act.
That means that it does not matter what your intention is.
Using any kind of physical barrier (condom, IUD, etc.) or chemical barrier (hormonal drug, pill, patch, shot, implant, etc.) to frustrate the procreative power of sex is an act taken against God's procreative power and is proscribed.
You can fight all you want and in any way you want to stop him ejaculating in you, but once he's done that, it's done.
If God wants a conception, then He will immediately create and infuse a human soul into the union of egg and sperm and that will be a conceptus, a new human being, a child.
If He doesn't, He won't. If He doesn't infuse that human soul, there will be no conception, the egg-sperm union will fail, decay and disappear. There will be no conceptus, no embryo. There will be no new human being, no child.
A rapist who uses a condom in a heterosexual rape increases his sin.
A prostitute who uses a condom in a heterosexual encounter increases his/her sin.
3) Pregnancy is never an evil, nor is it bad, nor is it a bad consequence.
If the Pope opined differently on any of these points in his irrelevant capacity as private theologian, then poor Benedict holds an erroneous private theological opinion. He isn't the first Pope to suffer this malady and he won't be the last. It doesn't matter because, if he does indeed hold any of these errors, he can't teach his private error to the universal Church in an official capacity as that would violate the Magisterium, which is not capable of being violated.
Even if an angel from heaven (or a Janet Smith or a Pope) comes preaching a different Gospel, s/he is wrong.
Catholic theologian and Latin expert Ron Conte demolishes their position in a carefully written analysis of the Latin phrasing the neo-dissenters use to justify their positions.
Janet Smith's Latest Error
Just as an aside, Janet's article is well worth reading, if only to demonstrate how a once mighty defender of the Catholic teaching on contraception has now fallen into gross error. Take this gem, for instance:
Theologically, this sentence is absurd."It is even more difficult to determine the morality of actions that may serve in some way to facilitate actions that are intrinsically evil, such as giving handouts to alcoholic beggars."
Is it the handouts that are intrinsically evil?
Is it being an alcoholic that's intrinsically evil?
Being a beggar?
Being an alcoholic beggar?
Is being an alcoholic beggar an action? Or is it a state of being?
Did she mean to say being an alcoholic beggar was intrinsically disordered?
If so, which part - the alcoholic part or the beggar part? Or both together?
Contraception Not Always Evil
Then we are given this to chew on:
"Even if contraception is not intrinsically evil for fornicators, I believe that it would be wrong for some fornicators to contracept. Certainly for those who are engaged or planning on marrying, a pregnancy would not necessarily have seriously bad consequences."[Choke. Cough. Gasp.]
Janet admits the possibility that contraception is not intrinsically evil?
Since when is an action intrinsically evil for some people but not for others?
How would THAT work, exactly?
But that's where the good priest leads us, and Janet follows blindly along behind.
After all, pregnancy might, in some, cases be a "bad consequence"!
What the heck was God thinking to give such a gift to anyone?
And people will follow this witchcraft because it came out of Janet's mouth.
Newsflash: No one really cares whether "Catholic theologians" have come to a consensus. The Magisterium is quite clear.
Pregnancy Is Evil
Worse, notice how everyone is now assuming that the Church has only spoken on contraception within marriage? And notice where that assumption takes us?
Pregnancy is a "bad consequence," it's now "morally responsible", or at least more morally responsible, to fornicate in such a way that you avoid pregnancy, etc.
The only way Janet can think to walk out of the trap is to implicitly agree that pregnancy is evil, and that the evil consequence will "wake up" the fornicators.
How long before the dissenters transfer this line of thinking from outside of marriage to marriage itself?
But they already have.
You see, dissenting theologians have long given lip service to the idea that the marital act has to be both unitive and procreative. However, in their warped understanding, the unitive aspect of the act is a state of mind. The physical reality has no bearing on the unitive aspect.
"Any sexual act outside of marriage is not unitive!" they cry.
Thus, Humanae Vitae and Casti Conubii must not be talking about contraception between fornicators, because it only addresses unitive acts.
Similarly, artificial birth control is not the sin of contraception unless the actors intentionally separate the two aspects of marital relations, unitive and generative. Fornication, by definition is not a unitive act, so birth control practiced by fornicators is not a sin.
What Did You MEAN To Do?
For them, that spiritual state is ALWAYS supplied by the intention of the sexual actors.
If the actors don't intend it to be unitive, then it isn't.
If they both intend it to be unitive, then it is.
So, even if you are putting up chemical/physical walls (e.g., the condom or the hormonal contraceptive), if you intend unity, then you have it. That's where Janet pulls the rabbit out of the hat to argue that pregnancy is "not always necessarily bad" if the fornicators intend unity, that is, if they intend to get married.
This is the fruit of Westianism, which says that our intentions are the only real arbiter of what is good and what is bad. If we don't intend to have sex with that naked women in the magazine, then we can look at her all day long. Christian nudism is fine as long as we don't have wrong intentions.
But if intentions are the only thing that define the morality of an act, then there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil act at all. An act can never be evil in itself, we must always first examine the intentions of the actors.
"Unity" becomes a state of mind that occurs irrespective of any physical state that may obtain.
Now, this is really a self-refuting proposition. The people who hold this position, like the Westians, insist that only the biological act of sex can bring about the fullness of the unitive meaning.
But when you point out that the biology isn't actually unitive in the case of contraceptives or that, physically speaking, the act of marriage is just as unitive as fornication or rape, they suddenly change their minds. Logically, they are forced to insist that the contraceptives don't interfere with the unitive meaning in marriage, while the unity of the bodies in the acts of rape and fornication aren't really unitive.
So sex is necessarily unitive except when it isn't.
You have to be a special kind of stupid to believe that.
Or a Ph.D.
But I repeat myself.
Eugenics: Killing The Children of Rapists
Simply pointing to the fact of the "two-backed beast", as the unwashed describe the sexual act, is considered to be "biologism", rank ignorance, willful overlooking of the spiritual dimension. How dare anyone think that physical reality should have anything to do with theology?
Thus, for them, contraceptives are permitted in rape because rape is not a unitive act, therefore not a sexual act, therefore using contraceptives before/during/after rape isn't a contraceptive act because the victim doesn't intend unity.
God forbid any of these ignorant "biologists" point out that human life is a gift from God, that the soul is immediately created and infused by God, that the rapist's sperm can do nothing to accomplish procreation unless God intervenes.
God forbid that rape be recognized as an inherently sexual act that really can bring about the procreation of a new human being.
All of you out there conceived in rape, shut the hell up.
Your opinions are inconvenient to our theology.
We must twist God to make Him fit our narrow theological categories, and you must have pity on us for He is the worst "biologist" of them all!
What Does the Church Teach?
So, let's repeat the constant teaching of the Church again, in sequence, to make sure we have it right.
1) The procreation of human life is ALWAYS a gift from God. ALWAYS.
God is the one who immediately creates and infuses the human soul which makes conception possible. That human soul is a gift to the world. S/he is ALWAYS a good.
2) Any deliberate act taken to frustrate the procreative possibility inherent in heterosexual sexuality is an intrinsically evil act.
That means that it does not matter what your intention is.
Using any kind of physical barrier (condom, IUD, etc.) or chemical barrier (hormonal drug, pill, patch, shot, implant, etc.) to frustrate the procreative power of sex is an act taken against God's procreative power and is proscribed.
You can fight all you want and in any way you want to stop him ejaculating in you, but once he's done that, it's done.
If God wants a conception, then He will immediately create and infuse a human soul into the union of egg and sperm and that will be a conceptus, a new human being, a child.
If He doesn't, He won't. If He doesn't infuse that human soul, there will be no conception, the egg-sperm union will fail, decay and disappear. There will be no conceptus, no embryo. There will be no new human being, no child.
A rapist who uses a condom in a heterosexual rape increases his sin.
A prostitute who uses a condom in a heterosexual encounter increases his/her sin.
3) Pregnancy is never an evil, nor is it bad, nor is it a bad consequence.
If the Pope opined differently on any of these points in his irrelevant capacity as private theologian, then poor Benedict holds an erroneous private theological opinion. He isn't the first Pope to suffer this malady and he won't be the last. It doesn't matter because, if he does indeed hold any of these errors, he can't teach his private error to the universal Church in an official capacity as that would violate the Magisterium, which is not capable of being violated.
Even if an angel from heaven (or a Janet Smith or a Pope) comes preaching a different Gospel, s/he is wrong.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Usury: Did the Church Change the Teaching?
When people discuss the Catholic teaching on abortion or contraception, someone usually says something like, "Well, these teachings are subject to change. I mean, look at how the Church has changed her teaching on usury and slavery over the course of the centuries!"
Has the Church really changed her teachings?
Ever?
The quick answer is: no.
The longer answer takes a bit of thought.
Usury is the charging of interest on a loan. In the early Church, this was forbidden in every instance. It is easy to see why.
In a subsistence-level society, where stored food can make or break an entire community's chance at survival, money is a consumable like water or food. In such a society, I can give you my bread today, but I risk having none tomorrow. Similarly, when you pay me back by giving me one of your loaves tomorrow, you can't afford to give me more than you received. If I demanded more, you might well starve. There's little enough to go around as it is.
There is no such thing as investment income. Money is good only because it can be stored on a shelf far longer than that salted venison or the dried fish we caught in the spring. All of that will eventually have to be consumed or it will go bad. But gold, silver, anything that has a longer shelf-life than the consumables it can be traded for, has value.
That's the upside to money. The downside is, you can't eat it.
I can't give you bread, and then charge you extra if you choose to eat the bread. Bread is made to be consumed. In a subsistence-level economy, money is also made to be consumed. I accept your gold for my bread ONLY because I expect to be able to spend that gold on bread for myself tomorrow. For us, money is like food, fire, clothes or any other barter material - it is consumed in the transaction. If I took your money in exchange for my food, I may very well not have enough food of my own. I will need to swiftly trade your money for more food.
If I can't "eat up" the gold you give me, that is, if I can't spend it, I'm not going to give you my bread no matter how much gold you have. I would starve if I did. The gold you give me today I will spend tomorrow to get bread for myself. Gold, bread, wine, it's all the same thing really. All of it will be stored, eaten, used up. That's what it's made for.
So, I can't expect you to repay me the loaf of bread AND expect you to pay me another half loaf for the privilege of eating the bread I gave you. Bound up with the very nature of bread is the expectation that it will be eaten. Asking for more bread than I gave you is charging for something that doesn't exist. It's asking you to pay for a right that is already given to you when you got the bread to begin with - with the bread, you also got the right to EAT that bread.
Catholics aren't allowed to charge for things that don't really exist. That's usury. Charging interest on a loan was, for the subsistence-level society, identical to asking for a loaf and a half back on every loaf given out. That's just evil. I'm killing people when I demand it.
Unlike cows, sheep, or grain, gold doesn't breed, so I can't ask for more than I gave, since the very act of asking would impoverish you.
But times changed. As societies grew beyond subsistence level, they found they had more barter stuff, that is, more gold, wheat, spice, cloth, then they really needed. What to do with the extra?
Some smart person somewhere realized that he could use his gold to barter with people at a far distance. He could invest the gold in a caravan or a ship. If the caravan actually returned with what he had bought, he would have a lot of barter material. His ship would have come in.
On the other hand, if he invested all his money and it was waylaid by weather or bandits, he might very well starve. There was a risk in making such an investment. A LOT of risk. It was smarter to share that risk with others. The only way to share the risk in a fair way was to share the wealth that would come if you beat the odds.
This is the beginning of investment banking. Once I have transport and excess goods, I find that gold is no longer a consumable that disappears because I have to eat. Now gold - or any money that may be used in its place - is a way to assess risk and investment, it has changed to become a marker in a much larger game.
If I am investing my money, putting it at risk in the hopes of greater returns for all involved, then I have a perfect right to share that risk out amongst all the investors involved. The investors likewise have a right to demand a share in the reward - a dollar and a half for the dollar invested. This is the charging of interest on a loan, but it is no longer usury, because the risk is very real, and the return on the investment is also very real.
Now you see the problem.
The Church has never changed her teaching on usury. It's still a sin. You can't sell something that doesn't exist. The teaching didn't change, but the cultural definitions of "money" and "interest" did. The definition of money is dramatically different now than it was in the first millennium of the Church's existence. Now money is an electronic cypher in a computer somewhere, a set of bits flipping back and forth, the swap of electrons on a silicon wafer.
We have changed the meaning of money.
In a similar way, God can change the meaning of who we are.
Prior to marriage, every consensual heterosexual act is fornication. But when a person gets married, he can no longer commit fornication, he can only commit adultery. Furthermore, while he can still sin sexually, he can now engage in consensual sexual acts that are not sin at all, but are actually a means to holiness.
The sacrament has changed him. Since the definition of who he is has changed, so the definition of how he can sin and how he can be virtuous has also changed.
In exactly the same way, the definitions of money and interest changed so that what used to be a sin can be transformed into an acceptable act. What I could not do in a subsistence-level barter system, changes into something I most assuredly CAN do in an affluent society in order to assess risk.
So, we can still commit the sin of usury, that is, we can still charge for something that doesn't exist or charge extra for something that doesn't deserve an extra charge, but we don't necessarily commit that sin by charging interest because the secular definitions of the traditional terms have changed.
Church teaching hasn't changed.
We have.
Postscript:
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Has the Church really changed her teachings?
Ever?
The quick answer is: no.
The longer answer takes a bit of thought.
Usury is the charging of interest on a loan. In the early Church, this was forbidden in every instance. It is easy to see why.
In a subsistence-level society, where stored food can make or break an entire community's chance at survival, money is a consumable like water or food. In such a society, I can give you my bread today, but I risk having none tomorrow. Similarly, when you pay me back by giving me one of your loaves tomorrow, you can't afford to give me more than you received. If I demanded more, you might well starve. There's little enough to go around as it is.
There is no such thing as investment income. Money is good only because it can be stored on a shelf far longer than that salted venison or the dried fish we caught in the spring. All of that will eventually have to be consumed or it will go bad. But gold, silver, anything that has a longer shelf-life than the consumables it can be traded for, has value.
That's the upside to money. The downside is, you can't eat it.
I can't give you bread, and then charge you extra if you choose to eat the bread. Bread is made to be consumed. In a subsistence-level economy, money is also made to be consumed. I accept your gold for my bread ONLY because I expect to be able to spend that gold on bread for myself tomorrow. For us, money is like food, fire, clothes or any other barter material - it is consumed in the transaction. If I took your money in exchange for my food, I may very well not have enough food of my own. I will need to swiftly trade your money for more food.
If I can't "eat up" the gold you give me, that is, if I can't spend it, I'm not going to give you my bread no matter how much gold you have. I would starve if I did. The gold you give me today I will spend tomorrow to get bread for myself. Gold, bread, wine, it's all the same thing really. All of it will be stored, eaten, used up. That's what it's made for.
So, I can't expect you to repay me the loaf of bread AND expect you to pay me another half loaf for the privilege of eating the bread I gave you. Bound up with the very nature of bread is the expectation that it will be eaten. Asking for more bread than I gave you is charging for something that doesn't exist. It's asking you to pay for a right that is already given to you when you got the bread to begin with - with the bread, you also got the right to EAT that bread.
Catholics aren't allowed to charge for things that don't really exist. That's usury. Charging interest on a loan was, for the subsistence-level society, identical to asking for a loaf and a half back on every loaf given out. That's just evil. I'm killing people when I demand it.
Unlike cows, sheep, or grain, gold doesn't breed, so I can't ask for more than I gave, since the very act of asking would impoverish you.
But times changed. As societies grew beyond subsistence level, they found they had more barter stuff, that is, more gold, wheat, spice, cloth, then they really needed. What to do with the extra?
Some smart person somewhere realized that he could use his gold to barter with people at a far distance. He could invest the gold in a caravan or a ship. If the caravan actually returned with what he had bought, he would have a lot of barter material. His ship would have come in.
On the other hand, if he invested all his money and it was waylaid by weather or bandits, he might very well starve. There was a risk in making such an investment. A LOT of risk. It was smarter to share that risk with others. The only way to share the risk in a fair way was to share the wealth that would come if you beat the odds.
This is the beginning of investment banking. Once I have transport and excess goods, I find that gold is no longer a consumable that disappears because I have to eat. Now gold - or any money that may be used in its place - is a way to assess risk and investment, it has changed to become a marker in a much larger game.
If I am investing my money, putting it at risk in the hopes of greater returns for all involved, then I have a perfect right to share that risk out amongst all the investors involved. The investors likewise have a right to demand a share in the reward - a dollar and a half for the dollar invested. This is the charging of interest on a loan, but it is no longer usury, because the risk is very real, and the return on the investment is also very real.
Now you see the problem.
The Church has never changed her teaching on usury. It's still a sin. You can't sell something that doesn't exist. The teaching didn't change, but the cultural definitions of "money" and "interest" did. The definition of money is dramatically different now than it was in the first millennium of the Church's existence. Now money is an electronic cypher in a computer somewhere, a set of bits flipping back and forth, the swap of electrons on a silicon wafer.
We have changed the meaning of money.
In a similar way, God can change the meaning of who we are.
Prior to marriage, every consensual heterosexual act is fornication. But when a person gets married, he can no longer commit fornication, he can only commit adultery. Furthermore, while he can still sin sexually, he can now engage in consensual sexual acts that are not sin at all, but are actually a means to holiness.
The sacrament has changed him. Since the definition of who he is has changed, so the definition of how he can sin and how he can be virtuous has also changed.
In exactly the same way, the definitions of money and interest changed so that what used to be a sin can be transformed into an acceptable act. What I could not do in a subsistence-level barter system, changes into something I most assuredly CAN do in an affluent society in order to assess risk.
So, we can still commit the sin of usury, that is, we can still charge for something that doesn't exist or charge extra for something that doesn't deserve an extra charge, but we don't necessarily commit that sin by charging interest because the secular definitions of the traditional terms have changed.
Church teaching hasn't changed.
We have.
Postscript:
If you like this essay, I have dozens like them available at bridegroompress.com.
Just sign up for the weekly e-mail in the floating dialog box, and I'll send you an essay every week explaining some aspect of Church teaching. It doesn't cost a thing, and I would appreciate it if you did.
TLDR
Charging interest on a loan in order to make a profit is still forbidden. However, money may be rented. That is legitimate.
The principle revolves around the intent of the person lending. If I have money, I have several things I can do with it.
- I can use it to directly take care of the needs of my family and myself
- I can use it to start a business and generate a living income for my family and myself, or
- I can lend it to someone but, if I lend it to someone, I am denied the use of the money itself.
Just as I might ask you to recompense me, in some manner, for the privilege of borrowing my car (for when you use my car, I cannot use it), I can legitimately ask you to recompense me, in some manner, for borrowing my money. Usury is charging interest on a loan for the purpose of profit.
The difference here is analogous to the difference between paying someone slave wages and a just wage. The Church says you can't force someone to work for you and, if they choose to work for you, you can't exploit them by paying them less than their work is worth.
Simply paying them a pittance does not satisfy justice. Similarly, you can't exploit someone by asking them to recompense you for the use of your money to a degree that outweighs what you would have derived from your own use of that money in other circumstances.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Condom Use Is Moral?
Now an Opus Dei priest has weighed in on the condom controversy, arguing in a lengthy OSV article that condom use, while it may have a prophylactic effect, can be a lessening of the evil of an intrinsically disordered act.
But this priest goes much farther than that, and his conclusions are quite disturbing.
There are several sections which attempt to summarize this thought, but here's as close to a money quote as the article's diffuse, poorly articulated reasoning presents:
But here, we hear that the object of the will, the reason for doing the act, CAN mitigate the evil and be a step towards the good.
Alright.
But then he says this:
Thus, if it's the "use which presents the moral problem" then the moral problem is present in a heterosexual encounter regardless of intent.
The male fluids contain both semen and virii.
The means for preventing entry to the one is identically the same action that prevents the entry to the other.
The "use" is not just similar actions, it is THE SELF-SAME ACTION.
Even the intent is the same - to keep the seminal fluids out.
Now, the ultimate reason you want to keep the seminal fluids out is different, but what you are using (the condom) and your proximate desire/outcome (the penetration of male fluids into the woman) is built on the self-same action and the self-same intent.
So, in order to make his point, the good priest has to change the meaning of the word "use" from "use" to "intent." But even that is not good enough to accomplish what he wants - he has to narrow the meaning of "intent" so as to completely ignore proximate intent and focus only on ultimate intent. It's the only way he can come to his conclusion "what the pope says does not even refer to the question of contraception."
In other words, he is making EXACTLY THE SAME EQUIVOCATION THE HOLY FATHER MADE in the original statement.
If you'll recall, just hours after Pope's statement came out, I pointed out that the Holy Father initially said the "use" of the condom lessened the evil, then only later in the interview qualified the remark by saying it was the intent.
Everyone kept focusing (and indeed, still focuses) on intent, and pretended (or still pretends) the "use" statement never happened.
But it did happen, and the Opus Dei priest is doubling down on it.
Let's be clear here - "use" is different than "intent."
That's why we have two words, after all.
The man even admits this:
Is Condomized Sex a Marital Act?
The good priest recognizes the slippery slope he has created, and attempts to defuse it through raw assertion:
But notice, he refers to condom use as "sexual acts within marriage." He says this even though, earlier in the same article, he has admitted that these sexual acts are not properly acts within marriage at all (exactly what I warned Jimmy Akin about, which is why Jimmy refused to continue the conversation):
As I've pointed out before, this is theological syphilis - blind, absurd and incoherent. So it is no surprise to see his reasoning descend into that same syphilitic incoherence.
He simultaneously holds that condoms should not be used during fertile periods:
But why the hesitancy in the first opinion? After all, if using a condom isn't an intrinsically sinful act, then why shouldn't a married couple use condoms regardless of the fertile period? If the ultimate intent is prevention of disease transmission, and they don't want to ruin their entire lives by procreating, then what's wrong with using a condom?
Sure, the point of marriage is procreation, indeed, the biological point of sex itself is procreation, but if we can frustrate the very biology via the use of a condom by a fornicating couple, then what difference does it make if we frustrate that biology inside or outside the marriage? All we're doing in marriage is violating sacred vows to procreate, but in condomized fornication, we're violating our very own sacred natures, so what difference does a little vow-breaking make?
What matters is no one get the sniffles.
Whereas using a condom to prevent death by syphilis was always seen as a problem, our new enlightened age with our new enlightened version of syphilis (HIV) has changed our thinking. Obviously HIV is entirely different than any other STD because.... well, just because.
If this is where the Pope intended to take us, the Pope - in his capacity as private theologian - is wrong. What the "private theologian" said in the interview will never be written into a Magisterial document because the conclusions announced by this priest, his avid supporter, are erroneous.
Personally, I see no point in reading the speculations of a private theologian, even if he is the Pope. Spend time with the Magisterium - the saints, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the official documents of the Church. Benedict's private speculations are not part of Church teaching in any formal way. Insofar as what he says matches the Magisterium, it is already present in other documents. Insofar as what he says does not match the Magisterium, it is not worth any good Catholic's time.
But this priest goes much farther than that, and his conclusions are quite disturbing.
There are several sections which attempt to summarize this thought, but here's as close to a money quote as the article's diffuse, poorly articulated reasoning presents:
Granted that immoral sexual behavior should be avoided altogether, in my view the point rightly made by the Holy Father is that when someone who is already performing immoral acts uses a condom, he or she does not properly choose a lesser evil, but simply tries to prevent an evil — the evil of infection. From the sinner’s point of view this obviously means to choose some good: health. Yet, provided we consider the immoral activities (for example, prostitution) to be intrinsically evil, using a condom to prevent infection means to reduce the evilness and moral disorder of this activity.Alright, let's accept the man's argument. Prior to this, I have NEVER heard anyone say that the object of the will can change the evil of an intrinsically disordered act. By it's very nature, an "intrinsically disordered act" is evil - the object of the will is not going to change that. The act itself carries meaning, and that "act-ual" meaning, as it were, is wrong, regardless of the intent.
But here, we hear that the object of the will, the reason for doing the act, CAN mitigate the evil and be a step towards the good.
Alright.
But then he says this:
A condom is designed to be a means for impeding male fluids from penetrating into the woman’s womb. Its normal use is for contraception. In the case the pope speaks of, however, the reason for their use is not the impeding of conception, but preventing infection. We should not confuse human acts, which may be intrinsically good or intrinsically evil, with “things.” It’s not the condom as such, but its use, which presents the moral problem. Therefore, what the pope says does not even refer to the question of contraceptionWhat he means by "use" appears to be not "use" but "intent." For the use of the condom in the two acts - whether it be contraception or disease prophylaxis - is the same. In both cases, the condom is " a means for impeding male fluids from penetrating into the woman’s womb."
Thus, if it's the "use which presents the moral problem" then the moral problem is present in a heterosexual encounter regardless of intent.
The male fluids contain both semen and virii.
The means for preventing entry to the one is identically the same action that prevents the entry to the other.
The "use" is not just similar actions, it is THE SELF-SAME ACTION.
Even the intent is the same - to keep the seminal fluids out.
Now, the ultimate reason you want to keep the seminal fluids out is different, but what you are using (the condom) and your proximate desire/outcome (the penetration of male fluids into the woman) is built on the self-same action and the self-same intent.
So, in order to make his point, the good priest has to change the meaning of the word "use" from "use" to "intent." But even that is not good enough to accomplish what he wants - he has to narrow the meaning of "intent" so as to completely ignore proximate intent and focus only on ultimate intent. It's the only way he can come to his conclusion "what the pope says does not even refer to the question of contraception."
In other words, he is making EXACTLY THE SAME EQUIVOCATION THE HOLY FATHER MADE in the original statement.
If you'll recall, just hours after Pope's statement came out, I pointed out that the Holy Father initially said the "use" of the condom lessened the evil, then only later in the interview qualified the remark by saying it was the intent.
Everyone kept focusing (and indeed, still focuses) on intent, and pretended (or still pretends) the "use" statement never happened.
But it did happen, and the Opus Dei priest is doubling down on it.
Let's be clear here - "use" is different than "intent."
That's why we have two words, after all.
The man even admits this:
If we don’t know what the purpose is in using the “thing” — the condom — in a sexual act of prostitution, we cannot know what kind of moral act is performed here...Here he clearly differentiates between "use" and "intent." But he's also clearly made a stupid statement - we already know what kind of moral act is being performed here - it's prostitution, which is evil. What he means is, we can't know if the person is trying to avoid one of the evil consequences of his evil action (transmitting disease) or if he's trying to avoid a good consequence of his evil action (the procreation of a child).
Is Condomized Sex a Marital Act?
The good priest recognizes the slippery slope he has created, and attempts to defuse it through raw assertion:
Therefore it is not a question of simply shifting intentions (the further intention) with which we are doing this or that. In this way nearly any action could be justified. One can always find a good intention for justifying the doing of evil things.But, of course, that's exactly what he's doing. All he's doing is shifting the intention from the proximate to the remote or ultimate. When he sees that his teaching could lead to really lousy moral conclusions, he hastily adds:
These kinds of special questions are outside the scope of what the pope wanted to say and we should not try to extend his remarks to very different cases which are the subject of many expert books. And in so far as these questions refer to sexual acts within marriage, the problems are again of a different order.That is, his reasoning is so lousy that he doesn't want it to be generalized to establish a precedent.
But notice, he refers to condom use as "sexual acts within marriage." He says this even though, earlier in the same article, he has admitted that these sexual acts are not properly acts within marriage at all (exactly what I warned Jimmy Akin about, which is why Jimmy refused to continue the conversation):
Relying on an old tradition in moral theology that is also reflected in canon law, it was argued that sexual intercourse with a condom by impeding insemination would not meet the physical requirements of a marital act. Because insemination was interrupted, according to this understanding, the act of intercourse was therefore not an act of a generative kind but instead something intrinsically perverted, more like an act of masturbation, sodomy or even bestiality than conjugal love. Although there would be no act chosen explicitly for the purpose of rendering infertile a conjugal act, the use of the condom to prevent the transmission of HIV would be intrinsically evil, annulling the properly marital meaning of sexual intercourse.
There was some scholarly exchange about this, mainly in the National Catholic Bioethical Quarterly. To this day, I am not sure whether this argument is really compelling...
Alright. So a moral argument based in canon law and the ancient traditions of the Church is not "really compelling..." Lovely.
Is Procreation Of A New Human Life, A Person, A Good?
Knowing this, should we be at all surprised to see this gem drop from our good priest's lips?
On the other hand, I consider that a man who at least cares that his occasional female sexual partner not become pregnant acts more responsibly — or less irresponsibly — than a man who does not care about possibly destroying a girl’s entire life; I am thinking of the man who prefers to maximize his pleasure and thus insists on having sex without using condoms. [emphasis added]Now we discover that a man who uses a condom in order to prevent pregnancy is actually acting in a morally responsible way! After all, the conception of an immortal being, the procreation of a new human life, is an unalloyed good, and we wouldn't want to "destroy a girl's entire life" (not a "woman's life," because "woman" sounds too Scriptural and adult, so we'll just talk about a "girl's life") by allowing the possibility of an unalloyed immortal good, a person in the image and likeness of God, to become part of existence, now would we?
As I've pointed out before, this is theological syphilis - blind, absurd and incoherent. So it is no surprise to see his reasoning descend into that same syphilitic incoherence.
He simultaneously holds that condoms should not be used during fertile periods:
In practice it is hard for an intention to prevent infection not to fuse with other, morally disordered intentions, such as the properly contraceptive intent of preventing the conception of an infected baby. For this reason, spouses should in any case abstain from intercourse, at least in knowingly fertile periods (this doesn’t apply to sterile spouses, of course).and that condoms can be used at any time by a married couple in which one partner has HIV:
I wrote in 2004 in a letter to The Tablet that “Personally I would never encourage a couple to use a condom, but to abstain. If they disagree, I would not think their intercourse to be an intrinsically sinful act or even a sin ‘against nature’ equal to sodomy, as some moral theologians say.”And why would it be? Just because the couple is now engaging in extra-marital sex (for that is what a barrier contraceptive is for married couples, even if it is with each other), why would that be a sin?
But why the hesitancy in the first opinion? After all, if using a condom isn't an intrinsically sinful act, then why shouldn't a married couple use condoms regardless of the fertile period? If the ultimate intent is prevention of disease transmission, and they don't want to ruin their entire lives by procreating, then what's wrong with using a condom?
Sure, the point of marriage is procreation, indeed, the biological point of sex itself is procreation, but if we can frustrate the very biology via the use of a condom by a fornicating couple, then what difference does it make if we frustrate that biology inside or outside the marriage? All we're doing in marriage is violating sacred vows to procreate, but in condomized fornication, we're violating our very own sacred natures, so what difference does a little vow-breaking make?
What matters is no one get the sniffles.
Whereas using a condom to prevent death by syphilis was always seen as a problem, our new enlightened age with our new enlightened version of syphilis (HIV) has changed our thinking. Obviously HIV is entirely different than any other STD because.... well, just because.
If this is where the Pope intended to take us, the Pope - in his capacity as private theologian - is wrong. What the "private theologian" said in the interview will never be written into a Magisterial document because the conclusions announced by this priest, his avid supporter, are erroneous.
Personally, I see no point in reading the speculations of a private theologian, even if he is the Pope. Spend time with the Magisterium - the saints, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the official documents of the Church. Benedict's private speculations are not part of Church teaching in any formal way. Insofar as what he says matches the Magisterium, it is already present in other documents. Insofar as what he says does not match the Magisterium, it is not worth any good Catholic's time.
Monday, December 06, 2010
The AP Is Bewitched
Got this humdinger of an e-mail from Dawn Eden today and I just had to share it.
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you think of AP college courses, don't it?
Here's the PDF of the AP chapter
Here's the PDF of the AP student notes on the chapter
Dawn tells us:
"A high-school textbook used for the AP (Advanced Placement) European History exam equates the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance with "high magic" and says that, to combat witchcraft in the 13th century, "the Church declared its magic to be the only true magic."
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you think of AP college courses, don't it?
Here's the PDF of the AP chapter
Here's the PDF of the AP student notes on the chapter
Dawn tells us:
"A high-school textbook used for the AP (Advanced Placement) European History exam equates the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance with "high magic" and says that, to combat witchcraft in the 13th century, "the Church declared its magic to be the only true magic."
The Western Heritage Since 1300 (10th Edition, AP Edition, is published by Pearson Education Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall) is written by Donald Kagan of Yale University, Stephen Ozment of Harvard University, and Frank M. Turner of Yale Unversity.
Attached as a PDF file are the relevant portions of the textbook, which were given to me by a teacher at a Catholic high school that uses the textbook. The teacher, who does not teach history, learned about it from a student who asked her if its account of "Church magic" was true.
Also attached, as a Word file, is an actual AP European History study sheet featuring material from the book. The study sheet is available as a download from http://teacherweb.com/ . The download link is http://teacherweb.com/CA/SantiagoHighSchool/Krueger/AP-Euro-Chapter-14-Student-Notes-Pages.doc .
Sample quote from the book's Chapter 14, p. 438, under the section title "Influence of the Clergy":
Had ordinary people not believed that "gifted persons" could help or harm by magical means, and had they not been willing to accuse them, the hunts would never have occured; however, the contribution of Christian theologians was equally great. When the church expanded into areas where its power and influence were small, it encountered semipagan cultures rich in folkloric beliefs that predated Christianity. There, it clashed with the cunning men and women, who were respected spiritual authorities in their local communities, the folk equivalents of Christian priests. The Christian clergy also practiced high magic. They could transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ (the sacrament of the Eucharist) and eternal penalties for sin into temporal ones (the sacrament of Penance or Confession). The also claimed the power to cast out demons who possessed the faithful.In the late thirteenth century, the Church declared its magic to be the only true magic. Since such powers were not innate to humans, the theologians reasoned, they must come either from God or from the devil. Those from God were properly exercised within and by the church. Any who practiced magic outside and against the church did so on behalf of the devil.
And a sample quote from the attached study sheet:
-
- Influence of the Clergy
______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ ____________ ________________ ________________ ______
When I got this missive from Dawn, I just started laughing.
Oddly enough, as we were reviewing for next week's final exam, I was just reminding my college class again this evening the difference between liturgy and magic.
You see, while both involve ritual, the rituals have entirely different purposes.
In order to do magic, you have to be an animist or polytheist.
Magic only works if you believe in lots of gods, none of them too smart, all of them venal, self-serving or at least relatively inscrutable. That is, you have to believe gods are like government employees or college professors, only a lot more powerful.
Animists and polytheists tend to believe all kinds of things have spirits with varying degrees of strange or unknown power - trees, animals, rivers, rocks. According to this way of thinking, all these quasi-persons can intentionally harm us.
The point of magic is to greet these other "persons" in a (generally) kindly fashion, and then use the rituals of magic to either ingratiate ourselves to them or get some level of control over them. Magic is intended to change the gods so that they won't be of a mind to hurt us or won't be able to hurt us.
But liturgy, such as was practiced by the Jews in the Temple, and still is practiced by Catholics and Orthodox (and to a lesser extent, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, etc.), liturgy is quite a different kettle of fish.
In liturgy, the point of the ritual is to change the believer who participates in it.
In liturgy, we who believe mean to submit ourselves to the omnipotent, unchanging, all-powerful God. In liturgy, we lie prostrate before God. We allow God to act upon us, to change us, to change who we are, so that we are brought to understand what the Good truly is. We ask God to change us so that we want the good that God intends for us. Liturgy is meant to bring us into conformance to God.
Far from asking the gods to stop hurting us, in liturgy we ask God to forgive us for, and teach us how to stop, crucifying Him. In liturgy, God allows us to participate in the repair of the rift we have made between us, we get a chance to help clean up the mess we made.
So, while magic and liturgy are both rituals, they have precisely opposite purposes.
In magic, we attempt to make the gods docile to us.
In liturgy, God helps us become docile to Him.
You would think college professors would know the difference between controlling a class and being controlled by a class.
Now, I would like to explain these concepts to the gentlemen who wrote these texts, but I don't think I can. The Spirit is willing, but their flesh is too weak.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
A Glimpse Inside the Fish Bowl.
Father John Trigilio has recently expressed outrage. The release of US internal diplomatic messages by Wikileaks is treasonous!
Yes.
Well.
It can't be Assange who is treasonous since treason is an action taken against one's own legitimate government. The man who runs Wikileaks is Australian.
That rules him out.
We could lay the charge against whichever American released the documents to Wikileaks, of course, but therein lies the rub.
Can we assume everything our government does is legitimate?
In other words, are there occasions when government action should be brought to the attention of the world?
I am thinking of the numerous examples of US government sponsored testing of radioactive and biological agents on various sub-populations within US borders, the testing of these agents against American citizens. Would it have been treasonous to release that kind of information, even though that information release would destabilize a particular President or government party?
Or, try another question.
Was it treasonous to reveal who was behind the Watergate break-in?
You may argue that the President and his cohorts broke the laws, and therefore it was right to reveal their activities.
OK.
But now we are into a matter of judgement, for in order to make that assessment, we must, in some sense, be both trial judge and jury in order to determine what should be released and what should not. And isn't a citizen who acts as both trial judge and jury breaking the law, assuming guilt before a trial, etc.?
Notice, I'm not arguing against the idea that each of us must act as trial judge and jury in such a situation. I think that's a laudable thing for everyone to do.
Whenever a leak like this happens, it happens because someone feels the information being released should be more widely known in order to prevent some abuse. Whether that judgement is correct may be open to question, but that is generally the motive which drives the leak (it may also be the case that the person releasing the information is being paid to do so, which definitely would be treason, but let us assume the higher motives).
To Whom Was This News?
Now, as to the information leaked, to whom was this news?
Despite the protestations to the contrary, I would strongly wager that none of the principles named in the cables were entirely unaware of how others viewed them. The diplomatic community is not incredibly large, and they all know that everyone is spying on each other, most of them probably managing it with at least some success.
So, just as the diplomats routinely lie in their public utterances to the unwashed masses (read "you and me"), while privately informing their superiors of the real, publicly unstated problems, so these same diplomats are required to register public shock and concern about these public revelations, if only so as not to blow the cover on the people who had already revealed all of the cable contents to them moments after the relevant cables were sent.
In short, these public officials are shocked, shocked to findgambling going on at Rick's out what American diplomats really think.
They are just as shocked as American diplomats would be to hear the same from other countries.
The Wikileaks avalanche will "chill" international relations not one whit.
So, again, to whom is this news?
The only people who are really getting a new slant on the world is us, the unwashed masses.
We get the opportunity to see that our diplomats are not truly the raving loons and farcical idiots they publicly represent themselves to be. Much to our shock, we discover in some cases, they actually do have a grasp on reality, on some level they do recognize that Islam is a threat, certain world leaders are recognized as murderous maniacs, etc.
Even as we revel in the incompetence, the high school antics, of Barack's officials, it is comforting to know they aren't always the absolute bubble-heads they pretend to be.
The Threat
Does Wikileaks represent a threat?
To be sure, it does.
It threatens to make clear what is going on in the world - a highly dangerous thing to do, if you don't want that information out.
But in a democratic republic, shouldn't the people have some idea of what is going on?
To date, no one in State or anywhere else has said any of the released cables are fabrications. Everyone seems to agree they are the real thing.
So, all we are getting here is the truth - at least more truth than we previously had - and isn't it the truth that will set us free?
Now, some will argue that the release of this kind of information already has and certainly will, get people killed.
That's absolutely true.
For those of us who thought we were mostly at peace, the new realization that we have never been at peace, that we have always been combatants in a war, a war that generates real blood and real casualties, this realization may come as a shock.
Once you are finished being shocked, we can start the conversation again.
In normal battle situations, soldiers are put in harm's way and many of them get killed.
In information-gathering situations, soldiers are put in harm's way and many of them get killed.
In normal warfare, we do everything we can to limit casualties - armor, flak vests, etc.
In information warfare, we do everything to limit identification of the soldier. Anonymity is his armor, the release of information is the artillery fusillade that kills him.
In an avalanche of information, there may be some "collateral damage."
That's how normal warfare describes civilian casualties.
That's how information warfare describes the loss of soldiers who are agents.
Notice the difference between civilians and soldiers.
You may argue that the loss of the spy puts the civilians at risk.
That's true.
But the "collateral damage" of real warfare, by definition, means the civilians are already dead, and people seem to swallow that without blinking.
Why is the bloody reality easier to bear than the fear built into a barely outlined possibility?
Is it because we are no longer men?
Assange offered to let the US Government redact the documents to protect innocent lives.
The US Government refused to do so.
What does that say about the US Government's interest in the lives of their operatives?
And, in that light, if a breach is going to happen, isn't it better that Wikileaks get this material and make obvious to all involved that the government in question has a security problem? I doubt the Muslims, the Russians or sundry other countries would prefer to advertise the existence of this kind of security hole.
In that regard, Assange is pretty close to our best friend. He let's everyone know where the holes are. Not too many people looking for gain would be so kind.
The Bare Truth
Wikileaks has, so far, only released information from the United States, if only because the US is the least likely to execute someone for releasing state secrets, so US citizens who have access to such information are less concerned about leaking it to something like Wikileaks then would be their opposite numbers in more dictatorial governments.
But, as various spying missions bear fruit, we can be certain that embarrassing information about other governments and multinational corporations will also come to light through Wikileaks. When it is in certain nation's interests to reveal, when a certain corporation can benefit from the facts, then the information will come out.
Wikileaks will become just one more tool, one more player, in the diplomatic game, the first Internet state, as it were, dedicated to the embarrassment of other, more geographically bound states. The various spies and diplomats will adjust their tactics to take Wikileaks into account, even as Wikileaks attempts to circumvent those adjustments.
Wikileaks will be the international anonymizer, a useful weapon in any international arsenal. It will not be destroyed precisely because, although very dangerous to any particular government (who really wants the public to know what is going on? Where's the advantage in that?), it will prove to be too useful to every government.
And we will occasionally get a glimpse inside the fish bowl.
Yes.
Well.
It can't be Assange who is treasonous since treason is an action taken against one's own legitimate government. The man who runs Wikileaks is Australian.
That rules him out.
We could lay the charge against whichever American released the documents to Wikileaks, of course, but therein lies the rub.
Can we assume everything our government does is legitimate?
In other words, are there occasions when government action should be brought to the attention of the world?
I am thinking of the numerous examples of US government sponsored testing of radioactive and biological agents on various sub-populations within US borders, the testing of these agents against American citizens. Would it have been treasonous to release that kind of information, even though that information release would destabilize a particular President or government party?
Or, try another question.
Was it treasonous to reveal who was behind the Watergate break-in?
You may argue that the President and his cohorts broke the laws, and therefore it was right to reveal their activities.
OK.
But now we are into a matter of judgement, for in order to make that assessment, we must, in some sense, be both trial judge and jury in order to determine what should be released and what should not. And isn't a citizen who acts as both trial judge and jury breaking the law, assuming guilt before a trial, etc.?
Notice, I'm not arguing against the idea that each of us must act as trial judge and jury in such a situation. I think that's a laudable thing for everyone to do.
Whenever a leak like this happens, it happens because someone feels the information being released should be more widely known in order to prevent some abuse. Whether that judgement is correct may be open to question, but that is generally the motive which drives the leak (it may also be the case that the person releasing the information is being paid to do so, which definitely would be treason, but let us assume the higher motives).
To Whom Was This News?
Now, as to the information leaked, to whom was this news?
Despite the protestations to the contrary, I would strongly wager that none of the principles named in the cables were entirely unaware of how others viewed them. The diplomatic community is not incredibly large, and they all know that everyone is spying on each other, most of them probably managing it with at least some success.
So, just as the diplomats routinely lie in their public utterances to the unwashed masses (read "you and me"), while privately informing their superiors of the real, publicly unstated problems, so these same diplomats are required to register public shock and concern about these public revelations, if only so as not to blow the cover on the people who had already revealed all of the cable contents to them moments after the relevant cables were sent.
In short, these public officials are shocked, shocked to find
They are just as shocked as American diplomats would be to hear the same from other countries.
The Wikileaks avalanche will "chill" international relations not one whit.
So, again, to whom is this news?
The only people who are really getting a new slant on the world is us, the unwashed masses.
We get the opportunity to see that our diplomats are not truly the raving loons and farcical idiots they publicly represent themselves to be. Much to our shock, we discover in some cases, they actually do have a grasp on reality, on some level they do recognize that Islam is a threat, certain world leaders are recognized as murderous maniacs, etc.
Even as we revel in the incompetence, the high school antics, of Barack's officials, it is comforting to know they aren't always the absolute bubble-heads they pretend to be.
The Threat
Does Wikileaks represent a threat?
To be sure, it does.
It threatens to make clear what is going on in the world - a highly dangerous thing to do, if you don't want that information out.
But in a democratic republic, shouldn't the people have some idea of what is going on?
To date, no one in State or anywhere else has said any of the released cables are fabrications. Everyone seems to agree they are the real thing.
So, all we are getting here is the truth - at least more truth than we previously had - and isn't it the truth that will set us free?
Now, some will argue that the release of this kind of information already has and certainly will, get people killed.
That's absolutely true.
For those of us who thought we were mostly at peace, the new realization that we have never been at peace, that we have always been combatants in a war, a war that generates real blood and real casualties, this realization may come as a shock.
Once you are finished being shocked, we can start the conversation again.
In normal battle situations, soldiers are put in harm's way and many of them get killed.
In information-gathering situations, soldiers are put in harm's way and many of them get killed.
In normal warfare, we do everything we can to limit casualties - armor, flak vests, etc.
In information warfare, we do everything to limit identification of the soldier. Anonymity is his armor, the release of information is the artillery fusillade that kills him.
In an avalanche of information, there may be some "collateral damage."
That's how normal warfare describes civilian casualties.
That's how information warfare describes the loss of soldiers who are agents.
Notice the difference between civilians and soldiers.
You may argue that the loss of the spy puts the civilians at risk.
That's true.
But the "collateral damage" of real warfare, by definition, means the civilians are already dead, and people seem to swallow that without blinking.
Why is the bloody reality easier to bear than the fear built into a barely outlined possibility?
Is it because we are no longer men?
Assange offered to let the US Government redact the documents to protect innocent lives.
The US Government refused to do so.
What does that say about the US Government's interest in the lives of their operatives?
And, in that light, if a breach is going to happen, isn't it better that Wikileaks get this material and make obvious to all involved that the government in question has a security problem? I doubt the Muslims, the Russians or sundry other countries would prefer to advertise the existence of this kind of security hole.
In that regard, Assange is pretty close to our best friend. He let's everyone know where the holes are. Not too many people looking for gain would be so kind.
The Bare Truth
Wikileaks has, so far, only released information from the United States, if only because the US is the least likely to execute someone for releasing state secrets, so US citizens who have access to such information are less concerned about leaking it to something like Wikileaks then would be their opposite numbers in more dictatorial governments.
But, as various spying missions bear fruit, we can be certain that embarrassing information about other governments and multinational corporations will also come to light through Wikileaks. When it is in certain nation's interests to reveal, when a certain corporation can benefit from the facts, then the information will come out.
Wikileaks will become just one more tool, one more player, in the diplomatic game, the first Internet state, as it were, dedicated to the embarrassment of other, more geographically bound states. The various spies and diplomats will adjust their tactics to take Wikileaks into account, even as Wikileaks attempts to circumvent those adjustments.
Wikileaks will be the international anonymizer, a useful weapon in any international arsenal. It will not be destroyed precisely because, although very dangerous to any particular government (who really wants the public to know what is going on? Where's the advantage in that?), it will prove to be too useful to every government.
And we will occasionally get a glimpse inside the fish bowl.
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