All I want for Christmas...

Every body pauses and stares at me
These two teeth are gone as you can see
I don't know just who to blame for this catastrophe!
But my one wish on Christmas Eve is as plain as it can be!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,
my two front teeth, see my two front teeth!
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth,
then I could wish you "Merry Christmas."

It seems so long since I could say, "Sister Susie sitting on a thistle!"
Gosh oh gee, how happy I'd be, if I could only whistle (thhhh, thhhh)

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,
my two front teeth, see my two front teeth!
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth,
then I could wish you "Merry Christmas."

Merry Christmas from
David, Cathy, Maddy and (our front-toothless) Mia

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May God bless you all this Christmas,
as you celebrate the joy of the Saviour's birth

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I'll be taking a bit of a break from blogging between Christmas and New Year. Even "Mr Blog" (as someone called me recently at her 60th birthday party) needs a rest!

A Synopsis of the Benedict(XVI)ine Agenda

Hats off to Cardinal Ruini for this phenomal synopsis of Benedict XVI's thought and theological/pastoral agenda "At the heart of Benedict XVI's teaching: to present the salvific truth of Jesus Christ to the mindset of our times". He has managed to do what I would have thought almost impossible, and that is to string together all the various strains of thought in Benedict's theology in under 7000 words. Print it off, make yourself a cup of coffee or pour yourself a beer, and sit down to read it from beginning to end. You will not regret the time spent.

Ruini choses his Benedictine "canon" carefully, listing the following as central to an understanding of the Pope's agenda:
The Regensburg Address of September 12, 2006
The Address to the Verona Conference of October 19, 2006
The Encyclical "Deus Caritas Est"
"Introduction to Christianity" from 1968
"Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions" from 2003
"Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures" from 2005
I have read all these except the last, which is now on my reading list.

In addition to these, he also refers to Ratzinger's
upcoming book "Jesus of Nazareth"
Discourse to the Roman Curia of December 22, 2005
Inaugural address at the University of Bonn from 1959
Autobiography "Milestones"
"The New People of God" (Das Neues Volk Gottes) from 1969
The Address to the Swiss Bishops of November 9, 2006
Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace

Given that Ruini has already synthesised Benedict's thought in such a small space, it seems almost impossible to sythesise Ruini's paper into an even smaller space, so I will just give some juicy quotations:

In the first place, in fact, God is clearly distinct from nature, from the world that He created: only in this way do “physics” and “metaphysics” arrive at a clear distinction from one another.

Thus the primacy of (metaphysical) philosophy was replaced by the primacy of history, later replaced by that of science and technology. This latter primacy is today fairly clearly visible in Western culture, and, to the extent to which it claims that only scientific understanding is really true and rational, must be described as “scientism”.

In this context, the theory of the evolution of species proposed by Darwin has ended up taking on – among many scientists and philosophers, and to a great extent within modern culture – the role of a kind of vision of the world or of “first philosophy,” which on the one hand would be rigorously “scientific” and on the other would constitute, at least potentially, a universal explanation or theory of all reality, based upon natural selection or casual mutations, beyond which other questions about the origin and nature of things are not supposed to be necessary any longer, or even licit.

But J. Ratzinger observes that, because of that great change by which, from Kant on, human reason is no longer thought to be capable of understanding reality in itself, and above all transcendent reality, the alternative to scientism most culturally accepted today seems to be, not the affirmation of God the Word, but rather the idea that “latet omne verum,” all reality is hidden, or that the true reality of God remains entirely inaccessible and incomprehensible to us, while the various religions are thought to present only images of God relative to different cultural contexts, and thus all are equally “true” and “untrue.”

Limiting reason to what can be experienced and examined is, in fact, useful, precise, and necessary in the specific field of the natural sciences, and constitutes the key of their unceasing development. But if it is universalized and held to be absolute and self-sufficient, such a limitation becomes untenable, inhuman, and, in the end, contradictory.

Naturally, such a question and such reflection, although they begin from an examination of the structure and presuppositions of scientific knowledge, pass beyond this form of understanding and arrive at the level of philosophical inquiry: this does not conflict, therefore, with the theory of evolution, as long as it remains within the realm of science. And furthermore, even on the philosophical level the creating Lógos is not the object of an apodictic demonstration, but remains “the best hypothesis,” an hypothesis that demands that man and his reasoning “renounce a position of domination, and take the risk of a stance of humble listening.”

In concrete terms, especially in the current cultural climate, man by his own strength is unable to make entirely his own this “best hypothesis”: he remains, in fact, the prisoner of a “strange shadow” and of the urge to live according to his own interests, leaving aside God and ethics. Only revelation, the initiative of God who, in Christ, manifests himself to man and calls him to approach Him, makes us capable of emerging from this shadow.

In concrete terms, as by making more room for our reason and reopening reason to the great questions of truth and goodness it becomes possible “to connect theology, philosophy and science [both natural and historical] with each other in full respect for their individual methods and their reciprocal autonomy” (ibid.), so also, at the level of life and practice, in the current context it is particularly necessary to highlight the liberating power of Christianity, the bond that joins Christian faith and freedom, and at the same time to make it understood how freedom is intrinsically connected to love and truth.

In practice, I am in fact forced to choose between the two alternatives identified by Pascal: either to live as if God did not exist, or to live as if God existed and were the decisive reality in my existence. This is because God, if He exists, cannot be an accessory to be removed or added without any effect, but is rather the origin, the meaning, and the end of the universe, and of man within it. If I act according to the first alternative, I adopt in point of fact an atheistic position, and not a merely agnostic one. But if I decide in favor of the second alternative, I adopt the position of a believer: the question of God is, therefore, unavoidable.

In the current situation in the West, in any case, Christian morality seems to be divided into two parts. One of these concerns the great themes of peace, nonviolence, justice for all, concern for the world’s poor, and respect for creation: this part enjoys great public appreciation, even if it risks being polluted by a politically tinged moralism. The other part concerns human life, the family, and marriage: this is rather less welcome at the public level; even more, it constitutes a very serious obstacle in the relationship between the Church and the people. Our task, then, is above all that of presenting Christianity not as mere moralism, but as love that is given to us by God and that gives us the strength to “lose our lives,” and also to welcome and live the law of life that is the Decalogue. In this way the two parts of Christian morality can be reconnected, reinforcing each other, and the ‘nos’ of the Church to weak and distorted forms of love can be understood as ‘yeses’ to authentic love, to the reality of man as he was created by God.

Of the new Archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Collins

My friends, the Quists, recently returned to Edmonton from their two year stay in Melbourne to study at the John Paul II institute, are philosophical about the translation of their Archbishop, Tom Collins, to Toronto. "While we're happy for Toronto and the Church in Canada, we in the Edmonton archdiocese are sad," he recently wrote.

John L. Allen Jnr. has posted these comments about the Archbishop:

- A leader with rock-solid credentials on Catholic identity, yet personally gracious and pastoral, for whom conflict is the court of last resport.
- While Collins is outspoken, he is also known as modest and approachable, someone expected to bring a less divisive style to Canada’s premier English-speaking see
- a good match for Cardinal Marc Ouellet, 62, of Quebec, widely seen as the main papal point of reference for French-speaking Canada...are seen as deeply traditional, yet gracious and open to argument.
- an inspiring speaker

I was impressed by this:

A Scripture professor at St. Peter’s Seminary from 1978 to 1997, ...“He did much of what Cardinal Martini did in Milan,” Rosica said. “He would fill the Cathedral on Sunday evenings with young people, doing a Lectio Divina and Scripture teaching unparalleled in Canada. I was with him for several of those sessions and I marveled at what was happening. To quote many of the young people: ‘It was awesome.’”

I also note with interest that whereas the Toronto Archdiocese has 833 priests, it also has 111 permanent deacons. Which leads me to wonder what the effect would be if Melbourne had the equivalent ratio, ie. about 40 permanent deacons for our 320 or so priests.

Quote of the day

In the Jerusalem Post on Dec 17, Stewart Weiss wrote in an article called "Hanukka and the limits of pluralism":

What is the difference between communism and capitalism? Under communism, man exploits man; in capitalism, it's just the opposite.

The article is about the distinctiveness of Judaism. He writes that Judaism, unlike many other "isms" such as commumism, "is the exception to the rule" that lines which were once diametrically opposed are becoming blurred. Over thousands of years, Judaism has mainted its distinct character. In fact, I believe that a case could be made for the enduring distinctiveness of a number religious of "isms", inlcuding those not usually called "isms", such as Islam and Christianity. There appears to be something enduring about the distinctiveness of religious movements that cannot be equalled by political and ideological "isms". He concludes his article by saying:

JUDAISM TODAY - not for the first time in our history - is locked in a struggle to define our character and evaluate our essence. While a certain amount of "dilution" may be acceptable, at some point the purity level must be safeguarded if we are to maintain our unique identity. As a faith system, we can accept those who, for various reasons, choose not to follow certain aspects of ritual law; there have always been varying levels of observance among Jews, who often branch out like the menora itself.

But we cannot tolerate those who would change the basic rules of the game.

Thus observing the Sabbath on Sunday, believing in Jesus or redefining "Who is a Jew" evoke a call to arms by those who sincerely care about the future of Judaism. And it is in this context that we have to address issues like same-sex marriage or gay and lesbian "rabbis." While Jewish law has always been willing to bend, it is not prepared to break.

If we go too far, we run the risk of becoming just another "ism."

Perhaps "there is something in that for all of us", as the preacher sayeth, including Christiantiy.

Judge Nettle's findings in the Court of Appeal re Catch the Fire Ministries Inc. vc Islamic Council of Victoria Inc.

(Warning: Another long blog)

I have been working my way through the findings of Judge Nettle who, together with Judges Ashley and Neave, heard the appeal of Cath the Fire Ministries, Daniel Nalliah and Daniel Scot against the findings of Judge Higgins last year in the vilification case vs. the Islamic Council of Victoria.

And I find myself in one of those disconcerting situations of having to admit that I was wrong.

Many of my colleagues--and in fact you yourself, dear reader--will have been repeatedly assured by yours truly (on the basis of my reading of the transcript of the March 2002 Seminar and the findings of Judge Higgins in the original trial) that the two Danny's were indeed guilty of vilifying Australian Muslims.

Having read (most of) Judge Nettle's findings, I realise now that there is a legal distinction (if not a moral distinction) that must be made between vilifying certain religious beliefs and vilifiying adherants to those beliefs. Apparently, it is legally possible to do the former without doing the latter. And this is possibly the case in this instance.

To put the case as Judge Nettle does, Pastors Danny and Danny and CTF ministries did not act in contravention of Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. While they may well have vilified Islam, the law is specifically against the vilification of persons or a class of persons, and Judge Nettle holds that there is reasonable doubt in this case as to whether the Danny's were guilty of vilifying Muslims as a class of persons. Moreover, it appears that they were not so much guilty of "incitement to hatred etc.", but rather "incitement" to proselytisation. The latter may still not be palatable to many who are working for interfaith harmony, but it is clearly not against the law.

Judge Nettle finds five reasons to question the original finding of Judge Higgins. In the first place, he says:

With respect, there are several aspects of that reasoning which I take leave to doubt. The first of them arises out of the adoption of the Bropho test and, consequently, the Tribunal’s conclusion that the words "on the ground of [religious beliefs]" imply a causal connection between religious beliefs and impugned conduct. In effect the Tribunal decided that the Seminar contravened s.8 because the Tribunal was satisfied that Pastor Scot was moved or caused by the religious beliefs of Muslims to make the statements which he did at the Seminar, and that an ordinary reasonable person who was not malevolently inclined or free from susceptibility to prejudice would be inclined by Pastor Scot’s statements to hate Muslims. But, for the reasons which I have given, I do not consider that that was the question which needed to be decided. In my view the question was whether, having regard to the content of the statements in the context of the whole of the Seminar, and to the nature of the audience in the sense that I have described, the natural and ordinary effect of what was stated was to encourage the hatred of Muslims based on their religious beliefs.

Nb. The business about the precedent and interpretations from the "Bropho" case has an important place in this decision, as it was used by Judge Higgins in the original case. But "Bropho" was a case heard on the basis of the Racial Discrimination Act, which is quite different from Victoria's RRTA laws.

In the second place, he argues:

that, because the Tribunal adopted the Bropho test instead of directing itself to the question of whether the Seminar as a whole incited hatred of Muslims based on their religious beliefs, it did not give a great deal of consideration to the distinction between hatred of the religious beliefs of Muslims and hatred of Muslims because of their religious beliefs. The Tribunal appears to me to have assumed that the two conceptions are identical or at least that hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards the religious beliefs of Muslims must invariably result in hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards Muslims. In my view, that is not so.

There is an obvious retort to this view, but Judge Nettle heads us off at the pass:

I do not overlook that Muslims are defined by their religious beliefs - as persons who profess Islam - and therefore that to incite hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards the religious beliefs of a Muslim may result in hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards the Muslim. But it is surely not to be assumed that it must do so. Muslims are not the only class of persons who are defined by their religious beliefs. So are adherents to other faiths, including Judaism and Christianity. And there are any number of persons who may despise each other’s faiths and yet bear each other no ill will. I dare say, for example, that there would be a large number of people who would despise Pastor Scot’s perception of Christianity and yet not dream of hating him or be inclined to any of the other stipulated emotions.

And then he makes a really interesting observation:

No doubt the purpose of the Act is to promote religious tolerance. But the Act cannot and does not purport to mandate religious tolerance. People are free to follow the religion of their choice, even if it is averse to other codes. One need only think of the doctrinal differences which separate the several Christian denominations or the Muslim sects in order to see the point. Equally, people are free to attempt to persuade other people to adopt their point of view. Street corner evangelists are a commonplace example. Rightly or wrongly, that is the nature of religion, or at least it is the nature of some religions as they are understood, and in this country it is tolerated. Accordingly, s.8 goes no further in restricting freedom to criticise the religious beliefs of others than to prohibit criticism so extreme as to incite hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards those others. It is essential to keep the distinction between the hatred of beliefs and the hatred of their adherents steadily in view. Beyond that, it is a matter for the law of defamation or the law relating to misrepresentation and misleading and deceptive conduct or, possibly, criminal sanctions.

The Third Difficulty is:

that the Tribunal’s failure to observe the distinction between hatred of beliefs and hatred of adherents to beliefs has resulted in the Tribunal deciding the matter on the basis that the Seminar was not a "balanced" discussion of Muslim beliefs. ...The problem with that is that the verity of Pastor Scot’s statements about the religious beliefs of Muslims was irrelevant to the matters in issue. The question for the purposes of s.8 was whether what was said by Pastor Scot taken as a whole and in context was such as to incite hatred of or other relevant emotion towards Muslims on grounds of their religious beliefs. Whether his statements about the religious beliefs of Muslims were accurate or inaccurate or balanced or unbalanced was incapable of yielding an answer to the question of whether the statements incited hatred or other relevant emotion. Statements about the religious beliefs of a group of persons could be completely false and utterly unbalanced and yet do nothing to incite hatred of those who adhere to those beliefs. At the same time, statements about the religious beliefs of a group of persons could be wholly true and completely balanced and yet be almost certain to incite hatred of the group because of those beliefs. In any event, who is to say what is accurate or balanced about religious beliefs? ...In my view it was calculated to lead to error for a secular tribunal to attempt to assess the theological propriety of what was asserted at the Seminar.

The Fourth difficulty:

flows from the third. The Tribunal’s concentration on the issue of whether Pastor Scot’s statements represented a "balanced" presentation of the religious beliefs of Muslims, and the Tribunal’s conclusion, based on Father McInerney’s opinion, that they did not, appear to me to have resulted in the Tribunal disregarding significant aspects of Pastor Scot’s statements which, at least arguably, went a long way to ameliorating any risk of inciting hatred of Muslims (even if they did nothing to redress the imbalance perceived by Father McInerney).

And at this point, the judgment goes off on a lengthy tangent about whether what the Tribunal claimed Pastor Scot said was what he really said. The conclusion? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For eg. It is clear that Scot did not claim that "Muslims were demons", but rather that "Some Demons are Muslims". Other times, it is clear that while Scot did not say exactly what Higgins' findings claimed he did, he strongly implied them. The point in the end though is whether this is relevant to the question of whether he actually "incited hatred" against Muslims as a class of people.

"The fifth difficulty with the Tribunal’s reasons", Nettle claims, is:

that the Tribunal’s concern with the balance or imbalance of Pastor Scot’s presentation of Muslim religious beliefs led the Tribunal to treat as being relevant some evidence given by three recent converts to Islam to the effect that they had attended the Seminar and were upset by what they had heard.

But, under s.8 of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act,

the question...is not whether the conduct offends a group of persons but whether it incites hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards that group of persons. Things might well be said of a group of persons which would be deeply offensive to those persons and yet do nothing to encourage hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards those persons.

In effect,

the affront to the feelings of the Muslim witnesses was largely if not wholly irrelevant. The concentration needed to be upon the members of the audience who were not Muslims

ie. because the question is whether or not they were incited to violence/hatred etc. against Muslims. Here Nettle introduces an important aspect:

What demanded to be assessed was whether the effect of the injunctions to love and to witness to Muslims was sufficient to prevent hatred or other relevant emotion by the non-Muslims towards Muslims.

In this section, he produces lengthy sections from the transcript that show that Scot really encouraged a very respectful attitude toward Muslims and Islam--even if for the ulterior motive of proselytisation. Here follows Judge Nettle's assessment of the situation:

With respect...it was surely arguable on the basis of Pastor Scot’s exhortations to his audience to love and "witness" to Muslims that the raison d’etre of his Seminar was to infuse his audience with an understanding of the Koran (as he perceived it) so that they might effectively convert Muslims to Christianity (as he perceived it). Indeed his peroration was that, despite the inadequacies of Islamic doctrine (as he perceived them), his audience should love Muslims and seek to inculcate in them a Christian understanding of the Deity (as he conceived of it). If, therefore, it were properly to be concluded that the Seminar incited hatred or other relevant emotion of or towards Muslims (as opposed to their religious beliefs), the terms of Pastor Scot’s exhortations to love and to witness to Muslims, and their likely effect on the non-Muslims present, required a good deal more analysis than peremptory dismissal as "talk from time to time".

None of this is to say that Judge Nettle does not recognise that "Pastor Scot's observations on the meaing of the Koran" would be "deeply offensive" to some Muslims. In fact, he states:

I dare say too that there may well be people who, although not Muslims, would think it a far better thing if people like Pastor Scot kept his ideas about the Koran and Islam, and for that matter Judaism and Christianity, to himself and left others to do likewise. It is at least arguable that the world would be a happier place if he were bound to do so. But that is not the law. As has been seen, the prohibition in s.8 is not a prohibition against saying things about the religious beliefs of persons which are offensive to those persons, or even against saying things about the religious beliefs of one group of persons which would cause another group of persons to despise those beliefs. It is against saying things about the religious beliefs and practices of persons which go so far as to incite other persons to hate persons who adhere to those religious beliefs. And as a matter of logical analysis, it does not suffice to establish incitement to hate a group of persons to show that scorn has been poured on the religious beliefs or practices of that group of persons (although it may be relevant).

There is a final section on the question of the definition of "good faith" and whether or not the seminar was held for "a genuine religious purpose" (which would exempt it from the law). Judge Nettle observes that:

comparative religion and proselytism are both "religious purposes" and...it does not matter which religions are being compared or to which religion persons are sought to be converted. Accordingly, if, as in this case, a defendant’s alleged purpose is "to explain to Christian people certain aspects of Islamic teaching and to encourage and equip Christian believers to share their faith with Muslims", then, subject to what follows, it is difficult to think that it would not qualify as a "religious purpose"

So, according to Judge Nettle, it is doubtful whether Catch the Fire Ministries overstepped the boundaries of the law. That is why he has sent it back for a retrial. His final word?

Of necessity, the standards of an open and just multicultural society allow for differences in views about religions. They acknowledge that there will be differences in views about other peoples’ religions. To a very considerable extent, therefore, they tolerate criticism by the adherents of one religion of the tenets of another religion; even though to some and perhaps to most in society such criticisms may appear ill-informed or misconceived or ignorant or otherwise hurtful to adherents of the latter faith. It is only when what is said is so ill-informed or misconceived or ignorant and so hurtful as to go beyond the bounds of what tolerance should accommodate that it may be regarded as unreasonable.

Barry Kearney's "Future Church: Part the Third"

(Warning: Long blog--please skip down to the next one if you are not interested in this one).

Back in August, I blogged on the ruminations of Mr Barry Kearny, a 56-year old parishioner of St Anne’s Parish in Park Orchards who has "been having a very long hard think about the Church" and who has shared his vision for the “Future Church in Australia” by bulk emailing a very large number of folk in the Melbourne Archdiocese. Today he sent out "Part III", and I wish to give him a bit of "cyberspace" in this forum for those who care to listen. He is concerned about the falling mass attendance, and about the fact that many "practising Catholics" simply "go through the motions of attending Mass, and yet not even participate 1% in the Sacred Mystery of the Mass".

I mentioned in my first article that we need a Marketing Plan. I had some very positive responses to that article, but not many responses at all. A couple of people queried the word “marketing”, saying that you cannot compare a business to the Church. OK, let’s ditch “marketing”. Let’s Evangelise.

Good move, Barry. I was one who questioned the use of this commercial approach. Evangelisation is absolutely what its all about.

But we have to begin with evangelising to our own Catholics. Those that “get nothing out of going to Mass”. And this may mean people who never attend, seldom attend, often attend or always attend.

Again, we're right with you there, Barry. I have mentioned before the strange phenomena whereby a Baptist who stops going to church doesn't keep calling himself a Baptist, but a Catholic will still call himself a Catholic even if he hasn't been inside a church since the day of his confirmation.

I am in the usually attend category, but I have been getting very little out of the Mass. ...I must take much of the blame for that, and I have now changed my whole attitude. It was very easy, I just had to have a good think about it, and I read 3 books on reviving one’s Catholic Faith. So I’m back.

Yep, folks, he's right. It IS very easy, and there isn't really much to it besides actually caring enough to do it. A little side note here. My girls are Lutherans, but I am raising them as Catholic Lutherans. Maddy (aged 8) actually said about a year ago that she wanted to be Catholic like me, but (and here is the shame faced fact of it) she has a better chance of being a Catholic when she turns 18 if she continues as a Lutheran now. Her parish is in the process of hiring a full time "child and family" worker, on top of a part-time youth worker, and an assistant Pastor with post-graduate qualifications in child and family catechesis. The Lutherans haven't got anything we don't have--but they do make use of what they've got. The 2001 National Church Life Survey found that of all Australian Churches, the Lutherans are best at retaining the young. End of side note.

But what are we going to do about the 90% of Catholics who rarely attend Mass? ...The Mass and the Eucharist are the answer.

Right you are again, Barry.

As you may or may not have read in my second letter on the Future Church, after my first letter I attended some Baptist services. I attended even more after the second letter. The Baptists at New Hope Blackburn and Crossways Burwood have thriving communities. They have big bands, talented singers, cameras showing the services on big screens, hordes of young people, piles of money, and the communities throb with enthusiasm. They have strong “faith” And huge attendances. Everything that most Catholic Churches are lacking including young Catholics. I even saw young Catholics being baptised, saying how the Catholic Church was lacking for them and that they have been born again.

They can do all this, and they do not have the Mass or the other Catholic Sacraments and they are part of a denomination that has broken away from the Church founded by Christ. The question is not, “how do they do it?” It was very clear how they do it. I found some of what happens in these churches quite disturbing. The question for our Church is what can we do within the parameters of our Faith to help Catholics to want to come to Mass.

Like I said with regards to the Lutherans, they don't have anything we don't (or couldn't) have (I don't know if we really want "big screens", but I wouldn't say no to the rest of the list). In reality, we have more, as Barry points out, in the fullness of the Word, the Ministry and the Sacraments. But we seem to be less ready to make use of it. Its as if the ecclesial communities to which Barry refers have learnt to feast on a famine, whereas we have grown so used to the feast that we have preferred to fast in the face of it.

Barry then attaches the summary of the ACBC Report on “Catholics Who Have Stopped Going to Mass” by Bob Dixon, the chief planner for the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. As Barry says, "It was compiled after in depth interviews with 41 Catholics who have stopped attending Mass or just attend on special occasions."

I have also attached a statistic sheet published in 2001 which showed that about 15% of Catholics regularly attend Mass. ...The Report mentions that some people are ceasing to identify themselves as Catholics. It calls this “disidentification” and says that ceasing to attend Mass is an early stage in this process.

As I said above, this process of "disidentification" is much slower for Catholics than for almost any other type of Christian (except perhaps Orthodox), largely because of the cultural element. It would be worth seeing some studies on this.

The three most commonly mentioned “church-centred” reasons [for not going to mass anymore] were:
1. The misuse of power and authority in the Church.
2. The irrelevance of the Church to life today especially in relation to co-habitation and contraception.
3. Lack of intellectual stimulation eg poor sermons.

I don't know about no. 1, which is largely a matter of perception, but no. 2 is probably a sympton of no. 3. More intelligent, more faithful and better presented homilies would go a long way to fixing the perception that the Church is irrelevant to life today.

The 3 main participant-centred reasons were:
1. Crisis of faith – it no longer provided meaning or made sense.
2. Family or house-hold related issues.
3. Going to Mass simply not a priority.

Barry comments with regard to these three that "Probably these reasons are all inter-related eg if the Church is irrelevant or there is a lack of intellectual stimulation, a Crisis of Faith or making Mass a low priority are likely", which accords exactly with what I said above.

The major findings of the Report are:1. A large majority of participants believe that the Church is out of touch with the current world and is not relevant to their own lives
2. In general, participant’s alienation from the Church has been a gradual process in which changing attitudes to Church teaching have interacted with negative personal experiences of Church personnel and regulation
Supplementary findings of interest are:1. It was difficult to isolate a single reason why they stopped attending Mass.
2. Many participants displayed a very poor knowledge of the Catholic faith.
3. It was important for virtually all participants that they nurture the spiritual dimension of their lives.
Concluding Remarks
“Factors identified by the participants in this research which led them to stop going to Mass are also influencing people who are still regular Mass attenders …….In other words, if no action is taken, there are Catholics who are regular Mass attenders who are already on a path that will make them disappear from church life in a year or two”.

Given all this, it is interesting that, as Barry notes, The Report "...recommended that “Parishes review and evaluate practices and policies, especially the way liturgy is celebrated, to ensure that people are welcomed and respected”", especially when it appears that it is the quality of catechesis and homiletics that needs to actually be reviewed.

Barry then follows with some valid "thoughts". First, given that "The report is based on only 41 participants...it is impossible to judge if the participants are in any way representative of the huge number of older Catholics who have stopped going to Mass after previously being regular attenders."

Secondly, "women outnumbered men by more than 2 to 1", while "it is quite clear that men as a group are pulling out of Mass attendance more than women". A very valid point. There is good reason to think that a church that cannot keep its menfolk will not keep its womenfolk or families either. Again, the Lutheran Church of Australia is phenomenally good at keeping men involved. In the long run, I believe, evangelising men and getting them back into active parish life will do more for the future of the church than concentrating on a single age demographic such as youth.

Barry rightly identifies the reason “it no longer provided meaning or made sense” as being crucial. "If it did provide meaning and made sense," he says, "I believe that many of the other reasons would not be significant." Contraception and cohabitation included. "The Church has clear policies on all these issues," Barry writes, "but never seems to address them or discuss them."

"They should be clarified, and then publicised," he adds. "Church Leaders shouldn’t have “too hard baskets”."

But to the matter of the Liturgy:

We do not have to reinvent the Mass. Just remember it. Emphasise it, cherish it. A few subtle enhancements perhaps, and a lot of education. Educate better.

Barry challenges us to do what the Lutherans are already doing: Making the most of occasions like First Communion and Christmas. I think he is heading in the wrong direction with the suggestion that we could impliment policies that "force those wishing their children to attend Catholic Schools to attend Mass with their children". Not only would that "not be enough", as he recognises, any kind of "force" would be detrimental. There is an old saying that in the dry outback, a well of water works better to keep livestock from running away than a fence.

Barry rightly identifies the issue of "how we teach our Faith in the Schools", but perhaps part of the problem is that Catholics have often placed too much reliance on the parish school to do the catechisation. This is largely passing the buck. It is the parish itself that has the first responsibility for programs of catechisation. The School can offer a supporting role, but it can never be expected to take the whole responsibility (or blame when the process fails).

Barry is also right to say that "we must offer education programs to older Catholics"--for the Christian life involves a "whole of life catechesis" not just for children.

I do not agree with this suggestion:

To maximise our celebration of the Mass, Childminding and Children’s Liturgies may be helpful. If we are to do more than just attend Mass, the less distractions the better, for parents and others. And the children would be happier. I personally do not find small children an issue, but it may help to cater for them.

Small Children are Catholics too, and they need the mass as much as older Catholics. Children are catechised from the day of their baptism by being brought to the liturgy and being present at the liturgy. We must not exclude them under any circumstances. Yes, there are ways we can help. People without children can assist parents with numerous youngsters. Children's liturgy can be offered between masses (not as an alternative to mass). Kids have to learn to sit and listen to a sermon. This is a skill that is only aquired by doing it. Above all, tolerance must be the key. Believe me, it is a far more joyous thing to be at a Mass that is packed with roudy kids than to be at Mass where a child's voice is never heard.

Barry makes a number of practical suggestions, like "Effective sound systems..., facilitation of participants having access to all the responses and prayers, ...a printed sheet every week with all the words and even the readings and some background notes, even prayers." The latter may not be needed for everyone, but could be useful for some, especially visitors.

These are all important issues, and good on you, Barry, for having a go. As I like to say about these things: "It ain't rocket science."

Folk who would like to respond directly to Barry or get his full article can email him at: barry@footcareinternational.com

Local Christian (many Catholic) Video Interview Show: "Spirit of Life"

Shannon Donahoo found this on Channel 31 on Sunday night and alerted me to the website. The program is called "Spirit of Life", and is locally produced here in Melbourne. There are dozens of interviews with local Christians including many Catholics--Andrew Deveroux, Anne-Marie Quinn and Bishop Chris Prowse among them--for you to download and watch on Windows Media Player. Now, if only they put them on audio MP3's, we could listen to them on our iPods...

Zenit you can watch! Rome TV Newsagency

Rome Reports (www.romereports.com) is a new venture by the Legionaries of Christ, who already run the best Vatican news service, Zenit. Now you can actually watch (on streaming video) the events in the Vatican which you have previously only read about.

Once you get to the website, you need to click on the "Rome Reports Video Newsfeed" on the left hand side of the screen. If this doesn't get you the newsfeed, click on this link: http://player.narrowstep.tv/?player=romereports. You have to make sure your pop-up blocking feature is off, but otherwise it is just like watching Youtube, only with the Holy Father.

The current newsreport includes the Holy Father speaking about this trip to Turkey, and the visit of the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos. It runs for about 20 minutes. I don't know how often they will be updating this, but I am hooked already.

Latin mass rumours find solid foundation: Cardinal Medina speaks out

This report from the Catholic News Agency appears to provide the surest proof yet that there really is a Motu Propio on the traditional Latin mass ready to go:

VATICAN CITY, December 14 (CNA) - At the conclusion of the Ecclesia Dei commission this week, which is responsible for maintaining dialogue with the Lefevbrist movement, the former head of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Jorge Medina, said Pope Benedict XVI it was “very probable” that Pope Benedict XVI would issue an indult for the celebration of the Mass of St. Pius V.The Mass of St. Pius V, which was celebrated universally before Vatican II, can currently be celebrated only with the permission of the local bishop. According to Cardinal Medina, the Pontiff may issue a “Motu Propio”—a document released on the Pope’s own authority—that would authorize the universal use of the missal without the need for diocesan approval. “The publication of a Motu Propio by the Pope allowing for widespread celebration of the Mass in Latin according to the missal of St. Pius V is very near,” the cardinal said.“The matter has been calmly studied and it was discussed for more than four hours, resulting in some corrections to the text of the Motu Propio,” he added. The next step for it to be definitively published will be taken by Cardinal Dario Castrillon, president of the commission “Ecclesia Dei, who will present the text to the Pope for his final approval.

Two Danny's get Re-Trial!

The two Danny's have won a reprieve following their application against the findings of Judge Higgins in the long running Religious Vilification case before VCAT. Hailed as a success by Catch the Fire Ministries and just about every other conservative Christian group around the world, this is not quite an exoneration--it is a call for a retrial, without any further evidence to be taken, but in the light of the rulings of the appeal. It is expected, however, that in that light, a new verdict--of "not guilty"--will be handed down.

I am still wading through the 80 pages or so of the appeal's findings, but at the moment it seems to hinge upon the idea that the criticising and ridiculing of religious beliefs should be distinguished from the vilification of those who hold those religious beliefs. It also includes the fact that just because someone feels insulted by what someone else says about their religious beliefs doesn't mean that Victoria's Religious Vilification laws have been breached.

[I understand that Peter Feris wrote a piece on this for Crikey.com, but as I'm not a subscriber, so I couldn't read it. Anyone out there in blog land with access to this article?]

In general, I welcome these new distinctions, just as I welcomed the amendments to the law made last year, although I agree with Mark Zirnsak of the Uniting Church, that we wouldn't want anyone--especially Christians--seeing this as a "green light" for being nasty to people of other faiths. I also hope--although I don't expect--that these findings would calm the fears of some Christian folk about the Victorian laws. It is obvious that the laws are working themselves out over time and that Christians acting in good faith--and in a spirit of charity--have nothing to fear. (Cf. The Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission's Statement "Talking about Other Faiths: A Position Statement of the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission")

[Reader: I guess that puts paid to your thoughts about charging Richard Dawkins with religious vilification?
Schütz: It does, rather.]

Of Bishops and (a few good) Men...

Last Tuesday, I held in my hands the episcopal ring which will be placed on the finger of the new Anglican archbishop of Melbourne (Dr Philip Freier) at his installation this Saturday. My friend, the Archdeacon (how Trollopian that sounds!), who had commissioned it, was showing it around at an ecumenical meeting. Dr Freier will be a very welcome addition to the Melbourne ecclesiastical scene. We hope to hear much of and from him.


Bishop Freier is only 51 years of age, and from the Northern Territory. This is interesting for two reasons. The first is that he is roughly the same age as the current Lutheran President/Bishop, The Rev. Greg Pietsch ("if that's how they spell peach, I wonder how they spell apricot!" as one Catholic was recently heard to say). Both incumbents could well be around for the next 14-19 years, and given that Archbishop Hart, our Catholic Ordinary, has at least another 10 years to go, this means we are heading into a period of quite extraordinary stability in the ecclesiastical leadership of Melbourne (the Uniting Church rotates every three years, so theres never any stability there...).


Ah, but there's still some excitement ahead, and that's where the other interesting point about Archbishop Freier comes in. It just so happens that the Catholic Bishop of Darwin, the Most Rev. Ted Collins, has just retired at age 75, leaving a vacancy for someone well trained in evangelisation and Aboriginal Ministry. Whether or not Papa Benny knows about it (and I believe him to omniscient in these matters), there is such a candidate among the auxiliaries of Melbourne: a relatively youthful, can-do sort of bishop whom we will be very sad to lose, but are resigned to the fact that with his talent he won't remain an auxiliary for ever. We thought him originally marked out for Sale--but it seems that there is at least one good
candidate from the Sale diocese (with experience in training priests) for when Bishop Coffey reaches the magical 75 mark (cf. Coo-ees in the Cloister).
Now add that to the fact that Papa Benny has just accepted Melbourne Auxiliary bishop Joe O'Connell's resignation (he finishes his duties around next July),
and that we are already one short since Mark Coleridge became Archbishop of Canberra, AND that Bishop Hilton Deakin turns 75 next November, that means that we could be needing FOUR new auxiliary bishops in Melbourne in the very near future.

I understand that bookies are currently taking wagers on the outcome, but being no betting man (a residual queesiness from Lutheranism) I am making no prognostications. (Not in public like this anyway!) Suffice it to say that the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese is sorely in need of "a few good men" to exchange whatever colour they are currently wearing (black, white, blue or biege) for the episcopal purple!

A blatant attempt at proselytising by Spong's Church

Here's a nasty little piece, to which Amy Wellborn alerts us (and a good dissection of it by Christopher S. Johnson).

It is a blatant act of what we, in the Catholic Church, call proselytising (aka "Sheep-stealing"). Apart from the fact that it plays fast and loose with the Truth ("What is that?"), it is a distinctly agressive plot to attract disaffected adherants away from the Catholic faith to their own variant by painting Catholicism as bad as they possibly can and by making their own church sound as good (by their definition, at least?) as they possibly can.

Newark is, of course, Bishop Spong's old stamping ground. So much for ethics and ecumenism in the liberal Episcopalian camp.

A good definition of the Christian concept of Creation

From the same review as the quote below, Stephen Barr gives us this definition of Creation:

In its traditional and profounder meaning, creation is that timeless act whereby God holds all things in existence. It is not an alternative to natural theories of origin or natural explanations of change.

I completely concur with this definition, and it is the foundation for my continuing assertion that "trademark" ID™ is a "wrong turn at Alberquerque". (I am still working on a reply to Inquisitive Brain's assertion that it is in fact a "right turn". Stay tuned.

Quote for the day

I liked this quotation from Stephen Barr's Review of Edward O. Wilson's "The Creation: A meeting of Science and Religion" in October First Things.

The book is written in the form of a letter to an imaginary Southern Baptist pastor, whom he addresses as “my respected friend.” ...The “respect” he has for his Baptist friend seems at times to be of the kind that a naturalist might have for an orangutan. It is a respect for biodiversity; no intellectual equality is implied. The pastor has nothing to teach Wilson except as a specimen.

A bit of Mozart silliness...

Of course, it is Mozart's 250 birthday year, and we all enjoyed listening to the ABC FM Australia's top 100 pieces of Mozart (except for you Lutheran incurables out there who prefer JSB--a close second, okay, but Mozart wins (any Beethoven lovers can just go and read another blog)). One of the things Papa Benny has going for him is that in his spare moments he likes to tinkle the ivories to a little bit of Mozart. The Archbishop of Canterbury even wondered if he would get the opportunity to play a Mozart duet with the Pope when he was in Rome.

My favourite Mozart is arguably not Mozart at all, ie. "his" requiem, but I do enjoy the Horn Concerto No.4 in E flat K495. And I especially enjoy the old Flanders and Swan ditty that they made to go along with this "tune", called "Ill Wind". Here are the lyrics introduced by F and S themselves, although it doesn't sound as funny without singing it to the horn part of the concerto.

MF: It has long been my earnest wish to improve the standard of the music we have in these shows of ours -
DS: Thank you very much!
MF: Not at all my dear chap - nothing per. . . - you know that nobody has a higher opinion of your work than you do yourself. I simply meant we should have some more good music; and to this end I have been practicing the horn, or French horn, as they call it, or German horn, as the French call it, not to be confused with the cor anglais.
It's a marvelous instrument. I took it up because I very much wanted to play the music of Mozart, in particular his wonderful horn concerto in E-flat, Köchel rating 495, which he wrote at the age of about 18 months. Marvelous man. I practiced very hard, against considerable opposition, I may say, and I had hoped this evening to give you the very first performance of the last movement, the rondo allegro vivace. Owing to curious circumstances as yet unexplained I am not able to do this. I can only tell you why...

I once had a whim and I had to obey it
To buy a French Horn in a second hand shop;
I polished it up and I started to play it
In spite of the neighbors who begged me to stop.

To sound my horn, I had to develop my embouchure;
I found my horn was a bit of a devil to play.
So artfully wound, to give you a sound
A beautiful sound so rich and round.

Oh, the hours I had to spend, before I mastered it in the end.

But that was yesterday and just today I looked in the usual place
There was the case but the horn itself was missing.

oh, where could it have gone? Haven't you - hasn't anyone seen my horn?
Oh where could it have gone?
What a blow! Now I know, I'm unable to play my Allegro.

Who swiped my horn? I'll bet you a quid, somebody did,
Knowing I'd found a concerto and wanted to paly it,
Afraid of my talent for playing the horn.
Whoever it is I can certainly say it,
He'll probably wish he had never been born.

I've lost my horn - I know I was using it yesterday.
I've lost my horn, lost my horn, found my horn...gone.
There's not much chance of getting it back though I'd willingly pay a reward.

I know some hearty folk whose party jokes pretending to hunt with the Quorn,
Gone away! Gone away! Was it one of them took it away?
Will you kindly return my horn? Where is the devil who pinched that horn?
I shall tell the polisce I want my French Horn back.

I miss its music more and more and more.
Without the horn I'm feeling sad and so forlorn.

I found a concerto, I wanted to play it
Displaying my talent for playing the horn.
But early today to my utter dismay it has totally vanished away.
I practiced my horn and intended to play it but somebody took it away.
I practiced the horn and was longing to play it but somebody took it away.

My neighbor's asleep in his bed.
I'll soon make him wish he were dead.
I'll take up the tuba instead!
Wah, Wah!

Updates on Year of Grace conversion journal

Yes folks, its what you've been waiting for, an update on my "Year of Grace" conversion retro-journal. I have added four new entries:

Monday, 31st July, 2000
Monday, 14th August, 2000
Monday, 21 August, 2000
Statement presented to my Church Council (Thursday, 17th August, 2000)

(Remember, if you have not read the journal before, you need to start at the oldest posts from March 2006, and read it backwards to make sense of it.)

"The Human Difference"; or "Connecting the Dots from Intelligent Design to Regensburg"

I have just read a great article from Commentary called "The Human Difference" by Eric Cohen. This article connects the dots between a number of issues that I have been blogging about already. It articulates what I had already felt in my philosophical "gut", namely that there is a strong connection between:

1) The Intelligent Design/Creationist/Evolutionist debate
2) Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists
3) The ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research and abortion
4) The Pope's Regensburg Address
5) Inter-religious Dialogue

At the centre of all these debates/issues/events is the question "What is Man?"

In response to the New Atheists, he writes:

What is especially striking is the zeal with which contemporary scientists defend the theory of evolution against its skeptics and detractors even as they often fail to acknowledge or understand its limitations. ...[I]n the conversion of each new child in Pennsylvania or Kansas to a belief in evolution, they see an intellectual and moral victory. For radical neo-Darwinians like Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, evolution is indeed a kind of liberation: proof that God is dead, proof that we are free to make our own gods, proof that we can impose our own moral order on a world governed only by amoral chance.

And the relevance of this to stem cell research?

"With this absolute licence comes, in the scientists’ perception, an absolute and exclusive responsibility to ameliorate the physical misery of humankind, heeding the cry of the sick that falls on heaven’s deaf ears. ...For what science says about human origins has become the ground for claiming an uninhibited scientific freedom, aimed at correcting the broken life that nature so callously gives us. The Darwinian metaphysic—-man as the product of blind chance-—becomes a basis for Baconian science—-man as the redeemer of blind nature.

This is why stem-cell research is, along with evolution, the other great scientific issue of the age, where godlike responsibility for human suffering supposedly justifies the godlike destruction of nascent human life (and where scientists regularly complain of being “under siege”). For many scientists, this is also the ground for conducting man-animal experiments with virtually no moral limits: because such research will help the sick, and because there is nothing all that special about man in the first place.

The "Intelligent Design" project is, in the face of this, quite understandable:

Describing what motivates him, William Dembski, perhaps the most prominent ID theorist, once declared:
"I think God’s glory is being robbed by these naturalistic approaches to biological evolution, creation, the origin of the world, the origin of biological complexity and diversity. When you are attributing the wonders of nature to these mindless material mechanisms, God’s glory is getting robbed."

And if God’s glory is robbed, man’s glory is diminished. The elevation of man that once came from being created “in God’s image” is replaced by the will of the robbers, who believe that man is a beast answerable to no god, and hence a god who can remake human life as he sees fit.

Not that he lets the ID guys off lightly:

Yet whatever the merits (and limits) of ID as an explanation of human origins, it too offers little as a theory of man’s being. Saying that humans are designed says nothing about what they are designed for, or how they are different from the other animals that are also, presumably, products of design. Conversely, to celebrate the orderliness of nature as a reason to believe in divine creation ignores the gross disorderliness of nature that relentlessly afflicts us. Inexplicable natural misery is what often awakens a longing for the divine in the first place, or a desire for perfect justice that will transcend the crookedness of nature with its mad epidemics and childhood cancers. Without a theory of man’s fall—an inescapably religious idea—the theory of design seems like a half-truth, if not an absurdity.

The irony is that by focusing relentlessly on man’s origin, not man’s being, ID theorists ultimately make the same error as orthodox Darwinians. In an age when biotechnology may soon allow us to redraw the biological boundaries between man and the other animals, what we need to understand is not the human beginning but the human difference. Who we are, not where we came from, is the question that matters most.

I highlighted that last bit, because it seems to say something along the lines of my blog "But is it true?" about the Genesis Creation narratives wanting to say something about who we are now, not what happened back then.

So what about the other bits, about the Regensburg address and Inter-religious dialogue. Well, actually, Cohen says nothing directly about these, but the two fit into his picture rather well. First, like the Holy Father, he notes a certain congruence between the Greek philosophical understanding of "the human difference" (Aristotle) and the Hebrew Scriptures affirmation of human beings as "the image of God. At the end of the essay, Cohen makes the comment that "we need to be mindful of the human animal who is at stake in our experiments: the only rational, moral, God-seeking being." That seems to align fairly well with the Holy Father's emphasis on the compatibility of Reason and Faith in the Regensburg lecture. Moreover, the Pope's rejection, at Regensburg, of any religion that sanctions violence, is on the basis, not only that violence is against reason, but that it is an offence against dignity of human beings--that is, a failure to recognise "the human difference".

And that is where inter-religious dialogue comes in. For any religion that desires to have a place in human society--and any ideology for that matter--must repudiate violence against each and every human person and embrace the innate human dignity of all people from conception till death. That is, religions and ideologies must embrace the "absolute truth" of "the human difference". Religions and ideologies that refuse to recognise these sanctions are a real threat to humanity, and society must not--DARE NOT--tolerate them. Killing in the name of God or the name of Science or even in the name of Humanity itself cannot be tolerated, because on each count it denies the human being as a "rational, moral, God-seeking being".

Another one from Fr Marco's Collection of Papal Funnies

Fr Marco has this one, which I couldn't resist stealing. It had me giggling for ages:

Your Holiness, we would like you to start the procession from up there and enter on a rocket-cycle! How’s that sound?

"The five things you may not know about me" meme.

Fr Marco (the Anglo-Papist priest of Loxton celebrating his tenth anniversary of ordination as a Lutheran pastor), has tagged me for this latest meme.

1. I smoke a pipe.
2. I am a sixth generation Australian (my grandfather's grandfather's grandfather died in Hahndorf SA in 1839).
3. I am (was?) a great fan of Buffy.
4. I have an extensive and colourful collection of ties, cravats, waistcoats and hats, but prefer my trousers black and my shirts white.
5. I have another blog (so get over there and read my conversion story at www.yearofgrace.blogspot.com)

Now I've got to tag someone... Mmm...
How about Tom Pietsch, Fraser Pearce, and Shannon Donahoo.

What's the "Process" in Intelligent Design?

Inquisitive Brain has left the following comment on my previous blog on Intelligent Design.

As far as the issue of the intersection of ID and Catholicism, all of your comments so far seem to be an extremely well formulated red herring. If you are simply trying to “strike a pose” by making some interesting theological and philosophical points, and simultaneously lashing out at the most convenient target with epithets about Bugs Bunny and Albuquerque, that’s one thing. But if you seriously want to show that ID is a strategic wrong turn, you’re going to have to say why. Pointing out that evolution is compatible with Catholicism does not show that ID is a wrong turn. I am an ID evolutionist, and I think evolution happened. But there is not a shred of evidence that life came about by purely material processes, while there are truckloads of observable physical evidence that it came about by an intelligent cause.

How do your blogposts help one to deliberate whether ID is a strategic wrong turn or a right turn? Based on what you have said so far, it sounds like the talk you heard transgressed the philosophical minimalism of ID. I would submit to you that the talk you heard on ID was a strategic wrong turn about evolution and ID, not that ID is a strategic wrong turn.

If you are agreeable, I would be willing to present at your blog why I think that ID is a right turn. It would be free content to add to your site, and you will get to hear the views of someone who is an enigma in this topic: a Catholic-biotech-ID-evolutionist.

One thing that I am very glad to note is that Inq Brain is a biotechnologist--which means that he has a scientific expertise in this area which I don't. I respect any scientist who says that they have problems with evolution on scientific grounds. That's the sort of thing I expect scientists to argue about. That's doing their job.

I spent a lot of time last weekend in deep meditation on the ID issue. And I realised that there is one area which is given insufficient attention among "trademark" (as opposed to classical) Intelligent Design proponents: the matter of process.

Let us say that the ID guys are right, and the flagellum of their example bacteria is truly an "irreducable complexity" such that it could not have evolved. So, we conclude, there must be an intelligent cause for it--it must have been "designed". But that still doesn't answer the problem of process. If I set out to make something, I would not only have to design it, I would then have to follow some process by which I put the mechanism together. This process would be "purely material" in the outward description of how I did it. [Please note, that I deeply detest the mechanistic approach to biological life--I think this is another "wrong turn" in the debate. Living beings are not "constructed" like a machine, but "develop". This lies at the heart of the understanding of the status of the human embryo as well, but that's for another blog].

[Addendum: I've just thought of a better non-mechanical design example: Last week I was at a relative's home. They have a puppy daschund--the classic "sausage dog". Such an animal is so obviously ill suited for "survival of the fittest" that one must conclude that it has been "designed". And indeed it has, as we know. However, the process of the development of the daschund is completely causally explainable in terms of genetic mutation (Short-legged Dog mated with Long-tummy Dog etc. to get Sausage Dog) without reference to the intelligent designer--undeniably planned and guided though it is. The Intelligent Designer (aka the Breeder) set up the circumstances neccesary for the development of the Daschund by introducing its short-legged forebear to its long-legged forebear, but the process is "purely material" and in line with "natural" biological development.]

So, if we grant that the ID guys are right, and the bacteria's flagellum cannot be explained by the theory of evolution (ie. it could not have developed by random causation), and if we grant (as indeed, I grant of all that exists) that it was "intelligently designed", scientifically we still have to account for "how" (ie. by what process) it came about. It seems to me that (trademark) ID is suggesting that the only way the bacteria could have come into existence in exactly this design is by a direct intervention by God--ie. a "miracle". Yesterday it didn't exist in any form at all, today it exists in exactly this "irreducably complex" form.

A "miracle" of this sort (the "finger-snapping" type) is to be distinguished from "every day miracles". The glass of wine that I am currently drinking has quite clearly been "designed". The "everyday miracle" of turning water in wine is that by which rain fell on some nice part of the Barossa Valley, was soaked up by the vines, warmed by the sunshine, filled the grapes to bursting with juices and sugar, was then harvested and fermented and bottled and aged to produce what I am currently guzzling. This is a different process entirely from that which Jesus employed at the Wedding of Cana. Are the ID guys suggesting that, if a life form could not have developed by some process such as evolution, the only other explanation is a direct, interventionist miracle from God? If they are not, then in what way does suggesting an Intelligent Designer get them around the problem of still having to explain how a particular form of life developed? What was the process employed by the Intelligent Designer?

And would not any process for the development of life be capable of being described in scientific terms without reference to the Designer? Would it not still in some sense have to be a "purely material process", even if it were the result of Divine design? Which surely puts us back in square one.

And now I invite Inqisitive Brain to respond with his defence of ID and why he sees it as a "right turn".

Atheism and the "F-Word"

Two letters in The Age today took issue with Mr Kristof.

The first (Richard Aspland of Rosanna) says that the "F-word" (I'm sorry, we're not allowed to say that word these days, so I will whisper it: "fundamentalism") is unfairly applied to atheists just because they don't respect what they "think is superstition". He wonders whether "atheists are viewed as tolerant only when they keep their opinions to themselves."

I don't quite get his point. The other day, my Honourable Mother-in-law declared (over an increasingly heated BBQ debate) that we ought to respect one another's opinions and leave it at that. But respecting one another's opinions also means allowing them the opportunity to express them and to produce rational evidence in support of them. And then we get to counter them with our own unbeatable logic. That's the way debate takes place.

The other writer (Steven Adlard of Fitzroy) says that whereas Ferdinand and Isabella inaugurated the Spanish Inqisition because they were religious, "Mao Zedong, Stalin and Pol Pot committed attrocities...because they were psychopaths", not because they were atheists. Mmm. One wonders, therefore, why religious people and institutions were the first in line for the firing squad under these regimes. One also wonders if there might not be a connection between atheism and a lack of respect for fundamental (I mean really fundamental) human rights. Steven seems to think that the link between Stalin's atheism and his atrocities is as tenuous as the link between his atrocities and his moustache. Hey, but wait, didn't Hitler have a moustache...?

"Online Catholics" going "Offline"...

Apparently it costs a lot of money to run a webjournal. And not enough is coming in through subscriptions for Online Catholics to keep running. So it is finally giving up the "Spirit of Vatican II" and shuttling off this mortal coil. Vale OC. You made a mark in Australian Catholic publishing history.

Here's a suggestion though to all you Online Catholics contributors out there left in the lurch when the good ship OC goes under: start a blog. It costs nothing except time. You don't have an editorial committee breathing down your neck. And anyone can read your opinions and comment back on them. The most active Catholic bloggers in Australia at the moment are conservative (perhaps because we are the geekiest), so we need a few lefties in the cyberblogspace to even up the balance! There you are Fr Hodgens--join Fr Bob and blow your own trumpet on your own blogsite!

Back in the old days before I got the blog-bug, I once dreamt of launching my own free e-journal with a couple of friends. We were going to call it "In-Line Catholics".

[Reader: Very droll.
Schütz: We thought so.]

Yay Peter Garrett! Yay John Howard! Yay Kevin Rudd! Yay Peter Costello!

What have all these men got in common? Not much, other than that they are federal MP's, you say. But wait: each of them has declared their opposition to the stem cell research bill before the Parliament. That probably makes some people really angry, but for this little black duck it restores one's hopes in our politicians and in the common sense that does what is right when it needs to be done, even if your direst opponents also support it.

Wow, check out this whopper!

And they say they don't build cathedrals like they used to! Check out this new cathedral at The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. Whispers in the Loggia reports that the cross on the dome has just been put on.

"Keep your Rosaries off my Ovaries" Not Vilification

According to the Rev. Gentlepersons over on "Coo-ees from the Cloister", VCAT has decided that the indefatigable Babbette Francis will have to simmer away in private over the offensive YWCA T-Shirts worn by certain senators in parliament. Apparently they do not infringe Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act because while "many ordinary people would find the slogan to be distasteful", it did not constitute religious vilification as "the sale and distribution of T-shirts containing the slogan did not incite hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of Mr Abbott, Mrs Francis or any other Catholic".

There goes my case against Richard Dawkins and the ABC!

Neat article on Luther and Benedict re "Deus Caritas Est"

I found this neat article "Eros in Benedict and Luther" by Mary D. Gaebler; it deserves close reading.

"Rise of Irreligious Intolerance"

The Age has reprinted an article by Nicholas Kristof under the above title (originally printed in the New York Times as "A Modest Proposal for a Truce on Religion"). Its not on The Age website, and you need to be a subscriber to the NYT to read it here, but there's a copy of it here on a blogsite.

Here's the guts of it:

Yet the tone of this Charge of the Atheist Brigade is often just as intolerant — and mean. It’s contemptuous and even … a bit fundamentalist.
“These writers share a few things with the zealous religionists they oppose, such as a high degree of dogmatism and an aggressive rhetorical style,” says John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Indeed, one could speak of a secular fundamentalism that resembles religious fundamentalism. This may be one of those cases where opposites converge.”
Granted, religious figures have been involved throughout history in the worst kinds of atrocities. But as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot show, so have atheists.
Moreover, for all the slaughters in the name of religion over the centuries, there is another side of the ledger. Every time I travel in the poorest parts of Africa, I see missionary hospitals that are the only source of assistance to desperate people. God may not help amputees sprout new limbs, but churches do galvanize their members to support soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics that otherwise would not exist. Religious constituencies have pushed for more action on AIDS, malaria, sex trafficking and Darfur’s genocide, and believers often give large proportions of their incomes to charities that are a lifeline to the neediest.
Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them. We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance.

[Reader: At least it seems that you have at least one person out there who agrees with you. That's nice.
Schütz: Yes, I feel better now.]

A complete book the only way to do justice to the Intelligent Design debate?

I am beginning to wonder if I don't need to write a complete book on this Intelligent Design stuff. Brian left a long comment at the end of my last major blog on the topic. I found that most of the places where he disagrees with me and I disagree with him, he has misunderstood me.

So let me say this for the record:

1) I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, who is the Creator of heaven and earth. So: I believe the world has been designed by an intelligent being whom I worship as my God. Moreover, when I look at the world, I marvel at his handiwork. When I talk about "Intelligent Design", I am not talking about the well respected philosophical tradition of the "Argument from Design" for God's existence. I am, rather, speaking specifically of what I call "trademark ID", that is, ID as promoted by the Discovery Institute and by scientists such as Michael Behe.

2) I believe that the Scriptures are the Word of God, and therefore accept them as true, inspired, and inerrant in all matters of faith and morals.

3) I don't have an especial affection for or attachment to the theory of evolution. I am not a scientist, and would not be overly bothered if tomorrow it was scientifically proved to be load of codswallop.

That having been said, I believe that Christians have problems with the theory of evolution because

1) it seems to imply that human beings and everything else came into being as a "casual and meaningless product of evolution" (to use Pope Benedict's words), or by pure unguided and unplanned chance, or (to use the Holy Father's words again), because it seems to deny that "each of us is the result of a thought of God; [that] each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

2) it seems to contradict the best-known account of creation in the scriptures, namely the first chapter of Genesis.

I believe it is essential for every Christian at all interested in this question to know that in fact neither of these problems is really posed by the theory of evolution. My reasons for saying so are as follows:

1) St Thomas Aquinas already pointed out almost eight hundred years ago that there is no contradiction between events that happen "contingently" (ie. by randomly or by chance) rather than "necessarily" (ie. pre-determined) and the involvement of the will and purpose of the Creator. He wrote (and every Christian should memorise these words):

If God foresees that this event will be, it will happen, just as the second argument suggested. But it will occur in the way that God foresaw that it would be. Now, he foresaw that it would occur contingently [ie. by chance]. So, it follows that, without fail, it will occur contingently and not necessarily" (SCG, 3, c.94).

To say, therefore, that the happening of an event is scientifically and statistically random is not to say that it happens without meaning or purpose or the intention of Divine Providence. In other words, "the modern argument that the recognition of the role in chance in evolution would eliminate God from the process is simply a non-starter" (Neil Ormerod, Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Australian Catholic University). I am sure the Holy Father knows this, and therefore does not attack the theory of evolution per se, but rather rejects the notion that what may indeed be products of evolution are "meaningless" or that the evolutionary process implies that human beings (and indeed all creation) are not "each the result of the thought of God."

2) A much deeper problem is with the seeming conflict between the scientific account of evolution and (one of) the biblical accounts of creation (specifically Genesis 1). As my wife said to me on the weekend when I discussed with her the probable origins of the poem in Genesis 1 during the Babylonian exile and the way in which it built upon earlier liturgical and cultic traditions of the origin of the Sabbath and the seven day week, "But we were never taught that." Basically, we have taught our people that the Psalms are poetry, and the Book of Ecclesiastes is philosophy, and the Prophetic books are prophecy (naturally), but we have also somehow taught them that Genesis 1 is history (and, in the process, failed to teach them what "history" is). In short, because I am convinced that Genesis One is NOT history, nor is it science, but rather a profoundly TRUE poetic meditation (and apologetic) upon Israel's faith in its God as a Universal (rather than local) Creator who acted in love and freedom to create a Rational world, I believe it does not conflict in any way with the theory of evolution per se. Moreover, John 1, and not Genesis 1, must be taken as the "conclusive and normative scriptural creation account" (Ratzinger, "In the Beginning", p 15.

Of course, here is where the book comes in. And I will make a start on it...tomorrow.

Richard Dawkins Guilty of Religious Vilification

Seriously. I thought it before, and now I know it.

As part of my job, I had to read the transcript of the Catch The Fire Seminar on Islam--the one in which the VCAT has found that they were guilty of religious vilification. One of the give aways that this was vilification was the ridicule of Islam which was calculated to produce laughter in the audience. The laughter was transcribed into the transcript.

It hasn't been transcribed in the transcript of the ABC Radio National Background Briefing Program from 26th November featuring Richard Dawkins reading his new book "The God Delusion" to an audience in the US. The transcript is bad, but when you listen to the audio download, you cannot doubt that this is vilification. Intentional vilification. The laughter is a dead give away, as is the snide tone of Dawkins own reading voice.

I can only say that to me this is the most offensive ridicule of my faith I have ever come across. I don't know if the ABC could be held accountable--only VCAT could really decide such a thing. All I know is that if Dawkins had given this speech here in Victoria, he would be found guilty of vilification.

The book itself might get away with it as a "scholarly academic" work, or a work in "good faith". But not this presentation aired by the ABC. It is thoroughly disgraceful. This is something that should concern Jews and Muslims as well as us Christians--because he vilifies us all.