Report: Catholic speaker Pelosi laundered money

Nothing will surprise me at this point:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed nearly $100,000 from her political action committee to her husband's real estate and investment firm over the past decade, a practice of paying a spouse with political donations that she supported banning last year." (WashTimes)

26 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes ....

Report: "Religious Delusion Hampers Nanotechnology"

If that headline had you scratching your head, it should.

Science Daily reports:

Addressing scientists Feb. 15, 2008 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication, presented new survey results that show religion exerts far more influence on public views of technology in the United States than in Europe.

In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable.

Europeans however, do not look so ascance at the technology:

In European surveys that posed identical questions about nanotechnology to people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, significantly higher percentages of people accepted the moral validity of the technology. In the United Kingdom, 54.1 percent found nanotechnology to be morally acceptable. In Germany, 62.7 percent had no moral qualms about nanotechnology, and in France 72.1 percent of survey respondents saw no problems with the technology.

Now, here's where things get interesting. Why, do the authors claim, is there a disparity?

The answer, Scheufele believes, is religion: "The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples' lives. The importance of religion in these different countries that shows up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences we're seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a much more secular perspective."

The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions, Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as "playing God" when they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele.

Wow. "Nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together."

Let's be clear for a moment. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with nanotechnology, properly termed. And certainly putting it in the same category as "stem cell research" is wrong. The only thing these two things share in common is being microscopic.

If these findings are true, it highlights a distressing reality that educated Catholics have to face: evangelicals and fundamentalists who constittue the so-called "moral majority" in America are an embarassment to us all when they evidence such poor critical thinking skills.

Just look at one example of the criticism this news has provoked:

Hmm. Nanotech could most likely cure cancer, extend life, solve the renewable energy dilemma, and lead to drastically reduced poverty, among other things. Guess who’s against it?

That’s right folks, let’s keep life on earth backward and miserable so we can keep focused on that oh-so-precious afterlife.

The idiocracy is in full-swing in the US of A.

It would be easier to answer this sort of charicature if folks educated themselves before answering surveys.

A more pointed criticism, this from a Wall Street Journal blog:

If you don’t have a super-fast, super-small computer in a few years, blame the moral majority. It turns out that most Americans find nanotechnology, the scientific field most likely to produce such a breakthrough, morally unacceptable.

Frankly, I think that's drastically over-valuing the effect of the "moral majority" lobby. Also, it's a huge generalization, but one that brings out the untenable nature of claiming nanotechnology is "immoral".

Now, don't get me wrong, I'd like to find out how the survey questions were phrased. If the question was along the lines of "do you think nanotechnology has the potential to be abused"? Than sure, that's something one could defensibly argue. As is normally the case, the devil is in the details.

And I truly don't want to think that Americans would rule-out nanotechnology for such poor reasons.

From the original article in Science Daily, a further claim:

The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.

"They still oppose it," he says. "They are rejecting it based on religious beliefs. The issue isn't about informing these people. They are informed."

The new study has critical implications for how experts explain the technology and its applications, Scheufele says. It means the scientific community needs to do a far better job of placing the technology in context and in understanding the attitudes of the American public.

This at least gives the respondents a bit more benefit of the doubt. Far more likely than the "nanotechnology reminds me of stem cell research and is therefore wrong" argument is something along the lines of "nanotechnology represents a deep alteration of nature and so must be explored with caution." I agree with that.

There's another dimension to take into consideration - the fusion of nanotechnology and biotechnology. The human application of nanotechnology, for instance, could pose ethical dilemmas. But such is true for all medical procedures, interventions and treatments. What one should not confuse however, is the moral quality of the technology, and the moral quality of the use of that technology. They are separate questions.

Bottom line, there is no reason to rule out nanotechnology because it is technology, or because it is "nano."

So, what should we take from this survey, and its subsequent reporting?

• Many Americans are uneasy about nanotechnology for "religious" reasons
• Those reasons are either not understood or not well presented by the survey takers
• People continually looking for an excuse to blame things on "fundamentalists", have found one
• Two tasks must be taken up: a) educating those who try to take "mental short cuts" about the distinction between technology and the uses of technology b) educating those who charicature "religious reasoning" about the essential role of prudence in scientific discovery and research.

Oddly enough: "Nanotechnology is currently used in 85 personal care products. " - Cosmetic Design

Bioethics essay: “Did the Congo nuns get permission and set precedent?"

Welcome to this week's installment of my ongoing essay series about contemporary bioethics issues. As always, constructive feedback is welcome. Here is a list of the previous topics I've treated so far:

• "The Pope Speaks to Pharmacists ... and Connecticut?" (Oct. 29)
• "Long-Term Complications for Premature Infants" (Oct. 22)
• “The Evil Effects of Legalizing Euthanasia” (Oct. 10)
• “The Moral Implications of Artificial Wombs” (Oct. 1)
• “Mandatory Organ Donation Initiatives” (Sep. 26)
• “Human-Animal Hybrids and the Catholic Response” (Sep. 20)

This week's topic:

“Did the Congo Nuns receive permission, and did that set an irreformable precedent?”

[Prompted by questions in this AmP comment thread.]

A recent debate concerning the use of contraceptives in rape protocols has brought up the often-cited case of the “Congo nuns.” As the story goes, nuns in the Belgian Congo during the 1960s were given permission by the Vatican to take contraceptives in situations were it was clear that guerilla soldiers might sack their convents and force themselves upon the sisters. This story is regularly used as a lower-level support of the now widespread practice (enshrined in the USCCB’s Ethical and Religious Directives #36) of allowing women who have been raped to be treated “with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization.”

In 2001, for instance, a Spanish bishop stated that religious women living in places where they were in danger of being raped could legitimacy use oral contraceptives.[2] Fr. Brian Johnstone, a respected moral theologian at the Alphonsiana used the case of the Congo nuns as precedent for the Spanish bishop’s statement, saying that at the time when the permission was given it “was seen as a protection against pregnancy arising from unwanted, unfree sexual intercourse.” [3] Johnstone admited that the case is not well know, “but it’s there” he maintained. [4]

Efforts to objectively prove the existence of a dispensation to the Congo nuns yield frustratingly scant results. Buried deep in the Park Ridge Center’s Media Brief, for example, one finds a citation of an Associated Press article that claims Vatican officials described the Church’s action in the Congo as a “legitimate defense.” If this seems like tenuous third-hand hearsay, it is.

In The Encycical that Never Was: The Story of the Commission on Population, Robert Blair Kaiser makes the claim (in a footnote on p. 72) that the Spanish Jesuit Fr. Marcelino Zalba was “the first theologian to propose that the Vatican allow nuns in war-torn Congo to use the pill … [and] the Holy Office bought his suggestion.”[5] The claim is an interesting one considering that Fr. Zalba was a staunch supporter of Humanae Vitae [6] and a frequent-citer of Casti Cannubi.[7] In other words, he was hardly an individual one would suspect of trying to subvert the doctrinal teaching of the Church.

At the same time, however, Kaiser provides a fascinating account of Fr. Zolba’s reasoning on a related topic (p. 124): “[Fr Marcelino] Zalba believed that Pius XII had condemned the pill but, because he voiced this in a mere allocutio, Zalba did not consider this an irreformable conclusion.”[8] From this quotation it is evident that Fr. Zalba – himself the alleged proponent of the Congo nuns dispensation – did not take lower-level locutions by a pontiff (or one could also postulate, private letters from the Holy Office) as irreformable teaching! In fact the congo nuns exception – if it deed occurred - preceded the publication of Humanae Vitae in 1968. One could reasonably make the argument that Humanae Vitae overrules the low-level precedent set by the Vatican permission to the Congo nuns.

Digging still deeper, one finds that the most prominent figure to regularly bring up the case of the Congo nuns is none other than Vatican-censured theologian Charles Curran. [9] For the sake of completeness, Martin Rhonheimer mentions the Congo nuns case example in a footnote to his Objectivity of Human Action: Some Classic Problems, [10] saying that it was much discussed in the early 1960s, and that several moral theologians at the time had declared in an affidavit that the action of taking contraceptives by nuns in Congo missions was “morally acceptable.”

To conclude, the purpose of this treatment was not to call into question the teaching of the U.S. bishops in their Ethical and Religious Directives, but rather to point out that several reservations should accompany the use of the Congo nuns as a precedent for this teaching. As has been shown, there exists no readily-available documentation of the permission given by the Holy Office to the Congo nuns. Also, the Vatican has not referred back to it as a precedent when treating questions of a similar nature (although it is hard to definitively prove this negative claim). Finally, Fr. Zolba, the architect of the argument which the Holy See employed (if it did indeed grant the dispensation) would himself seem to not stand by the precedent absolutely. +++

The Driving 10 Commandments as revealing a "failure of catechesis"

Via MOJ, a better way of expressing what I attempted to briefly say earlier:

[Catholic Ramblings:] More significantly, however, I think this document points up something troubling: the failure of catechesis on a general level. The Decalogue, and the embodiment of the Word in Jesus Christ, are the sum of the moral law. The Church in its Catechism and in its Tradition have already provided and continue to provide moral teachings needed to form solid consciences, and for this purpose, the Catechism, for example, outlines the various implications and demands of each particular Commandment. Yet as individuals endowed with free will, we are charged with exercising a well-formed conscience in particular situations, since no human document or body of documents could provide clear answers for every human contingiency. And besides, certainly the “rules of the road” or the “Ten Commandments for Motorists” are implied in the moral law already: be charitable to others, do not kill or recklessly endanger another, do not flagrantly risk the lives of your passengers, do not become enraged. I suppose my point simply put is that the same charitable task could have been more seriously accomplished by reminding the faithful of the application of the moral law–of the Decalogue and the Great Commandment–to all our activities, including our driving. This would have provided the faithful with assurance that our daily choices are morally significant and that the Church has a genuine interest in them, while simultaneously avoiding the needlessly flippant and even pedantic form of Martino’s document. [More...]

What's been consuming so very much of my time lately?

Three weeks ago the topic for my Master's thesis was approved, and I have since been very occupied with research and writing. It is due mid-March, and I'll be defending by early April. Prayers would, of course, be greatly appreciated. And no worries, I will still be blogging as my "intellectual playtime" (in that I consider blogging intellectual and also great, great fun).

My topic, broadly, is on the thought of Servais Pinckaers, a brilliant Dominican moral theologian, longtime teacher at Fribourg in Switzerland, member of the ITC and contributor to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Needless to say, I'd recommend reading his masterful magnum-opus The Sources of Christian Ethics or his shorter, more popular-oriented Morality: The Catholic View if you want some top-notch moral theology.