Swine Flu means no precious blood in the Diocese of Austin

A fully-appropriate pastoral decision, and I loved Marcel's comments:

"Good decision and not unexpected. Remember that we receive the full presence of Christ with either species.

Also, "species" speaks of the Body of Christ and the Bread of Christ - not different kinds of animals. One of our employees mis-read and thought someone was making a joke about not giving Communion to humans & pigs."

But kidding aside, this is serious and we should be prayerful and vigilant about this developing situation.

Top 3 Catholic News Stories Today

According to GoogleNews, anyway:

German Catholic leader wants Williamson response now:

A leader of Germany's Roman Catholic Church said on Sunday it was "almost ridiculous" that Bishop Richard Williamson has said he needs time to review evidence about whether the Holocaust took place. {This controversy can't end soon enough, if you ask me.}

Pope's choice for bishop declines:

A Roman Catholic priest has asked Pope Benedict to revoke his appointment as a bishop in Austria, after his promotion led to protests within the Church.

Gerhard Maria Wagner said the "fierce criticism" had persuaded him to ask not to be named auxiliary bishop of Linz.

Father Wagner has described Hurricane Katrina as God's punishment for the sins of New Orleans, and the Harry Potter novels as satanic.

... The resignation of Father Wagner came on the eve of an emergency meeting of all diocesan bishops in Austria, at which they had pledged to "give our best to overcome the crisis" according to Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn. {I think I'm mostly dissapointed that his nomination won't go through.}

South Korea's first Roman Catholic cardinal dies:

Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, South Korea's first cardinal and a tireless advocate for democracy who stood up to a string of military dictators, died Monday. He was 86.

Kim was ordained as cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1969. He passed away at Seoul's St. Mary's Hospital, said Lee Hee-yeon, an official with the Archdiocese of Seoul. {R.I.P.}

Up next? Climate Change.

I'm a man-made global warming skeptic. There, I said it. When the world was getting warmer, I admitted it, but didn't attribute it to human activity. Now that it's getting colder, I don't attribute it to human inactivity.

Being a skeptic takes some guts when CNN publishes articles like this on a daily basis:

"Climate change is happening faster than previously predicted according to a new World Wildlife Fund report.

Bringing together some of the most recent scientific reports and data, "Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner" reveals that global warming is accelerating more rapidly than the predictions made in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007."

Then I sit back, sip a cup of tea, and read something that strikes me as far more sane:

In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.

Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.

[Helpful graph:]

Now where was I? Oh yes:

For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."

Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.

It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.

Well, let's just hope annoying news like this doesn't get out before the democrats can spend billions of dollars on "climate change" legislation in the coming year.

And to be clear: I have no problem pursuing energy alternatives, but pursuing them only to reduce carbon dioxide emissions strikes me as imprudent and frankly, more than our economy can handle right now.

Commentary: Pelosi visits Hiroshima memorial

Today Nancy Pelosi visited a Hiroshima memorial in Japan and laid flowers.

When asked how she justified the decision to drop the nuclear bomb, she responded:

Pelosi: "I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And Senator--St. Augustine said only when you need to. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the President's right to nuclear bomb. The UN talks about very clear definitions of when you can nuclear bomb, certain considerations; long-term war; not so shorter war. There's very clear distinctions. This isn't about nuclear bombing on demand, it's about a careful, careful consideration of all factors and--to--that the President has to make with his military advisors and his god. And so I don't think anybody can tell you when you can nuclear bomb. As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this, and there are those who've decided..."

Interviewer: "The Catholic Church at the moment feels very strongly that it..."

Pelosi: "I understand that."

Interviewer: "... nuclear bombs are never to be used..."

REP. PELOSI: "I understand. And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that."

Oh wait, she actually didn't attempt to defend that mass murder.

"Activists to Benedict: Please raise animals from the dead"

Animal rights activists have made this sort of request before, but this time Carl Olson embraced it as an opportunity to have a bit of rhetorical fun:

Sure, you might try to argue that I'm misreading or misrepresenting this news story, but if you carefully read between the lines, you'll see that animal rights activists are hoping that Pope Benedict XVI might be able to bring some animals back from the dead:

Rome - Italian animal rights activists have appealed to Pope Benedict XVI to help "save the ermine" by asking him in a letter to refrain from wearing clothing trimmed with the animal's fur.

Since the ermine on the Pope's hats and robes are dead (or so I assume), I can only conclude that when the activists ask the Holy Father to "save the ermine," they are expecting a miracle. An ermine resurrection, if you will. After all, it's difficult to save animals from death once they are already dead; it would require that they come back to life, then be saved from death. I dare say my patron saint, St. Thomas Aquinas, would be hard pressed to fault my crystalline logic in this matter.

Okay, I mostly had to quote him because I respected him so much for using "ermine resurrection" in a grammatically-and-semantically-correct sentence. And he even kept his clothes on.

Picture: The Obama New Yorker Cover

Being talked about, oh, just about everywhere today:

Okay, so it's pretty straightforward. The New Yorker folks decided to take every scare-mongering claim about Obama and his wife Michelle and turned it into a cartoon, as a satire (with one exception - see below).

Thing of it is, most every liberal websites and blogs aren't laughing, and neither are Obama's folks.

Of course, the New Yorker satirist/cartoonists failed to include any depiction of Obama's (and Michelle's) pro-abortion track record. After all, burning flags and pictures of Osama Bin Laden are one thing, but corpses of aborted infants?

I guess that's just too much satire even for New Yorker staffers.

Plus, it's not satire.

Update: body of "flying balloon priest" found off Brazil

A story that began on a lighthearted note ("Brazilian balloon priest missing at sea; feared apostasized, raptured"), which quickly turned ominous ("Local Bishop claims no responsibility for "balloon priest") has today ended in sadness:

The body of "flying priest" balloon adventurer Adelir de Carli has been recovered some 100 kilometres off the Brazilian coast, local media reports said Saturday.

Father de Carli went missing in April while attempting to fly with 1,000 helium-filled party balloons tied to a chair. The body was recovered by a tugboat crew off Rio de Janeiro state, reports said.

Police said clothing, a rucksack and shoes left little doubt that the body was that of the priest. DNA tests would be conducted to provide final proof.

Father de Carli, 42, had set out on April 20 on what was planned to be a 20-hour flight from the town of Paranagua, in the state of Parana, to Dourados, in neighbouring Mato Grosso do Sul, to break a 19-hour world record and "to promote religion," as he put it. (TopNews)

God rest his soul. And may this case dissuade others from attempting such stunts.

Exorcism in the modern world...

... is a topic almost impossible for the modern reporter to accurately present.

Case in point, WaPo's "Ritual of Dealing With Demons Undergoes a Revival."

Quotes from the beginning and end of the article:

POCZERNIN, Poland -- This wind-swept village is bracing for an invasion of demons, thanks to a priest who believes he can defeat Satan.

The Rev. Andrzej Trojanowski, a soft-spoken Pole, plans to build a "spiritual oasis" that will serve as Europe's only center dedicated to performing exorcisms.

...

Trojanowski is a priest in the northwestern Polish port city of Szczecin. He said that he sees as many as 20 people a week who are under the influence of evil spirits, but that he needs more space to treat them properly.

At his exorcism center, he said, people could check in for a few days and receive ministrations.

Plans for the center were announced in December after an archbishop gave approval to build it on church land in Poczernin, a village surrounded by cabbage fields about 20 miles outside Szczecin.

The news came as a bit of a shock to the villagers, who said they hadn't been consulted and weren't sure they liked the idea of demons coming home to roost.

In between these two quotations is a great jumble of the usual:

• confused presentations of Church teaching
• "required" exorcism pop culture references (The Exorcist, etc.)
• wierd claims (e.g., John Paul II was "himself an occasional demon chaser" - huh?)

Now, the article does make a few helpful distinctions and observations, but really, the more I read reports on this topic, the more I'm convinced that accurate summaries are far beyond the average reporter's kenning.

I don't mean they are malevolent, I mean they are ill- (or non-)equipped to discuss the topic cogently.

CNA: "Chess champion Bobby Fisher requested Catholic burial in Iceland"

CNA reports:

Legendary chess player Bobby Fischer, who made history by dethroning the Soviet chess king Boris Spassky in 1972, asked to be buried as a Catholic, according to officials of the Catholic Church in Iceland, where he had been living since 1992.

The famous and eccentric chess player, who died last Thursday at the age of 64, was buried Tuesday in Iceland during a private Catholic ceremony.

...

“I don’t know if he converted to the Catholic faith, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t,” said Father Rolland, in reference to the reserved manner in which Fischer discussed his private life and his personal decisions.

More from Reuters and AP.

I cut my chess teeth on his book, Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess.

God rest his troubled soul.

update: Carl Olson has a very thoughtful piece on Bobby Fisher posted at Insight Scoop.

Report: "Pope set to face 'sonic siege' during visit to Rome university"

Anti-Catholic proponents of tolerance act ... not just intolerantly, but positively bestially:

Students at Rome's main La Sapienza university plan to disrupt Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit to their campus later this week with blasts of loud rock music.

The group of left-wing physics students on Monday launched an 'Anti-Clerical Week' of events ahead of Benedict's scheduled arrival on campus on Thursday.

'In a university which should be ... a place of cultural growth, research and conscientious and secular criticism, La Sapienza Rector Renato Guarini has instead decided to invite Pope Joseph Ratzinger to inaugurate the academic year,' the students said on their website, referring to Benedict's name before his 2005 election.

Benedict as pontiff 'condemns centuries of scientific and cultural growth by affirming anachronistic dogmas such as Creationism, while attacking scientific free-thought and promoting mandatory heterosexuality', the students, who use the name, Physics Collective, said.

Featured events included screenings of a film on the life of Galileo Galilei - the Italian Renaissance scientist whose theories on astronomy provoked the ire of the Catholic Church - as well as debates on topics such as evolution and homosexuality.

The protests are set to culminate with a 'sonic siege' involving music played from loudspeakers mounted on a truck in the campus' main square during Benedict's main address, students said.

[Read the whole story.]

Update: And sadly, you can't even count on the academic "adults" to set a good example:

• TimesOnline: "Scientists protest against Pope"
• John Allen: "The pope, modern science, and a canary in the coal mine"
• Commentary from Jeff Miller.

Claim: "Embryo-friendly technique produces stem cells"

This bioethics story has been getting a fair amount of coverage today so let's take a look at what it claims.

"Embryo-friendly technique produces stem cells", the Reuters headline reads.

The procedure:

Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology has been working with a method sometimes used to test embryos for severe genetic diseases. Called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, it involves taking a single cell from an embryo when it contains only eight or so cells.

The method usually does not harm the embryo, which is frozen for possible future implantation into the mother's womb. The ACT team also froze the embryos and used the single cell that was removed as a source of human embryonic stem cells.

This process doesn't appear to be anything new, and the article admits that this method is already "sometimes used to test embryos for severe genetic diseases." The embryos that provide the stem cells in this process are brought about through in vitro fertilization, which is unethical in itself.

Also, the admission that the process "usually does not harm the embryo" implies that sometimes, in fact, it does. Experimentation cannot be done on an innocent embryo if it does not have that particular embryo's best interests at heart - you cannot sacrifice individual human lives for scientific progress.

So why are the proponents of this process claiming it is better than current techniques?

Dr. Robert Lanza, ACT's scientific director, said it provides a way to create mass quantities of embryonic stem cells without harming a human embryo. Current stem cell technologies require the embryo's destruction.

True enough, but the new process still involves bringing a human being into existence in a petri dish, possibly killing it by removing 1/8th of its cell mass, and dooming it to a frozen existence with - realistically - only a slim chance of ever being implanted at a future date into a womb.

The article also features a typically superfluous and needlessly inflammatory quotation:

"If the White House approves this new methodology, researchers could effectively double or triple the number of stem cell lines available within a few months. Too many needless deaths continue to occur while this research is being held up," Lanza said.

"I hope the president will act now and approve these stem cell lines quickly."

You know what also causes needless deaths? Hunger. But that doesn't mean every person who isn't actively fighting to eliminate hunger somehow intends or is complacent with starvation.

Reading through the rest of the article and the people it quotes, its continuous language of urgency and dogmatism ("scientists must continue to study true embryonic stem cells.") belies to me another example of researchers slightly tweaking an already-ruled-out technique and then rushing it through the examination process in hopes that the legal and ethical scrutinizers will miss what is actually happening.

Say what you want, my money is still on induced pluripotent stem cells (derived from adults).

Related: my Bioethics essay "Direct Reprogramming & the End of Embryonic Research"

China opens world's newest, cheapest subway

As a recently-initiated metro commuter in DC, I found this all pretty cool.