US Bishops release statement ruling-out Reiki

Catholic Culture gives us the brief:

In a document released March 25, the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops blasted Reiki, a practice developed in Japan in the late nineteenth century that has gained acceptance in some Catholic retreat centers and other institutions.

... The bishops add, “Some forms of Reiki teach of a need to appeal for the assistance of angelic beings or ‘Reiki spirit guides.’ This introduces the further danger of exposure to malevolent forces or powers.” [more from Catholic Culture or the MSM.]

Well, I guess it's a good sign when I first hear about something bad ... when the bishops publish a document telling me it's bad. But has anyone come across this stuff? I mean, what made it such a priority for the bishops?

update: from comments, it's evident to me that this was becoming a widespread abuse. thanks for the context, papists! please continue to keep me posted in the comment thread. this is a dangerous practice.

Released: Dignitas Personae (full text, etc.)

As discussed previously, the follow-up document from the CDF to Donum Vitae (1987) and Evangelium Vitae (1995), both landmark statements from the Church on the literally life-and-death importance of bioethics, has been released: the instruction Dignitas Personae ("The Dignity of the Person"):

The Vatican's introduction [I've summarized some sections in brackets, important parts in bold]:

Aim "In recent years, biomedical research has made great strides, opening new possibilities for the treatment of disease, but also giving rise to serious questions which had not been directly treated in the Instruction Donum vitae (22 February 1987). A new Instruction, which is dated 8 September 2008, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, seeks to provide some responses to these new bioethical questions, as these have been the focus of expectations and concerns in large sectors of society. In this way, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seeks both to contribute “to the formation of conscience” (n. 10) and to encourage biomedical research respectful of the dignity of every human being and of procreation."

Title [Dignity of the Person = "from conception to natural death"] This fundamental principle expresses “a great ‘yes’ to human life and must be at the center of ethical reflection on biomedical research” (n. 1)."

Value "The document is an Instruction of a doctrinal nature, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and expressly approved by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. The Instruction therefore falls within the category of documents that “participate in the ordinary Magisterium of the successor of Peter” (Instruction Donum veritatis, n.18), and is to be received by Catholics “with the religious assent of their spirit” (Dignitas personae, n. 37).

Preparation [this is an update of Donum Vitae, framed by Veritatis Splendor and Evangelium Vitae]

Intended recipients of the document [not only Catholics, but "all who seek the truth"]
Structure The Instruction has three parts: “the first recalls some anthropological, theological and ethical elements of fundamental importance; the second addresses new problems regarding procreation; the third examines new procedures involving the manipulation of embryos and the human genetic patrimony” (n. 3).

Important links:

• Read Dignitas Personae here (PDF format)
• Read the accompanying 2-page Q&A here (PDF format)
• Read the USCCB news release here (HTML page)

Busy day...

update: William Saunders of the Family Research Council has penned a short explanation and commentary of this new document over at The Catholic Thing. John Allen also helpfully weighs in at length.

Initial mainstream media reactions:

• WaPo: "Vatican Condemns Cloning, Embryonic Stem Cell Research"
• USA Today: "Roman Catholic Church updates code on reproduction"
• AFP: "Vatican condemns cloning, stem cell research"
• NYT: "Vatican Issues Instruction on Bioethics"
• Reuters: "Vatican condemns embryo stem cell research, cloning"
• AP: "Vatican issues major new bioethics document"

update 2: good thoughts from Yuvel Levin, speaking as a non-Catholic who likes the document:

"One of the great ironies of the stem cell debates of the last few years has been that some of the most serious attention to scientific detail and reality has come from Catholic circles, while some of the most wide-eyed messianic faith-healing talk has come from liberal political (and sometimes even scientific) circles." (NRO)

I wouldn't say this is exactly a case of irony.

Cardinal Bertone: New social encyclical as early as this fall

What he said:

A new social encyclical by Pope Benedict XVI will probably be entitled Caritas in Veritate, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has revealed.

In an interview with the APCOM news agency, the Vatican Secretary of State disclosed that the Pope's next encyclical will not be ready for publication before the fall. "The encyclical is still being written," he said.

Cardinal Bertone said that Pope Benedict is also working on the second part of his book Jesus of Nazareth. The Pope typically devotes a substantial portion of his summer vacation to writing projects.

In his encyclical, the cardinal said, Pope Benedict "does not want to repeat obvious truths of Catholic social teaching," but will apply Church teachings to contemporary problems. "I am thinking of globalization and other problems, like the food crisis and climate change," Cardinal Bertone said.

Climate change? Oh boy.

Text: Pope Benedict XVI's "Urbi et Orbi" Easter Speech

The official English-language Vatican translation, released through the Associated Press:

"Resurrexi, et adhuc tecum sum. Alleluia! I have risen, I am still with you. Alleluia! Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus, crucified and risen, repeats this joyful proclamation to us today: the Easter proclamation. Let us welcome it with deep wonder and gratitude!

Brief coverage and video at CNN.

Wikipedia on the Urbi et Orbe speech.

Photos of (and stories from) the Easter weekend papal liturgies linked here.

Rumor: Third Papal Encyclical by May 1st, "Caritas in veritate"

CWNews:

A new papal encyclical on Catholic social teaching will be released on May 1, according to the Italian ANSA news agency.

The Vatican has not commented on the timing of the encyclical's appearance.

In an interview carried on February 29 by the Italian daily La Repubblica, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone confirmed reports that the Pope would soon release his third encyclical, and that it would be dedicated to "international social problems, with special focus on developing nations."

ANSA said that the encyclical will be entitled Caritas in Veritate ["Charity in Truth"], and will build upon the previous encyclicals Populorum Progressio by Pope Paul VI and Sollicituod Rei Socialis by Pope John Paul II.

The ANSA report said that the publication of the encyclical could possibly be delayed by difficulties in translating the document into Chinese.

Fr. Z reproduces the main points of Marco Tosatti writing for the daily La Stampa on the same topic.

Personally, I'd be very surprised to see this one released before mid-summer.

CDF officially ends dispute on "baptisms" by "Creator, Liberator, Sustainer", etc.

Today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith answered two recent disputed questions regarding allowable baptismal formulas and what to do with persons "baptized" using them:

Made public today were the responses of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to two questions concerning the validity of Baptism conferred with certain non-standard formulae.

The first question is: "Is a Baptism valid if conferred with the words 'I baptise you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier', or 'I baptise you in the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer'"?

The second question is: "Must people baptised with those formulae be baptised 'in forma absoluta'?"

The responses are: "To the first question, negative; to the second question, affirmative".

In other words: "no", baptism may not be validly celebrated using the above-mentioned substitutions for the traditional "Father, Son & Holy Spirit" phrasing, and "yes", people baptized with this substitute phrasing must be baptized absolutely, as opposed to conditionally (conditionally would imply that their previous baptism might have been valid. The CDF says they are absolutely not valid).

Pope Benedict personally approved these answers. Cardinal Levada, who is in charge of CDF, and Archbishop Amato, the no. 2 in charge of CDF, explain the decision (underlining mine):

An attached note explains that the responses "concern the validity of Baptism conferred with two English-language formulae within the ambit of the Catholic Church. ... Clearly, the question does not concern English but the formula itself, which could also be expressed in another language".

"Baptism conferred in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit", the note continues, "obeys Jesus' command as it appears at the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew. ... The baptismal formula must be an adequate expression of Trinitarian faith, approximate formulae are unacceptable.

"Variations to the baptismal formula - using non-biblical designations of the Divine Persons - as considered in this reply, arise from so-called feminist theology", being an attempt "to avoid using the words Father and Son which are held to be chauvinistic, substituting them with other names. Such variants, however, undermine faith in the Trinity".

I'm glad the response makes clear that this false practice came about because of "so-called feminist theology" (theology is theology, there is no such thing as "feminist" or "masculine" theology).

And if you had any doubt about the theological weight this opinion holds, consider:

"The response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith constitutes an authentic doctrinal declaration, which has wide-ranging canonical and pastoral effects. Indeed, the reply implicitly affirms that people who have been baptised, or who will in the future be baptised, with the formulae in question have, in reality, not been baptised. Hence, they must them be treated for all canonical and pastoral purposes with the same juridical criteria as people whom the Code of Canon Law places in the general category of 'non-baptised'".

That's pretty airtight, but won't prevent the obligatory outraged editorial responses.

Trust me, they're coming.

{updated} To review, CNS confirms that people who have been "baptized" without the proper Trinitarian form of the Sacrament must now be "re-baptized" and confirmed. They must be "re-baptized" before they can be re-admitted to recieving the Eucharist. Furthermore, they must, if married, now receive that Sacrament of Matrimony. If any of them men baptized with this invalid formula were ordained to Holy Orders, they must now be actually ordained.

In short, it's a huge mess.

Plus, people who continue invalidly baptizing with these invalid formulas incur certain penalties. Protestants, to make another point, who have been baptized with one of these invalid formulas, cannot be presumed to share in Christian baptism with Catholics. It's quite a can of worms.

Finally, some folks have mentioned the idea of "ecclesia supplet" as providing a solution to the dilemma posed when people operate and live with the belief that they have received Sacraments, which, in reality, they have not undergone.

That isn't quite correct, but don't lose hope: the proper Catholic theological response in this situation is that "Deus providet" - God provides. Canonist Ed Peters explains how/why in this post (jump down to the section heading 'So where does that leave our penitent?').

He also explains the background to this particular debate, and makes some helpful comments today:

"The rules on baptism are meant to be followed"

You might recall when I blogged against using baptismal formulae contrived to avoid masculine nouns for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I said back in 2004 that such ‘baptisms’ were invalid, and that people who received ‘baptism’ under them were not even Christian, let alone Catholic.

Looks like CDF agrees.

This type of invalid "baptism" was most notably practiced in Australia over the past decade:

• CathNews: Brisbane Archbishop stops "inclusive" baptism
• Catholic New Times: Cardinal Pell backs stand against 'invalid' baptisms
• ABC News: Brisbane church on notice over unconventional baptisms

And for a glimpse into the mindset that prompted this liturgical abuse, consider these lines from the "Australian Reforming Catholics" website (with emphasis on the "reforming"):

"If the words "Creator, Liberator and Sustainer" enable some people to come closer to the meaning of the Trinity, then why should there be such a problem if people have a choice about the way it is expressed? Our understanding is that not all people are baptised at the South Brisbane Church with these words and if some are assisted in faith through their usage, then there should be concentration on what is most important."

The proper way to approach the meaning of the Trinity is catachesis. The proper way to approach the reality of the Trinity, and of eternal life, is to call upon the Trinity by their revealed names in the sacrament of baptism. This is what is most important: that faith be founded on reality as well as feeling.

After all, feelings don't save - but God does.

Looks like CDF agrees.

[photo: Flickr user "praiseyah"]

Social Encyclical expected as early as Easter, Cardinal Bertone confirms

CNA reports:

The Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, confirmed today that Pope Benedict XVI is about to finish his Encyclical on social issues.

"Yes, the Pope is working on a social encyclical, which will have, I believe, a significant impact on the great social and economic problems in the contemporary world," said Cardinal Bertone during an interview published today by the Italian daily "La Repubblica."

....

The Secretary of State gave no clue as to when the document will be released, but unnamed sources from the Vatican quoted previously by the daily "Il Messaggero," said the third encyclical of Pope Benedict would be signed on the feast of St. Joseph –March 19th - and released during Easter.

"The encyclical will focus on international social problems, with special attention to developing countries," Cardinal Bertone told "La Repubblica."

Talking points for his April visit?

The UK Times: "Secret documents from Holy Inquisition revealed"

'Secret documents from the archives of the Holy Inquisition today went on public show for the first time in Rome - though not the instruments of torture used to extract confessions from heretics." - The UK Times

Unfortunately, the material is not nearly as sensationalist as some might hope.

On the contrary:

"... Vatican officials say opening the archives has "exposed some myths" about the Inquisition, showing for example that more women accused of witchcraft died in Protestant than in Catholic countries."

Imagine that.

Levada confirms CDF working on bioethics document

Briefly, from CNA:

"This morning, Pope Benedict XVI asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to focus on "the difficult and complex problems of bioethics." More specifically, the Pontiff drew the teaching body of the Church’s attention toward issues associated with reproductive technologies, explaining that some of them violate human dignity."

...

Among the "new problems" that require a re-evaluation are "the freezing of human embryos, embryonal reduction, pre-implantation diagnosis, stem cell research and attempts at human cloning," Benedict XVI said.

CWNews expands:

The Pope defended the Church against critics who treat the faith "as if it were an obstacle to science." In fact, he said, "the Church appreciates and encourages progress in the biomedical sciences." The pastoral task for the Church, he explained, is to "enlighten everyone's consciences so that scientific progress may be truly respectful of all human beings."

John Allen reports that this document will essentially be a follow-up to Donum Vitae (1987).

Allen also notes that the document may resolve a long-standing debate in bioethics:

Levada’s reference to frozen embryos suggests that the congregation may take up the controversial question of so-called “embryo adoption,” which has been much debated in pro-life circles in recent years. Essentially, one side believes that even though these embryos should never have been created, now that they exist, women should be encouraged to bring them to term, allowing them to develop as human beings. Another party, however, regards that as cooperation in a fundamentally immoral act, and worries that promoting adoption may simply encourage artificial creation of embryos.

The full text of the Holy Father's speech is available here on the Vatican website, in Italian.

CDF releases doctrinal note on evangelization

Running to Mass now, but here are the links:

• VIS short "summary outlining the main points of the new document"
• More complete text of the document's summary points.
• update: full text of doctrinal note inPDF format. {Ph/t: Amy.}
• Press conference remarks (Cdls. Levada & Arinze in English, scroll down)
• Catholic commentary from Rocco & Diogenes.
• update: Catholic coverage from CWNews, CNA & CNS.
• Mainstream coverage by AGI & TIME.

My pre-release coverage: "Curia all-stars to release document on Evangelization and Catechesis"

update: AGI is casting this document in light of the Russian Orthodox - Roman Catholic tension:

"This principal seems to respond to the worries of the Russian orthodox church, which accuse the Catholic Church of using economic means for conversions."

In addition, TIME magazine mentions India:

"Roman Catholics have also faced tensions in several states in India, accused by Hindu nationalists of aggressive attempts to convert Hindus."

Cardinal Arinze, in his "anthropolical considerations" of evangelization, highlights African Traditional Religion:

"Since I come from a country in Africa South of the Sahara, I would like to apply some anthropological implications of evangelization discussed by this Doctrinal Note to areas in Africa South of the great desert. In these regions, African Traditional Religion has been the dominant religious and cultural context for centuries. It is also from that context that most converts to Christianity in these countries in the past two hundred years have come."

Diogenes finds in the document a "timely rebuke to Cardinal Kasper for his deplorably wet remarks on the Anglican situation" and quotes his statement.

With Russia, India, Africa and England represented here, I think it's safe to say this is a global message.

Notice: Curia all-stars to release document on Evangelization and Catechesis

CNA reports on what probably will be a very important document:

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), headed by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, is about to release an important document on evangelization and catechesis, Vatican sources told CNA this week.

According to the Vatican sources, the document, which could be made public this Advent, “can be regarded as an application of the principles of the document “Dominus Iesus” to the way evangelization is transmitted and catechesis is taught within the Catholic Church.”

In “Dominus Iesus” the CDF, then under the leadership of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, clearly established the differences between the Catholic Church and other religions including other Christian denominations. “Dominus Iesus” states that only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the Christian faith.

According to sources consulted by CNA, the new document on evangelization will stress the need to make the person of Jesus Christ, in his role as God incarnated to bring the full revelation of God’s plans through the Catholic Church, the corner stone and center of every program of evangelization and catechesis.

The intention of the document, according to the source, is “to bring back the centrality of Jesus to the programs aimed at transmitting the faith to future generations, since several of these programs are centered on feelings or confused ideas about the teachings of the Church on the nature of Jesus.”

The doctrinal note will be released next Friday (the 14th). A quick look at the presenters reveals an impressive "who's who" list of top-flight Curia heads:

• Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith
• Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation of the Evangelizations of Peoples
• Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect ... of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
• Monsignor Angelo Amato, Secretary for the Congregation of the Faith

Wow. Levada, Dias, Arinze and Amato in the same room. That's like a mini-conclave right there.

Amy has the scoop:

You might remember that the one of the more recent documents of a similar nature, one which concerned the nature of the Church was released in July without a press conference - perhaps because no one thought that anyone could really care much about this short document from the CDF .. .they were wrong, because it got quite a bit of press - even in the secular media - and I think the failure to introduce the document in a press conference might have inadvertantly encouraged some of the misrepresentations that ran amuk. Of course, misrepresentation of a Church document is bound to run amuk no matter what, but it is interesting to me that this one gets a high-level intro to the world. Very high level.

Let's add some more context:

Dominus Iesus was quintessential Ratzinger, and the document Amy mentions ("Responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the docrine of the church") reaffirmed and applied that teaching in Pope Benedict's pontificate, in much the same way as the CDF's "Responses to Certain Questions of the USCCB concerning artificial nutrition and hydration" provided a low-level doctrinal backup to the precedent enunciated by Pope John Paul II in his 2004 speech on the same topic to an international congress.

In other words, if recent history is any lesson, Pope Benedict prefers to use official CDF responses to clarify and promulgate particular doctrinal matters with force. This is, of course, exactly as it should be. Count on the ex-head of CDF to understand and employ that. So stay tuned.

update: more details from John Thravis at the CNS News Hub:

Perhaps most interesting is that they’re having a press conference at all. When the doctrinal congregation issued two documents earlier this year — one on the Catholic Church as the one true church, the other on nutrition and hydration issues — no one was there to answer reporters’ questions. Church officials later complained that media reports on the documents were not always accurate. This time around, the Vatican is being more proactive.

The new document is said to be about 18 pages long, and will be released in six languages, including English. All three cardinals at the press conference are English-speaking, but if the usual Vatican format is followed, they’ll be giving their speeches and answering most questions in Italian. When in Rome…

O'Malley uses "scandal" to describe Catholics voting for pro-choice politicians, while Lori suggests jumping through hoops

Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, saying the Democratic Party has been persistently hostile to opponents of abortion rights, asserted yesterday that the support of many Catholics for Democratic candidates "borders on scandal."

In his sharpest comments about the political landscape since he was installed as archbishop of Boston four years ago, O'Malley made clear that, despite his differences with the Republican Party over immigration policy, capital punishment, economic issues, and the war in Iraq, he views abortion as the most important moral issue facing policymakers.

"I think the Democratic Party, which has been in many parts of the country traditionally the party which Catholics have supported, has been extremely insensitive to the church's position, on the gospel of life in particular, and on other moral issues," O'Malley said.

Acknowledging that Catholic voters in Massachusetts generally support Democratic candidates who are in favor of abortion rights, O'Malley said, "I think that, at times, it borders on scandal as far as I'm concerned."

"However, when I challenge people about this, they say, 'Well, bishop, we're not supporting [abortion rights],' " he said. "I think there's a need for people to very actively dissociate themselves from those unacceptable positions, and I think if they did that, then the party would have to change."

O'Malley urged the Democratic Party to be more open to abortion opponents. "My plea with Democratic leaders is always that they make space for prolife politicians, and I have many prolife Democrats come to me and say that they're not making space for them. I think that that is a very serious problem, particularly in a state like Massachusetts, where it is so heavily Democrat." - Boston Globe

Someone is reaping the good fruits of the Fall Meeting. CWNews summarizes here.

Meanwhile Bishop William Lori prevaricates over the proposed hypothetical of whether one can legitimately vote for a pro-abortion politician because of "grave proportional reasons":

After the briefing concluded, Lori responded to a reporter’s question about another situation, in which one candidate may hold an anti-abortion position but oppose other concerns of the church, while that candidate's opponent may be pro-choice but sympathetic to the church in other ways.

“That’s such a hypothetical question, it would be very hard to answer as asked,” Lori said. “I think what we are saying is that if a voter is confronted with a dilemma of a pro-life candidate who is in some other way flawed or unfit for office, or likely to discredit the pro-life position, one might be in a dilemma, a difficult situation.”

“A situation could arise that the pro-life candidate would be in some other way unsuitable,” Lori said. “It could be that the way in which he would advance the pro-life cause might do more harm than good. It might be that his opposition to other human goods is so rabid that a conscientious voter might be put in a dilemma. In that case, you have to weigh that over against the other candidate.”

“The main point of the statement,” Lori said, “is that you can’t easily reach that decision. You can’t reach it because you prefer one party over another, you can’t reach it because in addition to everything else the candidate is going to make you feel better. It can't be because of economic advantage.

“You really have to go through some hoops to come to that conclusion,” Lori said. “I think that the more who go through those hoops, the better off we’re going to be.”

... huh? "Hoops"?! Let's all go through hoops?!

First of all, this isn't "such a hypothetical question." People regularly defend voting for a pro-abortion politician because they believe that candidate so-and-so proportionally is better on the "other life issues" (such as, say, immigration and health care).

However, the twin statements in this new USCCB document (PDF) which claim that abortion is "not just one issue among many" and "must always be opposed" strike me as formulations that do not admit of proportionalist evaluations: if you put "abortion" on one side of the scales and "health care" on the other - the scale's going to definitively fall one way. You can't have it both ways.

Or, to contextualize the dilemma, how can we have one Bishop saying that voting for pro-choice politicians "borders on scandal" while another Bishop can go around claiming that "You really have to go through some hoops to come to that conclusion" (whatever he actually meant)?

Either it's clear, or it isn't. So, which is it?

Update: CNA posts its coverage here. Diogenes finds O'Malley's addition of the qualifier "borders on" to be needless, and then presents ample facts to support his claim. His conclusion:

"If you're looking for something that "borders on" a state of scandal, I'd say: New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island."

Oh my, that's just brilliant.

The AP prepares us for the USSCB document on voting

The highlights:

Throughout the 37-page document, opposition to abortion gets special attention.

"The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is always wrong and is not just one issue among many," the draft says.

At the same time, the bishops say Catholics must not dismiss racism, the death penalty, unjust war, torture, hunger, health care problems or unjust immigration policy.

"A consistent ethic of life," the document says, "neither treats all issues as morally equivalent nor reduces Catholic teaching to one or two issues."

While the document seems to be trying to have it both ways, it at least underscores the fundamental point.

Bp. Chaput isn't quite satisfied:

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, one of the country's most vocal bishops about Catholics' need to speak in the public square, criticized the previous version of "Faithful Citizenship" for not being strong enough in underlining abortion's pre-eminence.

Chaput said in an e-mail Tuesday the revised document "is better and clearer than any version in the recent past" but isn't ideal. He said would be offering suggestions, but wouldn't be specific.

Chaput wrote that "all bricks in a building are important, but the ones in the foundation support everything else. The latter aren't just important; they're indispensable."

Needless, biased and obligatory final paragraph editorializing:

In 2004, some bishops and American Catholics worried that the voices of a few bishops were getting undue attention.

St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke drew the most notice for saying he would deny Communion to Democrat John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights. Burke has indicated he would so the same for 2008 Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic who also backs keeping abortion legal.

That grandstanding Archbishop. Ya know, teaching what the Church teaches....

Reader John V lets us know:

Saw this news release entitled "Catholic Bishops To Discuss Faith And Politics Statement, Focus On Helping To Form Consciences" on the USCCB web site. At the end of the alert was this:

"To obtain a copy of the draft, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States, contact the Department of Media Relations 202-541-3200 or e-mail: mwalsh@usccb.org."

I sent a request in a few days ago, and haven't heard back yet.

If anyone has better luck, I'd be much obliged for a draft copy. There's evidently no embargo on it.

Bishops to vote on doc/parish bulletin insert re: political involvement

CNS reports:

Rejecting a political climate based on "powerful interests, partisan attacks, sound bites and media hype," the U.S. bishops call Catholics to "a different kind of political engagement" in a document to be voted on during their fall general meeting Nov. 12-15 in Baltimore.That engagement must be "shaped by the moral convictions of well-formed consciences and focused on the dignity of every human being, the pursuit of the common good and the protection of the weak and vulnerable," they said.

The 37-page "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility From the Catholic Bishops of the United States" was developed by seven committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and must be approved by two-thirds of the USCCB membership.

The bishops also are to vote on a shortened version of the text, designed for use as a parish bulletin insert.

There are some encouraging signs that this document might not be more "business as usual":

The draft is part of a series of documents that have been issued before every presidential election for more than 30 years.

But the 2007 version underwent a wider consultation at the committee level and is the first to come before the full body of bishops. In past years, the documents were approved by the Administrative Committee, made up of the executive officers of the USCCB, elected committee chairmen and elected regional representatives.

Although the draft document outlines a wide variety of policy positions taken by the bishops on domestic and international issues, it makes clear that not all issues carry equal importance.

"There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society, because they are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor," the document says, citing in particular abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, stem-cell research involving the destruction of human embryos and "violations of human dignity such as racism, torture, genocide and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war."

The bishops warn against "two temptations in public life (that) can distort the church's defense of human life and dignity."

"The first is a moral equivalence that makes no ethical distinctions between different kinds of issues involving human life and dignity," they say. "The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life is ... not just one issue among many."

But it is also wrong to misuse "these necessary moral distinctions as a way of dismissing or ignoring other serious threats to human life and dignity," the draft document says.

Although there might be "principled debate" about the best approach on issues such as health care, racism, unjust war, the death penalty and immigration, "this does not make them optional concerns or permit Catholics to dismiss or ignore church teaching on these important issues," the bishops say.

I don't know, the pessimistic side of me foresees yet another USCCB document that folks will blithely be able to take whichever way they wish - and here's the rub - and without trying too hard.

We'll see. On opinions like this I love being proven wrong.

Of course, if anyone has a draft of the document floating around that would save me the worry....

Breaking: CDF releases clarification (confirmation) re: nutrition & hydration

Via Amy, the CDF responds to a request from the USCCB today:

First question: Is the administration of food and water (whether by natural or artificial means) to a patient in a "vegetative state" morally obligatory except when they cannot be assimilated by the patient’s body or cannot be administered to the patient without causing significant physical discomfort?

Response: Yes. The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented.

Second question: When nutrition and hydration are being supplied by artificial means to a patient in a "permanent vegetative state", may they be discontinued when competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness?

Response: No. A patient in a "permanent vegetative state" is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.

Also published, a lengthy commentary by CDF on the history of the teaching that artificial nutrition and hydration is ordinary and proportionate means. More backstory when I get a chance.

Update: This is the first time Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, has gotten involved in this particular question (as far as I know). CDF hereby has confirmed Pope John Paul II's teaching given in 2004 that artificial hydration and nutrition is, in principle, ordinary care and as such always to be administered. The CDF commentary specifically states, "the Responses now given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith continue the direction of the documents of the Holy See cited above, and in particular the Address of John Paul II of March 20, 2004."

I'm guessing, but don't know for sure, that President Skylstad submitted this question to CDF because many Catholic hospitals are still ignoring the directive of Pope John Paul II.

Well, now they're ignoring the recent teaching of two popes.

Update 2: Reuters coverage.

Pope's new encyclical to be released in a matter of days?!

The report, however unlikely (read: very), comes out of India's Economic Times:

MUMBAI: The Vatican, the seat of the Catholic Church, has decided to lend a helping hand to governments across the globe that are trying to tackle the menace of cross-border tax evasion. It will soon come out with an Encyclical denouncing tax evasion and the tax havens that deprive many governments of resources for social justice.

According to the reports in the foreign media, the Encyclical, an official statement of the Pope issued periodically by the Catholic Church, will be released within a few days. The office of the Archbishop of Mumbai said it will be able to comment on the issue only after the Encyclical is released.

It makes sense that Indian presses would be particularly involved in speculation regarding the new encyclical's subject matter and release date. As I understand it, India is particularly notorious for its problems with tax evasion, where actually paying one's taxes to the government is the exception: most people find some way around the laws ("In fact, money flowing into Swiss bank accounts from India is estimated at $500 billion.")

Tax evasion will also be a political issue during our upcoming elections. The release time of this encyclical, whatever it is, will be interesting in the context of those accompanying debates. The local inspiration for the encyclical could well be the recent crackdown on tax evasion in Italy, led by Romano Prodi [source], himself a practicing Catholic who has called upon the Church to speak out on this issue. 1/3 of Italians, it is known, heavily evade their tax debts, creating a huge deficit problem for the government [source]. The time frame, of course, also coincides nicely with the 40th anniversary of Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progressio [source].

What do we know for sure about the Encylical? One, that it is being worked on during the Pope's vacation [source: Msgr. Ganswein & Fr. Lombardi] Second, the subject matter will include the topics of globalization, tax evasion and offshore banks, as well as outline just guidelines for world trade, with care for the poor [source].

Already the debate over the wisdom of the Pope's perceived position is getting hot, and I guess that it would be too much to ask that people cool off until the time when we actually have a published text to read.

Until then, I'll be watching the ticker tape.

The "radicalness" of the CDF document questioned

... by Edward Peters at In the Light of the Law (canonists, take note!).

Kasper's press on the new CDF document examined

... by Christopher Blosser at Against the Grain (handily, I might add).

Update: ... and again here.

Conflating document and commentary: bad reporting or poor releasing?

Today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released two texts, but if you read much of the reporting that has gone on today, you would not realize that fact. What are the two texts?

• the first text is a document entitled "Responses to some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church" and is available at the Vatican website in English here.
• the second text is a commentary simply entitled "Observations" (at least on the English-language page) and is currently only available on the Vatican website in Italian. An unofficial English-language translation is available, for instance, here from Vatican analyst Sandro Magister (scroll-down to find it).

Now, here is my question/problem. The Reuters story released today (under the title "Vatican says other Christian churches "wounded") conflates the document with the commentary - and indeed - favors the commentary for its quotations, mainly because those quotations are sometimes less irenic.

Here is what Reuters says towards the beginning of its story:

"16-page document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict once headed, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognise the primacy of Pope.

But the document said the "wound is still more profound" in Protestant denominations."

"Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them," it said.

The "16-page document" can only refer to the actual document "Responses to some Questions..." when it is combined with the accompanying commentary. The actual document itself (without the commentary) is far shorter than 16 pages.

Moreover, the word "wound" (which is used in the Reuters headline) and the (by far most inflammatory) phrase which ends "it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could not possibly be attributed to them" both do not appear in the document: they appear in the commentary instead.

Reuters is not alone in conflating the document and the commentary in its reporting, nor is Reuters alone in favoring the commentary heavily for its quotations. Here, for example, is a quotation from the AFP's coverage:

"Central to that identity is the idea [of the Catholic Faith] that eastern or Orthodox churches were suffering a "wound" because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope."

"It [the document] said "the wound is still more profound" in "communities emerging from the Reformation" -- the Protestant and Anglican churches."

Again, in both cases the reporters are quoting the commentary and not the document itself.

This situation prompts a question: is the commentary on an equal level with the actual document to the point that one can honestly quote from both alternatively without any specification as to which one is being discussed?

The Catholic News Service article describes the commentary as "authoritative" but proceeds to be very specific when it is quoting from the commentary as opposed to quoting the document itself.

On the other hand, the VIS released today does not mention the commentary, and specifies that the document released today was published in multiple languages (in order to be readily received by the universal Church).

This leaves my final set of questions, which I'll be happy to have answered via email or in the comment box: is the media missing an important distinction (between document and commentary), and therefore should they in future avoid conflating the two genres of Vatican text? Or, do both types of text hold identical "weight"? (And in this is the case, isn't it confusing for the CDF to release two types of text when they are equally authoritative?).

Okay, I've thrown it out there.

Reactions to/Commentaries on the CDF's Clarification Document

Following quickly on the heels of the Motu Proprio, the document released today by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is receiving a great deal of attention. It is entitled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church" and is, in large part, a follow-up to the 2000 document Dominus Iesus, and deals with the identity of the Catholic Church, and with the relation of the Catholic Church to the oriental Churches separated from Rome and to the Protestant ecclesial Communities.

In an atmosphere of (mostly problematic) reporting and press, it is doubly important to understand what the document truly does and does not say.

First off, the official text is available here and is a very straightforward read.

Second, an accompanying "observation" text has been published by the CDF in Italian here. I am currently looking for a reliable English translation. Update: Sandro Magister has included his translation of this accompanying text here (scroll down to where it says "Commentary...").

Now, the Catholic reporting agencies on this document:

• AsiaNews: Only the Catholic Church is the true “Church of Christ”
• CNA: CDF explains Vatican II teaching on the Church in relation to other Christian churches
• CNS: Catholic Church alone is one, true, apostolate church, says Vatican doctrine congregation & Vatican doctrine congregation reaffirms truth, oneness, fullness of Catholic Church
• CWNews: New Vatican document affirms centrality of Catholic Church

As far as commentary from St. Blog's, I enjoyed Mark Shea's succinct, down-to-earth account of the situation.

Update: As far as reprehensibly-bad headlines go, "Pope: Only Catholics Have 'Means Of Salvation'" is winning the race thus far.

Vatican releases "document regarding certain aspects of Church doctrine"

Update: Links have been switched-over to the document's permanent Vatican website location.

From today's VIS, the "subsistit document" blogged about earlier here:

DOCUMENT REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF CHURCH DOCTRINE

VATICAN CITY, JUL 10, 2007 (VIS) - Made public today was a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: "Responses to some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church." It is dated June 29, Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles, and bears the signatures of Cardinal William Joseph Levada and Archbishop Angelo Amato S.D.B., respectively prefect and secretary of the congregation.

The document has been published in Latin, Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish. The complete English-language version is given here.

Motu Mania Roundup

Update: Goodness, an entire blog dedicated to Summorum Pontificum. Already. You have to love St. Blogs.

Coverage of the Motu Proprio is mushrooming across St. Blogs (as expected), so I'll try to keep things tight:

• The non-official English translation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum
• The explanatory letter published by Pope Benedict to accompany the MP
• The official Latin text of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum
• CNS coverage // Good CWNews coverage // Good CNA coverage

Thoughts from across St. Blogs:

• Complete coverage at Fr. Z's WDTPRS
• Ongoing coverage from Closed Cafeteria
• Ongoing coverage from Whispers
• Curt Jester
• Update: Jimmy Akin has posted his commentary.
• Phil Lawler catches a small typo in the English translation
• New: Bettnet's link roundup
• New: Amy's post

I'll have to add MSM coverage links once I'm home again (tomorrow sometime probably).

CDF to elaborate on the famous "subsistit" of Lumen Gentium

Gerald breaks the story in English:

According to my pals at Kath.net, a new CDF document can be expected shortly.

According to well-informed circles in the Vatican, there will be a new document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on a hot topic. It will deal with the self-conception of the Church and will supposedly be released July 10th.

This document will state the unique character of the Catholic Church and that Protestant churches are not churches in the narrow sense. The topic will be the sentence "Ecclesia subsistit in Ecclesia catholica" (The Church of Christ subsists in/is realized in the Catholic Church) from the Vatican II document Lumen gentium.

There's independent confirmation, ie via a different source, of this by Il Giornale's Andrea Tornielli, as this Italian blog points out, thanks for Steven for pointing to it.

My professor for Ecclesiology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Dr. Robert Fastiggi, absolutely burned the phrase "This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church" (LG #8) into our heads during the course.

For this reason (and others), I'm thrilled to find out that CDF is preparing to publish a document which will elaborate on this important teaching.

Update: CWNews adds its coverage here.

Roundup: The Letter to China

I hope to read this over the weekend. In the meantime:

• The full text of the letter
• An official explanitory note
• AsiaNews will have much coverage
• New York Times
• Associated Press
• Fr. Z's first glance
• Jeff Miller's thoughts
• Blog-by-the-Sea's summary

... and continue to pray for the Church in China!

MP details

Rocco has some new ones.

And if you haven't read it yet, Fr. Z’s 5 Rules of Engagement for after the MP is released.

Finally, CNS has an "at-a-glance" set of differences between the Tridentine and current order of the Mass.

The Letter to China, and what it portends

At long last we have confirmation that Pope Benedict will be releasing his letter addressed to the "bishops, the priests, the religious, and the lay faithful" of China this Saturday.

It will be released to journalists at 9am (under embargo until noon) and then released to the public, as the VIS states.

CNA has the best coverage from a Catholic source currently, providing a bit of the backstory to this letter's release:

"The current situation of division began in 1951 when the officially atheist Communist Party took power and forced Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican. Presently, worship is allowed only in the government-controlled churches which are not allowed to acknowledge the leadership of the Pope. Millions of Chinese, however, belong to unofficial congregations loyal to Rome.

Benedict has been reaching out to Beijing in an effort to restore diplomatic ties and unite China's estimated 12 million faithful. The Chinese government and the Vatican have remained divided over the government’s refusal to allow the Pope to appoint bishops and to exercise his papal authority.

Benedict's decision to address Chinese Catholics in a letter came out of high-level talks on China at the Vatican in January.

The Vatican statement on the letter, issued yesterday, provided a general indication of the letter’s contents by speaking of the interest in pursuing "respectful and constructive dialogue" with the government while paying tribute to those Catholics who have suffered for their loyalty to the pope.

Vatican watchers have said they expect the pope will stress the unity of the Catholic Church in the document, which Italian news reports said would be about 28 pages long and read like a mini-encyclical.

...

Benedict made clear from the outset of his papacy two years ago that improving relations with China was a key priority.

He has sent envoys to Beijing to sound out the government on the possibility of restoring ties, and he invited four Chinese bishops — from the official and underground churches — to a meeting of the world's bishops in 2005. Beijing did not let any of the four attend.

The second part to this story is how it will be received by both the underground and "official", state-approved Church. CNA again reports:

The reaction of the Beijing government and the underground faithful will be vitally important. Some underground priests have already expressed resentment about the pope's outreach to the government and the official church, according to the “official” bishop of Shanghai, Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian.

According to the International Herald Tribune’s source, Agostino Giovagnoli, a commentator on Vatican-China relations, "There will be two different reactions." The underground bishops may resent the pope's recognition of the fact that many "official" bishops who were consecrated without Rome's consent have since reconciled with the Holy See, he said.

"Maybe the reaction of the official bishops will be better," he said.

Ambrose-a-rama, who lives in China, is "nervous" about the letter's reception.

Reuters has rather bland coverage. The Associated Press coverage is closer to CNA's, and adds an interesting tidbit that "The Vatican has said it would concede to another key demand of Beijing to downgrade relations with Taiwan in exchange for restoring ties with Beijing."

That's news to me. What, exactly, could "downgrade relations" mean in this context?

The AFP coverage likewise prompts more questions than it answers, but does at least remind us that the underground church has more members than the official one. At least, if you can trust these sorts of statistics.

Update: R-C points to this interview with Cardinal Zen which says that the Chinese authorities received the letter a couple days ago and this would in turn explain reports that the Bishops under the Chinese government have been summoned to Beijing, and - in all likelihood - are being coached how to officially and publicly respond to it. Party line and all that.

Update 2: CNS fills us in on some details from the officially-sanctioned meeting of Chinese bishops:

Chinese government officials told about 80 Chinese Catholic bishops, priests and lay Catholics called to a late-June meeting to receive an imminent pastoral letter from Pope Benedict XVI "with calmness."

... UCA News learned that top officials from the Community Party's United Front Work Department and from the State Administration for Religious Affairs spoke for more than a half-hour June 28 regarding the papal letter. The Vatican announced June 29 that the letter would be made public June 30.

... Zhu Weiqun, United Front deputy director, and Ye Xiaowen, religious affairs administration director, did not reveal the letter's contents at the meeting. However, they did say that China's Catholics should remain calm, no matter what the content of the letter, sources said.

Update 3: The BBC appears to have some minimal knowledge of the letter's contents:

In his 28-page document, the Pope pointedly refrains from referring specifically either to the underground church, which is still in communion with Rome, or to the Patriotic Catholic Church, whose bishops have always been appointed from Beijing.

Reuters' pre-MP report: less good.

Yesterday I summarized the NYT's pre-MP coverage and declared it not so bad.

Today, Reuters released its coverage ("Pope to authorize Latin mass in coming days") and it is less not so bad, in fact, it is bad.

From the opening lines:

"Pope Benedict will tell Roman Catholic priests in coming days that they can say mass in Latin as a concession to traditionalists.

However, the move has raised concern about reviving parts of the old liturgy that Jews consider anti-Semitic."

There's a one-two punch. The document described as a "concession to traditionalists" and "anti-Semitic" one after the other.

Moving on:

The Latin liturgy was sidelined by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s in favor of local languages in an attempt to make worship more accessible to the bulk of churchgoers.

After months of speculation that the old rite, known as the Tridentine mass, could return, the Vatican said on Thursday the Pope had met senior clerics a day earlier to discuss "the content and the spirit" of a papal document on the matter.

...

The document is known as a 'motu propio' and will be issued in Latin, still the official language of the Vatican.

...

Traditionalists can now say mass in Latin only with prior permission from a bishop, and the liturgy is heard only rarely.

Good job, guys, you couldn't even spell "motu proprio" correctly. Seriously, how unprofessional.

The article ends with three paragraphs on the bogus anti-Semitic accusation, and ends with the obligatory "Pope Benedict stirred inter-faith tensions with the Muslim world last year by making a speech in Germany including a medieval quote about Islam being spread by violence."

Really, you'd think he hadn't done anything in between that speech and issuing this document.

NYT's first take on the Motu Proprio

The New York Times has released its advance coverage before the MP's release: "Wider Use of Latin Mass Likely, Vatican Officials Say."

If this article proves to be typical of the treatment the MSM gives to the MP's release, I don't think we have too much to worry about. Sure, all the old complaints and cheap jabs are there, but so are some decent (albeit out of context) quotations from the likes of Fr. Fessio and a pro-Trid. grad student studying in Rome.

The article does give an undo weight to the resistance of some bishops against the promulgation of the MP, but the account also includes the distinction that the issue here "is not a compulsory return to the Tridentine rite."

In any case, I hope Fr. Z will take a look at the article sometime and give us his opinion.

Update: Fr. Z - happily - appears to agree in substance with my diagnosis: "All in all, this wasn’t too bad was it?" Do check his post out to get the play-by-play.

Motu Mania on July 7th!

St. Blogs is having a field day with what looks like an official confirmation of the Motu Proprio:

*drumroll*

7/7/2007 (how pretty!)

Gerald provides a brief introduction:

"the motu proprio liberating the Tridentine Mass for the entire Catholic Church has been given to about 30 bishops from all over the world in the Sala Bologna of the Apostolic Palace by Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone. At the end of the meeting, in which the motu proprio was introduced together with a letter of explanation by Pope Benedict XVI., Pope Benedict met with the bishops. The document is about three pages long, the accompanying letter about four...The circumstances of the procedure make clear that the Pope was very interested to personally inform the bishops, in collegial manner, of the content rather than have them learn about it from the media."

Fr. Z adds more (and he is the best source for updates on this story):

It is clear from the way this was done that the Holy Father wanted to make sure that bishops got this document in this way, rather than having to read about it in the paper. I assume that what will happen now is that these bishops, if they are heads of conferences, will return home and distribute the document to the bishop members of the conference.

[UPDATE: They are not only heads of conferences: H.E. Archbp. Raymond Burke of St. Louis and H.E. Sean Card. O’Malley of Boston was there, whether because of this meeting or a coincidental meeting is not clear.]

He also translates the key points in the confirming/expanding article published in Le Croix.

For more reporting on this news, see CWNews and CNA.

Well, there it is! I'm sensing a related AmP Poll on this topic....

Of related interest: Dr. Robert Moynihan on "Benedict and the Mass" for Inside the Vatican.

English, Welsh bishops speak out on newest bioethics threats

The English and Welsh bishops are doing a good job defending human dignity in the wake of proposed legislation on human/animal chimeras and a host of related procedures:

LONDON (CNS) -- Human embryos injected with animal cells, or chimeras, should be accorded human status under proposals to be considered by the British Parliament in the fall, said the Catholic bishops of England and Wales.

...

In their submission, the bishops said that most of the procedures covered by the bill "should not be licensed under any circumstances," principally on the grounds that they violate human rights.

However, they said, "at very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings and should be treated accordingly," they said. [More...]

The bishops' basic point to the lawmakers is two-staged: 1) Don't do it ... but 2) if you're going to do it anyway, do it this way. In other words: don't create human/animal hybrids, but if you do, treat them as humans if they have a preponderance of human genes. This pattern is similar to the Church's teaching on In Vitro Fertilization: don't do it, but if you do, the embryos created are truly human and deserve to be treated as such.

Amy links to the full bishop's document (PDF) which is hosted by the Linacre (Christian bioethics) Centre in London. It is a very good, concise expression of the Church's position on several important medical procedures and practices. The Linacre Centre has also written their own statement (PDF) addressed to the governmental committee involved in these proposals, which focuses exclusively on the specific ethical and scientific questions related to the creation of chimeras.

I'm happy to see the Linacre Centre working closely with the bishops to provide an informed voice of opposition (in defense of truth and human dignity) on these contemporary medical issues. It's an excellent combination of hierarchical authority and lobby (the bishops of England/Wales) supported by medical and professional acumen (the writers at the Linacre Centre).

Update: LifeSiteNews has published its coverage of this story here, and in a related vein, the National Catholic Bioethics Center has announced some upcoming educational opportunities. CNA has that story and more info.

CNS's excellent coverage of the Vatican's seminar on global warming

I'd like to copy the whole article, but I'll restrain myself and just pull about every other quotation, along with my comments in italics. Hopefully this adds some clarification to the discussion. You can read for yourself here.

First, things got somewhat rowdy:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Despite being held in a cool, climate-controlled conference room, some early discussions at a Vatican-sponsored seminar on global warming and climate change got pretty heated.

The rifts and tensions still dividing the global debate on the causes of and remedies for drastic climatic shifts were gently simmering in the small microcosm of the two-day Vatican meeting.

The seminar, sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, gathered some 80 experts representing the scientific, political, economic and spiritual sides of the climate-change debate at the Vatican April 26-27 to discuss "Climate Change and Development."

"I have to commend the planners," said Lucia Silecchia, a professor of environmental law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, because "nobody can accuse them of bringing in a group of people who will agree with each other."

Disagreements even spilled out into the corridor during the closed-door seminar's first morning break when a Vatican official had to use his pastoral prowess to calm one participant."

The scientific community has been so divided and so bitter" over the climate-change debate that experts who disagree with each other don't talk to each other, Silecchia told Catholic News Service.

Martino made some good clarifications to reporters (that weren't presented in most MSM reports I read):

Nonetheless, he [Martino] said, the Vatican is cautious about what sort of pronouncements it makes about global warming.

Church leaders are aware scientific findings can sometimes be skewed by special-interest groups or overblown by an audience-hungry media.

This tendency to take ambiguous scientific findings and skew them for gain comprises about 100% of my disagreement with the enviromentalist lobby.

The church does not want to curb sustainable development, especially in impoverished nations, nor does it see population control as a way to conserve dwindling resources. There is a middle ground, many church leaders say, that sees sustainable economic growth, the environment and human development as partners, not enemies.

But when 5 percent of the world's population gobbles up 20 percent of the earth's resources, lifestyle changes are important, said Cardinal Martino and Pope Benedict XVI.

I can agree with all of these points. So often, however, environmentalists propose exactly "curbing sustainable development, especially in impoverished nations" and "population control" (think the United Nations and their horrible-coercive programs) as the solution to limited resources (and I would add "failures in distribution" to the causes of global hunger and poverty).

Silecchia [ professor of environmental law at The Catholic University of America in Washington] said in some ways the environmental movement "has become its own new religion," and this could be offset by a wider recognition of the church's own tradition of God asking people to be stewards of creation.

That's right. The best way to oppose the growth of this "new religion" is to demonstrate how the Christian tradition and Catholic church already provide guidance on issues of economic and ecological responsibility. We have the principles within our tradition and don't need to be frightened by fear mongers.

Australian Bishop Christopher Toohey of Wilcannia-Forbes said the church's message of hope and love of life can offer direction and inspiration, which "is somewhat missing" in the world debate.

"The church is not just another voice telling people to conserve energy and preserve the planet. It has the potential to bring its vast tradition to shed light on a troubled human family," he wrote.

The church can "provide motivation, inspiration, love for life itself and for the earth and all of creation, to genuinely love those things and care for them," he told CNS.

Instead of letting disagreements in the global warming debate continue to stall decisive action, "we have a Christian duty to live simple, responsible lives whether climate change is happening or not," he said.

Amen. Whether climate change is happening or not (I remain unconvinced by those who argue that it is, drastically, and by demonstrable recent human activity), we do need to be good stewards of our property.

As a postscript, this AP coverage seems to have Martino admitting that global warming could actually be beneficial to humanity, or at least acknowledging that many people are of that opinion:

VATICAN CITY: Vatican officials closed a conference on climate change Friday that heard from scientists, ministers and religious leaders about the negative — and sometimes positive — impacts of climate change.

"Not all the scientific world is crying disaster," Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told Vatican Radio at the start of the two-day conference he hosted.

"There are a good number of scientists who consistently don't view these climactic changes in a negative light, and in fact say that these phenomena recur over the course of years and eras and sometimes they can have favorable results for agriculture and development."

That said, some of the invited panelists were of the view that a warming planet is not all bad.

Among them was Craig Idso, chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. The organization publishes the weekly online newsletter CO2 Science, which often reports on what it says are the benefits of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Other invited guests disputed any benefits, saying the increase in global temperatures was dangerous to the Earth and its most vulnerable people. [More...]

Well, I'm happy to see that both sides of the debate were represented at the J&P's conference.

Pope Benedict, climate change & Cardinal Martino.

Reuters ran a story today entitled, "Pope should talk climate change with Bush: cardinal".

I realize this is a sensitive issue with many people, but it's important and I'm interested.

Going on what the article says, Cardinal Martino said that he "believes the Pontiff should raise the dangers of climate change and global warming with U.S. President George W. Bush when the two meet in June."

Admittedly, Martino was careful with his remarks, saying "It's not for me to say what the Pope and President Bush should discuss but certainly they will discuss current issues and therefore I imagine and I hope they will (discuss climate change)," [continuing:] "It certainly merits it."

Martino's council for justice and peace is hosting a conference on "climate change and development" this weekend, which prompted the Reuters story as well as a message from the Pope, in which he said that he hoped studies could lead to "lifestyles and production and consumer methods that aim to respect creation and (aim for) sustainable progress." All very fine and good.

Of course, I'd like to see his full message (and this is the cue for industrious readers to pop me an email or drop a link in the combox!) so I can see whether the Pope actually came out and said anything about "manmade global warming." My understanding is that to this point he has not.

Martino went on to claim that willfull damage to the environment is a sin. Now, I have no problem with this statement, as long as it is specified. Burning down trees needlessly or contaminating drinking water can be wrong, but I've often seen the concept of good stewardship twisted into some sort of moral imperative that we all (to randomly pick an example, but not an extreme one) use halogen lightbulbs or buy electric cars.

And I get especially nervous when Martino says that (according to the Reuters article) "all religious groups should be involved in environmental causes and raise awareness about global warming." I also don't feel comfortable when he makes comments like this:

"We have to start at the level of elementary schools, to make sure children are taught to respect nature and be aware of the problems of the world. We can't wait until they are older. This has to be done naturally in religion classes, in religious groups everywhere," Martino said.

In a perfect world we could educate children about anything and everything. But I think that in practice, especially in elementary school, the lion's share of time in religion class should be spent on, well, God, the Sacraments, the Saints, Virtues, Commandments, and the list goes on for quite awhile. Nevertheless, we'd all count ourselves successful if kids manage to receive even an entry-level formation in those areas.

I'm not saying that Cardinal Martino is suggesting global warming and ecology replace these subjects, but I do think that in elementary education, Cardinal Martino's set of issues are actually far down on the list of objective priorities, especially in religion class.

Let the parents spend their time fighting about global warming and CO2 emissions.

I'm sure this isn't my last post on this topic, so we'll leave it here for now.

Update: From Gabe in the comments:

I think Cardinal Pell's comments on global warming in which he calls global warming "superstition," "nonsense," and "semi-religious" make a lot more sense than Cardinal Martino's comments.

I'm glad I just got finished saying in another post that it is "always well worth listening to Cardinal Pell", because it just came true again. And I knew I had heard someone else credible (and episcopal) describe the enthusiasm of global-warming advocates as being "semi-religious."

Update 2: Zenit has released some partial coverage of the conference here.

[photo: Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters]

Newsweek's take on the Limbo Story

I'll just give you the bookends. The article by Matthew Philips begins:

In the world of Vatican reversals, it’s a big one. According to a 41-page report released last week by the Roman Catholic Church’s International Theological Commission, limbo—a celestial middle ground between Heaven and Hell—is no longer necessary. That means that babies who die unbaptized are now free to go to heaven rather than being consigned to limbo, where for the last 800 years they’ve been forced to await the End of Days, unable to share in the beatific vision of God and Jesus Christ with their Roman Catholic brethren.

And here is how it ends:

"With the Vatican report, all those anxieties about babies that have been part of growing up Catholic can finally be put to rest."

Okay, so, this is pretty bad. Now, the mid-section really isn't so bad. But apparently you have to stick the most offensive jabs in the first paragraph (because many people read no farther), and for those who do stick around and read the entirety of the article, you have to end with a snappy dig about "all those anxieties" that are just, golly-gee, "part of growing up Catholic."

Oh, and who is Saint Augustine? "The fifth-century theologian who believed that the souls of the unbaptized went to hell". Why you might ask did St. Augustine believe that? "Since original sin was seen as being indelibly tied to the act of sex, and since babies were the natural result of that act, Augustine reasoned that they must carry sin. Ergo, those who die without having that sin removed must necessarily go to hell."

Goodness! With summaries of Church tradition like that, it's no wonder that we have to fight anti-Catholic prejudice on a daily basis. I wouldn't have much patience for the Church if that's all she really was.

Prepare for Limbo fallout

Amy notes that the International Theological Commission's report on Limbo has been released.

CNS has very good coverage:

After several years of study, the Vatican's International Theological Commission said there are good reasons to hope that babies who die without being baptized go to heaven.

In a document published April 20, the commission said the traditional concept of limbo -- as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God -- seemed to reflect an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."

The church continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants, the document said.

But there is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and "wants all human beings to be saved," it said. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for "the little ones," it said.

"Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision," the document said."We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge," it added. [More...]

The entire article is well worth the read for those who are interested.

Zadok (who I can't believe fell off my blogroll for awhile - he's back now) has this to say:

"We cannot expect intelligent reporting of this in the secular press. Expect headlines to speak of the 'Pope' or 'the Vatican' 'abolishing Limbo'.What we actually seem to have is a rather measured document which does not declare the automatic salvation of the unbaptized and does not totally dismiss limbo as being an unsupportable theological position. The report suggests that it does not obscure the genuine difficulty of the question and insists on the necessity and obligation of baptism."

To be fair, the Reuters treatment isn't so bad at all. In fact, the article quotes CNS's coverage twice. It seems that Philip Pullella, the author of the Reuters coverage, stuck very close to what CNS said on the topic. What somewhat puzzles me is why Pullella decided to throw in a reference to Dante at the end of his piece. Now, don't get me wrong, I dearly love Dante and his Divine Comedy, but Dante wasn't a priest, and the Divine Comedy has practically nothing to do with this new ITC document. Maybe Pullella thought the article needed some spice?

The Associated Press coverage is a bit closer to what Zadok predicted, but still very decent. Again, I think this is so because it references the CNS coverage and clearly stays close to what it says. The only line that irks me in the AP coverage is this one, the opening line: "Pope Benedict XVI has revised traditional Roman Catholic teaching on so-called "limbo," approving a church report released Friday that said there was reason to hope that babies who die without baptism can go to heaven." (underlining added.) I guess if you have a little dig to make, it *has* to go in the first line, because that's the one that most people will read.

Well, I have yet to see what the New York Times and the UK tabloids do to this news. Nonetheless, I can't really fault the AP or Reuters on their take. If I have anything to tell the MSM writers, it's this: keep reading CNS! Your coverage will benefit and your reputation among knowledgeable Catholic readers might improve.

Pontificial Biblical Commission to focus on bible and morals!

Exciting, exciting news everybody:

VATICAN CITY, APR 12, 2007 (VIS) - The Pontifical Biblical Commission is due to celebrate its annual plenary assembly in the Vatican's "Domus Sanctae Marthae" from April 16 to 20.

The assembly will be presided by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the work sessions will be directed by Fr. Klemens Stock S.J., secretary general of the commission. The meetings will concentrate on the theme of the relationship between the Bible and morals.

I chose my MA concentrations to be biblical studies and moral theology for precisely the reason that I hope to see these disciplines work together more closely, as called for by Vatican II. It's one of the projects closest to my heart because I think it is of great importance.

I will be eagerly watching to see what comes out of this session.

Urbi et Orbi Message for Easter 2007 and some thoughts

The full text from the Vatican website:

Dear Brothers and Sisters throughout the world, Men and women of good will!

Christ is risen! Peace to you! Today we celebrate the great mystery, the foundation of Christian faith and hope: Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, has risen from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures. We listen today with renewed emotion to the announcement proclaimed by the angels on the dawn of the first day after the Sabbath, to Mary of Magdala and to the women at the sepulchre: “Why do you search among the dead for one who is alive? He is not here, he is risen!” (Lk 24:5-6).

It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of these women at that moment: feelings of sadness and dismay at the death of their Lord, feelings of disbelief and amazement before a fact too astonishing to be true. But the tomb was open and empty: the body was no longer there. Peter and John, having been informed of this by the women, ran to the sepulchre and found that they were right. The faith of the Apostles in Jesus, the expected Messiah, had been submitted to a severe trial by the scandal of the cross. At his arrest, his condemnation and death, they were dispersed. Now they are together again, perplexed and bewildered. But the Risen One himself comes in response to their thirst for greater certainty. This encounter was not a dream or an illusion or a subjective imagination; it was a real experience, even if unexpected, and all the more striking for that reason. “Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘peace be with you!’” (Jn 20:19).

At these words their faith, which was almost spent within them, was re-kindled. The Apostles told Thomas who had been absent from that first extraordinary encounter: Yes, the Lord has fulfilled all that he foretold; he is truly risen and we have seen and touched him! Thomas however remained doubtful and perplexed. When Jesus came for a second time, eight days later in the Upper Room, he said to him: “put your finger here and see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing!” The Apostle’s response is a moving profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:27-28).

“My Lord and my God!” We too renew that profession of faith of Thomas. I have chosen these words for my Easter greetings this year, because humanity today expects from Christians a renewed witness to the resurrection of Christ; it needs to encounter him and to know him as true God and true man. If we can recognize in this Apostle the doubts and uncertainties of so many Christians today, the fears and disappointments of many of our contemporaries, with him we can also rediscover with renewed conviction, faith in Christ dead and risen for us. This faith, handed down through the centuries by the successors of the Apostles, continues on because the Risen Lord dies no more. He lives in the Church and guides it firmly towards the fulfilment of his eternal design of salvation.

We may all be tempted by the disbelief of Thomas. Suffering, evil, injustice, death, especially when it strikes the innocent such as children who are victims of war and terrorism, of sickness and hunger, does not all of this put our faith to the test? Paradoxically the disbelief of Thomas is most valuable to us in these cases because it helps to purify all false concepts of God and leads us to discover his true face: the face of a God who, in Christ, has taken upon himself the wounds of injured humanity. Thomas has received from the Lord, and has in turn transmitted to the Church, the gift of a faith put to the test by the passion and death of Jesus and confirmed by meeting him risen. His faith was almost dead but was born again thanks to his touching the wounds of Christ, those wounds that the Risen One did not hide but showed, and continues to point out to us in the trials and sufferings of every human being.

“By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pt 2:24). This is the message Peter addressed to the early converts. Those wounds that, in the beginning were an obstacle for Thomas’s faith, being a sign of Jesus’ apparent failure, those same wounds have become in his encounter with the Risen One, signs of a victorious love. These wounds that Christ has received for love of us help us to understand who God is and to repeat: “My Lord and my God!” Only a God who loves us to the extent of taking upon himself our wounds and our pain, especially innocent suffering, is worthy of faith.

How many wounds, how much suffering there is in the world! Natural calamities and human tragedies that cause innumerable victims and enormous material destruction are not lacking. My thoughts go to recent events in Madagascar, in the Solomon Islands, in Latin America and in other regions of the world. I am thinking of the scourge of hunger, of incurable diseases, of terrorism and kidnapping of people, of the thousand faces of violence which some people attempt to justify in the name of religion, of contempt for life, of the violation of human rights and the exploitation of persons. I look with apprehension at the conditions prevailing in several regions of Africa. In Darfur and in the neighbouring countries there is a catastrophic, and sadly to say underestimated, humanitarian situation. In Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the violence and looting of the past weeks raises fears for the future of the Congolese democratic process and the reconstruction of the country. In Somalia the renewed fighting has driven away the prospect of peace and worsened a regional crisis, especially with regard to the displacement of populations and the traffic of arms. Zimbabwe is in the grip of a grievous crisis and for this reason the Bishops of that country in a recent document indicated prayer and a shared commitment for the common good as the only way forward.

Likewise the population of East Timor stands in need of reconciliation and peace as it prepares to hold important elections. Elsewhere too, peace is sorely needed: in Sri Lanka only a negotiated solution can put an end to the conflict that causes so much bloodshed; Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability; In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees. In Lebanon the paralysis of the country’s political institutions threatens the role that the country is called to play in the Middle East and puts its future seriously in jeopardy. Finally, I cannot forget the difficulties faced daily by the Christian communities and the exodus of Christians from that blessed Land which is the cradle of our faith. I affectionately renew to these populations the expression of my spiritual closeness.

Dear Brothers and sisters, through the wounds of the Risen Christ we can see the evils which afflict humanity with the eyes of hope. In fact, by his rising the Lord has not taken away suffering and evil from the world but has vanquished them at their roots by the superabundance of his grace. He has countered the arrogance of evil with the supremacy of his love. He has left us the love that does not fear death, as the way to peace and joy. “Even as I have loved you – he said to his disciples before his death – so you must also love one another” (cf. Jn 13:34).

Brothers and sisters in faith, who are listening to me from every part of the world! Christ is risen and he is alive among us. It is he who is the hope of a better future. As we say with Thomas: “My Lord and my God!”, may we hear again in our hearts the beautiful yet demanding words of the Lord: “If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honour him” (Jn 12:26). United to him and ready to offer our lives for our brothers (cf. 1 Jn 3:16), let us become apostles of peace, messengers of a joy that does not fear pain – the joy of the Resurrection. May Mary, Mother of the Risen Christ, obtain for us this Easter gift. Happy Easter to you all.

This year I attended Easter Vigil Mass with my family at their parish, St. Thomas the Apostle, where appropriately enough, the pastor spoke at length about St. Thomas's confession of faith.

Seeing Pope Benedict recontextualize these words of St. Thomas for a global scope after hearing my pastor refer to them on a personal level was very enlightening. One of the primary consequences of our personal experience of the risen Christ and of our faith in him is to bring the Light of the World to the world.

On a somewhat related note, one of the fruits of my biblical studies this semester was a fuller appreciation of what Christ's means when he proclaims "peace!" to the Apostles after his resurrection. The concept of "peace" (Shalom) for Jewish people in the Old Covenant did not mean merely the "absence of conflict" that we tend to associate with the word, but instead it means having the "full presence of everything that should be present to the relationship." This is the reason Christ proclaims "peace" (Shalom) to his disciples after his resurrection: his Paschal mystery has brought about the wonderful presence of his saving grace to our relationship with God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the task for Christians in the world is not merely to bring about an absence of conflict between the world's powers, but rather the positive presence of everything that should be present to those politicial and ethnic relationships. This represents a higher and harder task, but one far more worthy in the end.

Mary, Mother of the Risen Christ, obtain for us this Easter gift!

[photo: (Osservatore Romano/Reuters)]