Japanese Readings

I've been reading some things on the web related to Japan lately. First of all, there is a lot of talk about the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Catholic doctrine says that nuclear weapons and other weapons that indiscriminately kill innocent people are immoral. The best piece I read on this subject is The World's Most Dangerous Idea, which is not only concerned about the immorality of our use of those weapons against Japan, but it is also concerned about the fact that a large majority of Americans have thought it was the right thing to do. The idea that there are certain "ends" (such as victory in the war with Japan) that can justify the "means" of killing innocent people has continued to this day to the justification of abortion and euthanasia.

Catholic moral theology tends to be more clear and uncompromising on these types of issues than what most people are used to thinking. There is another aspect of Catholicism that is probably even more foreign to most people, and that is the idea of redemptive suffering. Although most Christians believe that Jesus suffered on the cross to accomplish human redemption, most Protestants do not embrace the idea that the suffering of Christians can have a part to play in redemption. The Bible passage that most clearly illustrates this is Colossians 1:24, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church..." (ESV). I found the long article, 'The Catholic Holocaust of Nagasaki—"Why, Lord?"' to be a beautiful story of how redemptive suffering transformed lives in the aftermath of the bombing of Nagasaki, which was the most Catholic city of Japan.

Finally, I just read Sandro Magister's column called 'Why Christianity Is "Foreign" to Japan,' which includes an essay by Kagefumi Ueno, the Japanese ambassador to the Holy See, on the differences in Japanese and Western approaches to religion. The essay is very informative and shows some real differences in belief. However, it appears to me that some of the perceived differences are more a reflection of Western culture than actual essential Christian doctrine, which gives me hope that a presentation of the Catholic faith, properly inculturated, would have more traction in Japan, as it seemed to have in the days of St. Francis Xavier.

Thoughts on Gay Marriage

This story on Rosie O'Donnell's protest marriage has prompted me to make some brief comments on the subject of gay marriage. Proponents of gay marriage usually characterize those who oppose it as homophobic and hating. They say that they are doing nothing to damage heterosexual marriage, so they should have the right to do whatever they want. Here is why such a statement is false.

My opposition to gay marriage is based on the idea that the family is the fundamental unit of society, and that the health of the family is essential to the health of society. Anything that undermines the family also undermines our society, and threatens the eventual collapse of society. The importance of the family is based on its traditional definition. A man and a woman commit themselves to a life-long bond, and it is in this context that children are conceived and raised by their natural biological parents. (There are exceptions such as children who are adopted, and couples who cannot have children, but these exceptions are rare enough that they don't seriously affect society. Also, I will say that although many adoptions work out wonderfully, that doesn't mean that all else being equal, it would not have been better for those children to be raised by their natural parents.) Such families have for thousands of years provided the foundation of the civilization that we have inherited.

Over the last few decades, the family has been seriously undermined through easy divorce, and now faces greater erosion through homosexual marriage. These changes are result of greater focus on the needs and desires of individual adults rather than the needs of children and society. The changes are justified by citing studies that show that children are not adversely affected by divorce, or don't need to be raised by their biological parents, but there are also studies that say the opposite. It appears that the purpose of Rosie O'Donnell's protest marriage was not to create a permanent stable environment for the raising of children, but that it was a throw-away marriage in order to make a point.

How does gay marriage undermine the family? It does not produce a family where children are conceived and raised by their biological parents. Divorce is a similar problem because even if the children are conceived within a family, tragically the family does not stay together, and the children suffer some amount of separation from one of their biological parents. In a gay marriage, it is impossible for the married partners to conceive together due to the deepest biological structures of our sexuality. The best that can be hoped is that through some donor or surrogate process, children can be conceived who are raised by one of their biological parents combined with a partner to whom they are not biologically related. It is interesting that in the currently running movie, "The Kids Are All Right", the children raised by lesbian mothers who are evidently "all right" still have a desire to know their biological father.

The deeper issue is the prevailing attitude that individuals should have the freedom to be and do whatever they want with little attention paid to the common good. Traditions that formed the foundation of our society are considered expendable. People think that they can remove the foundation and that the structure will continue to stand. I think that is very unlikely.

Scientist-Clerics

I'm taking a class on Religion and Science at University of Dallas. While doing some research for my paper, I ran across this cool little article on Wikipedia: List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics. The bulk of the article is just an alphabetical list of these scientist-clerics with short descriptions of what they did. The article begins with an introduction, from which this is an excerpt.

Many great scientists throughout history have also been Roman Catholic clerics (or can it be said that many Roman Catholic clerics were also scientists), including many of the most prominent scientists in history. These include such illustrious names as Nicolaus Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Roger Joseph Boscovich, Marin Mersenne, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan, Robert Grosseteste, Christopher Clavius, Nicolas Steno, Athanasius Kircher, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, William of Ockham, and many others. Hundreds of others have made important contributions to science from the Middle Ages through the present day. These scientist-clerics should give pause to all those who consider science and religion to be incompatible.

Some of you may ask, "what is a cleric?" It's just a word for a member of the clergy. In the Catholic Church, many of them are priests, but there can be monks or friars who are not ordained who are considered clerics. Also deacons are clerics as well as members of what were known in the Middle Ages as minor orders. For example, Copernicus took minor orders, but never became a priest.

A Summary of Christian Doctrine

The Ignatius Press website put up an excerpt from one of their books by Catholic poet Paul Claudel. It is a beautiful summary of Christian doctrine using unconventional language that caused me to see things from a little different perspective. I suppose that is the job of a poet. One warning, there are a couple of Latin phrases that might not be familiar to some of you, so I will provide a translation. Fiat voluntas mea means "my will be done," and fiat voluntas tua means "your will be done."

Here is a little extract to whet your appetite:

How do we know a living being whom we cannot see? By the movement of which he is the cause. The, mole under the ground, the hare in the bush, the heart beneath the fingers. For we see that the whole universe is in movement. In this world all is movement, all bears witness to the divine restlessness of nature, always in a state of creation, incapable of existing by itself or in the presence of an unmoving Creator; everything betrays perpetual change.

Humble Theology

Continuing his series on medieval theologians, the Pope talked about Blessed John Duns Scotus, the 13th century Franciscan theologian, who espoused the doctrine of Mary's "Preventive Redemption," also known as the Immaculate Conception. This had long been a belief at the popular level, but it was not accepted by theologians until Scotus figured out how to explain it. The Pope says this should be an example to theologians to "always listen to the source of popular faith and maintain the humility and simplicity of children."

Such humility is very important. I am often surprised at some at some of the things that some theologians have the nerve to say about the faith. They seem to think so highly of their own intelligence that they are willing to not only deny, but even ridicule orthodox Christian beliefs. The fact that it is common belief even by those in their own church means nothing. Years ago I saw a news report about some large theology conference, and one of the attendees was interviewed who said that the beliefs of the "man in the pew" is just "folk religion" and has nothing to do with what these real theologians work on. Although I admit that sometimes we can get more technical than some believers would be interested in, theology should never be detached from common faith. Pope Benedict XVI is one of the most brilliant theologians alive today, but he is also a holy and humble man who knows that brilliance is not a guarantee of truth, but can even lead away from the truth if we're not very careful.

Georgia On My Mind

I didn't much care for the Georgia font when it started appearing on computers in the mid-90s. I think at the time I was much more into modern looking san-serif fonts, and Georgia looked very traditional to me. However, I am seeing it used more, and since it was designed to be very readable on computer screens, I've found that I appreciate reading websites that use it. So, I'm trying it out on the blog, and so far I'm pretty happy with it.

Pope: "The Truth is Accessible to Human Reason"

The Pope addresses the importance of believers and unbelievers reaching an understanding about the truth of human nature. Such an understanding will lead to a concept of natural law, which should be a guide for a government. Natural law is not based on a particular religious revelation, but on reason. Natural law protects against moral relativism at the personal level, and tyranny at the level of government.

St. Thomas Aquinas did a lot of work on natural law because although he followed Christian revelation, he wanted to determine what could be known by human reason. Aquinas did not see a conflict between faith and reason, but instead saw them as two avenues to reach the truth, which ultimately comes from God. There are some truths which cannot be known through reason alone, but what is known through reason is compatible with Christian faith. Faith allows a person to move beyond the limits of human reason into the mysteries of God, not destroying human nature, but building upon and perfecting it.

John Adams Visits a Catholic Church

I'm still reading John Adams by David McCullough on my Kindle. I was very impressed by his description of his first visit to a Catholic Church while in Philadelphia.

One Sunday, “led by curiosity and good company,” which included George Washington, Adams crossed a “Romish” threshold, to attend afternoon mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Fifth Street, an experience so singular that he reflected on it at length both in his journal and in a letter to Abigail. Everything about the service was the antithesis of a lifetime of Sabbaths at Braintree’s plain First Church, where unfettered daylight through clear window glass allowed for no dark or shadowed corners, or suggestion of mystery. For the first time, Adams was confronted with so much that generations of his people had abhorred and rebelled against, and he found himself both distressed and strangely moved. The music, bells, candles, gold, and silver were “so calculated to take in mankind,” that he wondered the Reformation had ever succeeded. He felt pity for “the poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting Latin, not a word of which they understood,” he told Abigail. The dress of the priest was rich with lace—his pulpit was velvet and gold. The altar piece was very rich—little images and crucifixes about—wax candles lighted up. But how shall I describe the picture of our Savior in a frame of marble over the altar at full length upon the Cross, in the agonies, and the blood dropping and streaming from his wounds? Yet Adams stayed through all of the long service. The music and chanting of the assembly continued through the afternoon, “most sweetly and exquisitely,” and he quite approved of the priest’s “good, short, moral essay” on the duty of parents to see to their children’s temporal and spiritual interests. The whole experience, Adams concluded, was “awful and affecting”—the word “awful” then meaning full of awe, or “that which strikes with awe, or fills with reverence.”

I was amazed that despite his tradition, he was open enough to express positive things about the experience. I will comment on his pity for "the poor wretches." I can't speak for the Catholics of 1770s Philadelphia, but I will say that there is evidence of vibrant knowledgeable faith among Catholic laity in many times and places before the liturgy was in the vernacular. Yes, there are also cases of ignorance of the faith, but that's also true in the Protestant world. In general, I think it is good that the Catholic liturgy is now usually done in the vernacular, although I'm glad that the Latin tradition is being preserved.

I can speculate on two related reasons why Adams may have been so affected. The first is the sacramental presence of Christ in the Catholic Mass. Although I believe from what I've read that Adams had a relationship with Christ, Jesus is present in the Eucharist in a way that Adams would not have experienced before. I have heard many testimonies of people walking into a Catholic Church and feeling a divine presence there, and that has been my experience too. The second reason is that there was worship appropriate to the bodily presence of Christ there at the Mass. It would have been more like the heavenly worship described in Revelation 4-6 than the sermon-focused services to which Adams would have been accustomed.

There is no evidence that Adams ever considered conversion. It would have been practically unthinkable in his world. Still, I'm glad to see that he took the time to describe this experience.