Three cosmic historical errors—UPDATED

Hypatia of Alexandria: astronomer, mathematician,
philosopher ... martyr of Science?

Yesterday morning (3/20/14) I shared on Facebook a link to Artur Rosman’s CosmosTheInLost post, “Walker Percy on the College Dorm Arguments of Sagan and deGrasse Tyson”. Rosman reprints an extensive footnote by Percy in the latter’s book Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (New York: Picador, 2000), in which he bemoans the “unmalicious, even innocent, scientism” of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey. Neil deGrasse Tyson comes into the matter because of his reboot of the Cosmos miniseries, which includes Sagan’s highly-defective history of scientific development illustrated in cartoons (how appropriate!) by Seth MacFarlane.

One of my best friends, a Methodist, didn’t see the problem:

Being a fan of both of these men (Sagan and Tyson) and a fan of the original and the new one, I don’t understand the need to find an anti-theistic agenda in the productions. These men have made careers in astrophysics and increase the wonderment that is our world. The production value is huge and the entertainment value is bigger still. Am I so different from the supposed slack jawed, numb skull, UFC watching set that are supposedly changed in mindset with a show like this? My beliefs are not changed by the fact that this show grabs my attention and entertains me with all matters of the universe.

The problem isn’t an anti-theist agenda in the productions. Rather, the problem is in the perceived need to strip Christians and Christianity of all contributions to scientific development, and to add distortions of history in support of the “Christians hate science” trope. Three stand out in the Cosmos series, two of which Sagan elided together: 1) The murder of Hypatia; 2) the destruction of the Library of Alexandria; and 3) the death of Giordano Bruno.

On criticizing Church leadership

The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.

—Hilaire Belloc (1870 – 1953)

In 1963 Bl. John XXIII created a commission of six non-theologians to study questions of birth control and population. In 1965, Paul VI expanded the commission to fifty-eight members, including bishops, theologians and married couples; at its final meeting, an executive committee of sixteen bishops was also present. As you may not have guessed, the majority concluded that the pope could use his authority to approve at least some form of contraception for married couples.

After two further years of study and reflection, Papa Montini rejected the majority position, explaining in Humanae Vitae, “… [T]he conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain, dispensing Us from the duty of examining personally this serious question. This was all the more necessary because, within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed, and especially because certain approaches and criteria for a solution to this question had emerged which were at variance with the moral doctrine on marriage constantly taught by the magisterium of the Church” (op. cit., 6).

I bring this up because Pat Archbold posits a hypothetical case:

Say … [that] the outcome of the Synod on the Family on the question of admission of divorced and remarried to communion follows the suggestions of Papal advisers Cardinals [Reinhard] Marx and [Walter] Kasper. That the remarried are admitted to communion after some pastoral counseling and the annulment process is moved from tribunal to pastor. In this case, the Church does not change its immutable teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, but the newly implemented pastoral praxis dramatically alters the landscape.

Leaving aside the predictable cheering from progressives, Archbold asks, what should the orthodox do: go along, remain silent, or speak out?

Of judgment, sheep and Fred Phelps' passing—UPDATED

Fred Phelps, Sr. preaching at Westboro Baptist.

Yesterday, I happened to remember a chorus from Part II of Händel’s Messiah, “All we like sheep”, which is taken from Isaiah 53:6 KJV: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And it occurred to me that people who use the image of sheep to illustrate people who blindly follow leaders know less of sheep than I do ... and I don’t know much at all, at all. (Sorry; on St. Patrick’s Day I tend to slip into a stage-Irish accent.)

Contrary to the image, sheep have minds of their own. They wander all over as they graze. The shepherd’s task is to keep the flock together, and to protect them from predators. The task is made easier by dogs who have been bred to chase livestock back into herds (they make really good pets for children, too). Nevertheless, the shepherd’s life is hardly that of Riley — er, one of ease and contentment; when they’re not on the move trying to get the sheep from one pasture to another, they’re on watch for wolves.

So it is with Catholic and Orthodox bishops: The true picture of Church history is neither the triumphalist Whig history of millions of devoted faithful marching shoulder-to-shoulder in the wake of inspired leaders nor the hideous dystopian myth of cruel tyrants tormenting anyone who showed signs of intellectual independence. Rather, it’s the story of mostly ordinary men — some saints, some knaves, some fools, all limited by the very fact of their humanity — trying not only to spread the Gospel message but also to protect to the best of their knowledge and ability its integrity against threats both real and imagined.

A matter of trust

I don’t have any links on this because I’m going off of memory (little bits of which seem to be falling out with my hair). However, I’m almost certain you’ll have seen it, too: the latest manipulative trope from the pro-abortion camp, which essentially says, “If you can’t trust a woman to make good decisions concerning her body, how can you trust her with a child?”

The first time I heard it, I was reminded of a child psychologist I once listened to, who said that teenagers equate trust with love. When adolescents say, “You don’t trust me!”, they’re really saying, “You don’t love me!”, and they need to be taught that love and trust are not coterminous. Here, I think the same adolescent thought-process is the same: “If you don’t trust me with this decision, that means you don’t think of me as an equal” … again fallaciously presuming that only men are against abortion.

It’s not as formidable a challenge as pro-aborts may think. In fact, the short and simple answer is, “It’s something of the same way you can trust someone with a home loan but not with bank robbery.”

A loan is an action of trust, one that a person can either deliberately fail or fail for reasons beyond her control. In fact, the banking industry runs on trust; the lengths to which it must be regulated now simply speaks to the fact that, as our society grow larger, the social functions that insure trustworthiness are breaking down. In any event, I could just as well have said “savings account” with “home loan” and the principle would still be the same.

What is that principle? Just that there are actions or powers with which no one should be trusted. Ever.

The Catholic Circular Firing Squad, V. 3.0: Wherein Your Humble Blogger throws a spittle-flecked nutty—UPDATED

For those of you who missed it: Yesterday, Rorate Coeli, a traditionalist-oriented blog with which I’ve had issues before, broke a story screaming that Bishop Michael F. Olson, the newly-installed young bishop of Fort Worth (my home diocese), had rescinded Fisher More College’s permission to celebrate the Mass in the Extraordinary Form (aka the Tridentine Latin Mass, Mass of Paul V, or Vetus Ordo).

As RC presented the matter, the rescission was a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. They printed a letter which Bp. Olson had sent to Michael King, FMC’s president, corralled a source called the Canon Law Centre to opine against Bp. Olson’s actions, then spent the rest of the news speculating how it could fit in with Pope Francis’ plan to abrogate Summorum Pontificum and destroy the Latin Mass forever. (Yeah, it’s that bad.)

Well, I followed the story all afternoon and evening yesterday, and all morning today (3/4/2014). You can read everything I learned on The Impractical Catholic; suffice it to say that RC didn’t check their facts or do any really serious inquiry into matters at Fisher More; they simply ran with a “bishop bashes TLM” story because it fit their “Francis Hates the Latin Mass” frame.

However, the Fisher More administration, particularly in the person of Pres. King, allegedly has begun to stray into schismatic territory, coming within an ace of sedevacantism. No less a person than Dr. Taylor Marshall, former chancellor and philosophy professor at Fisher More, also accuses King et al. of fiduciary mismanagement. It now appears someone at Fisher More — perhaps King? — played RC to make the bishop look bad and (perhaps) create traditionalist pressure to reverse himself.

What are you prepared to suffer?

Now that Arizona’s SB 1062 is dead as last week’s roast chicken, you might think some sanity might descend upon the public square. Don’t count on it.

Let’s set out the inarguables. SB 1062 was Arizona’s reaction to the case in New Mexico where a photographer was sued under that state’s human rights laws for refusing to provide her services for a gay wedding. The relevant passage, as noted by constitutional law professor Josh Blackman, is virtually cut and pasted from the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993: “STATE ACTION shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.”

According to a bipartisan commission of law professors, SB 1062 would not have “allow[ed] any restaurant or bar-owner to puts up a sign that says ‘No Gays Served’,” as one email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hysterically asserted. Rather, under the law, “business people can assert a claim or defense …, in any kind of case (discrimination cases are not even mentioned, although they would be included), that they have the burden of proving a substantial burden on a sincere religious practice, that the government or the person suing them has the burden of proof on compelling government interest, and that the state courts in Arizona make the final decision.” Neither discrimination nor homosexuals were mentioned in either SB 1062 or RFRA ’93.

In any event, Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto message correctly pointed out that Arizona doesn’t have a New Mexico or Illinois-style human rights law to be used as a progressivist ratchet. And as Kevin D. Williamson correctly argues, “If anything, it is much more likely in 2014 that a business exhibiting authentic malice toward homosexuals would be crushed under the socio-economic realities of the current climate.”

Making Harvard a propaganda factory—UPDATED

Sandra Y. L. Korn, '14, progressivist Borg.
(Image source WND)

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Sandra Y. L. Korn, a Harvard senior double-majoring in history of science and studies of women, gender and sexuality (I heard you mutter, “Uh-oh”). In a Harvard Crimson post ironically titled “The Doctrine of Academic Freedom”, Korn has just advocated that Harvard remove itself from serious consideration as a center of academic research and become a generator of progressivist propaganda.

Not in so many words, of course. Her proposal, like Jonathan Swift’s, is modest:

… [The] liberal obsession with “academic freedom” seems a bit misplaced to me. After all, no one ever has “full freedom” in research and publication. Which research proposals receive funding and what papers are accepted for publication are always contingent on political priorities. The words used to articulate a research question can have implications for its outcome. No academic question is ever “free” from political realities. If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?

Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of “academic justice.” When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.

In a way, Korn’s argument is refreshing in its near-honesty. We already bias our research output by our funding and publication decisions, is the essence of her reasoning. We already have student activism to make sure conflicting positions are unwelcome here. Why be subtle about suppressing political heresies? Why not make it overt by writing it officially into school policy? I’m only surprised she didn’t suggest “academic justice” be written into Harvard’s hiring, retention and tenure standards.

Which makes me wonder: what are her grades in her history of science courses?

“Who am I to judge?”

The fateful post-WYD conference. (Photo: CNS)

Okay, let’s take it from the top: The Catholic Church exists to preserve and teach the revelation Jesus gave to his disciples during his earthly ministry. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you …. (Matthew 28:19-20)”

That means the Catholic Church does not exist to teach whatever fashionable notions its members want to embrace today, even though Jesus’ earthly mission took place almost 2,000 years ago. Theological inferences and deductions are permissible; doctrine can grow and develop; discipline may change to a degree to better teach the faith according to the culture and the times. But where doctrine is settled and dogma defined, no change is admissible because it would functionally “change” (i.e. distort) the revelation.

Semper Ecclesia reformanda: “The Church is always to be reformed.” However, there’s authentic reform, and then there’s mere innovation. C. S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, described the difference between the authentic reformer and the innovator most memorably: “It is the difference between a man who says to us: ‘You like your vegetables moderately fresh; why not grow your own and have them perfectly fresh?’ and a man who says, ‘Throw away that loaf and try eating bricks and centipedes instead.’”

It should be no surprise that the Church doesn’t adopt all the “reforms” many Westerners think it should. And it should be no surprise that the Church’s sexual teachings haven’t changed. However, some people still manage to cough up shock and outrage that Pope Francis’ out-of-context quote, “Who am I to judge?”, didn’t completely undo 2,000 years’ worth of moral dogma.

The broken gate

There’s kind of a time warp in Facebook Land. On any given day, this strange phenomenon can cough up posts, videos and memes originally uploaded as long as seven or eight years ago. In Facebook Land, the Chuck-Norris-is-tough meme can never truly die.

Thus it was that I didn’t see the RantLifestyle article by Michael Peckerar, “The Girls You Marry vs. the Girls You Hook Up With”, until almost a month had passed since it was published. And not until I read Peckerar’s article did I know about the RantChic article by Regina Phalange, “Men You Marry vs. Men You Bang” to which Peckerar’s article is either a complement or a response. When a man uses an obscenity to describe sex, he’s crude and boorish; when a woman does so, she’s edgy and tough.

I played around with both articles on Monday, hoping to extend them into a commentary on role expectations and the standards of a good spouse. One thing I'd noticed was that, despite the provocative title of her piece, at only one point does Phalange suggest that a man from what we could call the “reject pile” might be good for a one-nighter or “friendship with benefits”; in the other seven categories, we’re almost forced to wonder why any woman would consider sleeping with such a loser, let alone marrying him. By contrast, on several points Peckerar leaves us no doubt that there are women a straight man should want to sleep with ... but not necessarily espouse.

Romance, self-sacrifice and St. Valentine

Sancte Valentine, ora pro nobis.

Post originally published February 14, 2012.

I fail miserably at romance. I’m like the guy in Billy Joel’s song, “Leave a Tender Moment Alone”: sometimes I get so tense, I’ll say or do something that completely spoils the moment … usually, it’s a joke. 

So if I were to write a post telling men how to win women’s hearts, I would be putting myself in a false position. I don’t even have the excuse of being a priest; a priest could at least form some conclusions from what he hears in confessions and spiritual counseling. In fact, I’m convinced that even Dr. Phil is making educated guesses when it comes to women. 

(“What do women want?” asked Freud in despair … to which cartoonist Mimi Pond replied, “Shoes.” Thanks, Mimi. Big help.)

It’s especially difficult to write about romantic love when, in one sense, both “love” and “romance” have lost meaning in the post-modern world. Saint Valentine, his day stripped of its sanctity in the name of secular commerce, now presides over a semi-ritualized gift-giving that drips the same sappy sentimentality with which American marketing saturates every major holiday. Where is the passion, the adventure, the hypergolic mix of eros and agapē? At the same time, why bother with the jewelry and the chocolates when you can just as easily get laid on Groundhog’s Day as Valentine’s Day?