The Bible As Science Text

Many people, even many Catholics, have an incoherent desire to treat the Bible as a science textbook. Let's examine how well that works out.

1) The Earth is Flat: Most of the Old Testament was written by about 400 BC. Unfortunately, Eratosthenes of Cyrene didn't demonstrate that the earth was round until about 200 BC.

So, the Old Testament assumes that the earth is a flat disc, hanging in space and immoveable. The sky is a dome, and above the sky are the waters. When doors in the sky open up, the waters fall: this is called rain.

Now, when the ancient Hebrews heard about Eratosthenes' work, they undoubtedly said that his proposal was just an unproven theory, and that there was a lot of evidence against this novel and un-Biblical idea of sphericity. But, if the Bible is a science textbook, then we must assume that the sphericity of the earth is unproven (although it is the case that almost all the Church Fathers ignored the Scripture's teachings on this point, and instead taught a spherical earth).

And, indeed, you might even point out that the earth is not actually a sphere. Most modern geographers insist it is actually pear-shaped, with the Northern Hemisphere pinched slightly inward in comparison to the Southern Hemisphere. Because there are competing theories - perfect sphere versus slight pear-shape - we can argue there is no consensus about the earth's sphericity and thus the world must, indeed, be flat.

2) The Earth is Young: Of course, the same arguments are used to hold to the idea that both the earth and the universe it inhabits are around 6000 years old. When confronted with the evidence to the contrary, Young Earthers have even been known to say that God is not bound by the laws of logic! This is a much stronger argument for Muslims than it is for Christians, since Muslims teach exactly this: God is SO powerful that he is not bound by the laws of logic. He can make a square circle. He can make a rock so big He can't lift it. Except He could, because He's God and can do whatever He wants, even to the point of wanting or doing logically contradictory/impossible things.

Sadly, most Young Earthers are Christians who don't appear to realize that Christianity has always taught God to be pure rationality. Not only is God bound by the laws of rationality, He IS rationality itself. All that is rational is a reflection of His perfect nature, all that is irrational is a distortion of who God is. God is rational for His own Name's sake, because to do that which is irrational would be to violate his own divinity.

The problem here is clear. People who insist on Intelligent Design when it comes to the creation of life apparently want to insist on Inscrutable Design when it comes to the creation of the physical universe.

If we accept that God is rational and that the heavens are telling the glory of God and all creation shows forth His handiwork, then we must accept that rational evidence is to be accepted as part of nature's testimony about God.  Robert Bellarmine, one of the 35 Doctors of the Church, wrote to Galileo explaining precisely this:

I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun was in the center of the universe and the earth in the third sphere, and that the sun did not travel around the earth but the earth circled the sun, then it would be necessary to proceed with great caution in explaining the passages of Scripture which seemed contrary, and we would rather have to say that we did not understand them (the Scriptures) than to say that something was false which has been demonstrated.

Catholics, did you catch that? According to Bellarmine, the mute testimony of nature actually trumps the literary communications of Scripture! Why? Because nature can speak with only one voice, while literary works can be interpreted in multiple ways. Since truth cannot contradict truth, if something is demonstrated in nature, the truth that has many levels of interpretation must be interpreted in such a way that the truth with more limited levels of interpretation coincide.

Now, does the Catholic Church require Young Earthism? A lot of traditionalist Catholics would insist that She does. I would disagree. Neither the Catechism of Trent nor the Universal Catechism teaches Young Earth, nor do any of the Councils require it. The Church doesn't forbid Catholics believing it, but She doesn't encourage it.

3) The Earth is the center of the Universe: The great irony of "Bible as science textbook" lies in the assertion of geocentrism. Of all the things you can say about the Bible as science, geocentrism is the one experimentally demonstrably provable tenet. Despite this, almost no one who wants to make the Bible a science textbook insists publicly on this point.

Now, I am not a geocentrist, but I am fairly well-acquainted with someone who is: Robert Sungenis of Catholic Apologetics International and the Bellarmine Report.

And here's the mystery: while most Young Earthers would reject geocentrism, the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe, it is the only proposition which is undeniably true. Well, given certain caveats. Let me explain.

From the beginning of human history until about the time of the Greeks, everyone thought the earth was the center of the universe. About 270 BC, a Greek, Aristarchus of Samos, proposed that the sun was actually at the center of the universe. Seleucus of Seleucia (190 BC) agreed with him and used a theory of tides to support the idea. While many Greeks accepted this idea, Ptolemy (90-168 AD) did not. Ptolemy taught what had always been taught: the earth is at the center of the universe.

In the 1500s, Copernicus ran across Aristarchus' idea and revived it. Galileo adopted Seleucus' tidal argument to support Copernicus. The heliocentric theory, the idea that the sun is at the center of the universe, was gradually adopted throughout the civilized world. Now, that version of heliocentrism is just as wrong as geocentrism, in the sense that the sun is not the center of the universe, merely of the solar system. But we'll let that pass. The point is, at least one version of heliocentrism was so universally accepted that, today, even Young Earthers swallow it without question.

Which just goes to show that Young Earthers don't understand physics. When Einstein came along, he pointed out that what was considered the center of any system depended entirely on one's frame of reference. With appropriate modifications, math equations can be used which allow *ANY* given body to be considered the center of the universe without doing any harm to the observational results obtained from the system.

So, from:

• the dawn of time to Copernicus, the earth was considered the center of the universe,
• Copernicus to Einstein, the sun was considered the center of the universe,
• Einstein to today, we recognize that anything can be considered the center. Using one point instead of another might make the calculations easier, but there really isn't any difference.

Now, does the Church require Catholics to hold a geocentric position?

Bob Sungenis, who is a wonderful Catholic apologist in most respects, says "YES! It's DOCTRINE that the earth is the center of the universe. Given that anything can be center, Catholics are required to hold that the earth is the most appropriate center."

I say "I sincerely doubt that it is doctrine."

What I can't understand is this: if the Church requires us to hold to Young Earth Creationism, why aren't Young Earthers logically consistent? Why don't they ALSO hold to geocentrism, which is a lot easier to defend than Young Earthism is? This is a mystery to me.

4) Beginning of Life: According to traditionalists, God had to create everything through special creation because the Bible would have it so. Holding to special creation - the theory that God created everything fully formed and immediately - is the only way to fight perfidious evolution!

Except perfidious evolution doesn't even address how or when life begins. The origin of life is not part of any evolutionary theory. All evolutionary theories (and there are lots of them, many of them mutually exclusive), begin by assuming life already exists. Furthermore, the Church is quite clear that how life gets on in the world, whether by evolution or no, is not a point of doctrine. If you want to believe in special creation, have at it. If you want to believe in evolution, enjoy yourself. As long as you acknowledge God as the Lord and Giver of Life, it makes no difference to the Church.

So, the whole argument about how life begins is a pure strawman on the part of the anti-evolutionist Young Earther traditionalists. They argue that evolutionary theory takes a position on when/how life begins when it takes no position on that issue whatsoever.

Personally, I find creationism absurd and evolutionary theories, at best, woefully inadequate. I don't think anyone has a real handle on how life began or how we got to the point of having had all the species to which archeology provides witness. 95% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct, and almost all of them went extinct well before human beings walked the planet. Why is that? How is that? No one really seems to have a decent explanation of the mechanics. The only people who seem to have a decent explanation of the "why" are monotheists, and even there, it isn't clear why so many species went belly up before God brought us into the picture.

So, if you want to use the Bible as a science text, I ask only that you be consistent. If you are a Young Earther, you really should promote geocentrism as well. Stop attributing to evolution that which evolution doesn't even address: the beginning of life. Seriously consider joining the Flat Earth Society.

Be consistent.

UPDATE:
Apparently, Saint Augustine said the word firmament was used "to indicate not that it is motionless but that it is solid and that it constitutes an impassable boundary between the waters above and the waters below" (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, ACW 41.1.61). So, it's not clear if Augustine supported the flat earth or not.

Boy Scouts and Sodomy

A lot of ink has been spilled about the BSA's recent decision to allow avowedly homosexual Boy Scouts to serve.

Upon reflection, this is not that big a deal.

After all, the BSA has allowed Muslims to be part of its organization since 1982. Both Sunni and Shia Islam insist that it is virtuous for an adult man to marry and have sex with any female between the ages of birth and death. A Muslim proverb is that a woman should have her first menstrual period in her husband's house.

So, the BSA has been admitting and promoting scouts who advocate adult-child sex for a long, long time. Over thirty years, in fact. With this latest ruling, they have just opened themselves up to the same kind of advocacy for male-male sex.

And notice, it isn't just male-male sex they are permitting. The exact wording is that they "remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone."

So, adult-child sex, same-sex, human-animal, man-corpse sex... whatever you want to advocate, all of it is now legitimate for the BSA. Theoretically, the promotion of any of these orientations/predilections would be a legitimate focus for an Eagle Scout project. A scout couldn't engage in any of these activities directly, but any scout could certainly encourage and support such activities among others and demand respect from the BSA for such advocacy.

You see?
In that sense, the proponents of the change are correct. The change is not as bad as we thought, if only because we didn't understand how bad it was before.

Child Arrested for Poem

"We only wish they'd bomb the school,
We're awfully tired of studies."

Those two lines got an 8th-grader, Nina Peregud, arrested and thrown into prison. The horrible sacrilege of these lines, in a schoolgirl's handwriting, demonstrated a clear and present danger of terrorist attack.

As a result of having composed those lines, her bedroom was searched. Arresting officers discovered her 6th grade diaries and immediately confiscated them.

And it was a good thing they did. Within those diaries, the arresting officers found a photograph of a church that had been destroyed. This was taken as proof of her dangerous Christian fundamentalist leanings and used as evidence against her. As she was being processed, officers discovered that she wore a crucifix around her neck. Understandably, they demanded she remove it. She refused - her mother had given to her on the morning of the arrest. For this offense, the courts separated her from her parents and placed her into foster care, specifically, into an orphanage, to assure her own safety and the safety of others.

Now, can you guess where it happened?

Sweden?
Finland?
Germany?
Massachusetts?
California?
Chicago?

All very good guesses.
Indeed, anyone today would believe me if I were to name any of those locations.

But, the actual location was Stalinist Russia during World War II.
The account is taken from the Gulag Archipelago, Volume II, p. 465-466.

Good thing the West, especially America, are countries of freedom under the rule of law, eh?

Memorial Day - The American Children's War

This Memorial Day, remember the Unknown Soldiers.

Remember the children who died so that their parents might be free.

Over the last forty years, millions of American children sacrificed their lives so that their parents could be free... free from responsibility, free from maturity, free from the duty to care for another person.

These children died so that their parents might be free to engage their lust without fear or concern.

These are the little soldiers without uniforms, the guerilla warriors who sneak quietly into the lives of their parents and remind those adults of American values: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Peace, love, care for the smallest and the poorest. Generosity, kindness. These great American values are what those smallest of children stand for, fighting for sanctuary and life in what has become an embattled trench: their mother's womb.

These little soldiers endure knives and chemical weapons. They endure the whirring blade, the sucking chest wound, the arms and legs ripped from the torso, the decapitations and the scalpel in the base of the skull. They died like the British soldier of Wellington Street, and their murderers righteously defend the violence wreaked upon the bodies. The killers do not flee, but rather bask in the glow of video and television, they accept the adulation they have so meritoriously earned, they explain the philosophy which allows, nay demands, the violence that has been wreaked.

These children stand for America, they are our future. And for this, we, their parents use the cleaving knife to brutally slaughter them, we use the chemical weapon to obliterate them, we praise the men and women who snuff out their lives. These are the little guerilla warriors, the inconvenient reminders that we should do what a virtuous and free people are supposed to do, the unfortunate silent voices encouraging us to be what we are supposed to be. The children die free and proud, dismembered by the hands of those who hate their own future, disembowelled by those who hate their own children, decapitated by those who hate the very country which nurtured them but failed to impress them with its values. These children are killed, and with them America's future dies.

And so it is that these young men and women died in the battleground of the womb, so that we might be freed from children, safe from love, preserved for the terror of a lonely death. They died to keep us safe from the pursuit of life and liberty. They died so that we might no longer be happy, but rather live as slaves to the lusts of this world, live hungering after the promise of 72 virgins here and now, live thirsting for the guarantees of political cant. By their deaths we hope to guarantee our own futures, bright with high incomes. We gain the promise of futures washed clean of posterity. We wash our futures clean with the blood of our own children.

No longer do we pursue liberty, we cleave instead to license.
No longer do we hold fast to life, we cleave instead to slaughter, to senseless death and carnage.

We slaughter America's future so that we might live the life the our leaders and the world's Muslims call us to live. We must obey the peaceful Muslims, the jihadists our owners demand we work with and respect, the glorious Muslims who we must never judge or hate or even speak a word against. Both our owners and these Muslims agree: the future cannot belong to our children.

Yes, these children, our children, died in service to America's highest principles.
And we killed them.

That is what we should recall on Memorial Day: the soldiers, the children, who gave their lives so that we might not be burdened with their presence. Let their deaths for these principles wring tears from even the stoniest heart!

Lift your glasses over their graves!
Weep your tears over the sewers which run with their blood!
Justice demands witness to their lives' sacrifice and to our own.
This is Memorial Day.

Why Bishops Don't Like The EF

When asked what they don't like about the Church, a lot of traditionalists will respond,

"Vatican II destroyed the Church. We used to have high Mass attendance, schools overflowing with children, lots of priests and nuns, but now look at us!

Catechesis is destroyed! No one goes to Mass! The Catholic schools are falling apart! There aren't any vocations! This is the "fruits" of Vatican II!"

I grew up in the 1970's. I personally experienced the crap that passed for catechesis during those years. So, for years I found this a very compelling argument. I couldn't figure out why so many priests and bishops shuddered when faced with the thought of returning to the older form of Mass.

The first time I attended a traditional Mass, I hated it.
Absolutely hated it.

The second time, I read through the English prayers and found the prayers very beautiful. A few years later,  for reasons beyond the scope of this article, I found myself attending a traditional Mass every weekend.

Now, I have been very happy about the beautiful music and the opportunity to receive Jesus at the communion rail. While the EF prayers of consecration are more beautiful, I have continued to dislike what passes for a cycle of readings in the EF form. The Novus Ordo cycle Liturgy of the Word is simply superior to the EF version - anyone who follows the four senses of Scripture will find this ancient method of reading Scripture a lot more accessible in the OF than in the EF.  Similarly, the EF liturgical year is just terminally screwed up when compared to the beautifully rational OF liturgical year.

I say all of this because the comparison of the two forms and the constant whining of various "experts" blinded me to a specific truth: Vatican II and the OF was created by the traditional Latin Mass and the nuns and priests of the Catholic schools.

If we are going to blame poor post-conciliar catechesis on the Second Vatican Council, then we have to blame the existence of the Second Vatican Council on the pre-Vatican II Missal and the pre-Vatican II catechesis (school system).

Everyone who participated in VC II was formed by the EF and pre-conciliar Catholic schools. Everyone who implemented VC II reforms was formed was formed by the EF and pre-conciliar Catholic schools.

If we hate the current situation because it was created by VC II, then we must also hate the EF and the parochial school system, because that is what brought us to call VC II.

Now, if the Second Vatican Council had been foisted upon us by outsiders and enemies of the Church, then we wouldn't have to accept that line of argument. This is why so many traditionalists are fixated on the existence of Freemasons or Jews or Protestants or whoever "infiltrating" Vatican II.

VC II *HAD* to have been a betrayal by enemies, because anyone formed by the ancient Missal would never have done such a thing. It's the same line the Germans used when they lost WW I. They couldn't bear to blame it on themselves, so they decided the Jews/Socialists/Communists/Democracies stabbed them in the back.

Unfortunately, that's the one line of argument a Catholic cannot use. It is a point of Catholic doctrine that it doesn't matter who matters to "infiltrate" a council or a papal throne. God will get His work done regardless. He draws a straight line, regardless of how crooked the sinner.

So, the argument works as well for us as it did for the Germans. The Catholics who espouse it become increasingly paranoid. So, the council was infiltrated. If the council wasn't infiltrated, then we have a fall-back position - it wasn't a true council. Yet the Pope ratified it, which would make it a true council. Then, obviously, he can't have been the true Pope. If he isn't the true Pope, then the chair of Peter is empty and it has been empty since Paul VI or John XXIII or Pius XII or Pius XI or no, wait, Pius X. But the new Mass changed the way sacraments are administered, so the sacraments are no longer valid, so there are no more valid priests. Which means there are no valid bishops. Which means there are no valid cardinals. That means we are waiting for the true Pope to re-emerge, except he can't because the rules of election must be followed   by cardinals which we ain't got any more - all the valid ones are dead.. So the Church failed. But it can't. But it has to have. But it can't so God will save it in a miraculous fashion which was never revealed during the fullness of public revelation, so we must pay constant attention to private revelation. This visionary, that visionary, the one over here. Our Lady of the Recent Moment said...

Sigh.

You can't start down that road.
That way lies madness.

We have to accept the facts. We did this to ourselves. The bishops and priests who wanted to reform what is now the Extraordinary Form of the Mass wanted to do so for a very good reason: the EF sucked wind. It stank. It was at least sub-optimal. In fact, it was so substantially flawed that it required reform.

And the proof is clearly present. If the liturgy is really the best thing the Church has to offer, then the men and women formed by the pre-conciliar Missal demonstrated how lousy their formation was when most of them accepted any of a number of post-conciliar heresies. They swallowed heresies almost immediately and nearly universally, heresies the council never taught but those formed by the pre-conciliar liturgy thought the council taught.

That's why the bishops don't want to return to the pre-conciliar liturgy.
They know it won't work because it already proved that it didn't work.

I haven't quite figured out why these same bishops continue to insist on parochial schools that also didn't work. Perhaps they insist on them because they know so little about how the schools operate. Or maybe they're just a different version of traditionalist - bitterly clinging to their schools because they don't know what else to do, blaming the manifest failures of the parochial schools on "the Catholic ghetto" or the Catholic lay adult.

It's a sad problem, but rather ironic.
The bishops see the EF liturgy as irredeemable, but they cling to Catholic schools, which job of educating children is pre-eminently the job of the parents. The traditionalists see Catholic schools as irredeemable (thus they homeschool), but they cling to the EF liturgy when liturgy is pre-eminently the responsibility of the ordained man.

Again, sigh.
The fault lies not in the council, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

A Defense of Live Action

Some people have a problem with Lila Rose and Live Action videos.
They claim she and her compatriots are lying when they enter abortion clinics and present themselves as interested in abortion. In fact, the primary interest Lila Rose and company has is in filming the abortionists and their spokespeople as the latter produce the hackneyed spiel they actually give their abortion patients.

The claim is that Lila Rose (a) lies, which is a sin and (b) leads others into sin by encouraging abortion clinic workers to commit abortion.

I've been thinking of a possibly novel defense for this.

As we know, most non-liturgical Christians don't like the idea that Jesus is substantially present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist. "The Eucharist is just a symbol," they say. When He said, "This is My Body", he didn't MEAN that "is" meant "is". Rather, He intended us to know that "is" meant "symbolize."

Now, I've never heard the following argument made against the Eucharist, but it is certainly a logically possible argument: "You say Jesus presents Himself under the appearance of bread and wine. But God is pure Truth, He is the One Who is neither deceived nor does He deceive. Yet if He is presenting Himself as bread and wine, is that not a deception? It looks like bread, it tastes like wine, you say, but it is really His flesh and blood. If it were Him, why would He deceive us?"

And it is certainly the case that many who met Jesus never realized He was God, just as many who perceive the Eucharist fail to recognize who He is.

And does not Lila Rose present the same deception to the abortion clinics?
Indeed, the abortion clinics have wanted posters on her - they are constantly looking for her.
But they do not find her.

Those who know her, recognize her.
Those who do not know her, do not recognize her.

Since the abortionists would present the same talking points to any patient who walks through the door, she is not tempting them to sin any more than Christ tempts an unrepentant sinner to consume His flesh and blood in the Eucharist. She gives them an opportunity to choose: this is your chance to throw away the talking points, turn from your sin and leave.

By engaging them in conversation that covers every point of what they believe, she forces them to walk through their beliefs in the most neutral way possible - she shows absolutely no judgement while they lay out their plans. She merely asks them to contemplate and explain their plans in detail, giving them the opportunity to go through their own logic, giving them the opportunity to find the flaws in their own arguments themselves. Precisely because she questions every aspect of their operation, they have the opportunity to name and claim the problems in their own logic.

In that respect, if you want ecumenical dialogue, Lila Rose is the best in the business.

Pope Francis' Communion Policy

Pope Francis doesn't like handing out communion lest it make for an unfortunate photo opp. Notice, he's not concerned about them eating and drinking damnation upon themselves, he's just concerned about the optics.

This is not an uncommon policy.

Recently I was made aware of a Mass of First Communion at which the priest's homily concerned the importance of receiving the Eucharist and making time for Eucharistic adoration. "Don't let anything interfere with your adoration time. No matter how difficult it may be, stick to it," he admonished the First Communicants.

Now, I'm a nut about promoting the doctrine of indulgences, and he failed to mention that everyone at Mass would win a plenary indulgence for participating in a Mass of First Communion, but that's not uncommon.

In any case, the homily might have carried more force if he hadn't begun it by making an announcement: the Eucharistic adoration which normally followed Mass would be cancelled so that he could enroll the children in the Brown Scapular and have pictures taken with them.

Now private devotions are all well and good, but the promises associated with them are not known with Catholic Faith. We hope that wearing the Brown Scapular brings graces at death, but we don't know it with Catholic Faith. Why? Because the Brown Scapular comes to us through private devotion, not through a doctrinal statement of the Church. Technically, the Brown Scapular is not part of the Deposit of Faith.

Indulgences, on the other hand, are doctrine. We know with Catholic Faith that a plenary indulgence brings us graces at death. Those are part of the Deposit of Faith.

So, the priest could have offered everyone at Mass a doctrinal surety, but instead gave to the children a mere hope. And instead of giving First Communicants an actual chance to worship the Eucharistic Lord, he took away adoration and give them a photo opp. With him.

The Pope is Jesuit.
The priest is FSSP.

And that's the state of the Church today.

The Biter Is Bit

Secular humanists like to point to the Reformation with joy and pride. It is, they say, the beginning of a refusal to accept authority, the beginning of a desire to think for one's self. Thinking for yourself is to be praised, lauded, extolled as the highest of virtues!

Except when it causes you to disagree with them.

The original Reformation was made possible only via the spread of knowledge and opinion permitted by the printing press. But what happens when the cost of spreading information drops from a few tens of dollars to nothing at all?

Science is currently experiencing the consequences of the Internet Reformation.
And they're NOT happy.

Forbes recently published an article outlining four reasons why doctors hate social media.

1. Many physicians described the challenges of dealing with patients who had retrieved wrong or incomplete information from the internet. 
2. Many doctors in the audience were also visibly troubled by the ease with which patients could share “misleading” information, whether about medicine or the doctors themselves.
3. ...the most significant concern raised was the impact that the “internet culture” was having on the practice of medicine.  “We need to teach students that traditional values are still important,” one audience member said
4. The ability afforded by social media to share information rapidly and broadly was another source of concern. 

Does any of this sound familiar?
It should.

Rabbis hated targums - the translation of the Torah into local languages - because it led to people attempting to interpret the Scriptures on their own, without the training or guidance of professionals who understood Jewish theology at a deep level.

Priests, bishops and Popes had the same concerns about the widespread diffusion of the Christian Bible.

But the printing press overthrew the experts. Martin Luther embraced the information wave and taught that any individual could be a theological expert. Professional training, professional understanding was not necessary. Thus, misleading information - what Christians called "heresy" - was both easily developed and easily spread by the new printing press technology.

The "printing press culture" changed the emphasis of Christianity from that of a lived experience of the sacraments and liturgy to an essentially literary study of the Scriptures, as each individual tried to tease out the divine information for himself. This changed emphasis splintered Christianity into literally tens of thousands of subgroups, each with it's own esoteric interpretation of the text.

A similar thing is now happening with the spread of science articles and science information via the Web. What was formerly locked inside books and journals that only a specialist would read is now available for individual interpretation by anyone with access to a reasonably powerful search engine. The professional jargon is being re-interpreted by the masses according to whatever personal intellectual light the individual brings to the text.

Thus, just as the priests and bishops of old complained about the heretical readings of Scripture, so today's priests of science complain about the heretical reading of scientific studies. The controversy over vaccines, diet and exercise are only the vanguard of a larger fragmenting of the scientific disciplines.

Science has always been political, but it is now beginning to fragment, just as Christianity did during the Reformation. Certainly the scientific secular humanists would like to cheer the way individuals are overthrowing the antiquated restraints of old-fashioned science?

Pope to Visit Muslim Refugees

Wow.

It's almost like he's got some kind of plan to engage the Muslims.

But I know THAT can't be true, because Zuhlsdorf says he is still wandering around like a zombie. Zuhlsdorf couldn't be completely clueless, right? So that leaves.... Hmmmm....

UPDATE:
And get this!
Zuhlsdorf is so frightened by the commentary I'm providing here that he's actually blocked my access to his website!

I first noticed it long before I made any posts on my blog about his shenanigans.

I was posting on Facebook about my suspicions concerning his Pope Francis commentary and noticed I couldn't hit his site cleanly when I went for supporting links and documentations. That aroused my suspicions even more. It also motivated me to actually post this stuff to my blog.

Following that, as I've had time, I've run a few tests over the last few days, and yes!
He's definitely banned me from even reading his site.

That's pretty impressive.
All that work just to shut up little ol' me.

Of course, what he's doing now just confirms what I've been saying.

I man who is as well-connected as he claims to be may very well be spearheading interference from bishops and cardinals who are unhappy with the Pope the conclave elected.

Everyone is deeply interested in whether this Pope is going to clean up the Curia. (Remember Benedict's warning and the reports on Benedict's desk?)

Everyone expects push-back from the Curia as curial officials attempt to resist the changes Pope Francis might be interested in applying. And Zuhlsdorf has friends there.

He's not presently in the Curia, so he's not clearly linked to it, he can act as a mouthpiece outside fomenting dissent, he's well-placed in the Catholic blogosphere. Practically perfect in every way.

That's right, folks... What if Father Zuhlsdorf is part of the Curial push-back effort?

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Zuhlsdorf's Folly

I didn't really appreciate the condescension and dismissiveness that Zuhlsdorf has shown the new pontiff.

See, for instance:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/one-look-at-pope-franciss-first-holy-week-fr-z-responds-with-brief-manifesto/

What's the problem?

"Pope Francis needs some time to learn how to be Pope"

Apparently, Zuhlsdorf assumes that Pope Francis is not smart enough to recognize the office he holds. In fact, as I think I've shown, Francis knows EXACTLY where he wants to take his office, and he's been moving along the course he set from the first Holy Thursday Mass, through his Good Friday "Way of the Cross" remarks and into his Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi address. He apparently learned his new position a lot faster than Zuhlsdorf can comprehend. 

"Even though Francis has painted himself into a corner through his abrupt dramatic changes, he is more than likely going to adjust to the exigencies of his office, which include decorum at a different level and an awareness that he is more than the bishop of a diocese somewhere."

I don't see where Zuhlsdorf gets off judging what is an appropriate level of decorum for a Pope. Zuhlsdorf doesn't fill the office, I daresay he never will, so where do these highly dismissive and indecorous public remarks come from and what is Zuhlsdorf trying to prove by making them? That he's smarter than the Pope? That he's holier than the Pope? That he understands the papacy better than the Pope? Really?

"He must be wondering if he is going to wake up from some sort of long, strange dream."

More could be mined from this post, but this incredibly dismissive closing remark on Zuhlsdorf's part is sublimely ridiculous. Zuhlsdorf is saying Pope Francis is too stupid, incompetent, etc., to recognize that he's been elected Pope?
Really?
REALLY?

Just because Pope Francis doesn't do what Zuhlsdorf would do, Pope Francis gets treated like the dullard step-child by the all-merciful Zuhlsdorf, who is willing to overlook Francis' little peccadilloes until such time as Francis learns to hew to Zuhlsdorf's line.

That's the impression I am getting from Z.

Frankly, Z is pretty sickening.

If this is the best the traditionalists can do, it's no wonder the rest of the Catholic world finds traditionalists disgusting. 

FLASHBACK: A Catholic Schools Prediction Revisited

A fifteen percent enrollment drop in roughly five years is not particularly good news, and the news will only get worse.

I wrote the above sentence in February, 2008 about the 2006-2007 Catholic school enrollment.

Given current trends, by 2012, the homeschooling population will be bigger than the population in the Catholic school system.

That was my prediction on August 14, 2009.

Let's see how well I did.

More than 2 million U.S. students in grades K-12 were home-schooled in 2010, accounting for nearly 4 percent of all school-aged children". US News and World Report, June 2012

Yep, right on track.
The numbers below are for Catholic schools during the last century, compared to US population growth (data is from the National Catholic Education Association):

	Total Enrollment	Grade School	High School	Percent Change	Non-Catholics	US Population	Percent Change
1919-20	1,925,521	1,795,673	129,848			104,514,000
1929-30	2,464,467	2,222,598	241,869	28%		121,767,000	17%
1939-40	2,396,305	2,035,182	361,123	-3%		130,879,718	7%
1949-50	3,066,387	2,560,815	505,572	28%		149,188,130	14%
1960-61	5,253,791	4,373,422	880,369	71%		180,671,158	21%
1970-71	4,363,566	3,355,478	1,008,088	-17%	2.70%	205,052,174	13%
1980-81	3,106,000	2,269,000	837,000	-29%	11.20%	227,224,681	11%
1990-91	2,475,439	1,883,906	591,533	-20%		249,464,396	10%
2000-01	2,647,301	2,004,037	643,264	7%		281,421,906	13%
2010-11	2,065,872	1,467,694	598,178	-22%		308,745,538	10%
2012-13	2,001,740	1,434,243	567,497	-3%	15.90%	312,780,968	1%

Notice that the Catholic school enrollment growth has only exceeded US population growth three times in history: in the decades of the 1920s, 1940s and 1950s: each were post-World War decades.

We now have a total Catholic school enrollment that is virtually identical to the 1919-1920 school year, even though the country's population is now over three times larger. In order to attain that number, we had to increase the number of non-Catholic students from less than 3% to nearly 16% (in violation of the Magisterial documents), but even with a five-fold increase in non-Catholic attendance, we haven't been able to staunch the blood loss.

Even during the go-go economic times of the 1990s, the growth in Catholic school enrollment didn't match population growth. It essentially just held steady. That is, even in the best of economic times, Catholic schools aren't growing.

So, if you take the 1990s out of the equation (or, alternatively, look at the average loss since the 1960s), Catholic schools are losing 500,000 students every ten years. Given that the system currently enrolls 2 million students, the problem is obvious. If that trend continues, the entire Catholic school system will be gone in four decades. Entirely. Gone.

"Recent studies laud homeschoolers’ academic success, noting their significantly higher ACT-Composite scores as high schoolers and higher grade point averages as college students. Yet surprisingly, the average expenditure for the education of a homeschooled child, per year, is $500 to $600, compared to an average expenditure of $10,000 per child, per year, for public school students."  Education News, May 2012

"No homeschool graduates are unemployed or on welfare." Forbes, January 2013

"Per pupil cost is 5% of public school ($500 vs. $10,000) and 10% of Catholic school ($500 vs. $5000). Burgeoning Internet resources and on-line courses will only improve the cost numbers. It is nearly 75% more effective than public school in educational outcome, and 35% more effective than Catholic schools."  Kellmeyer, August 2009

I repeat the call I made to bishops and priests in 2005.
Stop throwing money down the rathole of Catholic brick and mortar schools.
Start giving parish and/or diocesan stipends DIRECTLY to homeschooling families.

You can subsidize the education of a LOT more Catholic students that way, at a significantly reduced cost not just in salary and physical plant upkeep, but also in legal liability problems. By returning the problem to the parent, you don't need to do all that expensive "Children Really Are Protected (CRAP)" training.

Whether you like it or not, the Catholic school system is going away. It's better to get out in front and lead then be run over by the train as you try to flag it down.

Update June 2018
There are more homeschoolers in Texas than there are privately schooled students.

Pope Francis' Easter 2013 Urbi et Orbi Message

Here's Pope Francis' complete Urbi et Orbi message.

Notice who he specifically names in his plea for peace.
Apart from Korea, every named conflict in the Pope's message involves Muslims.

And remember, these are Urbi et Orbi remarks.
These remarks are so important for Catholics, the the Church attaches a special indulgence to any Christian who listens to them and receives the papal blessing at the end, even if that blessing is only received via radio or television (or Internet, I assume, although Internet is not explicitly mentioned).

These are not random, minor remarks in a random, minor address.
These remarks are made to the whole world. Everyone.

Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world, Happy Easter!

What a joy it is for me to announce this message: Christ is risen! I would like it to go out to every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons…

Most of all, I would like it to enter every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil! Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious!

We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means (cf. Lk 24:4). What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom.

This same love for which the Son of God became man and followed the way of humility and self-giving to the very end, down to hell - to the abyss of separation from God - this same merciful love has flooded with light the dead body of Jesus and transfigured it, has made it pass into eternal life. Jesus did not return to his former life, to earthly life, but entered into the glorious life of God and he entered there with our humanity, opening us to a future of hope.

This is what Easter is: it is the exodus, the passage of human beings from slavery to sin and evil to the freedom of love and goodness. Because God is life, life alone, and his glory is the living man (cf. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 4,20,5-7).

Dear brothers and sisters, Christ died and rose once for all, and for everyone, but the power of the Resurrection, this passover from slavery to evil to the freedom of goodness, must be accomplished in every age, in our concrete existence, in our everyday lives. How many deserts, even today, do human beings need to cross! Above all, the desert within, when we have no love for God or neighbour, when we fail to realize that we are guardians of all that the Creator has given us and continues to give us. God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones (cf. Ez 37:1-14).

So this is the invitation which I address to everyone: Let us accept the grace of Christ’s Resurrection! Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish.

And so we ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace. Yes, Christ is our peace, and through him we implore peace for all the world.

Peace for the Middle East, and particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, who struggle to find the road of agreement, that they may willingly and courageously resume negotiations to end a conflict that has lasted all too long. Peace in Iraq, that every act of violence may end, and above all for dear Syria, for its people torn by conflict and for the many refugees who await help and comfort. How much blood has been shed! And how much suffering must there still be before a political solution to the crisis will be found?

Peace for Africa, still the scene of violent conflicts. In Mali, may unity and stability be restored; in Nigeria, where attacks sadly continue, gravely threatening the lives of many innocent people, and where great numbers of persons, including children, are held hostage by terrorist groups. Peace in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in the Central African Republic, where many have been forced to leave their homes and continue to live in fear.

Peace in Asia, above all on the Korean peninsula: may disagreements be overcome and a renewed spirit of reconciliation grow.

Peace in the whole world, still divided by greed looking for easy gain, wounded by the selfishness which threatens human life and the family, selfishness that continues in human trafficking, the most extensive form of slavery in this twenty-first century. Peace to the whole world, torn apart by violence linked to drug trafficking and by the iniquitous exploitation of natural resources! Peace to this our Earth! Made the risen Jesus bring comfort to the victims of natural disasters and make us responsible guardians of creation.

Dear brothers and sisters, to all of you who are listening to me, from Rome and from all over of the world, I address the invitation of the Psalm: "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever. Let Israel say: ‘His steadfast love endures for ever’" (Ps 117:1-2).

[Unscripted remarks] Dear brothers and sisters who have come from all over the world to this Square, the heart of Christianity and to all of you joining us via the media, I repeat my wishes for a happy Easter! Bring to your families and your nations the message of joy, of hope, and of peace that every year, on this day, is powerfully renewed. May the Risen Lord, who defeated sin and death, sustain us all especially the weakest and those most in need. Thank you for your presence and the witness of your faith. A thought and special thanks for the gift of these beautiful flowers that come from the Netherlands. I affectionately repeat to all of you: May the Risen Christ guide all of you and all of humanity on the paths of justice, love, and peace!

[Pope Francis then imparted the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing.]

Washing Muslim Feet

I was interviewed on Fox News on Good Friday, asked to comment on several things, including the washing of a Muslim woman's feet.

The obvious question, "Will this lead to women's ordination?
It's interesting that even the unbaptized recognize a link between the washing of feet on Holy Thursday and the ordination of priests. Hmm...

But, enough of that.

Here's my answer to the newscaster's question.

Now, you'll notice that I actually skirted around the issue without addressing it head-on.
That's mostly because:

1. there's never enough time in television interviews, 
2. any mention of Islam makes news reporters uncomfortable. In this case, although you can't see it on the tape, the reporter physically blenched when I said "Islam", and immediately looked down at her notes, instead of looking me in the eye as she did for the rest of the interview. The physical recoil was so great that I nearly lost my train of thought. Quite humorous, actually.
3. I don't want to publicly trash something the Pope's done on the air, nor do I wish to do so here.

So, let's analyze what the papal washing of a Muslim woman's feet might mean.

First, the act itself strikes a blow against the idea that he is a humble man. A humble man bows before the laws of the Church. If it is within his power to change the law, he changes the law first, then follows it. As a friend of mine pointed out, this is what Benedict did to hasten the meeting of the conclave - he took the trouble of issuing a motu proprio that changed the law so that the early conclave meeting could happen.

Pope Francis did none of this.
He just refused to follow the law.
We can call this many things: wise, insightful, pastoral, strange, inscrutable, etc.
We cannot call this humble.

The Pope certainly realizes this. But he is willing to put his entire reputation on the line in order to accomplish something. What?

Second, as I guessed, Pope Francis' Way of the Cross Good Friday address provides further evidence that this Holy Thursday event was really meant to reach out to Islam. That interpretation explains quite a lot. If Pope Francis is looking to use Holy Week as outreach to evangelize Muslims, that would explain why he chose to celebrate this as a private Mass in a prison, instead of at St. Peter's.

After all, if he just wanted to wash women's feet, that would be easy. There are any number of women that could have been brought into St. Peter's, the deed would be accomplished, and let the brouhaha begin! But he didn't bring women into St. Peter's. He went to a prison instead.

This is critically important to understanding what happened.

The Holy Thursday Mass begins Triduum, the most important three days in the liturgical calendar. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday - these days are so closely united they are considered one day: Triduum. These liturgical celebrations are the hub around which the wheeled Church revolves, they are the common patrimony of the Church. Indeed, the climax of the period, Holy Saturday Vigil, is considered the "mother of all feasts", the summit of the Church's life, the source from which every Sunday Mass throughout the year draws its power. And Holy Thursday Mass uniquely commemorates the institution of not one, but TWO of the seven sacraments: both the sacrament of Holy Orders, necessary for the conferral of most other sacraments, and the sacrament of the Eucharist itself, the source and summit of Christian life.

But Pope Francis celebrated the beginning of this centrally important liturgical period as if it were a small, family Mass. Celebrating this extremely important liturgy in private instead of in public is much, much more unprecedented than the washing of even a Muslim woman's feet in the optional rite which is the Mandatum. If Pope Francis meant his Holy Thursday celebration to be a model, that is, if priests and bishops around the world were to model THIS aspect of the Pope's Holy Thursday example, no parish would see another Holy Thursday celebration. The idea that the Pope intended to model this kind of small, private Holy Thursday liturgy is a thought so crazy, I'm the only one I know who has bothered to point it out.

So, why do this?

Well, Holy Thursday's Mass only makes sense in light of Good Friday's remarks. At the end of the Way of the Cross, the Pope took time out to recall the wonderful welcome extended to Pope Benedict in Lebanon by "our Muslim brothers and sisters." Which is just a weird remark to throw into a Good Friday liturgy. Why devote roughly one-third to one-half your total remarks to the Muslims? And his Urbi et Orbi remarks are no less Islam-filled. Virtually every country he name in that indulgenced address involves Muslim violence.

The Good Friday remarks are especially interesting given that Muslims are biological brothers and sisters, but are NOT considered the spiritual brothers and sisters of Christians because they have not yet been baptized.  We call Protestants "separated brethren" because they are brothers by baptism, if not by belief. Jews are "our elders brothers in the Faith" because the vine of Christianity grows from the root of Judaism. But Muslims... Muslims aren't brothers in the Faith. We have no spiritual communion with them, no spiritual heritage from them. So, during the commemoration of the Passion of the Christ, why make such a remark about Muslims?

Because, like the Urbi et Orbi remark, the Good Friday remark makes the thread of events clear. The Pope didn't intend to wash a woman's feet - he intended to wash a MUSLIM woman's feet, the feet of a woman who could not possibly be ordained, because she wasn't even baptized. Pope Francis is as hostile towards the concept of women's ordination as an orthodox rabbi is to the concept of a kosher bacon sandwich. He cared not a whit about the ordination aspect, he was looking at the Muslim message.

He wanted to send a signal to the Muslims, a powerful signal. But the Vatican couldn't very well bring a Muslim woman into St. Peter's for Holy Thursday to participate in a Catholic liturgy. He had to go to her, and in such a way that she could not be held responsible. So, if the mountain would not come carrying Mohammed, then the Pope would travel to the mountain. And, before anyone complain about how this is out of step with Pope Benedict's example, we should keep in mind that "on Thursday, Francis had a "long and intense" telephone conversation with Benedict."

I suspect Pope-Emeritus Benedict is fine with this.
He might even have suggested it to Pope Francis.

But it is precisely in the signal itself that I lose confidence. If this action really is supposed to encourage dialogue with Islam, the action is likely to be much less effective than any Christian observer might suppose.

You see, anyone who has studied Islam and Islamic sharia law at any great length knows that Muslims consider women barely human. Her testimony is worth only half that of a man, sometimes it is worth nothing at all. She gets half the inheritance of a man. She is the source of sin in the Muslim community. Most Muslim jails are filled with women, not men. But if Muslim women are low value, non-Muslims are even lower. No matter how low Muslim women are valued, a Muslim woman is worth more than anyone who isn't Muslim.

So, as I thought about this on the drive home from the studio, I realized that having a Christian kiss a Muslim woman's foot and act like a slave towards her, yeah, that's not really not going to be a problem for anyone in the Muslim world. Christians are SUPPOSED to kiss the feet of every Muslim they meet, and they should thank Allah for the opportunity to do so. They are SUPPOSED to be slaves of the Muslims.

While the Christians will look on Pope Francis' act as attractive humility, the Muslims will see it as the natural state of things and not unusual in the least. If anything, Islam will see this as attractive servility.

Now, given the attitudes Christians are called to have towards others, and given Pope Francis' obvious intent, I'm hard-pressed to see how he could have acted differently. Service, love, humility and charity certainly are the messages of Christ. But, given how Muslims are commanded to behave towards others, I fail to see how they could take it otherwise either. Mohammed taught Muslims that they are naturally superior to all other peoples, all others are natural slaves to the Muslim. That makes Christian-Muslim dialogue very difficult.

Indeed, even St. Francis ultimately saw only one way to square this circle.

So, it was a huge gamble, but a gamble that - in a very real sense - had to be made. I assume Pope Francis understands just how little positive impact - from the evangelization point of view - his action is likely to have on Christian-Muslim dialogue. But as a Christian, was it not a gamble worth taking?

Certainly some Muslim women may see this as something that will attract them to Christianity, because no Muslim man would do what Pope Francis has done. But given how little freedom Muslim women have, right down to the fact that Sunni sharia law gives a woman's guardian has every right to kill her without repercussion (o1.2), (and that goes double for an apostate (o8.1, 8.4)), it's really not clear what positive evangelical consequences can be expected from the Pope's action.

South America is not a hotbed of Islamic activity. But, given the events of Holy Week, it's fairly clear that Pope Francis sees Islamic dialogue as critically important to his pontificate. Which makes his pontificate a rather terrifying thing to observe. Watching this unfold will be like watching a man walk through a minefield. That is, it will be desperately interesting.

On Natural Law

Most people don't understand natural law.
They think it has something to do with Mother Nature.
It doesn't.

Natural law is based on the idea that everything has its own nature.
And when I use the word "nature", I'm referring to Aristotle's definition of "nature" - the range of actions available to a creature.

The Divine Nature is Love. God is Love, precisely because each Person of the Trinity pours Himself out into the other Two Persons of the Trinity. God's personhood is totally defined by the relationships between Father, Son and Spirit. The Divine Nature is about making a total gift of self.

We are made in the image and likeness of God.
Thus, human nature is about the total gift of self as well: gift of self to God, and gift of self to the other images of God around us, other human beings.

We are said to abide by natural law only insofar as we image the nature of God, the life of God, in our own nature, in our own lives. That is abiding by natural law - living out the life of God in my own life.

It has nothing to do with Mother Nature.

Consider, for example, the infant in the neonatal intensive care unit. Nothing in that room is natural except for the baby itself. The tubes, the monitors, the saline drips, the needles, the oxygen tank, the temperature regulators - all of it is artificial, made by the artifice of man. Yet the parents who put the child into that neonatal intensive care unit are acting according to the principles of natural law. God is the Life-Giver, the one who preserves and protects the weak. Whatever we do that imitates God's life-giving preservation and protection is in accord with our nature because it mirrors the divine nature.

Now, what if the parents were to take that same child and place it on the forest floor and walk away? There is nothing more natural than the forest, with the bees, and ants, the birds sweetly warbling in the trees, the sun streaming down through the leafy branches as they are gently stirred by the wind! Yet abandoning that child into that purely bucolic setting is an unnatural act, it is a violation of the principles of natural law, because it is not in accord with the divine nature. It doesn't mirror God's love, care, and concern for human life.

When someone commits a sin, they become more "natural" in the sense that they become more like an animal. Do we not say of a convicted serial rapist/ax murderer, "He's an animal! Lock him up and throw away the key!"

There are many ways to define sin. One definition is very appropriate to this discussion. Sin is following our natural impulses, instead of our supernatural impulses.

Natural law concerns itself with how we as human beings live out the life of Christ, of God, in our own bodies. The natural law cannot be followed without supernatural grace because we are, ultimately, called to be not just natural creatures, but supernatural creatures, sharers in the divine nature.

If that point is not understood, if the reason for natural law is not grasped, then whatever is written about natural law is utter nonsense.

Nanny State vs. Mother Church

A lot of conservatives, specifically, a lot of economic libertarians are very interested in moving moral questions off the table. The debate over whether or not to preserve marriage, abolish abortion, approve of contraception - these things, they say, are not important fights. What matters is the economy.

Are they right?

Obviously, if I thought they were, I wouldn't be writing this essay. Let us examine why they are wrong.

Begin with a simple question: why does atheism always lead to an out-of-control government?

For a Catholic, the answer is simple: If you don't acknowledge Jesus Christ as God, you don't acknowledge the Church as your mother. People need mothers. So atheists necessarily turn the government into a parody of Mother Church. We call this kind of government the "Nanny State."

The real Mother recognizes subsidiarity, the need for the children to be responsible at some level for their own actions, the need for the children to grow up. The Nanny State, on the other hand, views adulthood as a kind of adultery, a refusal to acknowledge the state's real authority as surrogate mother. So, she ensnares her children, the citizens, with an ever-increasing set of laws to "protect them from themselves." She ensnares them with more and more rules to force them to be true to her, to keep them from growing up.

As psychologist Roy Baumeister points out, a patriarchal society is a risk-taking society.
A matriarchal society is a rule-making, legalistic society.

As more and more women get college degrees and exhibit hypergamy in their relationships, they will fail to marry. But, with their fresh, new degrees, they will take positions of power in the government.

As a result, the government will become increasingly matriarchal. It will suffocate risk-taking as unhealthy and unnecessary. It will destroy the current form of government as it engages in hypergamy. The existing matriarchal government will try to "trade up" to a form of government that is better, stronger, faster, a form of government that - incidentally - doesn't exist.

We've already seen this kind of rule-making play out on college campuses, where the title "professor" has long since stopped referring to the requirement that the instructor profess the Catholic Faith. Atheism has ruled the college campus, and it has turned the college campus into an anti-male Nanny State.

As atheism, or the disregard for Christianity, spreads, the government will follow suit.

A legalistic society destroys the economy because male-oriented risk-taking is medicated by legislation into the same zombie-state we impose on "ADHD" boys.  We will get homosexuals aping marriage because we already have government aping Mother Church.

A moribund economy is the result of the immorality of atheism.

ObamaCare Through the Ages

U.S. military authorities prepare to hang Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling, 74, at Landsberg, Germany, on May 28, 1946. In a Dachau war crimes trial he was convicted of using 1,200 concentration camp prisoners for malaria experimentation. Thirty died directly from the inoculations and 300 to 400 died later from complications of the disease. His experiments, all with unwilling subjects, began in 1942. 

In 1932, American doctors allow 399 poor black sharecroppers to die of untreated syphilis because they wanted to see how the disease would progress. The impoverished men had no idea they were being used as human guinea pigs. The study was conducted under numerous US Public Health Supervisors. Everyone involved, both those who directed the studies, who actively prevented the sharecroppers from receiving treatment  and who published their findings in respected medical journals, died tranquilly in their beds. The study ended in 1972.

Problems With Fatima

Now that Pope Francis is in office, traditionalists are convinced the end-times are upon us. "It is the time of Fatima! Prepare for the end!". Etc.

Now, let me once again make clear that I believe the sun danced, that Mary appeared May 1917 to October 1917 during World War I at Fatima, that the three children are rightly held up as examples by the Church, etc. But visionaries sometimes get messages wrong, and Fatima is no exception.

Remember also that when the church approved Fatima in 1930, it only gave approval to the events that happened initially. The Church has technically never given formal approval to the subsequent statements and revelations from Sr. Lucia. This is problematic since all three secrets - the vision of hell, the set of prophecies we will examine here, and the notorious "third secret" - were only revealed by Lucia in August 1941 and October 1943. These "secrets" were thus never formally approved by the Church.

Finally, recall CCC 67 teaches us that private revelation is completely unnecessary, and many Doctors of the Church warned against anyone believing or following private revelation, even if it is approved by the Church. 

So, with all that in mind, let's take a look at the unapproved "prophecies", which were supposed to have been given to Lucia on 13 July 1917, but which she didn't bother to reveal for thirty-five years:

“You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.

(1) The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, (a) a worse one will break out (b) during the Pontificate of Pius XI.

(2) When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

(3) To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace;

(4) if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.

(5) In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world”

This is the Second Prophecy, and it has a lot of problems. Some of them have already been discussed in other venues, others, not so much.

Prophecy Failure #1: Which Pope?

The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI.

The problem is obvious. This prophecy did not occur.
Pope Pius XI reigned 6 Feb 1922 to 10 Feb 1939.
Pope Pius XII began his reign on 2 March 1939.
World War II didn't start until 1 Sept 1939, 6 months after Pope Pius XII was elected.

Now, you can try arguing that the historians are all wrong, and some aspect of the conflict leading up to World War II was actually the beginning of World War II.

The Second Sino-Japanese War in 1931 was followed by a rising crescendo of treaty violations and acts of aggression. Adolf Hitler, when he rose to power (1933) in Germany, recreated the German army and prepared it for a war of conquest; in 1936 he remilitarized the Rhineland. Benito Mussolini conquered (1935–36) Ethiopia for Italy; and from 1936 to 1939 the Spanish civil war raged, with Germany and Italy helping the fascist forces of Francisco Franco to victory. In March, 1938, Germany annexed Austria, and in Sept., 1938, the British and French policy of appeasement toward the Axis reached its height with the sacrifice of much of Czechoslovakia to Germany in the Munich Pact.  (Read more here).

In fact, this is precisely the argument that Sister Lucia makes - the war began with the annexation of Austria:

World War II, in truth, began during the reign of Pius XI. "The annexation of Austria was the occasion for it," she explained. The invasion of Austria (in March 1938), the annexation of Czechoslovakia, the formation of military alliances and the decision to invade Poland were the beginnings of the war, though war had not yet been officially declared. 

Well.... ok... But notice that the very last element prior to Pius XI's death is a peace treaty (the Munich Pact) that gives the Germans Czechoslovakia. Great Britain and France don't abandon appeasement until the Italians seize Albania in April 1939, well into the reign of Pius XII. If a war began under Pius XI, wouldn't a peace treaty under that same Pope end it?

Now, there are some who will argue that World War II actually began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and that DID happen during the reign of Pius XI. Fine and dandy. But according to the second part of the prophecy, the war doesn't break out until we see a "night illumined by an unknown light", and according to Sister Lucia, the surviving Fatima visionary, that light doesn't happen until January 25, 1938 (see below). So, the Japan-Manchuria argument isn't in line with the prophecy either.

Sister Lucia's argument at least puts the heavenly light, the annexation of Austria and the beginning of war in the proper order, but the surrounding explanation is... weak. Hitler's demands on Polish territory did not begin until March 1939. Hitler's specific plans to invade Poland weren't drawn up until April, 1939. If we say he had plans prior to that, well, sure. As any historian is happy to point out, Germany had been making military plans to destroy Poland since it came back into existence following WW I. So, if Sister Lucia meant to say that the formation of military alliances is the beginning of the war, that's wonderful, but the secret Soviet-German non-aggression pact that allowed Germany to invade Poland without fear of a two-front war was not concluded until August, 1939 - well into the reign of Pius XII. Sigh. No matter how you try, it's just hard to shoehorn her prophecies into the actual history of the war.

Worse, Sister Lucia doesn't bother to reveal any of of these prophecies until 1941, years after the events already take place. Were her memories of a decades-old vision muddled by intervening events? We really don't know.

In any case, the various European states don't declare war until 1 September, 1939, which is why that date is generally considered the beginning of World War II. Given that Catholics are always very precise in their dates ("X happened on the Feast of the Assumption" or "Y happened on the Feast of the Annunciation"), it seems most odd that the Blessed Virgin would shoot six months wide of the mark, and get the Pope's name wrong to boot, in her description of exactly when a "worse" war than World War I will break out.

It's much easier to assume that the visionaries simply mis-heard, mis-understood or mis-remembered the Blessed Virgin on this point. Now, that would be bad enough, but the failures just get worse.

Prophecy Failure #2: The "Worse" War
Here's a question whose answer is not as obvious as it appears. Which was worse, World War I or World War II? You might say World War II based purely on the number of body bags produced: 60-70 million vs. 15-20 million. But is that the only way to look at it?

Well, no. Instead of looking at pure body count, we could look at percent of the world's population killed. And when we compare numbers, should we or should we not include the Spanish flu epidemic (1918-1919), the third worst pandemic in human history, a pandemic that killed off 1-3% of the world's population all by itself? In absolute numbers, it killed off more people than any plague in human history. And it happened before the reign of Pope Pius XI.

But, we digress. The Austria-Hungarian Empire had a 90% casualty rate among its military in World War I, Russia suffered a 75% military casualty rate prior to her civil war and withdrawal. No one in World War 2 had a comparable military loss rate. Similarly, judging by overall death rates, World War 1 was a much worse experience than World War 2, for at least several major countries around the world.

Total Casualty Rates	WW1	WW2
Australia	1.38%	0.57%
Romania	9%	4%
Canada	0.92%	0.4%
Belgium	1.62%	1.05%
New Zealand	1.64%	0.73%
United Kingdom	2.19%	0.94%
France	4.29%	1.35%
Italy	3.48%	1.03%
Bulgaria	3.41%	0.38%

Ironically, Portugal suffered more losses during WW I (12,000 Portuguese troops dead) than from WW II (8,787 Portuguese died... 6,232 confirmed and 2,555 estimated). And that doesn't count the 220,000 civilians deaths from starvation during WW I, which have no equivalent during WW II. So even for their own home country, the "visionaries" were grossly incorrect. (map link)

And here's the World War II map

Prophecy Failure #3:

"When you see a night illumined by an unknown light..."

The night of January 25, 1938 saw a tremendous aurora borealis, visible throughout all of Europe. This light DID happen during the reign of Pius XI. Sister Lucia said this aurora was the sign. But the problem is, again, obvious. It wasn't an unknown light. It was a known light - the aurora borealis. By 1896, Norwegian Professor Kristian Birkeland (1867-1917) had hypothesized that the northern lights were linked to solar radiation. True, in 1917, the theory was not widely accepted; it would not be fully accepted and confirmed until satellite data became available in the 1970s. However, auroras had been observed in Europe since at least 1560. There were similar auroras throughout the 1870s and a similar storm was seen on Feb 11, 1958. Consequently, some have argued the unknown light was actually the Trinity nuclear bomb test. Of course, there was no great war that followed that event, so that doesn't seem to work either.

Prophecy Failure #4: Famine
Famine is mentioned as a punishment on the world. But this one is very, very hard to entertain. Now, sure, since Fatima, there have been a lot of terrible famines in various countries. For instance, Stalin's Ukraine saw massive famine. Communists China's "Great Leap Forward" produced a man-made famine that killed tens of millions and drove the countryside to cannibalism. North Korea is under perpetual famine and cannibalism for decades. Communism produces famine - everyone knows that now in a way that no one did in 1917.

So, in that narrow sense, the children's vision was VERY prophetic. They correctly predicted that anyone living under communism would suffer great physical want. In 1917, before anyone had actually attempted to implement communism or socialism, it was not at all obvious that this would be the case.

But if you want to use Fatima to argue that the world was going to undergo or has already undergone some kind of unusual famine, it's an impossible argument to support. After all, famine is not exactly unusual in human history, and it is demonstrably less likely today. Don't believe me? Look at the numbers.

We have not yet hit the century mark on the Fatima prophecies, but the world has gone from roughly 1.6 billion in 1900 to a bit over 7 billion today. That is, the world has over 4 times as many people today as it did at the time of the prophecy. If famine were really hitting us hard, how did we get four additional planets' worth of people in the intervening century?

The consensus is clear: famine has become less common over the previous century, it is not increasing. And it looks likely that this trend will continue. As Norman Borlaug points out, 17% of the world's cultivated land produces 90% of its food. If we can get the other 83% to adopt Borlaug's techniques, we can increase food production 5-fold. That means we can support 35 billion people on the planet before we have to till any new ground. Sadly, we'll probably never accomplish that population level. But that isn't due to lack of food. It's due to lack of interest in having children among populations that have low infant mortality rates.

There is, of course, one more aspect that should be considered. Perhaps God had promised the world famines, but unknown to three children, God had already delivered the solution to world-wide famine three years earlier. On the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1914, Norman Borlaug was born. Sister Lucia had no way of knowing this, but Borlaug's research would feed over 1 billion people in the decades following World War II - he quite literally fed the world. His work stopped the very famines that Sister Lucia thought she heard Mary warn about.

Prophecy Failure #5: Russia and her errors
This is a nasty one, and a lot of it hinges on how free you wish to get with definitions. Technically, monarchical Russia fell out of existence after the Russian Revolution. It was replaced by the United Soviet Socialist Republic. So, prior to the reign of Pope Pius XI, the first nation which is annihilated is Russia, replaced by the USSR in 1922. But if Russia no longer exists, it can't very well spread it's errors throughout the world, can it?

Sigh. Of course, we can argue that it was really just a name change, and insist it is still Russia in all but name. In fact, we have to make this argument for the Fatima prophecies to work. But, in order to make this argument, we must ignore that Russia had been ruled by monarchy for over 1000 years (the Ruriks, 862-1598, and the Romanovs, 1613-February Revolution of 1917). We know the Romanovs and the Czarists who supported them won't take issue with our argument, because they caught nine grams of lead in the back of the head on 17 July 1918. The prophecies are given six months after the Romanovs had abdicated, and almost exactly one year before the Romanovs are executed, although the world won't find out about the executions for decades.

At the time the Fatima prophecies were made, the only error Russia had made was to allow her Tsar to abdicate. It was operating under a Provisional Government which had amnestied all political and religious prisoners, guaranteed free speech, and promised free elections, among other things. Specifically, three days after the Fatima prophecies, the Russian Provisional Government was putting down the "July Days" protests (July 16-20, 1917 of Gregorian calendar). The first Provisional Government (run by Georgy Lvov, a noted Russian statesman who was NOT a socialist) arrested many socialists for insurrection. Though Lenin and many of his Bolsheviks escaped the July Days crackdown, they were forced into hiding.

Meanwhile, in the war itself, Russia's Kerensky offensive took place from 1 July [O.S. 18 June] to 19 July [O.S. 6 July] 1917. It was the last Russian offensive of World War I. Russian General Aleksei Brusilov ordered the 7th, 8th and 11th Russian Armies to attack 18 miles (29 km) of the Austro-German line in Galicia in what became the last major Russian military campaign of World War I. On 11 July, two days before the Fatima prophecies, Russian forces captured Halicz, Galicia, putting them within striking distance of Lemberg. 

So, on the very day, at the very hour, the prophecies were being given to the three visionaries, the Russian government was actively beginning the suppression of socialism, and was actively destroying the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Were those Russia's errors: the suppression of socialism and the destruction of monarchy? Because if those were Russia's errors, that's the exact reverse of every interpretation I've ever heard.

So, here's the problem: which part of Russian practice was error?

1. Was it the Tsar's resignation six months before the prophecies? Was that the error?
2. Or was it Lvov's Provisional government, the one in power when the prophecies were made? Because two weeks after the prophecies, it collapsed and was replaced by Kerensky's Provisional government. Was Lvov overthrown by the Queen of Heaven?
3. If so, he was replaced by Kerensky. Kerensky was a Menshevik (socialist). Clearly, Mary would never put a socialist in charge, would she? So, was his government the error? 
4. Or was it the Russian Republican that came into existence September 14? Were the visionaries warned against republics? America is a republic...
5. Or was it the Russian Revolution about a month later? 

There's at least five political systems here to choose from, and the prophecy doesn't say which one was the error which gets "spread throughout the world." A GREAT argument can be made that the error wasn't socialism or communism at all, but rather the loss of European monarchies.

But, as I said, let's ignore every bit of this inconvenient history and cut straight to the chase by assuming:

• a Georgian (Stalin) = a Russian
• the USSR = Russia
• a General Secretary = the president of a republic or a monarch
• democracy = socialism
• and socialism is the problem.

OK. If we assume there is no substantial difference between all those things, then we're good to go.

Prophecy Failure #6: Nations Annihilated
Then, let's look at the next part of the prophecy:

[Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.

Various nations will be annihilated due to the errors of Russia, that is, presumably due to the Communists. Hmmmm. Really? Here's a list of nations that were annihilated in the 20th century. Let's take a look at which ones can be chalked up to Communist influence.

Name changes: Since we have already discounted the idea that name changes count, we can toss out the following as not really being annihilated, but merely undergoing a name change:

• 1939: Siam changed its name to Thailand.
• 1946: Transjordan: Became the independent kingdom of Jordan.
• 1958-1961: United Arab Republic. Non-neighbors Syria and Egypt merged to become a unified country. In 1961 Syria abandoned the alliance but Egypt kept the name United Arab Republic itself for another decade.
• 1966: Basutoland changes its name to Lesotho. 
• 1971: Taiwan: stopped representing China in the United Nations but is still an independent country.
• 1972: Ceylon changed its name to Sri Lanka.
• 1980: Rhodesia changed its name to Zimbabwe.
• 1990: Southwest Africa: Gained independence and became Namibia.
• 1997: Zaire changed its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• 1998: Western Samoa changed its name to Samoa 

Weren't There: Since these countries didn't exist at the time of the prophecy, it seems unfair to count them as being annihilated when they again disappear:

• 1918: Czechoslovakia didn't exist until 14 Nov 1918. It doesn't exist now, having split in 1993 into the Czech and Slovak Republics, respectively. The largest religious group within the Czech Republic is Catholicism (10%). The largest religious group in the Slovak Republic is Catholicism (62%). So, how do you count this? 

• 1939: Catalonia: Autonomous region of Spain independent from 1932-1934 and 1936-1939. 

• 1954-1976: South Vietnam: Now part of a unified Vietnam, South Vietnam existed from 1954 to 1976 as the anti-communist portion of Vietnam. While it was wiped out by communists, it didn't exist in 1917, so it's hardly fair to count it. 

• 1964: Neither Tanganyika nor Zanzibar existed as independent countries in 1917, so when they united to form Tanzania, that can hardly count as annihilation can it?

• 1967: Yemen splits into North Yemen and South Yemen but in 1990 the two rejoin into a unified Yemen.

• 1971: East Pakistan: A province of Pakistan from 1947-1971 when it became Bangladesh. It became a country, it didn't stop being a country. 

• 1990s: Yugoslavia: First created 1 December 1918 as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, it was officially recognized in 1922. The Axis invaded in 1941, which led to its re-creation as Democratic Federal Yugoslavia in 1943 when the Partisans took over, then renamed again to the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946 when the communists took over. In 1963 it became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then in 1991 it began the breakup up into what is now Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro and Slovenia. This essay originally incorrectly categorized Yugoslavia as having fulfilled the prophecy. But, since the country didn't exist at the time of the prophecy, it really falls into this category. 

• 1991: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR): Technically, it doesn't come into existence until 1922. When the Tsar abdicated in February 1917 (March 1917 in the Orthodox calendar), the Russian Provisional Government was established. In September 1917, this was reformed as the Russian Republic. The Republic was overthrown by the Russian Revolution of 1917, establishing the Soviet Russian Republic. In 1922, this became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. By 1936, this was renamed the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, but most people continued to call it the USSR. By 1991, the whole scheme collapsed and it broke into fifteen new countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldovia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Again, this essay originall mis-categorized the USSR as having fulfilled the prophecy. Technically, the "Russia" which existed at the time of the July 1917 prophecy had already disappeared by either August or October/November of the same year (depending on your definition). Now Russia exists again, so does it count as being annihilated or not?

Tricky: These countries are trickier. They existed when the prophecy was made, they fell out of existence for a time, then they came back into existence, albeit with somewhat changed boundaries. Poland is the weirdest exception:

• 1917: Poland had actually been completely annihilated in 1795. It only came back into existence in November 1918, after Germany surrendered. It technically didn't exist at the time of the prophecy. But, does the reconstitution of a fully Catholic country count as a kind of anti-annihilation? Does it count against the prophecy instead of for it?
• 1980s: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were invaded and annexed by the USSR during WW 2, but most Western countries refused to recognize the annexation, and they all came back into existence during the 1980s. So do they count as having been annihilated or not?
• 1989: Germany existed in 1917, but it was divided into East and West Germany by WW 2. Today, of course, they have again merged together to form a unified Germany. Does that count?
• 2011: Same problem with South Sudan. Sudan technically was an independent nation at the time of the prophecy, but Britain ruled is as she did all of her other colonies. Worse, she ruled the north and south halves independently, since the differences between the regions were well-known. Sudan gained independence from the British in 1956. South Sudan began in July 2011. Does the new-found independence of Christian South Sudan from Muslim North Sudan count as the annihilation of Sudan?

Annihilated the Wrong Way: These countries really did fall out of existence and have not come back. But not only do they have to be annihilated, their annihilation should be the result of Russia's errors. These clearly don't qualify: 

• Oct 1918: Austria-Hungary: Established in 1867 and included not just Austria and Hungary, but also parts of the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Romania, and the Balkans. But it didn't disappear as a result of Russia's errors. It disappeared as a result of the Allied victory in WW1
• 1923: Ottoman Empire disappears, replaced by bits of contemporary Russia, Turkey, Hungary, the Balkans, northern Africa, and the Middle East. It disappeared as a result of the Allied victory in WW1
• 1932: Prussia: effectively abolished in 1932, officially abolished in 1947. It disappeared as a result of the Allied victory in WW1
• 1975: Sikkim was an independent monarchy from the 17th century until 1975, when it joined India. This was an internal Indian political affair and had nothing to do with communism.

Now, you can make the argument that these four countries should be counted, but it's hard to see how. The Russians were on the side of England and France in WW 1, they were fighting WITH the Allies, not against them. Her withdrawal from the war made Allied victory LESS likely, not more likely. And the Allies still won, even without Russia.

So, how exactly would Russia's withdrawal spread Russia's (unspecified) errors through the world given that she was on the side of the winners up until she withdrew and the winners still won? Should the Axis powers have won? If so, America is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Perhaps you want to argue that those empires should NOT have been broken up? That all the monarchies and czardoms were supposed to stay in place? That the breaking up of monarchy and the institution of democracies in all those countries is a consequence of Russia's error? Ok, you can make that argument, but again, it's different from any argument I've ever heard laid out about the proper interpretation of Fatima prophecies. I have a hard time constructing an argument that would make these four countries fit popular Fatima interpretations.

The Winners!: These countries not only existed at the time of the prophecy, they fell out of existence directly as a result of the errors of Russia, that is her communism, and to this day, do not exist: 

• 1950: Tibet was invaded by Communist China (which got its communism from the USSR) and is now known as the Xizang Autonomous Region of China. Alright, this one counts. But Tibet was no Shangri-La. In fact, some Tibetans argue they are better off under the communists than they ever were under the Dalai Lama. 

And.... that's all.

Hmmm... That's rather... uh... well... that's rather disappointing. We don't actually have nations annihilated. We actually have just "nation."

So the second "prophecy" clearly has its problems. Which calls into question the first prophecy and the third.

The Other Prophecies
Now, I'm sure that hell exists. What am I not sure of? I'm not sure that the visionaries correctly understood the Blessed Virgin there either. A lot of people have used the first prophecy to preach fire and brimstone concerning all kinds of things, and they may well be right. But you can see why using prophecy, especially the Fatima prophecies, to preach doctrine can quickly become a problem. If these three little kids got some of the essentials on the second prophecy a little (cough, cough) messed up, then what about the other two?

And as for the third prophecy, no Fatima endorser can even agree on what it really is. It's something horrible, they are all sure about that. But the details.... well... that's murky. Just be assured that the third prophecy is really horrible. Really.

So, if the message of Fatima is to pray, that's a great message and I'm all for it.
However, if the message of Fatima is to obsess over the prophecies, I think, from a spiritual perspective, I'd be better off playing a video game. Really.


UPDATE:
Hey, I just noticed this. According to the first vision, "more souls go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason."

Hmmmm.... Now, the traditionalists who push Fatima often like to say that you have to be baptized with water to be saved. If you aren't, according to them, you just go to Limbo. Limbo is supposedly the first circle of hell. Limbo is just a theological opinion, but traditionalists often pretend that it is doctrine of the Church which every Catholic must accept, even though that's impossible to prove. But let's go with their opinion on this.

Given that most of the people who have ever lived have lacked baptism, and would therefore go to hell for original sin even if they never committed any sin of the flesh, you would think that more souls go to hell because of lack of baptism than for any other reason.

But according to Fatima, lack of water baptism isn't the reason most people are in hell, it's sins of the flesh. So could the first vision be used as a bit of evidence AGAINST the idea of Limbo?
It certainly seems possible.

UPDATE II:

According to the supposed "visionaries", Our Lady of Fatima said Portugal would always keep the Faith. In 2020, Portugal had a 94% divorce rate, so that aged like milk in the sun.