The Reluctant Traditionalist

Neo-Geos: Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

2012-01-23T19:10:00.155-06:00

In my last installment of my Neo-Geo series, Neo-geos Come Unravelled, I highlighted the numerous ways in which the neo-geo case implodes when subjected to serious scrutiny. Bob has issued a rebuttal to that piece here, along with comments to an exchange I had later with Rick DeLano here. I have no intention of continuing a point for point exchange with Bob Sungenis. But his last two replies are so full of outright errors and additional examples of fraudulent debater’s tricks that I thought that one more sampling would be helpful (citations below will be from those two replies, unless otherwise indicated.) Then by God’s grace I’m going to avoid the temptation to fire in such a target-rich environment and press on to complete my series on neo-geocentrism, so that I can happily move on to other things.

What I will highlight below is just a sampling of the errors and sleight of hand deployed by Bob Sungenis in the defense of his neo-geocentrism. I hope you’ll begin to see the patterns so you can more easily spot these ploys if you run across them in his writings again. Just ask yourself this question. Is this someone who is really just “In this for the truth”, or is this someone who will say anything in order to win an argument?

Biblical Inerrancy: Is the Magisterium Clear or Unclear? Bob Says Both

Catholic Institutions and Inerrancy

Did Bob Only Have a “Personal Difference” with Bishop Rhoades?

Does Bob Really Know the Science? Elliptical Orbits Versus Epicycles

Has Bob Accurately Represented Fr. Olivieri, the Commissary General of the Inquisition?

Why were the works of Rheticus put on the Index? Were the works of Copernicus banned prior to 1616?

Does the Roman Catechism Teach Geocentrism?

Did the Editors of Newton’s Principia Have Some Endorsement From Rome?

Leo XIII and Pius XII: “Magisterial Fundies” Turn the Magisterium on its Head….Again.

The Magisterium Teaches 100% of the Faith

Biblical Inerrancy: Is the Magisterium Clear or Unclear? Bob Says Both

I’m going to start by examining Bob’s handling of the issue of biblical inerrancy and the Magisterium, in order to illustrate a pattern. Watch how it unfolds, with this question firmly in mind: Is this really all about the truth for Bob, as he claims, or is this really all about winning an argument at all costs?

My position is simple and straight-forward. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church explicitly teaches all of the doctrines of our Faith, even the difficult and controversial ones, right up to this present day. But the Catholic Magisterium does not teach geocentrism. Therefore, it is not a doctrine of the Catholic faith.

The neo-geos try to counter this by manufacturing phony examples to try and form a parallel with geocentrism. So Bob first employs the sleight-of-hand that “johnmartin” did, pointing to conditions in various places or institutions, instead of keeping the focus where it belongs – on on actual Magisterial statements. But Bob goes further and claims that the Magisterium has not clearly reiterated the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, at least since 1943:

If Mr. Palm thinks otherwise, he needs to find us a statement after 1943 on full biblical inerrancy . . . . He won’t be able to.

And I pointed to the statement from 1998 in which the Magisterium affirmed once again, “the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts” and placed this in the highest level of theological certainty, the denial of which is formal heresy. Notice again that the statement is unqualified in any way. The Magisterium, as recently as 1998, taught that error is absent in the inspired sacred texts. Period. There is nothing vague or ambiguous about that statement. Game over. Bob is simply wrong.

But Bob has a personal dogma to protect, so right on cue, he steps in to claim that:

This just shows how naïve or oblivious to the real state of affairs Mr. Palm is. I am well aware of the CDF statement about “the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts,” since I am the one who quoted it in my commentaries and even in Galileo Was Wrong. . . .

As I said in my last rebuttal to Mr. Palm, the Church has issued various statements about inerrancy in the last 50 years (such as the 1998 CDF statement) but they are all anemic and leave the door open for someone to hold that the Bible is only inerrant when it speaks of salvation. . . .

“The absence of error in the inspired sacred texts” is a very general and open-ended statement that allows Catholic biblical scholars to still believe that only the “salvation” parts were inspired Scripture and the rest was the result of redactors who were not eyewitnesses or even in the same generation as the actual events of Scripture! I rest my case.

So the 1998 statement from the CDF is anemic, general, open-ended, and vague. That’s his answer to me. And he’s obviously irked that I seemed to have assumed that he didn’t know about this 1998 statement because, after all, he’s the expert who wrote the definitive treament of this issue, Galileo Was Wrong. Naturally then, you would assume that Galileo Was Wrong completely supports his point in great depth and detail.

Well, you know what they say about “assuming.”

In GWW, this very citation of the 1998 CDF statement comes under the heading, “Official Statements from the Catholic Magisterium on the Inspiration and Inerrancy of Sacred Scripture”. And here is what Bob has to say about the nature of this quote, which is included by him with other magisterial statements without any qualification:

The Catholic Church, throughout her two- thousand year history, has been very clear and adamant in her teaching that Scripture contains no error when it speaks on theology, history, science, mathematics or any other discipline or factual proposition (GWW2, p. 57; my emphasis).

Well, isn't that pretty much the exact opposite of what Bob said in answer to me? Why yes, it is.

When Bob wants to make a case specifically in support of biblical inerrancy, he insists that the Church’s teaching throughout her entire two thousand year history (with no qualifications) has been very clear and adamant. But when he needs to make a case specifically for geocentrism, he says just the opposite. Suddenly, the very citation he included to help make his case for that “clear", "adamant”, and continuous teaching becomes instead “anemic” and “open-ended” and anyone who rejoices in the fact that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church continues to teach this dogma in very clear and unambiguous terms is “naïve or oblivious to the real state of affairs”. (Question to Bob: If the authors of this statement by the CDF really weren't interested in upholding biblical inerrancy then why did they include it in the 1998 statement at all? How much easier would it have been to just leave it out? Let me guess: they included just so they could (supposedly) purposely water it down, right?)

So, how could the world’s self-proclaimed foremost expert on geocentrism contradict himself so blatantly? It’s simple. In the book, it was to Bob’s advantage to argue that the Church has always been consistent, clear and adamant on complete Biblical Inerrancy. But in his discussion with me, it was to his advantage to make the polar opposite argument.

So I ask, is this really “all about the truth”, as Bob repeatedly claims, or is this really only about trying to win an argument at all costs?

Again, the whole point is that even in these difficult and confusing times, the Magisterium continues to teach 100% of the doctrines of our Faith, including full biblical inerrancy. The neo-geos only wish that they had anything like that sort of statement in support of geocentrism in the past 300 years or more. Too bad for them, they don’t. Their only two options are to continue to throw the Catholic Magisterium under the bus as incompetent, dishonest and bumbling, or to admit that geocentrism is not a doctrine of the Faith. Unfortunately, they consistently choose the former.

Catholic Institutions and Inerrancy

Bob’s reply to me concerning Catholic institutions that teach biblical inerrancy stands in very much the same vein. Bob objects to being accused of using debaters’ tricks. Well, follow how this exchange has played out and decide if that isn’t the only reasonable description of his behavior. Bob’s initial claim was this:

If Mr. Palm thinks otherwise, he needs to find us a statement after 1943 on full biblical inerrancy, or find a Catholic institution today that teaches it. He won’t be able to.

I already gave Bob the statement after 1943 on full biblical inerrancy and we saw above how he talks out of both sides of his mouth concerning that magisterial teaching. But in addition, Bob asks for one and only one Catholic institution that teaches full biblical inerrancy and says flatly that I won’t be able to come up with one. My reply was as follows: "Finally, as for Catholic institutions that still teach full biblical inerrancy, Bob only asked for one, but here are three off the top of my head (I'm sure more could be added)...."

Bob’s challenge was met and tripled. I explicitly said that those three were “off the top of my head” and that “I’m sure more could be added”. And what does he do? First, he ignores the fact that his challenge was met and even bested—he asked for one institution and he got three. Worse, he blatantly distorted what I did say:

Mr. Palm has already admitted that he could only find three Catholic institutions in the US that teach full biblical inerrancy.

This is classic Sungenis. By what sort of strange alchemy does “three off the top of my head (I’m sure more could be added)” morph into “admitted he could only find three”? Is this even a remotely fair representation of what I said? And then he once again claims that I’m naïve concerning the true state of the Church today:

As for Mr. Palm’s mention of the three universities who teach full inerrancy, this is another example of his naivety.

Then, following the example of his mentor, the end of the world date-setting Harold Camping, he launches into a goofy and irrelevant calculation of the percentage of all the Catholic institutions in the world that these three represent. Of course, this is another vintage Sungenis debating tactic: the diversion. The hope is that no one will notice that this has no bearing at all on the fact that he was proven wrong on his “challenge.”

If Bob doesn’t want to be accused of engaging in cheap debater’s tricks, then perhaps he should: 1) stop throwing out explicit challenges without being man enough to admit when his challenge is met and even bested, and 2) stop blatantly distorting what his opponent says.

The bottom line is that I’m not naïve about this matter. I’m perfectly well aware of the downfall of many, even most Catholic institutions over the past decades. Happily, there are still some who hold fast to the Faith in its fullness. But what I continue to assert is that, despite the deviation of many individuals and Catholic institutions, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church has continued to teach 100% of the doctrines of the Faith. That is what ultimately matters and I rejoice in that fact. The neo-geocentrists, on the other hand, seem to find this good news vexing and so they seek to play up the Church’s difficulties to the utmost, in order to save their private “dogma”. There’s something seriously wrong with that frame of mind.

Did Bob Only Have a “Personal Difference” with Bishop Rhoades?

At one point in my previous article, I made the observation that although we can still find Catholic institutions that teach full biblical inerrancy, sadly, we can’t number Bob’s among them since he was told by his bishop to remove the word “Catholic” from his apostolate. Sungenis replied,

This is typical of Mr. Palm’s cheap shots, which are designed to create scurrilous innuendo that sounds good to itching ears. This is why I even hesitate to get into any discussions with Mr. Palm, but I will do so for the sake of the truth of geocentrism. That Bishop Rhoades threatened to make me take the word Catholic from my apostolate was due to a personal difference he and I had about the Catholic approach to the Jews and Jewish beliefs. It had nothing to do with whether I or Bishop Rhoades believed in biblical inerrancy, but leave it to Mr. Palm to make it part of this discussion (Response to David Palm on the Tridentine Catechism’s Treatment of Cosmology, p. 25).

But did Bob and Bishop Rhoades have a mere “personal difference . . . about the Catholic approach to the Jews and Jewish beliefs”, thus rendering my statement above a “cheap shot”? Far from it, as we’ll see below.

First, let's be very clear about the nature of the years' worth of anti-Jewish material that had accumulated at Bob's web site that finally prompted the bishop to act. The reader is invited to view a sampling of this material here:

Sungenis and the Jews: Anti-Semitism -- What it is and Evidence of it

see also,

Sungenis and the Jews: Timelines

But now, with regard to his bishop, Bob employs a blatant double standard in the way he treats Bishop Rhoades, versus the way he reacts to my own words:

R. Sungenis: I find it interesting that Mr. Palm earlier accused me of not providing a citation about Oliveiri’s [sic] official position, but he fails to provide even a link to what I purportedly said at the Canada debate! Rather than asking me if I ever said such a thing, Mr. Palm has no shame in accusing me. This is nothing but calumny. Nevertheless, allow me to satisfy Mr. Palm’s lack of research – the claim is absolutely bogus. I never said any such thing, and never would, and never have. Mr. Palm is familiar with all my geocentrism writings, so why didn’t he appeal to them to compare against what some hostile critic is saying about me? There is not one statement I have ever written that even comes close to what Mr. Palm is alleging.

There are yet more falsehoods here. First, I most certainly did provide a link to what he purportedly said at the Canada presentation. I don’t know how Bob missed that, but here it is again.

Second, I didn’t “accuse” Bob. What I said was, “Or how about a talk he gave in Canada during which this was reported”. That’s not—and by definition can’t be—calumny, because it’s true. Bob was, in fact, reported to have said exactly what I indicated. There were two people at the presentation who state that’s what they heard him say, namely, that "if you did not believe in a geocentric universe you were atheist." I did state that if he didn’t say it, then that’s fine, but there’s an audio recording. Still, I left open the possibility that he didn’t say it. However, given the extreme rhetoric that Bob regularly deploys, along with the constant linkage throughout his writings between atheism and a denial of geocentrism, I find the allegation at least plausible, which is why I mentioned it.

It turns out that Bob made the hosts of the presentation in Canada sign a form that forbids them from distributing the audio or video of this event. But if Bob will contact those people and give his permission in writing, they’ll send me the audio/video and I will seek to verify this quote. If I am unable to do so, I’ll be perfectly willing to retract the claim and apologize.

But now, let’s contrast Bob’s outrage at this episode with how he’s treated Bishop Rhoades. In the case of Bishop Rhoades he has leveled a host of serious charges against His Excellency—charges which, by the way, Bishop Rhoades calls “slanderous and erroneous”. Since Sungenis has continued to level the charges, even after the bishop’s denial, Bob is implicitly calling His Excellency a liar:

R. Sungenis: Rhoades’ allegiances are not difficult to discern. His lifelong mentor is William Cardinal Keeler who was the previous bishop of Harrisburg and who ordained Rhoades to that position in 2004. It appears that he and Keeler are on the same wavelength when it comes to reinterpreting Catholic doctrine to accommodate the Jews.

R. Sungenis: it was up to him to prove his case against me, since it now became a matter of faith and morals, for I am not required to obey the bishop if he is going against Catholic faith and morals. Anti-supersessionism is against Catholic faith and morals.

R. Sungenis: Rhoades [sic] made no attempt to convert [the Jews in the synagogue his visited] to Christianity, since he and his fellow Jewish ideologues believe that Judaism is just another way to God and that Christianity is only a better means of doing so. He learned that from his mentor William Cardinal Keeler, the co-author with Jewish rabbis of the 2002 document Reflections on Covenant and Missions [RCM], the document that claimed that the idea that Jews were to have the Gospel preached to them and that they needed to convert to Christianity was no longer theologically acceptable.

R. Sungenis: During the meeting with Fr. King, I discovered that both he and Bishop Rhoades held to the heresy of antisupersessionism...this came as little surprise to me, since William Cardinal Keeler had held the same heresy in his 2002 document Reflections on Covenant and Missions...

R. Sungenis: I knew upon leaving the building the erroneous theology [Fr. King], Rhoades [sic] and the USCCB were attempting to propagate to unsuspecting Catholics.

R. Sungenis: How is it that the Jews have garnered such a market on suffering that Bishop Rhoades finds it necessary to pay homage to them? Is it because they own the mortgages on the Catholic buildings erected in his and other dioceses?

R. Sungenis: “During the meeting with Fr. King, I discovered that both he and Bishop Rhoades held to the heresy of antisupersessionism – the view that the Jews still retained legal possession of the Mosaic covenant.”

So Bob publicly accuses a successor of the Apostles of holding a heresy and purposely attempting to propagate that heresy to “unsuspecting Catholics”. He accuses his bishop of going against “Catholic faith and morals”. He accuses the bishop of having greater “allegiances” to Jews than to the integrity of Catholic doctrine. He accuses His Excellency of “pay[ing] homage to” the Jews, insinuating that this might be because they hold the mortgages on church property.

Serious charges, eh? Way, way more serious than anything that I have ever said about Bob. Now, has Bob ever cited any statement from Bishop Rhoades that is in any way heretical? No. Has he cited any statement from Bishop Rhoades that even hints that his “allegiances” are more solidly with the Jews than they are with the Catholic Faith? No. Does Bob ever cite any eyewitnesses who have heard any such words from Bishop Rhoades? No. Has Bob ever even spoken to Bishop Rhoades? No.

So let’s get this straight. When I cite two eyewitnesses as to what he reportedly said at a talk—something that was perhaps ridiculous but not heretical—Bob gets all up in arms about “calumny”. But he can publicly and repeatedly slander a successor of the Apostles with multiple false accusations of the most serious nature, without one shred of direct evidence to back it up, and that’s fine in his world. Got it. For once it would be nice to see him even half as concerned about the reputations of those he publicly attacks as he is about his own reputation.

The bottom line is that Bob has ignored the new essays that Michael Forrest and I have written that further expose what Bishop Rhoades himself calls Bob's "slanderous and erroneous" attacks and accusations against His Excellency (links below). Bishop Rhoades has also rightly described Bob's attacks on the Jewish people as "hostile, uncharitable and un-christian." This was no mere “personal difference”.

I think readers will find in the documentation below ample parallels to the same sloppy scholarship, tendentious argumentation, and slander that we have seen him deploy in support of geocentrism. Bob needs to forthrightly retract and apologize for his grotesque statements attacking the Jewish people (which can be found here and here). He also needs to retract his baseless, public accusations of heresy against Bishop Rhoades, issue an unqualified apology to His Excellency, and do penance in reparation for the scandal he has caused.

Bishop Rhoades and the Dual Covenant Theory

A Defense of Bishop Rhoades from More False Accusations by Robert Sungenis

Sungenis's Own Standards of Heresy: Why Don't They Apply to Bishop Rhoades?

Does Bob Really Know the Science? Elliptical Orbits Versus Epicycles

This is going to be a little technical, but I think it’s important since Bob presents himself as an expert on physics and astrophysics. In Galileo Was Wrong, Bob grossly misrepresented Fr. Olivieri, the Commissary General of the Holy Office during the early 1800s, by claiming that Fr. Olivieri’s entire case for allowing non-geocentric cosmological views to be disseminated in the Church boiled down the matter of “elliptical orbits”. (See here for more important background on this discussion.)

The mystery is, where did Bob get this notion that Fr. Olivier’s case was all about “elliptical orbits”? He certainly did not get it from actually reading Olivieri’s writings. Upon some further investigation it appears to me that Bob got this whole schtick from Fr. George Coyne’s essay, “The Church’s Most Recent Attempt to Dispel the Galileo Myth”. Fr. Coyne states in a most cursory fashion that, “Olivieri devised the following formula. Copernicus was not correct, since he employed circular orbits and epicycles.” (The Church and Galileo, “The Church’s Most Recent Attempt to Dispel the Galileo Myth”, p. 346.) This, as I’ve demonstrated elsewhere, is a gross oversimplification, to the point of being an outright misrepresentation. Unfortunately, Bob basically reproduces this argument, but goes well beyond Fr. Coyne by heaping scorn on Fr. Olivieri for being so allegedly simple-minded and sneaky. Fr. Coyne was at least dignified enough not to launch into the insults and invective that Bob unleashed on the Commissary General of the Holy Office (see a litany of Bob’s attacks here.)

Now it’s interesting that Bob states in GWW2 that Fr. Coyne is "liberal-minded" and "aligns himself more with the liberal theological and exegetical school of thinking". Normally that would make Bob suspicious. But in this instance it would seem that it was more convenient to swallow Fr. Coyne's analysis of Fr. Olivieri’s arguments whole, even though Bob could just as easily have read that whole section of Finocchiaro's book for himself and found out that Fr. Coyne had misrepresented the Commissary General of the Holy Office.

Next, in the comments section of the Creative Minority blog, we find Rick DeLano repeating the same error, stating that,

Father Coyne notes in his “Galileo and the Church”, the imprimatur was granted on false grounds: it was argued that since Copernicus’ system contained epicycles, that was the basis of the condemnation. It wasn’t. The condemnation makes no mention of epicycles anywhere.

It is true that the 1633 condemnation makes no mention of epicycles. But the problem for Fr. Coyne, Bob Sungenis, and Rick DeLano is that Fr. Olivieri doesn’t either! So Fr. Coyne first misrepresented Fr. Olivieri by contending that his case against Copernicanism boiled down to Copernicus’s reliance on epicycles. And now Bob and Rick have uncritically perpetuated that misrepresentation.

But Bob went one further, coming to the “rescue” of DeLano and in the process screwing up the distinction between elliptical orbits and epicycles, which are two totally different things:

R. Sungenis: Finocchiaro, himself, admits that Kepler’s epicycles were an issue. Note this paragraph on page 251 of his book, Retrying Galileo:

“Along with modern astronomers, Settele does not teach that the sun is at the center of the world: for it is not the center of the fixed stars; it is not the center of heavy bodies, which fall toward the center of our world, namely of the earth; nor is it the center of the planetary system because it does not lie in the middle, or center, but to one side at one of the foci of the elliptical orbits that all planets trace. Still less does he teach that the sun is motionless; on the contrary, it has a rotational motion around itself and also a translational motion which it performs while carrying along the outfit of all its planets.” (emphasis mine.)

This quote is supposed to “prove” that Fr. Olivieri really did make epicycles an issue in the discussion. The problem? If Bob had read carefully he would see that the word “epicycles” is never used. In the underlined sentence Fr. Olivieri is not talking about epicycles at all, but elliptical orbits, as the quote makes quite clear. In fact, nowhere in that section of Finocchiaro’s book in which Fr. Olivieri’s argumentation exists is the word epicycle used. A computer search of Finocchiaro’s entire work shows that the word “epicycles” is used exactly once, on p. 313 and in no connection to Fr. Olivieri’s case.

The reference to “one side at one of the foci of the elliptical orbits” should have waved Bob off from swallowing Fr. Coyne’s erroneous claim that epicycles had anything to do with Fr. Olivieri’s argument. As it stands, the case laid out by the Commissary General of the Holy Office is perfectly cogent—an ellipse has two foci and therefore, if the sun sits at one of the two foci of elliptical orbits around it, it can't be in the very center of the solar system, let alone the whole universe as Copernicus and Galileo believed.

Now again, I repeat, lest anyone miss this, that the matter of elliptical orbits was but one of many examples which Fr. Olivieri gave to show that the views of modern astronomers are not the same as those addressed in the 1633 decree from the Holy Office. But the fact that Bob bungled this distinction between epicycles and ellipses indicates one of two things. Either he’s found yet again to be sloppy and tendentious (even while accusing a Catholic priest of the same). Or he simply does not know the science as he claims, not understanding the difference between epicycles and ellipses. Perhaps it’s both. Let the reader decide.

Has Bob Accurately Represented Fr. Olivieri, the Commissary General of the Inquisition?

Continuing with Bob’s slander of Fr. Olivieri, the Commissary General of the Congregation of the Holy Office (Inquisition), I would ask the reader first to read the section in Neo-Geos Come Unravelled to acquaint himself with the scurrilous charges that Bob has leveled against this Catholic priest. In his latest rebuttal we find Bob defending his slander thus:

So it’s against some code of ethics to accuse a priest of subterfuge, even when we have the evidence from historical scholars that Olivieri did precisely what I accuse him of? And if Mr. Palm thinks that I misconstrued the true office of Olivieri, let him show us the evidence instead of his mere assertions.

The last sentence of that quote is referring to the fact that he repeatedly said in Galileo Was Wrong that Fr. Olivieri was the Commissary General of the Congregation of the Index. But in fact, he held that office in the Congregation of the Holy Office (Inquisition). Bob erred, but he challenged me to provide more evidence. Here it is.

I obtained on inter-library loan the volume Giuseppe Settele, Il Suo Diario e la Questione Galileiana (ed. P. Maffei, Foligno: Edizioni dell’Arquata, 1987). It includes a facsimile reproduction of the original work by Fr. Maurizio Benedetto Olivieri, issuing from “Suprema Sacra Congregazione del S. Officio” (p. 425) and he signs himself “Commissario” (p. 449). Note, of the Congregation of the Holy Office, not of the Congregation of the Index as Bob contended. Witness also Dr. Maurice Finocchiaro, one of the most eminent Galileo scholars: “Maurizio Benedetto Olivieri (1769–1845), a Dominican friar, professor of Old Testament at the same university, and Inquisition consultant; in July 1820 he became commissary general of the Inquisition and held that position until his death” (Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, 193; my emphasis). Here are more sources:

Antonio Beltran Mari: “el padre Maurizio Benedetto Olivieri, socio del comisario del Santo Oficio” (Galileo, ciencia y religion, p. 224)

William Wallace: “Earlier, Settele had asked his colleague at the Sapienza, Benedetto Olivieri—who was professor of Old Testament there but also happened to be Commissary of the Holy Office, the branch of the papacy that had condemned Galileo—whether he could openly teach the earth’s motion without running into difficulty with the Church.” (The Modeling of Nature, p. 394).

There, Bob has his evidence. As I have said, if you are going to accuse a Catholic priest of subterfuge and blatant dishonesty you should at least get your facts straight. The fact that Bob dug his heels in over his blunder concerning the office held by Fr. Olivieri, instead of just forthrightly admitting he was wrong, is just another testament to his own lack of scholarly integrity.

And of course, it’s certainly against the Catholic code of ethics to twist the evidence from historical scholars and then use that twisted analysis to falsely accuse a priest of subterfuge. Here is Bob’s reply to my demonstration that he totally misconstrued what Fr. Olivieri meant by “devastating mobility” (sometimes also phrased “devastating motion”):

Mr. Palm is wrong. First “devastating mobility” can refer to a number of things, not just the idea that the surface of the earth would be disrupted by movement through space.

Of course, this is a gratuitous assertion. I cited Fr. Olivieri’s own work to show what he meant by “devastating motion” and he said nothing about “elliptical orbits” in that connection. Again, how Bob got anything about “elliptical orbits” out of “devastating mobility” or “devastating motion” is a complete mystery. I contend it’s a figment of his imagination. But he can easily clear this up. First, he needs to tell us what, exactly, is “devastating” about the motion in an elliptical orbit as compared to a circular one. And if I am so wrong and this connection between “devastating motion” and “elliptical orbits” can really “refer to a number of things”, including elliptical orbits, then let Bob produce a single scholar who will support him in this. Find just one scholar who agrees that "devastating motion" has anything to do with elliptical orbits. We need more than Bob’s ipsi dixit at this point, since he’s shown himself unreliable on so many other points. I predict that Bob won’t even make the attempt and will let the matter drop, because this is all a matter of his own nonsensical invention. But he presses on:

Second, and most important, Olivieri admits himself that elliptical orbits of the planets are the crux of the issue, and I quote his admission.

This is false. The passage that Bob cited doesn’t contain any such admission that elliptical orbits are the “crux of the issue”. That’s just another outright fabrication. As I demonstrated, Fr. Olivieri cited many ways in which modern cosmological views differ from Copernicanism. And there is no evidence that “elliptical orbits” held any special place in his thinking, let alone being the “crux of the issue”. Here is the passage Bob cited:

Along with modern astronomers, Settele does not teach that the sun is at the center of the world: for it is not the center of the fixed stars; it is not the center of heavy bodies, which fall toward the center of our world, namely of the earth; nor is it the center of the planetary system because it does not lie in the middle, or center, but to one side at one of the foci of the elliptical orbits that all planets trace. Still less does he teach that the sun is motionless; on the contrary, it has a rotational motion around itself and also a translational motion which it performs while carrying along the outfit of all its planets. (From Olivieri’s November 1820 Summation, titled, “Ristretto di Ragione, e di Fatto,” ¶30, as cited by Finocchiaro in Retrying Galileo, p. 205.)

Copernicus and Galileo said that the sun was the motionless center of the entire universe. Fr. Olivieri points out, quite rightly, that modern astronomers do not hold that the sun is the center of the whole universe. Notice that he only mentions elliptical orbits with respect to the sun’s position in the solar system. But in this very passage he also points out that the sun is “not the center of the fixed stars”, is “not the center of heavy bodies”, and is not motionless, as Copernicus said, but has both rotational and translational motion. So right in that passage there are not one but four ways in which modern theories differ from Copernicus. Can Bob tell us where, in that passage, Fr. Olivieri makes elliptical orbits “the crux of the issue”? He can’t and I predict he’ll just quietly drop this argument, rather than admitting that he was wrong once again.

Elsewhere, Fr. Olivieri also points to the matter of “devastating motion”, which Bob has wrongly confused with the “elliptical orbits”. And Fr. Olivieri also points out scientific discoveries—e.g. stellar aberration and nutation—that cannot be explained by geocentrists without resorting to special pleading. Therefore, Bob’s contention that Fr. Olivieri makes “elliptical orbits” the “crux of the matter” is unsupported and false. Elliptical orbits was one of many things to which Fr. Olivieri pointed to demonstrate that the views of modern astronomers were not the same as those of Copernicus and hence not the same as what was addressed in the 1633 decree. Based on a false and sloppy analysis, Bob has repeatedly and unjustly accused this Catholic priest of lying and subterfuge. Such, it seems, is the typical approach of the neo-geocentrist.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s more. Bob insists that it is “indisputable” that Fr. Olivieri was wrong because, he claims, the focus of the 1633 decree against Galileo was the motion of the earth:

R. Sungenis: The indisputable point in fact is that Olivieri proposed a line of reasoning that was false. The issue before the Church was not whether Copernicanism made the Earth move with a defective and “devastating mobility,” but that the 1616 and 1633 Church said the Earth did not move, AT ALL. Let’s look at the Sentence once again:

** “the false doctrine taught by some that...the Earth moves, and also with diurnal motion”

** “The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically…”

** ““the false opinion of the motion of the Earth…”

** “doctrine of the motion of the Earth…is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held”

** “and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probable after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to the Holy Scripture.”

** I [Galileo] must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth is not the center of the world and moves.” (emphasis his.)

But Bob’s contention is “indisputable” only if you don’t bother to look at what he cropped out by using ellipses. What does the 1633 decree actually say, with the ellipses filled in?

"the false doctrine [NB: singular] taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion"

[Note that even the neo-geocentrists have to admit that the motion of the earth is no longer “absurd and false philosophically”, thus even they would have to admit that the 1616 commission, which was quoted (but not adopted) in the 1633 decree was in error.]

"the false opinion [NB: singular] of the motion of the Earth and the stability of the Sun"

"the doctrine [NB: singular] of the motion of the Earth and the stability of the Sun is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held."

"the doctrine [NB: singular]—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world"

“I [Galileo] must altogether abandon the false opinion [NB: singular] that the sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth is not the center of the world and moves.”

Thus, what the 1633 decree (and Galileo’s abjuration) actually addresses is a singular doctrine/opinion which includes two points (notice that they are connected with the conjunction “and”, not “or”), viz., that the earth moves and that the sun is the immovable center of the universe. But, as Fr. Olivieri rightly states, the modern astronomer does not believe that the sun is immovable, nor does he hold it to be the center of the universe. Reading this decree strictly—that is, according to the Catholic Church’s stated canonical principles (see here)—it becomes clear that modern views do not fall under this condemnation at all. And that was exactly Fr. Olivieri’s point. Bob is wrong that the earth's motion can be isolated in the way he did. A strict interpretation of the decree forbids such selective cropping. And he is equally wrong that there was anything untoward about what Fr. Olivieri did in pointing out that, according to a strict canonical interpretation of this decree, modern views do not fall under the condemnation.

Bob has repeatedly accused the Commissary General of the Inquisition of dishonesty and subterfuge. But if anyone is guilty of such unseemly behavior it would seem to be Bob himself.

Why were the works of Rheticus put on the Index? and Were the works of Copernicus banned prior to 1616?

In an earlier rebuttal, Bob claimed that the work Narratio Prima by Rheticus was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1541. I pointed out that this was not true, since the Index itself was not established until 1559. Again, I would encourage the reader to acquaint himself with the background to this discussion by reading first here. Now, here is what Bob says to my rebuttal:

I made a mistake in saying that Rheticus’ work was put on the Index in 1541. I was working from memory instead of checking my notes. What I should have said is that Rheticus’ work was published in 1541 and put on the Index in 1559.

Now, what disturbs me about Mr. Palm’s correction is that he knows what the truth is about this issue, that is, he knows that Rheticus’ book was put on the Index in 1559 but he doesn’t say so in his rebuttal. But I know Mr. Palm is aware that Rheticus was put on the Index since he has a copy of my book Galileo Was Wrong, Volume 2 (from which he has quoted many times before, and specifically this section dealing with the 1500s).

Now, if Mr. Palm chose to be as accurate and forthright with his audience as possible, he would have alerted them to this fact, since it is clearly written in my book. Subsequently, he would have instead revealed that in my recent rebuttal to him I made an oversight in saying Rheticus was put on the Index in 1541 since I say in my book that it was 1559. But we don’t see any such consideration and leeway given by Mr. Palm. So I need to pose this question: is Mr. Palm interested in the truth, or is he just interested in trying to make Robert Sungenis look bad? . . .

So in the end, Mr. Palm only dug his hole deeper. By not being forthcoming with his audience and instead trying to strain at the gnat of a simple and easily corrected mistake while swallowing the camel of a tendentious misreading of the historical data, he has given us a chance to set the historical record straight and show that his thesis is even more dubious than before, since the placing of Rheticus’ book on the Index was only seven years prior to the publishing of the Tridentine Catechism instead of twenty five years prior!

I appreciate Bob’s forthright admission of error with regard to the dates of 1541 and 1548. For my part I said, “I find no evidence that Rheticus' works were ever put on the Index, but my search was certainly not comprehensive. Even if they were at some point, it certainly was not in 1541 or even in 1616” (emphasis mine.) Thus, I didn’t commit myself to the position that Rheticus’ works were never put on the Index, only that it didn’t happen in 1541 or 1616. I was correct about the dates, while Bob is correct that those works were eventually put on the Index in 1559. What eludes me is how Bob has concluded that I knew this information all along and was deliberately hiding it from the reader. For the record, I didn’t and wasn’t and this is merely another instance of rash judgment on Bob’s part.

Bob admits that his own memory is “faulty”, but insists that I should have “alerted” everyone because “it is clearly written in [his] book”. Excuse me? Now follow this. Bob can’t even remember what is in his own book and yet my forthright admission that “my search was certainly not comprehensive” gets turned into an accusation against my honesty. Hilariously, according to Bob, it’s apparently my responsibility to know the contents of his book better than he does himself! I appreciate Bob’s admission of error, but his attempt to impugn my honesty based on his errors and defective memory of his own material is just idiotic.

And now, here’s the proverbial rest of the story. Bob continues to insist that the placement of Rheticus’ work on the Index is of some significance for the Church’s stance on geocentrism prior to the Roman Catechism (1566). He asks,

So how is Mr. Palm going to explain that a Catechism published so shortly after a major decision of the Church to ban alternative cosmologies will be blatantly disagreeing with that prior Church decision to ban heliocentrism? Likewise for the banning of Copernicus’ book in 1549.

It’s simple. As in so many other instances, all you have to do is look up Bob’s sources and read what he decided to leave out. His treatment of the works of Rheticus smelled a little fishy, so I looked up Bob’s cited source, an essay by Michel-Pierre Lerner. Here’s what Lerner actually says, including what Bob left out:

By contrast, all of Rheticus's works (including, therefore, the openly Copernican Narratio prima) were banned in the different editions of the Index librorum prohibitorum published at Rome between 1559 and 1593 on the grounds that their author was "a disciple of Oswald [Myconius] and a school-fellow of Conrad Gesner”. (The Church and Galileo, "The Heliocentric 'Heresy'", p. 17; my emphasis).

In other words, Rheticus’ work on Copernicus wasn’t singled out by the Index—rather, all of his works were proscribed. And the Index says explicitly why Rheticus's works were there and, lo and behold, it had absolutely nothing to do with heliocentrism, but rather was due to his connection with Protestant scholars. Now it seems hard to believe that Bob didn’t read the last half of that sentence. So why did he choose to omit it in Galileo Was Wrong or in this most recent discussion with me? Why would he continue to give the reader the impression that the works of Rheticus were put on the index because of their Copernican ideas and then go on to accuse me of dishonesty in supposedly suppressing information from the reader?

But there’s more. With respect to the works of Copernicus Bob writes:

Bartolomeo Spina, the Master of the Sacred Palace from 1542 until his death in 1547, sought to have Copernicus’ book banned, which was eventually carried out by his Dominican colleague Giovanimaria Tolosani, who died two years later in 1549.

In other words, the correct history is that Copernicus’ book was banned in 1549 by the Master of the Sacred Palace (which is like our prefect of the CDF today). Now, wouldn’t it have been more honest and certainly more beneficial for the reading audience for Mr. Palm to give this precise history since, as is apparent, he is claiming to be such a stickler for details?

Is this really the “correct history” and “precise history”? No, it’s not. First, Bob’s claim that “the Master of the Sacred Palace” is “like our prefect of the CDF today” is false. The prefect of the CDF today would be equivalent to the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Holy Office then. Rather, the position of the Master of the Sacred Palace, "may briefly be described as being that of the pope's theologian" and "Before the establishment of the Congregations of the Inquisition (in 1542) and Index (1587), the Master of the Sacred Palace condemned books and forbade reading them under censure" (Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Master of the Sacred Palace”.) So Bob is once again exaggerating for effect, to the point of falsehood (see here for more examples).

Second, Bob’s claims that the banning of Copernicus’ book “was eventually carried out by . . . Giovanimaria [sic] Tolosani” and that, “Copernicus’ book was banned in 1549 by the Master of the Sacred Palace”, are also false. Fr. Giovanni Maria Tolosani was never the Master of the Sacred Palace and his work against Copernicus was never published. Nor is there any evidence that the work that he wrote resulted in any official action by the Church. Bob cites no source for his assertions. But here is the real story:

Tolosani ends his little treatise with the following interesting revelation: "The Master of the Sacred and Apostolic Palace had planned to condemn this book, but, prevented by illness and then by death, he could not fulfill this intention. However, I have taken care to accomplish it in this little work for the purpose of preserving the truth to the common advantage of the Holy Church." The Master of Sacred Palace was Tolosani's powerful friend, Bartolomeo Spina, who attended the opening sessions of the Council of Trent but died in early 1547. As trenchant as Tolosani's critique of Copernicus had been, there is simply no evidence that it received any serious consideration either from the new master or from the pope himself. Meanwhile, Tolosani's unpublished manuscript, written in the spirit of Trent, was probably shelved in the library of his order at San Marco in Florence awaiting its use by some new prosecutor. The result was that sixteenth-century Catholic astronomers and philosophers worked under no formal prohibitions from the Index or the Inquisition. (Marcus Hellyer, The Scientific Revolution: The Essential Readings, p. 57; my emphasis.)

And:

Only later, in the wake of the Galileo affair in the early seventeenth century, was it discovered that a Florentine Dominican, Giovanni Maria Tolosani, had quickly written against Copernicus, but his patron died before the manuscript was printed, and his blast languished on an archival shelf. (Ferngren, Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, p. 99; my emphasis).

So Bob is wrong yet again. There was no official condemnation of Copernicus and no banning of his book, prior to 1616. Rheticus’s book was not put on the Index because of its Copernican content and therefore none of these actions have any bearing whatsoever on the content of the Roman Catechism published in 1566. Bob's entire section on this in Galileo Was Wrong is full of errors.

Now, I think it's important to understand that I’m not an expert in this area. I've never claimed to be one and I don’t play one on TV. It's Bob Sungenis who claims to be the expert. The fact that I can show that he repeatedly makes such elementary historical blunders and errors of interpretation illustrates how incredibly sloppy and tendentious his work is. He insists that he's "in this for the truth" -- and it's possible he really believes that -- but there's just too much evidence to the contrary. I think the most charitable explanation is that Bob is so completely convinced he's right about geocentrism and so committed to proving it to the world that he sees "proof" where there is none and can't see all the contrary evidence -- even when it's right in front of his eyes. It happens, just as it happened with Bob's mentor, the repeatedly wrong, end of the world, date-setting, Harold Camping. Interestingly, note that the blindness not only affected Camping; it also affected his followers, who continue to listen to him regardless of how many times he was proven to be wrong.

It's also important to remember that the "Ph.D" Bob received from Calamus is based on this very same work and that Calamus even gave him their highest marks for the supposed quality of his methodology and research" ("My Ph.D. From Calamus International University", p. 10). This is just more evidence (as if more was needed: see here) that Calamus is little more than a New Age diploma mill. It is to protect against phony degrees issued by bogus academic institutions like this that accreditation standards were developed in the first place. The reason for pointing this out isn't to be insulting and "mean" to Bob. But the fact, by his own admission, is that he sought out a "Ph.D" from this Internet company in the West Indies because he wanted to gain credibility in the eyes of his readers. He says, "The only thing it does is allow me to show the world, in a glance, that I have the same academic credentials as those who receive a Ph.D. in Religion from a United States accredited institution" (My "Ph.D. From Calamus International University", p. 26). So, he publicly admitted that we wanted people to see him in the same light as respected scholars and he knew those little letters help him to accomplish that goal. He knew that this claim to a doctorate would lend legitimacy to what he's saying. Why do you think he signs everything he writes with "Robert Sungenis, Ph.D."?

Well, when those three little letters are genuinely earned, according to accepted academic standards, then they certainly do carry some weight and lend some legitimacy.

But in the case of Bob's phony "doctorate", they clearly don't.

Does the Roman Catechism Teach Geocentrism?

Moving to the matter of the Roman Catechism, this is another good opportunity to show the reader the shell game that too often occurs in Bob’s writings. Remember that he’s the one who has asserted that the Roman Catechism contains, "One of the clearest official and authoritative statements from the Catholic Church defending the doctrine of geocentrism..." and he speaks of the "Roman Catechism’s dogmatic assertion of geocentrism". It was Bob who made the claim that, "It [the Roman Catechism] never says the earth moves and, in fact, says the earth “stands still”." And when challenged to show us exactly where the Catechism uses that phrase, what did Bob do? He changed the subject and hoped we wouldn’t notice that he failed to provide the answer. Again, yet another standard debater’s trick. So one more time, Bob. You’ve claimed that the Roman Catechism states that the earth “stands still”. Will you show us exactly where the Catechism uses those words, or retract the claim?

He also claimed that one passage, in particular, would, "expel any doubt about what objects are revolving". But I demonstrated conclusively that that passage does not refer to the place of the globe with respect to the universe, but the relationship of the dry land with respect to the rest of the earth (see here).

Bob responds:

Mr. Palm wants us to believe that the only way to read the Catechism’s statement is for us to see “terrum” [sic: should be terram] as referring only to the “dry land” of the earth and not the earth at large.

Notice that Bob has admitted that my interpretation is possible. By so doing, he’s already given the game away because he claims that this is the clearest magisterial statement establishing geocentrism. If this is the clearest statement he’s got, then it’s his burden to show that his interpretation is right and mine is wrong. Otherwise, he’s effectively admitted that he’s building his case on a very flimsy foundation.

But it’s actually worse than this for Bob, because my interpretation of the passage is not just possible. It’s correct. And given the context, his interpretation is not possible at all.

His only really new argument is to insist that because the Catechism says that the terram was placed in the “midst” (in media) of the mundus, this must indicate that the terram was placed in the exact center of the mundus and therefore refers to the earth being placed in the exact center of the universe. But this doesn’t follow of necessity. The Catechism, in this section, is drawing from the language of Genesis 1. Gen 1:9 says that God gathered the waters in one place and the dry land (terram) appeared. So it’s perfectly reasonable for the Catechism to say that the land was placed in the midst (in media) of the earth. That no more implies that things have to be in the center of the earth than me saying “I hiked in the midst of the mountains” means that I was at the mountains’ exact center.

Again, this passage of the Roman Catechism is clearly drawing from the language of Genesis 1. And in Gen 1:10 God explicitly calls the dry land terram. And now, for the fourth time, I put this question to Bob: If terram means the entire globe rather than the dry land, then how can the Catechism say that God filled it with living creatures, "as He had already filled the air and water" (quemadmodum antea aquas et aëra)? The terram here is something distinct from the air and the water, therefore it cannot be the entire globe. But we know what the terram is. It’s just what God said in Gen 1:10, it’s the “dry land” (aridam). This completely dismantles Bob’s reading of geocentrism into this passage of the Roman Catechism.

So yes, the only way to read the Roman Catechism’s statement is to see the terram as referring to the “dry land” of the earth and not to the earth at large. This passage says absolutely nothing about the place of the earth in the universe. This was the best he had, but Bob has erred in applying this passage to geocentrism.

Did the Editors of Newton’s Principia Have Some Endorsement From Rome?

Now, let’s turn to Bob’s fabricated assertion that the priest-editors of an edition of Newton’s Principia had an official commission from the Church and that their words represent the ruling of “the Church”. Remember that in GWW2 (p. 41) he said that “the Catholic Church apparently had enough power to assign two Minim friars…as editors…who represented the Catholic Church” and that they were “commissioned by the Church”. And in his more recent reply to me he said, “the Church required a disclaimer to be put on Newton’s Principia” (my emphasis). To my challenge on this Bob says,

Although I admit that “commissioned” may perhaps be too strong a word, I did not mean it in the sense that the Church formally employed Jaquier [sic; Jacquier] and Le Sure [sic; Le Seur] to write the commentary but that Jaquier [sic] and Le Sure [sic] had the Church’s undivided sanction and endorsement. You can depend upon it that if the Church had disagreed with the disclaimer and had decided by 1739 to accommodate cosmologies other than geocentrism, the disclaimer would have been removed since the disclaimer is making the bold and well publicized proclamation that all the “Supreme Pontiffs” have rejected Newton’s heliocentrism.

I had pointed out that even the anti-Catholic writer William Roberts calls this merely "the opinion of its Roman editors". Bob replies:

What Mr. Palm misses is that Roberts called them “ROMAN editors,” not just editors. In other words, even Roberts knows that these Franciscan friars are working with and have the endorsement of Rome. Everyone knows this, except, apparently, Mr. Palm.

In all candor, when I wrote my last piece and included the quote from Roberts, I thought that the only way Bob could potentially counter this was to claim that the adjective “Roman” somehow represents some official mandate from the Catholic Church. But c’mon, I thought, one can’t chase after every ridiculous counter-argument. And yet here we are, faced with just that nonsensical reply. So shame on me, I guess, for not going with my “gut” and rebutting this foolishness earlier.

Roberts calling them the “Roman editors” no more implies that they are “working with and have the endorsement of Rome” than calling Roberts an “Anglican author” means that he had some official mandate or endorsement from the Anglican church. Especially in nineteenth century documents, Roman is just shorthand for “Roman Catholic”, with perhaps a slight pejorative twist. It’s absurd for Bob to claim that it implies some sort of official mandate from Rome.

But it does show how silly this is all getting, with Bob grasping at anything no matter how flimsy to try to ”win”. The whole point that I am making, and which Bob seems not to grasp, is that none of this is magisterial. The opinion of these editors is not magisterial. Period. They have no office in the Church, no commission from the Church, no sanction from the Church, no explicit endorsement from the Church. Their contention that the seventeenth century documents concerning Copernicanism proceeded from the “Roman Pontiffs” is just their opinion and has no authority. There were plenty of other Catholics during that same period pointing out what I and others have pointed out more recently, namely, that the position against Copernicanism “(a) was promulgated only in disciplinary documents, not in formally doctrinal ones; (b) was never promulgated directly and personally by any Pope, only indirectly, through the instrumentality of the Vatican Congregations of the Index and the Holy Office” (Fr. Brian Harrison, Roma Locuta Est - Causa Finita Est).

And that’s precisely the point. Bob doesn’t have anything magisterial in support of geocentrism for more than 300 years. Bob objects to me pointing out this centuries-long lacuna:

Mr. Palm continues to use the “300 year” figure even though I have corrected him on this several times. It’s not 300 years. How could it be when, in fact, Jaquier [sic] and Le Sure’s [sic] disclaimer was still put on Newton’s Principia only 178 years ago? How could it be when Mario Marini wrote a defense of the Church’s decision on Galileo in 1850, just 161 years ago? How could it be when the president of the Pontifical Academy of Science said in 1943, just 68 years ago, that neither Newton, Foucault or Bradley proved heliocentrism? Mr. Palm just likes to ignore these events because a 300 year figure will make his argument sound better.

How could it be? Easy. Again, none of these are magisterial. As I’ve demonstrated, the opinion of Frs. Jacquier and Le Seur isn’t magisterial. Marini’s work wasn’t either. An address by the president of the Pontifical Academy of Science isn’t magisterial. What Bob needs is a magisterial source and that is precisely what he is unable to produce. 300 years is just a good round number. It’s actually longer than that. The last magisterial act that had anything to do with positively enforcing the seventeenth century discipline against promoting Copernicanism was Alexander VII’s Index of Forbidden Books in 1664. That was 347 years ago. Since then the official magisterial acts have been to incrementally remove that discipline against Copernicanism and to promote the dissemination of non-geocentric views throughout the Church.

Bottom line: The fact that Bob has to rely so heavily on such non-magisterial sources to try and make his case shows how incredibly thin his case is. The actual Magisterium of the Catholic Church doesn’t consider geocentrism to be a matter of faith.

Leo XIII and Pius XII: “Magisterial Fundies” Turn the Magisterium on its Head….Again.

We have seen above and elsewhere (link) that the Church’s immemorial principle is that canonical penalties and condemnations are to be interpreted strictly, that is, as narrowly and affecting as few people as possible. But what do the neo-geocentrists do with 1633 decree against Galileo? Exactly the opposite—they strive to interpret it as broadly and as affecting as many people as possible. Sungenis takes this to the extreme, cropping out portions of the decree which show that it no longer applies to modern cosmological views.

Now let’s look again at how they handle the teaching of Popes Leo XIII, Pius XII, and John Paul II that the Bible doesn’t contain information about “the essential nature of the things of the visible universe” or “details of the physical world”. It’s important at the outset to establish just who bears the burden of proof. Remember that I’m arguing that Catholics are free to embrace any of a number of cosmological views. It’s Bob who seeks to restrict Catholic thought to only one, geocentrism, and to argue that this is the official teaching of the Catholic Church. This means that when confronted with magisterial texts that prima facie give freedom to a Catholic to embrace something other than geocentrism, it’s Bob’s burden to prove that those magisterial texts can’t be interpreted to give such freedom, that they can only be interpreted to restrict this freedom of thought.

But true to form, Bob seeks to flip this burden of proof back onto me:

The fact remains that the burden of proof is on the one who claims that a document addresses a certain topic when, in fact, the document makes no mention of the topic. That Mr. Palm refuses to recognize this shows his desperation. As I said in my previous rebuttal, one could just as easily claim that Leo XIII and Pius XII did not mention cosmology because they were directed by the Holy Spirit not to do so, in addition to the fact that neither Leo XIII or Pius XII wanted to call into question the decisions of the 1616 and 1633 Church without doing a formal and official study of the matter.

This is illegitimate for a number of reasons. First, let’s remember that canonical penalties must be interpreted strictly. Pope Leo XIII knew as well as anybody else at that time that the Holy Office had already acted upon the Commissary General’s factual position that modern cosmological views are fundamentally different than the strict Copernicanism condemned in the 1633 decree and hence don’t fall under that condemnation. There was absolutely no canonical requirement for Pope Leo XIII to do “a formal and official study of the matter” before laying out principles of interpretation which would extend to these matters of cosmology.

Second, let’s remember the context of Providentissimus Deus 18-19 (and Divino Afflante Spiritu 3, which cites from that former encyclical.) Pope Leo is addressing instances in which there appears to be a conflict between the discoveries of physical science and certain passages of sacred Scripture. And the Holy Father says that in those instances we must remember that the Holy Spirit did not reveal to the authors of sacred Scripture “the essential nature of the things of the visible universe” and thus it’s fruitless to seek those details on Scripture because its authors, “did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science.” Only examples that fit this context are admissible as part of this discussion. Geocentrism is a classic example of this alleged conflict between the physical sciences and sacred Scripture. Therefore it fits the context perfectly.

Third, Bob continues to miss that Leo XIII laid out a principle—Pope Leo XIII calls it a “rule”—of interpretation. A principle or rule, by its very nature, applies broadly. Therefore, he doesn’t need to tell us specifically all the instances where it can be applied. Far from it being my burden to show that general principles or rules apply to a specific case—in this case the matter of geocentrism—it is Bob’s burden, precisely because these are general principles, to show that they do not apply to the matter of geocentrism. This he certainly won’t be able to do, because the principles plainly do apply to that topic.

This is further supported when we notice that Pope Leo XIII has, as many scholars have observed, essentially adopted the hermeneutical principles advanced by Galileo in his own defense:

on the relationship between Scripture and physical science, the encyclical could be seen to advance Galilean views. . . . Not only were both Galileo and Leo asserting the same principle that Scripture is not a scientific authority in answer to analogous problems involving questions of the relationship between Scripture and science (or natural philosophy), but they also shared some crucial aspects of the reasoning to justify this principle. . . . Besides the formal similarity of problems, the substantive overlap of content, and the deep-structure correspondence of the reasoning, Leo’s account was reminiscent of Galileo’s even in its appearance, on the surface, and as a matter of initial impression. This parallelism involved the quotations from Saint Augustine and how they were interwoven with the rest of the argument. In fact, Leo’s two main passages from Augustine had also been quoted by Galileo in his Letter to Christina: Augustine’s statement of the priority of demonstrated physical truth (“whatever they can really demonstrate . . . , we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scripture”) and his statement of nonscientific authority of Scripture (“the Holy Ghost . . . did not intend to teach men . . . the things of the visible universe”). (Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, pp. 265f.)

So those who would claim that Pope Leo’s words can’t apply to geocentrism at the very least would have to admit that the Pope was, in that case, an incredibly bad communicator, since the very structure of his argument and even the authorities that he cites recall and parallel the arguments advanced by Galileo.

Fourth, another clear indication that the Church herself intends for the teaching of Leo XIII to be considered to be a principle that should be applied broadly, comes in its application to the six days of creation. The Pontifical Biblical Commission, which was a magisterial office at the time, issued this statement in 1909 concerning the language of Genesis 1 – language that clearly hearkens to Leo XIII’s Providentissimus Deus:

Whether, since in writing the first chapter of Genesis it was not the mind of the sacred author to teach in a scientific manner the detailed constitution of visible things and the complete order of creation, but rather to give his people a popular notion, according as the common speech of the times went, accommodated to the understanding and capacity of men, the propriety of scientific language is to be investigated exactly and always in the interpretation of these? -- Reply: In the negative.

Notice that it’s taken as a given that the author of Genesis 1 didn’t intend to “teach in a scientific manner the detailed constitution of visible things and the complete order of creation”. It’s simply assumed that, rather, it was his intention “to give his people a popular notion, according as the common speech of the times went”. Thus, the Magisterium concludes, it’s not necessary to seek scientific details in the sacred text. As Pope Leo XIII teaches, no such details were revealed by the Holy Spirit to the sacred authors.

On the other hand, those who want to claim that Leo XIII’s principle doesn’t apply to geocentrism struggle mightily to come up with any other example that would fit his words better. Bob takes this to a goofy extreme, proposing a whole list of Scripture passages that allegedly would fit Leo XIII’s principle:

Leo could have been talking about a number of other statements in the Bible (e.g., Nm 11:7; 1Sm 28:14; Ez 1:5; 8:2; Dn 8:15; 10:6; Jl 2:4; Am 5:8; Mt 16:3; 28:3; Mk 8:24; Lk 12:56; Ap 4:1; 15:2).

Now those who are still “wowed” by Bob’s alleged prowess with the Bible will assume he knows what he’s talking about. They won’t even bother to look up those citations, assuming that they prove his point. That would be a bad mistake. Not surprisingly, if you look them up, you’ll see that they do nothing to support Bob’s contention that Pope Leo XIII might have had such passages in mind.

First, let’s ask ourselves which of these passages are an example of an apparent conflict between the discoveries of physical science and sacred Scripture? None of them. So this is a strong indication that Bob is just tilting at windmills.

Second, setting aside a passage like 1 Sam 28:14 which doesn’t seem to have anything do to with what we're discussing, the majority of the rest are similes, that is, they use the pattern "X is like Y" to describe something. None of these are uses of the phenomenological language addressed by Leo XIII. The Scriptures do not say the sun moves "as if" or "like" it was rising. It says it rises and sets.

The closest Bob has to a real example in this list is Matt 16:3: "And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?” But there, our Lord explicitly says that we are discussing the “appearance of the sky” and so this is not a real parallel. Similarly, Luke 12:54 says, “"When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, 'A shower is coming'; and so it happens.” But this is not phenomenological language at all, it’s literal—a thunderhead literally rises up and you know it’s going to rain. So none of Bob's examples are actual examples of phenomenological language and therefore none of them are pertinent examples.

Third, which of the examples he cites are represent "more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science" as the Pope says? Not one. Bob claims in a couple of places that what Pope Leo XIII and Pius XII were really referring to were things like “atoms, forces, etc.” and “not to the general movements of the cosmos” (Response to the SSPX Press Release on Geocentrism, p. 3 and Response to David Palm on Galileo Trial, p. 4). But this won’t work at all. The popes explicitly speak of language “commonly used at the time”, i.e. in ancient times. It would be interesting to see Bob come up with even one example of any author of Scripture using the “commonly used” language of his day to describe “forces” and “atoms”.

So, Bob’s attempt to skirt the teaching of the Popes is a misfire. There’s one really classic example of this sort of phenomenological language that was used in ancient times and "which [is] in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science" and that’s the language of sunrise and sunset. Everybody with a gram of common sense can see that Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical pertains first and foremost to this classic example of an apparent clash between the discoveries of physical science and sacred Scripture. It’s no wonder, then, that staunch neo-geocentrist “Cassini” writing at the Catholic Answers Forum, admitted forthrightly that, “The only interpretation of note in the history of the Church that the encyclical [Providentissimus Deus] could be referring to was the fixed sun/moving earth heresy [sic] (link)” Of course, in classic neo-geo fashion, he then went on to blame it all on a Masonic conspiracy—“We think it may have been written by Cardinal Campolla a Freemason”—but his admission was telling nonetheless.

Bob’s only real remaining response to this is that Pope Leo XIII would have to mention geocentrism explicitly, since it was already addressed in prior magisterial documents. But this founders since we’ve already seen that, according to the Church’s own immemorial canonical principles, the decree of 1633 simply does not apply any longer to the views of any living person (and never will again). It is, in that regard, an ecclesiastical dead letter. Remember too that, based on this fact, in 1822 the Holy Office issued blanket permission for non-geocentric views to be disseminated in the Church. Pope Leo XIII knew those things. He was not in any way bound to present neo-geocentrism as a sort of exceptional case. Rather, he was free to lay out general principles, which Catholics are in turn free to apply to the cases that obviously fit these principles.

The bottom line is that these “Magisterial Fundies” (as Rick DeLano has taken to calling himself) once again flip magisterial documents completely on their head. When commenting on the decree of 1633 against Galileo, they ignore the Church’s dictum that canonical condemnations are to be interpreted strictly, that is to say, as narrowly and affecting as few people as possible. They instead seek to interpret that decree broadly, affecting as many people as possible. And now, when Pope Leo XIII (and after him Pius XII) lay out broad principles to be applied to questions of apparent conflict between Scripture and physical science, the MFs want to interpret those as narrowly as possible.

The Magisterium Teaches 100% of the Faith

The material I’ve presented above once again highlights a number of things. First, it illustrates the sloppy “scholarship” of Bob Sungenis. I’m sad to say that in Bob’s writings on neo-geocentrism and certain other topics (such as Jews and Judaism) we’re treated again and again to quotes taken out of context, exaggerations to the point of outright falsehood, misleading analyses, false accusations, double standards, and outright errors of fact.

As I’ve stated a number of times, what concerns me most is that the neo-geos are so willing to undermine the Magisterium if it will help them prop up their pet belief. It’s unseemly and un-Catholic. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church does not “abandon” doctrines of the Faith for centuries. Period. The Popes and all the bishops in communion with them do not allow the spread of a “formal heresy”, even promote its spread, for hundreds of years. This is completely incompatible with a real Catholic dogma, namely, the indefectibility of the Church. The neo-geocentrists have not yet even attempted to harmonize their views with that dogma of our Faith.

The neo-geocentric case today can only be sustained through exaggeration to the point of falsehood and by turning magisterial documents on their head. Neo-geocentrism remains an elaborate exercise in ecclesiastical and scientific special pleading.

A Message to the "Occupy Wall Street" Movement

2011-12-01T16:22:00.007-06:00

A simple note to the Occupy Wall Street folks: You need a message. 99% of this country has no idea what you stand for and without a message, your movement is going to shrivel up and die.

Now, here's a simple message for you, a message that 99% of the citizens of this country can understand and can support. Here it is:

We're going to occupy Wall Street until the first CEO of a major financial institution goes to jail.

That's it. It's tangible. It's concrete. And more than that, it cuts right across political lines and goes right to the heart of what has gone seriously wrong with this country.

Obviously there needs to be more than one who goes to jail. But you need a pithy message. And you need a tangible goal.

So here it is again: We're going to Occupy Wall Street until the first CEO of a major financial institution goes to jail.

For more info on just how badly we've been had and how badly we need criminal prosecution of those who got us where we are:

"In the Savings and Loan crisis which was one seventieth the size of this crisis, our agency made over 10,000 criminal referrals and that resulted in the conviction on felony grounds of over 1000 elites in what were designated as major cases. . . . In this crisis the same agency that I worked with that made 10,000 criminal referrals in a tinier crisis made zero criminal referrals. They got rid of the entire function. And so there are zero convictions of anybody in the elite ranks of Wall Street. And if they can defraud us with impunity then they will produce crisis after crisis and they will produce maximum inequality."

Occupy LA Teach In, William K Black

See also: Where are the Handcuffs?

Putting Meat on the Table

2011-11-28T12:12:00.004-06:00

I have the privilege to live in a beautiful part of Wisconsin, a state where—as one of my friends quips—opening day of deer season is virtually a holy day of obligation. This year I got permission to hunt on some land very near my house, so I set my tree stand out several weeks ahead and waited anxiously for that first day (a shoulder injury kept me out of the woods for bow season.)

People who don't hunt don't know just how great it is to be out before dawn, watching quietly as the forest wakes up. That morning I got into my tree stand about 5:45 am and let things quiet down again. About 15 minutes later, I heard the "crunch crunch crunch" of footsteps coming up the hill toward me. My heart started to beat faster. "Oh great, here's my deer," I thought, "and it's too dark to shoot." But as I strained to see what was coming, a hen turkey sped up the hill on some sort of important mission and passed directly under my stand. About ten minutes later came "crunch crunch crunch" behind me and she shot back down the hill from whence she had come.

Some time later the squirrels came out in force. They're fun to watch, but maddening in that every playful squirrel running through the leaves has you thinking that he's a deer cruising your way. Keeps me on edge.

As I watched the squirrels play there was a sudden flurry of action to my right. Not thirty feet from me a hawk came pouncing down from above, latched onto one of the young tree rodents, gave a few quick pecks and took off with breakfast secured in its talons. I happened to be looking that way, so I got to see the whole thing. It was a regular National Geographic moment.

I sat there thinking that even if I didn't see any deer I would feel very satisfied by what I had seen. But about half an hour later a buck came running across my part of the forest and I was able to line up a shot as he cleared a small clump of trees. My preference is to take a doe, since they are better eating. But this was the deer that presented itself and so that's the deer I took.

I radioed to the house and my two younger daughters came down with warm water and a welcome bit of breakfast, by which time I had the buck field dressed and ready to bring up to the house. An hour or so later he was skinned out and left to cool in the big barn. Now we are processing the deer into sausage and stew meat, a welcome addition to our freezer since we did not butcher a steer this year.

I enjoy the work of butchering quite a bit. The actual killing of the animals I do not enjoy, but I take it in stride as necessary. If you're going to eat meat then there's no use pretending that it can be any other way—an animal has to die—and if it happens at my own hands, then so be it. You can see from the photo above that the harvesting of animals does not trouble my children. They have grown up with butchering and hunting, so it is a normal part of life for them. They know what it takes to put meat on the table.

Some of the meat went into a venison stew for Thanksgiving Day. Everything in the stew—venison, leeks, garlic, onions, potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, and fennel—was grown or harvested by us. When you eat that kind of food, from the sweat of your own brow and the bounty of the land, it is easy to be truly thankful.

Neo-geos Come Unravelled

2011-08-19T19:48:00.016-05:00

Bob Sungenis and "johnmartin" have written "rebuttals" of my latest essay, Sungenis and "johnmartin" Studiously Miss the Point (they can be found here and here.) Candidly, all they have done is to provide further proof that the neo-geocentric case is a massive exercise in ecclesiastical and scientific special pleading, gummed together with a hermeneutic of suspicion and a liberal dose of conspiracy theories to fill in the chinks.

I won’t be spending much time on "johnmartin"'s response, for the simple reason that it's silly. For example, "johnmartin" twice makes the argument that the Roman Catechism teaches geocentrism because a contested section involving the “earth” comes under the heading "The Formation of the Universe." But in a previous piece he agreed with me that this heading is a mistranslation, all without skipping a beat. Hello? Then there’s his commentary on John Paul II's statement concerning the contents of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here's what the Holy Father said:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium.

Now most people understand that a "statement" means that you use actual words. But "johnmartin" somehow manages to find geocentrism in the Catechism—despite it not actually being there:

JPII clearly states the doctrines taught in the catechism are “attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium”, which means the catechism is illuminated by the decrees of past Popes against Galileo, the church fathers, who taught geocentrism and scripture, that teaches a stationary earth. As such, the catechism embraces geocentrism as a teaching of the church through scripture, the magesterium [sic] and the fathers.

Right. Did you get that? And does his argument sound familiar? It should. In other words, according to “johnmartin”, geocentrism is found in what one might call the penumbras and emanations of the Catechism.

He says of me that, "Mr Palm is a heretic who opposes the magesterium [sic] and as such, he has fallen from the faith" and issues the further rash judgment that, "Unfortunately it is Mr Palm who is making a shipwreck of the faith of many by perhaps making a god out of This Rock and any apologetics association he has association with such as Dave Armstrong or maybe Catholic Answers who back up his anti geocentrist arguments." In light of such unceasingly silly and boorish behavior, it’s no wonder that Dave Armstrong eventually banned “johnmartin” from making comments at his blog. Recall, this same “johnmartin” has been singled out for high praise from “top” geocentric “experts” like Rick DeLano and Bob Sungenis. In spite of such clownish behavior, "johnmartin" expects to be taken seriously enough that he should be answered "line by line". I think I’ll pass.

Now, turning to Bob Sungenis, while I’ve never been impressed by his scholarship in this area, I’m genuinely a bit shocked at the degree to which his arguments continue to degenerate. He's supposed to have studied this issue in great detail (Galileo Was Wrong was essentially his putative doctoral dissertation on geocentrism) and yet his reply was just shot through with outright errors, not to mention more of his usual debater's tricks. Here are just a few examples:

"For example, Copernicus’ 1543 book, De Revolutionibus, which espoused heliocentrism, was put on the Index in 1548."

This is false. The Index of Forbidden Books was not even established until 1559. I think it's fair to surmise that Copernicus' work could not be put onto the Index before the Index was established. (Bob's oddly anachronistic argument here is reminiscent of his repeated insistence that the essential context for St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter 11 is the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which took place 13 years after the writing of Romans and 3 years after St. Paul was dead; see here.)

In reality, Copernicus' work was not put on the Index until 1616, after the writing of the Roman Catechism.

"Rheticus’ book on heliocentrism was put on the Index in 1541."

False. Obviously Rheticus' book, like that of Copernicus, couldn't have been put on the Index before it was even established. I find no evidence that Rheticus' works were ever put on the Index, but my search was certainly not comprehensive. Even if they were at some point, it certainly was not in 1541 or even in 1616, so Bob's statement is false.

"It [the Roman Catechism] never says the earth moves and, in fact, says the earth “stands still”"

False. The Roman Catechism never uses that phrase. Once again, Bob is adding words to the Catechism that are not there. And it's time for him to stop dodging the exegetical argument I deployed that proves that the "foundation of the earth" passage has nothing to do with the position of the globe in relation to the universe, but instead speaks of the relationship of dry land to water on the surface of the earth. Here is the passage again:

The earth [terram] also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world [mundi], rooted in its own foundation, and made the mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place which he had founded for them. That the waters should not inundate the earth, He set a bound which they shall not pass over; neither shall they return to cover the earth. He next not only clothed and adorned it with trees and every variety of plant and flower, but filled it, as He had already filled the air and water, with innumerable kinds of living creatures.

Notice again that the Catechism states that God clothed the terram with "trees and every variety of plant and flower". He also filled it with living creatures, "as He had already filled the air and water". In other words, this terram is something distinct from the air and the water. The passage makes perfect sense if terram means "dry land", as it does in Gen 1:10. It makes no sense whatsoever if it means the entire earth, as in "the globe"—which is what the neo-geo needs it to say.

As such, I challenge Bob to provide a coherent counter-exegesis to support his interpretation or admit that this passage says nothing about geocentrism. That goes for "johnmartin" too, who, as I accurately stated, did not even engage this exegetical argument. It is Bob's claim that the Roman Catechism contains "One of the clearest official and authoritative statements from the Catholic Church defending the doctrine of geocentrism..." and he speaks of the "Roman Catechism’s dogmatic assertion of geocentrism". This is the passage that he claimed would, "expel any doubt about what objects are revolving". Thus, he is the one who needs to prove that his is the only possible reading of this and the other passages. Remember that he is the one making this claim that not even the prelates during Galileo's day made, that the Roman Catechism teaches geocentrism dogmatically and clearly. He's already given the game away by saying my interpretation could be correct. To support his exaggerated claims he would need to demonstrate that my view is not reasonable and that his is the only interpretation that is reasonable. But while he's already given the game away by saying my interpretation could be correct, he has yet to show how his own interpretation is even reasonable at all, let alone the only correct one. It is past time to stop dodging his burden of proof and provide some, or else finally admit that he has misread this passage.

"Oresme suggested the earth might be rotating, but such diurnal motion was rejected by the Index in 1541, 1548 and condemned both in 1616 and 1633."

False. No such ideas were addressed on the Index in 1541 or 1548, because it had not even been established yet. And the neo-geos have greatly exaggerated the nature of the condemnations of 1616 and 1633. See my Neo-Geo Double Standards and Exaggerations on Magisterial Documents and also more detail in a forthcoming essay.

"the Tridentine catechism knew of no alternate scientific theory other than heliocentrism when it supported geocentrism. It made no statement accepting heliocentrism. It made no mention of acentrism, or any other view. It gave no credence to Oresme, Cusa, Aristarchus, Pythagorus or any view that said the earth moved;"

Gratuitous assertion and straw man. Cardinal Cusa's theories were never condemned and Bob has no proof that the authors of the Catechism could not have been aware of them. And once again, Bob is tilting at windmills. I specifically said that the Catechism does not teach any cosmological system. It teaches nothing and rejects nothing about specific cosmological systems.

"the Tridentine catechism knew that the Catholic tradition believed the earth did not move and it makes no statement that indicates a break with the Church’s tradition, including no break against the consensus of the Fathers on geocentrism."

and

"How about the damage Mr. Palm creates when he puts the Tridentine catechism at odds with the very Tradition it came from? How about the damage Mr. Palm creates when he says that previous pontiffs, who based their condemnations of heliocentrism on Tradition and Scripture, made mistakes on cosmology, but the current clerics, who base their decisions on the shifting winds of popular science, are correct?"

Again, straw man. One more time—The Catholic Church does not teach any system of cosmology as a matter of faith. A Catholic is free to hold to geocentrism. A Catholic is free to hold to acentrism. No theory of celestial motion is a matter of faith in the Catholic Church. Thus, obviously, I never said that the Catechism breaks with any tradition. Rather, it uses generic language that does not assert any specific cosmological system. So, enough of Bob's debater's tricks and straw men.

It belongs to a future essay to demonstrate that there is no such doctrinally binding consensus of the Fathers on geocentrism.

"the only reason Settele got his imprimatur was because a lie was being circulated by the Commissioner, Olivieri that the Church of the 1600s denied heliocentrism because it didn’t have elliptical orbits."

False. In the process of accusing a priest of purposeful subterfuge Bob has seriously garbled the facts. Let me just cite two points here, with more to come in the future. First, several times in GWW2 (e.g. pp. 233, 244-5, 261, 262) he speaks of Fr. Olivieri as the Commissary General of the Congregation of the Index. But Fr. Olivieri actually held that position in the Congregation of the Holy Office (the same office that issued the Galileo decree.) A relatively small point, perhaps, but if you're going to accuse a priest of ecclesiastical treason then it behooves you to get your facts straight.

What's made very clear throughout GWW2 is that Bob doesn't like Fr. Olivieri very much. Here are just some of the charges he levels. He accuses Fr. Olivieri of being "devious", of "tortured logic", of putting forth "one of the most ludicrous and egregious forms of rationalization ever propounded by an ecclesiastical ward", of "calculating and deceptive motives", of "duplicity", of "twisting the truth", of "outright falsehood", of "attempt[ing] to twist and distort the truth", of a "concocted analysis", of "specious argumentation", of "malicious distortion of the historical record", of a "deliberate attempt to confuse the issue by inserting the red herring of elliptical orbits", and of "one of the most deceptive pieces of propaganda ever foisted on the Catholic Church". (Does this level of insult and invective sound like the kind of material you would expect to find in a "doctoral dissertation"? Not to me.)

But the fact is that Bob has seriously misrepresented Fr. Olivieri's arguments. In the quote above and in GWW2 Bob boils the whole thing down to a matter of "elliptical orbits". He asserts, without evidence, that, "'devastating mobility' refers to non-elliptical planetary revolutions" (GWW2, p. 250). He calls this claim "preposterous" and so it would be, if that was actually what the Commissary General was saying. But Bob has misconstrued what Fr. Olivieri meant by "devastating motion".

When the Commissary General speaks of, "the devastating motion from which Copernicus and Galileo had been unable to free the motions of axial rotation and orbital revolution which they ascribed to the earth" (Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, p. 208), he meant that the natural philosophers of Galileo's day (and even Galileo himself) could not figure out how it could be that the earth was revolving around the sun and rotating on its axis and we don't experience that as a devastating motion that lays waste the surface of the earth. He cites Msgr. Fabroni explaining just this:

The Roman theologians were stressing the great disturbances of which we spoke, that is, the confusion of things produced by the earth’s motion. . . . the waters of the sea, the flow of rivers, the waters of wells, the flight of birds, and all atmospheric phenomena would be completely disturbed and intermingled (Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, p. 207).

Fr. Olivieri says, rightly, that this "devastating motion" was one of the reasons that the theological commission in 1616 said that Copernicanism was "absurd in philosophy", by which they meant natural philosophy, i.e. science. But even neo-geocentrists have to admit that this ruling has been proved to be erroneous, that there is now no natural philosophical absurdity in saying that the earth rotates around the sun and revolves on its axis. How in the world Bob equates "devastating motion" with "non-elliptical planetary revolutions" is a great mystery. What is clear is that Bob has totally misunderstood and misrepresented Fr. Olivieri on this point.

Fr. Olivieri also pointed to many other instances in which the views of modern astronomers differed from a strict Copernicanism. Elliptical orbits was one. He also noted that astronomers no longer believe that the sun is the center of the universe. They no longer believe that the sun is motionless. They have solved the difficulties of the "devastating motion" problem, thereby clearing modern views of the natural philosophical absurdity that formed a key part of the evaluation of the theologians of the Holy Office in 1616. And Fr. Olivieri pointed to additional scientific discoveries and observations—most notably aberration and nutation—that gave additional support to non-geocentric cosmology (these can only be explained in the neo-geocentric system through more special pleading.)

I will have more to say about the actions of the Congregation of the Holy Office in 1820-22 later. But I believe what I have outlined above shows that Bob has vastly oversimplified and therefore garbled the matter by speaking only of elliptical orbits. He then repeatedly slanders a Catholic priest based on his own confused analysis.

What's more, I would note something else that I will be expanding upon, namely, that this is all perfectly in line with the Church's actual canonical protocol. The Catholic Church has taught from time immemorial that canonical censures are to be interpreted strictly.

Laws that establish penalties, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception to the law must be interpreted strictly (c. 18) It is long-standing canonical tradition that restrictive laws must be narrowly applied. . . . Strict interpretation means that the sense of the words of the canon and the scope of its application are limited as much as reasonably possible. (J. A. Coriden, An Introduction to Canon Law, 202-3)

Note well that it is the neo-geos who turn this principle on its head by striving to apply the 1633 decree against Galileo as broadly as possible, to as many people as possible. Conversely, the Catholic Church applies her canonical principles to modern cosmological views and rules that these don't fall under the disciplinary decrees of the seventeenth century.

"In 1833, only 178 years ago, the Church required a disclaimer to be put on Newton’s Principia stating that the “Supreme Pontiffs have decreed, against Newton, that the Earth does not move.”"

This is yet another example of blatant neo-geo exaggeration and what might be termed "fabricative evolution". Here's what Bob says about this matter in GWW:

when the three-volume edition of the Principia was published in Geneva, the Catholic Church apparently had enough power to assign two Minim friars from the Franciscan order, Thomas Le Seur and François Jacquier as editors . . . although Newton assumed the heliocentric system to be true, this was not the belief of the editors, Le Seur and Jacquier, who represented the Catholic Church (GWW2, p. 241).

Here, Bob starts with an assertion, made up out of whole cloth, that "the Catholic Church apparently had enough power to assign two Minim friars from the Franciscan order . . . as editors" He claims that they were, "commissioned by the Church". But he cites no evidence that the Church had anything officially to do with these friars being the editors of the Principia. None.

But in his latest reply to me this gratuitous assertion takes on a life of its own and evolves even further. Now, suddenly, according to Bob, "the Church required a disclaimer to be put on Newton’s Principia" (my emphasis). This is, of course, a gross exaggeration. Two priest-editors with no official mandate suddenly evolve into "the Church". If there were anyone who would have made hay of these priests' alleged official status, it would have been William Roberts. Roberts wrote a book attacking papal infallibility based on the Church's handling of the Galileo affair. Yet, even Roberts called this merely "the opinion of its Roman editors" (The Pontifical Decrees Against the Doctrine of the Earth's Movement, p. 53; my emphasis).

Considering the fact that Galileo Was Wrong was essentially Bob’s putative “doctoral dissertation” on geocentrism and that Bob received particular praise from Calamus International for the alleged depth and caliber of his research, one wonders how he failed to even find, let alone interact with, the copious material I’ve presented here that contradicts his thesis. It’s not as if this material was hiding somewhere or as if I’ve spent the hours necessary to earn a doctorate.

"If the Church came out tomorrow with an official and binding statement and said that the previous Church was wrong in condemning heliocentrism and that science has confirmed that heliocentrism is true and the only cosmology we should accept, I and everyone else would forsake geocentrism in a second."

If Bob wants to assert once again that cosmology was somehow specifically excluded from these teachings of Leo XIII and Pius XII—despite the fact cosmology is considered the most obvious application for their words—then the burden is on him to prove that, not just assert it. The point that seems to elude him is that these popes laid out a general principle that plainly applies to cosmology. If he wants to carve out an exception to this principle for geocentrism, then he needs to provide justification from these encyclicals or some other authoritative source—something he has failed to do. As such, his argument here is nothing more than bare, unsupported assertion—in a nutshell, more special pleading.

After that, he needs to explain why the entire Magisterium of the Church—popes and bishops—behaves and teaches as if these documents were addressing cosmology, even going so far as to publicly acknowledge the probability of non-geocentric cosmology. Based on history, we can anticipate the likely answer: it’s all the result of ineptitude and cowardice.

Still, if the statement above is Bob's real position then well and good. But it is very, very different from what he has said elsewhere. For example:

If we say the 17th century magisterium erred, then it is a fact that the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to err, and if the Church can err in what it then declared as a matter of faith and morals (i.e., it was a matter of faith because Scripture taught the earth didn’t move, and Scripture cannot lie), then it can also err in matters of faith and morals today, and if that is the case then we simply don’t have the Catholic Church we have claimed to have. This is an all or nothing game, gentlemen. We can no longer sit on the proverbial fence and shun one period of our official magisterium as seriously misguided and accept the unofficial musings of another period as correcting the former, especially since modern science gives us no help in substantiating the latter (link).

Or how about a talk he gave in Canada during which this was reported:

Later on in the lecture, he actually said verbatim that if you did not believe in a geocentric universe you were atheist [if Bob denies that he said that, fine, but apparently there is an audio recording of it.]

So which view does Bob hold now? The Church could teach against geocentrism and that would be just fine, or that if the Church taught against geocentrism we simply wouldn't have the same Catholic Church?

"How many times have you heard people use the Church’s supposed mistakes in the Galileo affair to posit that she can make mistakes in other important areas? Too many times. It’s the very argument feminists use for a female priesthood, and homosexuals use to say that the Church is culturally biased against them, or any number of issues that involve an interpretation of both the ecclesiastical and scientific data."

Yes, some people argue this way. That doesn't make it a good argument. And how does this make the neo-geocentrist response tenable? How does this make the scenario they paint any better than the scenario they’re reacting against? In order to make their case, the neo-geos argue that the Church has been run by such incredibly inept and cowardly leaders from top to bottom that the fullness of the faith has been effectively abandoned and hidden from Catholics for last 300 years!

Fortunately, there’s a way to defend the Church aside from these two extremes that has the added benefit of aligning with the facts. All the neo-geocentrists need to understand is that any alleged consensus of the Fathers only binds on matters of faith and morals (as Leo XIII teaches) and that the matter of geocentrism was, as Fr. Brian Harrison rightly said, "promulgated only in disciplinary documents, not in formally doctrinal ones . . . [and] was never promulgated directly and personally by any Pope, only indirectly, through the instrumentality of the Vatican Congregations of the Index and the Holy Office". That is, the Church has never taught geocentrism as a matter of faith, in either her ordinary or extraordinary Magisterium. As the Protestant scholar Karl von Gebler has said:

The conditions which would have made the decree of the Congregation, or the sentence against Galileo, of dogmatic importance, were, as we have seen, wholly wanting. Both Popes had been too cautious to endanger this highest privilege of the papacy by involving their infallible authority in the decision of a scientific controversy; they therefore refrained from conferring their sanction, as heads of the Roman Catholic Church, on the measures taken, at their instigation, by the Congregation “to suppress the doctrine of the revolution of the earth.” Thanks to this sagacious foresight, Roman Catholic posterity can say to this day, that Paul V. and Urban VIII. were in error “as men” about the Copernican system, but not “as Popes.” (Karl von Gebler, Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia, trans. J. Sturge, London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879, p. 239)

I personally might say "overreacted" rather than "were in error", but the point is that even a Protestant scholar can agree with what I wrote in a previous essay, "The seventeenth-century Popes knew perfectly well how to promulgate doctrinal decrees binding on the whole Church. But they consistently refrained from doing so with regard to geocentrism." So if someone wants to continue to use the Galileo incident to excuse his rejection of the Catholic Church's authority, then let him. But a sober evaluation of the actual facts—setting aside the exaggerations of both neo-modernists and neo-geocentrists—provides the solid ground any Catholic needs to be confident in the integrity of the Magisterium.

"If Mr. Palm thinks otherwise, he needs to find us a statement after 1943 on full biblical inerrancy, or find a Catholic institution today that teaches it. He won’t be able to."

False. First, and most obviously, note that 1943 is only 69 years away, which is a far cry from the 300 years Bob needs in order to create a parallel with geocentrism. But even worse, he's just flat out wrong that 1943 was the last magisterial reiteration of full inerrancy. In 1998 Pope John Paul II issued the document Ad Tuendam Fidem which amended Canon Law to include measures to be taken against heretics, those who publicly profess views contrary to the dogmas of the Catholic Church. In its commentary on this document, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith laid out three tiers of doctrines and delineated the level of assent that is required for each. The first category of doctrine contains those which are infallibly proposed, which are "defined with a solemn judgment as divinely revealed truths either by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks 'ex cathedra,' or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or infallibly proposed for belief by the ordinary and universal Magisterium." Examples include the Virgin Birth of our Lord, His bodily resurrection from the dead, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff when speaking ex cathedra, the Immaculate Conception of our Lady, etc. The CDF states that, "These doctrines require the assent of theological faith by all members of the faithful. Thus, whoever obstinately places them in doubt or denies them falls under the censure of heresy, as indicated by the respective canons of the Codes of Canon Law" (link).

One of the truths which belongs to this category is "the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts". The authority cited for this doctrine is Dei Verbum 11. This, then, represents an authoritative interpretation of this passage from the Second Vatican Council. According to the CDF, with explicit approval of the Pope, Dei Verbum 11 teaches "the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts," not (as the revisionists would have it) the absence of error insofar as the text in question is salvific in nature or some other such limiting interpretation. The absence of error in the inspired sacred texts is not limited or modified in any way.

As such, Bob is wrong about the Magisterium not reasserting full biblical inerrancy. Let’s hope that he will rejoice with us at this good news rather than seeking out additional difficulties in order to hold on to his geocentric “pebble.”

Finally, as for Catholic institutions that still teach full biblical inerrancy, Bob only asked for one, but here are three off the top of my head (I'm sure more could be added): Thomas Aquinas College, St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, and the University of Navarre. Sadly, we can't add Bob's organization to that list because he was told by his bishop to take the word "Catholic" off his apostolate.

I hope that the material above will further help those who have encountered Catholic neo-geocentrists to see that neo-geocentrism is just as I have described it—an elaborate exercise in scientific and ecclesiastical special pleading, gummed together with a hermeneutic of suspicion and a liberal dose of conspiracy theories.

Postscript:

I would like to make clear that I continue to have mixed emotions about engaging Bob's arguments for geocentrism. Among other things, I'm concerned that in the process of following these lengthy discussions, some readers may naturally tend to forget or be unaware of far more serious and dangerous problems related to Bob Sungenis' writing: 1) his continuing, public slander of Bishop Kevin Rhoades and 2) his anti-Jewish bigotry. I want to ensure that no one is unwittingly drawn into these more dangerous areas as a result of these discussions and that I don't ever give the impression that I consider Bob's behavior in these other areas as anything less than outrageously unacceptable.

Bob has ignored the new essays that Michael Forrest and I have written that further expose what Bishop Rhoades himself calls Bob's "slanderous and erroneous" attacks and accusations against His Excellency (links below). Bishop Rhoades has also rightly described Bob's attacks on the Jewish people as "hostile, uncharitable and un-christian." Matters have degenerated to the point that a conference in England was shut down in large part because Bob was chosen as a last-minute replacement to speak there (see here.)

I think readers will also find in the documentation below ample parallels to the same sloppy scholarship, tendentious argumentation, and slander that we have seen him deploy here in support of geocentrism. Bob needs to forthrightly retract and apologize for his ugly statements attacking the Jewish people (which can found here and here). He also needs to retract his baseless, public accusations of heresy against Bishop Rhoades, issue an unqualified apology to His Excellency, and do penance in reparation for the scandal he has caused.

Bishop Rhoades and the Dual Covenant Theory

A Defense of Bishop Rhoades from More False Accusations by Robert Sungenis

Sungenis' Own Standards of Heresy: Why Don't They Apply to Bishop Rhoades?

Sungenis and "johnmartin" Studiously Miss the Point

2011-08-12T15:42:00.004-05:00

Bob Sungenis and "johnmartin" have issued lengthy "rebuttals" to my two pieces, Neo-geocentrism: Excessive Interest in Usury Comes to Naught and Neo-geo Exaggerations: The Catechism of Trent (see here and here). I have to put "rebuttals" in quotes because, although both men deployed a great many words and both would probably claim that I have been "answered" and decisively so, the fact remains that neither individual actually engaged the central points I was making.

The core points that they missed are:

1) The Roman Catechism doesn't teach geocentrism, Copernican heliocentrism, or any other specific cosmological theory.

On this point, in vintage style, Bob deploys a number of debater's tricks to hide the fact that I plainly demonstrated that the Roman Catechism does not teach geocentrism or any other specific cosmological system. As such, Sungenis totally misses the point when he concludes, "Pius V didn’t say one word about heliocentrism in his catechism, so why is Mr. Palm arguing that Pius V was accommodating heliocentrism? Arguments from silence work both ways." I've repeatedly stated that the Catholic Church doesn't teach any theory regarding celestial motion as a matter of faith, that Catholics have freedom in this regard. The whole point that Bob studiously avoided is that the Catechism uses generic language that doesn't dogmatise any one theory.

It's a common debater's trick to try and shift the burden of proof to his opponent. But remember that it was Sungenis who claimed that the Roman Catechism contains, "One of the clearest official and authoritative statements from the Catholic Church defending the doctrine of geocentrism..." and speaks of the "Roman Catechism’s dogmatic assertion of geocentrism". Obviously, with a build-up like that, the burden of proof is squarely on him to show just where this clear and dogmatic assertion of geocentrism exists in the Catechism.

The problem is that he can't.

As I laid out in my original article, there are a number of passages cited by the neo-geocentrists to try to find geocentrism in the Roman Catechism. But even Sungenis has to admit that there is doubt about what these actually mean. So he deploys what he considers to be the show-stopper—the "foundations of the earth" passage—which he claims will, "expel any doubt about what objects are revolving". The problem is that I demonstrated that this passage has nothing to do with the position of the globe in relation to the universe, but speaks of the position of dry land in relation to water on the surface of the earth. As I said there, "If 'earth' here means the entire globe then the passage ceases to make sense, since in the last sentence the 'earth' is specifically contrasted with the 'air' and 'water' and God certainly didn't cover the entire globe, including the air and water, 'with trees and every variety of plant and flower'."

What does Bob say to this demonstration?

Sure, I’ll grant to Mr. Palm that 'mundus' could refer to the earth and earth could refer to the land. But that doesn’t get him off the hook with the previous passage that says the sun, moon and stars revolve around the earth. Mr. Palm’s mundus could either mean earth or universe, but the burden of proof is on him to show that it means earth since the catechism has already stated it believes the sun, moon and stars revolve around the earth.

But the careful reader will notice that Bob has added the words "around the earth" to the Catechism because that's what he needs it to say in order to support geocentrism. The fact is, the Catechism never uses such words. Instead, it uses generic phrases like "certain and uniform course", "continual revolution", "fixed and regular motion", "motion and revolutions" with respect to the heavenly bodies. And these would apply just as well to the pre-Tridentine theories of Bishop Nicolas Oresme and Cardinal Nicolas Cusa as they would to Copernican heliocentrism and more modern acentric cosmologies. In other words, the Catechism does not teach anything with respect to any one scientific theory—that was not the intent of those passages.

This answers Bob's other off-point comment, "As such, Mr. Palm will also have to accept the fact that he cannot interpret land and earth literally in the catechism and then interpret the sun, moon and stars moving around the earth non‐literally." Wrong. There are really two ways to answer this. First, the Magisterium teaches that the Holy Spirit did not put specifics about "the essential nature of the things of the visible universe" into sacred Scripture. Rather, they are depicted according to "what comes under the senses" (Providentissimus Deus 18). We cannot really expect more from the Roman Catechism than what we get from sacred Scripture itself concerning the precise details of celestial motions. But second, the motions are literal, it's just that the Catechism does not give specifics about those motions. Can Bob prove that the theories of Bishop Oresme and Cardinal Cusa are excluded by the Roman Catechism? No, he can't. It is he who reads subsequent controversies and his own cosmological biases back into the Roman Catechism and adds words that are not there, to make the Catechism say what he wants it to say.

But more importantly, notice how Bob plays both ends against the middle. He had already implicitly acknowledged that the other passages are not clear, that there was "doubt" that needed to be expelled. So he deployed the "foundations of the earth" passage which, he claimed, will "expel any doubt about what objects are revolving". But I proved that that passage has nothing to do with the motions of celestial bodies. Bob did not even engage my exegetical argument. (Neither did "johnmartin".) Instead, he circles back around to claim that the passages that he acknowledged are doubtful are now clear enough to support the meaning of this passage: "the burden of proof is on [Palm] to show that it means earth since the catechism has already stated it believes the sun, moon and stars revolve around the earth." The problem for Bob is that I did prove just that.

The bottom line is that the Catechism's language accommodates more than one cosmological view, because the Catholic Church does not teach any one cosmology as a matter of faith. Bob huffs that "Even die‐hard modernists admit that the Tridentine catechism teaches geocentrism. They just don’t want to accept it, but at least they are not foolish enough to force the catechism into a mold that it cannot hold."

But I categorically deny that the Roman Catechism teaches geocentrism or any cosmology at all and the arguments that I have deployed to demonstrate that apply every bit as much to the modernists as to the neo-geocentrists. But the fact that Bob will side with the Church's enemies in order to save his "pebble" of geocentrism pretty much proves my point: "The neo-geocentrist fixation on their pet cause is like a monkey who reaches into a precious Ming vase to grasp a pebble. Intent only on holding onto that bit of rock and unable to extract his clenched fist, the monkey will happily smash the vase to get his "prize", heedless of the priceless nature of the treasure he has wrecked."

2) There is no instance in which the Magisterium of the Church has for centuries ceased to teach a doctrine of the Catholic faith.

In Neo-geocentrism: Excessive Interest in Usury Comes to Naught I pointed to instances in which neo-geocentrists attack the very Magisterium of the Church in order to explain their anomalous position. "johnmartin" deployed a whole list of doctrines which he claims the Catholic Church has "de facto denied" and speaks of "church [sic] silence" prompted by "inept leadership or fear of the science establishment". Rick Delano speaks of "surrender" and "abandoning" of "binding doctrines" and "dogmas" put forth by the "ordinary magisterium". And yet I have shown how, in each and every case, the Magisterium of the Church has explicitly reaffirmed the examples they propose, right up to the present day. This leaves geocentrism standing in utter isolation as the lone alleged exception to the rule. But the neo-geocentrists are simply wrong: it is not an exception at all because geocentrism is not now and never has been taught as a matter of faith by the Catholic Church, in either her ordinary or extraordinary Magisterium. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church teaches 100% of the doctrines of the Faith. That she does not teach geocentrism demonstrates that never has been part of the Faith. Neo-geocentrism is exactly as I have described it many times in discussions on the Catholic Answers Forum—an elaborate exercise in special pleading, both scientifically and ecclesiastically.

Now "johnmartin" and Sungenis consistently miss this point. The former seeks to blunt my criticism of his extreme statements by appealing to what happens on the "local level". For the record, that is not what he said before. What he said was, “I’ve presented a list of doctrines that have been de facto denied by the modern church” and “I believe the church silence on the matter of geo[centrism] in the last 300 years is easily accounted for through either inept leadership or fear of the science establishment”. I don't see any disclaimers in there about this only happening on the "local level". As such, his new argument seems to be a tacit recognition that his original argument was false. And it's interesting that this alleged ineptitude and cowardice didn't prevent the Magisterium from explicitly teaching on a wide range of volatile and controversial topics, from contraception to homosexuality to divorce and remarriage. Are we to believe that this alleged failure of competence and nerve is reserved only for geocentrism? Again, this is just one more instance of neo-geocentric special pleading.

Regardless, now "johnmartin" complains that he's been misunderstood. For example:

It is in this context that geocentrist claim that the doctrine of the stationary earth has been dropped in practice (in so far as it is not taught at the local level),...

and

Geocentrism is then only one part of a larger problem within the church. The doctrine of geocentrism has not been taught at the local level for some time, but then again, many other doctrines have also not been taught for a long time either.

It is true that on "the local level" many things have broken down in many parts of the world in the Catholic Church. But let's be clear. We aren't talking about "the local level" with respect to geocentrism. We're talking about what the universal Magisterium of the Catholic Church presents to the faithful as matters of faith. And I demonstrated that, while the Church certainly does not teach geocentrism as a matter of faith, she has reiterated her teaching formally in each and every example that "johnmartin" presented as supposed parallels.

Similarly, Sungenis deflects from the core issue by speaking of "what is actually being taught in many Catholic institutions". But that is not what we're talking about. We are talking about what is taught by the Catholic Magisterium, to the universal Church. The Catholic Church teaches 100% of the doctrines of the faith to the universal Church. She does not teach geocentrism. Ergo, geocentrism is not part of the Catholic faith. Period.

If the neo-geocentrists actually could come up with a doctrine of the faith that the Magisterium had not publicly affirmed for many centuries, then they would at least have a parallel. They can't. Most Catholics would rejoice in the fact that, even in these dark and difficult times the Catholic Church continues to teach, publicly and solemnly, all the doctrines of our faith.

But not the neo-geocentrists (or at least not these neo-geocentrists). This fact is a cause of great vexation to them and so they instead scramble to manufacture whatever difficulties they can imagine. To them, geocentrism must be defended at all costs. Why is that so? What has led them to such fanaticism?

At least two reasons suggest themselves. First, some of these individuals have staked their very reputations on geocentrism. Perhaps they feel they’ve reached the point of no return and have no choice but to defend it to the bitter end. Second, they’ve also presented geocentrism in such a way that their personal faith in the Catholic Church is dependent upon it. In their view, if geocentrism is not true then the Catholic Church isn’t indefectible.

This latter problem particularly concerns me in that others who have the misfortune of encountering such misguided neo-geocentrist fanaticism—whether practicing Catholics or those considering the Catholic faith—may also be adversely affected. I know this from private notes I have received to date. But this "all or nothing" approach is, of course, a product of manifest neo-geocentrist exaggeration as to the authority and nature of the ecclesiastical documents that address geocentrism. For the Catholic who knows his faith, the truth or falsehood of geocentrism has no impact whatsoever on his trust in the Catholic Magisterium.

Unfortunately, these neo-geocentrist fanatics are heedless of the damage they may be doing to others' trust in the Magisterium—all in order to open some glimmer of plausibility for their pet theory to be part of our faith. And this once again proves my point. To all appearances they will do anything to hang on to the "pebble" of their private fixation on geocentrism, even to the point of making a shipwreck of their faith and the faith of others.

On Credibility, Conspiracies, and Caution

2011-07-08T12:53:00.002-05:00

As I had begun to write this piece, word went out from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity about evidence they have found regarding significant wrong-doing by their member, Fr. John Corapi. I had been told about this breaking scandal a few weeks ago by a friend, who was absolutely convinced that Fr. Corapi had done nothing wrong and that the whole thing is a set-up. Indeed, there are hundreds, if not thousands of Catholics who, at least right now, believe that "They" are out to get Fr. Corapi.

It's a theme that plays out again and again on the Internet. "They" are all lying to you. "They" are all trying to lead you astray. "They" are all corrupt. Now, let me tell you the "Real Truth" that "They" don't want you to know. (And oh, by the way, won't you buy my book and send me a generous donation so that I can continue my important work of exposing "Them"?)

Watch out.

Fr. Corapi had a reputation for "telling it like it is", for being blunt and bold in his teaching. People like that, they gravitate toward it. And now, with allegations breaking out about his personal conduct, some refuse to look at any evidence that might call Father's credibility into question. It is all about him. "They" are out to get him.

And yet, the evidence is coming in and with it serious questions about his credibility. Phil Lawler has an excellent piece on this—"Corapi: Why were warning signs ignored?"—which can serve as a paradigm for other such situations.

An Emerging Pattern

What other such situations? Well let's say someone claims to be a "prophet" and insists that "They" is an entire ethnic group. Maybe "They" are the Jews, who are alleged to be the "slave masters" and somehow responsible for more or less anything bad that happens. Let's say that someone claims that "They" represents pretty much every scientist for the past three hundred years, including eminent Catholic and other Christian scientists, who, with respect to the true nature of the universe "Know It, But They're Hiding It" from ordinary people. Or let's say that someone claims that "They" are all the popes of the last three hundred years and all the bishops in communion with them, who should have been teaching against what is claimed to be a "formal heresy" but who have been inept or cowardly, duped by conspiracy and subterfuge or purposely subversive.

With claims like those, wouldn't you say that this "prophet's" personal character and credibility might just be an important factor in evaluating how seriously to take such claims?

I've been bemused in the ongoing debate over neo-geocentrism that whenever the general credibility of its main proponent, Bob Sungenis, is called into question the hue and cry goes up from his supporters that it's a fallacious ad hominem attack. Here's just the latest example:

It never fails to amaze me how when the subject of geocentrism is discussed on the Internet on forums such as this you will almost invariably find people engaging in immediate ad hominem attacks against those individuals who have expressed a belief in geocentrism. This is especially true in the case of Robert Sungenis (posted by James B. Philips).

What makes this complaint particularly amusing is that it's deployed in defense of a person who has an entire appendix in his book Galileo Was Wrong entitled, "The Personal Lives of: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein". And not just there, but throughout the pages of both volumes of GWW, Bob accuses those men and others of a whole panoply of moral failings including lying, subterfuge, homosexuality/pederasty, adultery, occult practices, plagiarism (oh, what irony!—see below), theft, and murder. He seems to have no problem with weaving these observations into his public talks. Bob clearly believes that these alleged moral failings are germane to the discussion of whether their scientific views are correct. But his own behavior is somehow off-limits when it comes to these discussions. This is just one more example of "one standard for me and another for thee" when it comes to Bob Sungenis.

Wikipedia notes on the argumentum ad hominem that:

The ad hominem is normally described as a logical fallacy, but it is not always fallacious; in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue. (my emphasis)

Now, a genuinely fallacious ad hominem attack would be something like, "Fr. Corapi must be guilty because you know how those Italians are," or "You can't believe a word Bob says because he's Italian." (Which is in practice what Bob does with Jews, by the way—if you're a Jew or he even suspects that you might be a Jew, you're suspect.)

But there is no logical fallacy in saying that the views of someone who regularly proves himself to be sloppy, inaccurate, and at times downright malicious ought to be taken cum grano salis, with a hefty grain of salt.

What About Bob?

So what about Bob? It seems clear that Bob loves to stir up dissension, animosity and controversy because he's been doing it for the better part of 35 years. In Surprised by Truth, he fittingly entitled his autobiographical account, "From Controversy to Consolation." According to Sungenis himself, he left the Catholic faith in early adulthood and spent the next 18 years embroiling himself in one controversy after another. In his conversion story, Bob reveals something significant about his temperament and his manner of searching for truth. For example, here's his account of a conversation with a friend named Gerry Hoffman who disagreed with him in regard to religion:

"My conversation with Gerry [Hoffman] was different. Even though I gave him a few of the standard objections to Catholic doctrines, for some reason, his answers did not make me feel combative. In fact, his explanations made me feel like listening instead of attacking. As those who knew me at that time would have attested, this was not my normal response to a conversation about politics or religion -- especially religion."

There are numerous other examples in his autobiographical conversion story that illustrate his penchant for creating dissension, animosity and controversy (see e.g. here).

The time of "consolation" to which he refers occurred immediately after his reversion to the Catholic faith. At that time, he had a season of grace and relative peace that allowed him to produce his fine “Not by” series. Sadly, that season passed and he's returned to his old ways.

For the past decade, he's returned to extreme controversialism – attacking and slandering Jews, his own bishop, and many others. We have recently taken the opportunity to yet again defend Bishop Kevin Rhoades against Bob's unjust attacks. In this vein I wrote:

Given the seriousness of the charge and the office of the one against whom it is leveled, I think it’s very fair to ask, is this the sort of man to bring a charge against a successor of the Apostles? Has he been fair and just in his dealings with others? Has he comported himself well with those who are outside our Faith? Has he been responsible and accurate in his handling of his sources? Does he have the marks of a “prophet”, as he self-styles himself?

Does Bob have the credibility to support such serious accusations? The record indicates not. Although this incident with Bishop Rhoades is the most egregious example, unfortunately there is a long-standing pattern of this sort of behavior from Bob.

Long-standing indeed. A partial list of additional individuals to whom Bob has attributed inaccurate or fraudulent quotes include: Pope John Paul II, Gen. Tommy Franks, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Congressman John Rarick, mathematician Clifford Truesdell, Benjamin Ginsberg, Gen. Ariel Sharon, Carl Sagan, David Brooks, Jerry Falwell, Bill Cork, Leon Suprenant and Mike Sullivan of CUF, Roy Schoeman, Michael Forrest, Mark Shea, Christopher Blosser, Michael Lopez, and David Palm.

These are fully documented here: Sungenis and the Jews--Fraudulent Quotes

But the most egregious example by far is Bob's continued accusations against Bishop Rhoades, which the bishop himself has called "slanderous and erroneous". Bob has accused His Excellency of promoting a pro-Jewish heresy to “unsuspecting Catholics” because he has greater “allegiances” to Jewish causes than to the Catholic faith. The charges themselves are absolutely false, but to make matters worse Bob has attempted to prop up those accusations with a narrative that is shot through with demonstrable falsehoods and self-contradictions. This has been documented here:

Bishop Rhoades and the Dual Covenant Theory

A Defense of Bishop Rhoades from More False Accusations by Robert Sungenis
Sungenis' Own Standards of Heresy: Why Don't They Apply to Bishop Rhoades?

He's back to attacking popes (see here). When he's confronted about his behavior, he typically lashes out and blames everyone else. He even accuses his critics of secretly being Jews (for but the latest case of this click here - go down to the last comment posted by Jared Olar). See also
An Open Invitation to Bob Sungenis

I alluded above to the rich irony of Bob Sungenis, of all people, accusing Albert Einstein of plagiarism. It cannot be put more delicately than to say that Bob is a habitual plagiarist. According to the definition given by Bob's own alma mater, plagiarism is, "intentionally representing the words, ideas, or sequence of ideas of another as one's own in any academic exercise; failure to attribute any of the following: quotations, paraphrases, or borrowed information." A large body of evidence for his literary theft has been marshaled here, but I would urge the reader at the very least to read two pieces that document the most egregious examples: Dr. Bill Cork's "Antisemitism and the Catholic Right" (section 3) and my own "Sungenis Comes Full Circle". There Bob's words are placed side-by-side with the sources from which he plagiarized them. He has recently reproduced the essay critiqued in "Sungenis Comes Full Circle" in his most recent "book" The Catholic/Jewish Dialogue and put it on sale—particularly ironic considering the fact that Bob previously sought to redefine "plagiarism" by restricting it solely to those materials which one steals and then sells for personal gain. Even by Bob's own self-servingly restricted (and false) definition he's certainly committed plagiarism now.

Bob now owns a phony "Ph.D." from a New Age diploma mill. He self-styles himself as a "prophet" in the tradition of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. He claims that, for centuries, the popes have submerged and obscured what is really the official teaching of the Catholic Church on geocentrism. And on the scientific front he sets his personal views of cosmology against the studied consensus of the entire scientific community for the past three hundred years.

Bob regularly peddles a whole panoply of conspiracy theories including, but not nearly limited to: NASA faked the lunar landings, the attacks of 9/11 were an "inside job" and the Jewish owner of WTC Building 7 purposely leveled that building with pre-set explosives, NASA creates crop circles to "get our minds off the Bible and Christ", the Jews sent Monica Lewinski in to take Bill Clinton down because they didn't like his foreign policy toward Israel, and so on....

And this kind of thinking even muddles his biblical commentary, which he and most people consider his greatest strength. For example, he has insisted in multiple places that the “context” for Romans 11 and St. Paul’s teaching on the Jews is the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70, which took place at least twelve years after Romans was written and 3 years after St. Paul was dead! On this and other related issues see “The Theology of Prejudice”, “The Pope’s ‘Blunder’ or Sungenis’ Prejudice?”, and “Sungenis on Romans 11: Theological Bias in Biblical Exegesis”. Notice too that Bob hasn't been able to get an imprimatur on any of his works for many years now, having been turned down multiple times (see here.)

Returning to the topic of neo-geocentrism, it seems to me that Galileo Was Wrong is just more controversialism and sensationalism brought forth by someone trying to make a name for himself. He’s repeatedly misused the name “Catholic” to give him an appearance of authority that he doesn’t rightly possess – harming the Church in the process – and that’s exactly why he was told by his bishop to stop calling his organization “Catholic.”

Why Don't They See It?

One thing that has long puzzled me is how certain individuals continue to cling to Bob as credible long after they should have known better. In part this can be explained by a phenomenon that we noted long ago, namely, that the more Bob's apostolate comes to be defined by fringe conspiracy theories the more he will draw his supporters from like-minded crackpots and cranks. Crackpots and cranks are, by definition, seriously lacking in common sense.

But this is not to suggest that Sungenis' small group of followers is comprised exclusively of dimwits and social misfits. For example, the Media Director at Robert Sungenis' website, Laurence Gonzaga, has a master's degree in child psychology and will soon be working to earn his doctorate in psychology. He has a nice conversion story, is a catechist at several parishes in the Diocese of San Bernardino, and seems like a bright young man. But, especially in light of his training in psychology, it's particularly odd that Gonzaga doesn't seem to see the problems with Bob, his behavior and the content of his teachings.

I know this is a lot of information. But in light of the sad, unfolding Fr. Corapi debacle, I thought it important to bring forth. Everybody likes a straight shooter. But when there are warning signs that something is seriously amiss, prudence says you'd better watch out. The warning signs are all over this. Don't let your loyalties be blind.

The upshot of all of this is that matters of character and credibility are highly important, especially if someone is claiming to be a "prophet" while peddling sweeping conspiracy theories. As we continue to explore the various aspects of neo-geocentrism and its supporters' claims to be in possession of the "true" teaching of the Catholic Church and the "real" scientific truth, it makes a lot of sense to consider the source.

Neo-geocentrism: Excessive Interest in Usury Comes to Naught

2011-06-15T06:41:00.000-05:00

The neo-geocentrist fixation on their pet cause is like a monkey who reaches into a precious Ming vase to grasp a pebble. Intent only on holding onto that bit of rock and unable to extract his clenched fist, the monkey will happily smash the vase to get his "prize", heedless of the priceless nature of the treasure he has wrecked.

It looks to me as if at least some of these individuals will do anything to hang onto their private judgment that geocentrism is taught as an article of faith, even if it means (were it possible) smashing the Catholic Faith itself. On Dave Armstrong's blog, one "johnmartin" (a pseudonym) was perfectly content to assert that, “I’ve presented a list of doctrines that have been de facto denied by the modern church” and “I believe the church silence on the matter of geo[centrism] in the last 300 years is easily accounted for through either inept leadership or fear of the science establishment”. Three hundred years of doctrinally inept and cowardly Popes—gee, what faithful Catholic could fail to be content with such a simple explanation?

He offered as "proof" for this supposed ineptitude a whole panoply of issues which the Catholic Church had "stopped teaching": the sinfulness of contraception, the indissolubility of marriage, the nature of and need for the sacrament of matrimony, the sinfulness of homosexual behavior, the inerrancy of Scripture, the Virgin birth, and the establishment of the sacrament of Holy Orders by Christ himself. It was painful to have to point out to this fellow Catholic the obvious, namely, that the Magisterium has explicitly taught each and every one of those things, right up to the present day.

To his credit, neo-geocentrist Rick Delano didn't join "johnmartin" in this brazen Church bashing. But he deployed his own example which he contends is the only other one that matches geocentrism: usury. According to Rick these two constitute the "unique" examples in all of Church history in which the Catholic Church has simply stopped teaching a doctrine of the Faith:

Posted Thursday, July 29, 2010 6:31 PM By Rick DeLano

I have, as I said, personally been the beneficiary of several hours of direct instruction from Father Sweeney. I can assure my fellow bloggers on this thread, that any question of his fidelity to, familiarity with, or ability to expound (to at least seventy five levels of historical development), the teachings of the catechism, is, for me, beyond the slightest question. The man is simply a treasure, and I am going to do my utmost to try and get one of my sons up there to enroll in his course of study and, as a bonus, to make Father Sweeney's life miserable with questions concerning, especially, the surrender of the dogmas against usury and geocentrism (hello Father Sweeney!)

And,

Rick DeLano said...

I hope that all defenders of geocentrism will be sensitive to the ambiguity inherent in this (and only this- plus one other to my knowledge) instance of the magisterium proposing a binding doctrine under the ordinary magisterium, and then abandoning- not reversing!- it.

The unique nature of these two instances- the other being the condemnation of usury- require the utmost care in extending the same latitude the Church Herself extends. . . .

Fri Nov 19, 11:50:00 PM EST

(My emphasis.)

So is Rick right? Has the Catholic Church "surrendered" the dogma of usury? Does geocentrism have at least one lonely companion in doctrines supposedly "abandoned" by the Church?

Nope. Since Galileo's time the doctrine of usury has been reaffirmed by the Magisterium numerous times, right up to our present day. The only way this view gets any traction at all is if people embrace the mistaken view that usury is identical with interest-taking, or with excessive interest. Neither view is correct (the tongue-in-cheek title of this article aside). My own contribution to this question in This Rock magazine, which I now consider to be somewhat simplistic but still essentially correct, may be found here.

Misunderstandings aside, the magisterial view of usury has been reiterated numerous times. The most solemn instance is, of course, Pope Benedict XIV's 1745 encyclical Vix Pervenit, On Usury and Other Dishonest Profit. And Pope Leo XIII wrote in Rerum Novarum §3 in 1891:

The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men.

From the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X (1908):

9 Q: Is it only by theft and robbery that another can be injured in his property?

A: He can also be injured by fraud, usury, and any other act of injustice directed against his goods.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2269 (1993):

The acceptance by human society of murderous famines, without efforts to remedy them, is a scandalous injustice and a grave offense. Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them.

From Pope John Paul II, Address to the Members of the National Council of Anti-Usury Foundations (1999):

I know well, dear friends, the difficulties that you face. But I know that you are determined and united in fighting this serious social evil. Continue to combat usury, giving hope to individuals and families who are its victims. The Pope encourages you to pursue your generous work to build a more just society, one of solidarity, and more attentive to the demands of the needy.

From Pope John Paul II, General Audience (4 February 2004):

Finally, three final precepts are listed for our examination of conscience: to be faithful to our word and to our oaths, even in those cases where the consequences will be detrimental to us; not to practice usury — a plague that is a disgraceful reality even in our days that can place a stronghold on the lives of many people; and finally to avoid all corruption in public life, another commitment that we could also rigorously practice in our time . . .

From Pope John Paul II, General Audience, (10 Nov 2004):

The first false god [is] the violence which humanity unfortunately continues to resort to even in these bloody days,. . . Accompanying this idol is an immense procession of wars, oppression, perversions, torture and killing, inflicted without any trace of remorse. . . . the second false god is robbery which is expressed in extortion, social injustice, usury, political and economic corruption.

From the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church §323 and 341 (2004):

The prophetic tradition condemns fraud, usury, exploitation and gross injustice, especially when directed against the poor . . .

Although the quest for equitable profit is acceptable in economic and financial activity, recourse to usury is to be morally condemned: “Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them”.[714] This condemnation extends also to international economic relations, especially with regard to the situation in less advanced countries, which must never be made to suffer “abusive if not usurious financial systems”.[715] More recently, the Magisterium used strong and clear words against this practice, which is still tragically widespread, describing usury as “a scourge that is also a reality in our time and that has a stranglehold on many peoples' lives”.[716]

From the Compendium to the Catechism of the Catholic Church §508 (2005):

508. What is forbidden by the seventh commandment?

Above all, the seventh commandment forbids theft, which is the taking or using of another's property against the reasonable will of the owner. This can be done also by paying unjust wages; by speculation on the value of goods in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; or by the forgery of checks or invoices. Also forbidden is tax evasion or business fraud; willfully damaging private or public property; usury; corruption; the private abuse of common goods; work deliberately done poorly; and waste.

From Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience (2005):

The heart of this fidelity to the divine word consists in a fundamental choice of charity towards the poor and needy: ‘The good man takes pity and lends ... Open-handed, he gives to the poor” (vv. 5, 9). The person of faith, then, is generous; respecting the biblical norms, he offers help to his brother in need, asking nothing in return (Deuteronomy 15: 7-11), and without falling into the shame of usury, which destroys the lives of the poor.’

I would be the first to agree that additional catechesis would help the faithful to better understand the necessary distinction between usury and the taking of interest. But it is patently false to claim that there has been a "surrender" or an "abandonment" of the doctrine of usury. It is explicitly taught by the Magisterium to this day and this alleged parallel with geocentrism fails completely.

Of course the parallel fails in another way too. The Holy Office, with the Pope's approval, gave positive permission in 1820 for non-geocentric views to be disseminated in the Church. The Church has given her imprimatur and nihil obstat to dozens, perhaps hundreds, of works that present a non-geocentric cosmology as fact. Pope Benedict XV stated openly in a papal encyclical that it's not at all problematic to hold that the earth isn't the center of the universe. Popes Leo XIII and Pius XII made official in papal encyclicals the Tradition expressed best by Sts. Augustine and Thomas that the sacred Scriptures do not contain details of the physical universe, but rather speak in ordinary language according to what appears to men. Popes Pius XII, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI have praised Galileo and John Paul II has stated publicly that the handling of the Galileo case rested on "errors". The Magisterium has given the faithful every indication that they need not have any scruple to hold to non-geocentric views of the universe. There is no possible parallel here to usury, which has been consistently and repeatedly condemned.

Which only goes to show you that you can't get away from the fundamental axiom that if you start with a bad premise you will inevitably reach a bad conclusion. Geocentrism was never taught as a doctrine of the faith by either the ordinary or extraordinary Magisterium. That is the simple reason why there is no reiteration of it. No need for exaggerations, conspiracy theories, ineptitude, or cowardice.

I know this is incredibly shocking and controversial, but ordinary, faithful Catholics can feel perfectly comfortable—and orthodox—while holding to a non-geocentric view of the universe. Not that that will stop the neo-geocentrists from making a wreck of their own faith as they cling to this pebble of a scientific theory, of course.

NB: I will be posting a continuing series of essays on various aspects of neo-geocentrism. Until the series is complete comments will be disabled.

Neo-geo Exaggerations: The Catechism of Trent

2011-06-09T15:18:00.026-05:00

In my last piece on neo-geocentrism I pointed out how neo-geocentrists consistently exaggerate the nature and authority of the various ecclesiastical documents that touch on the topic.

Another example of this may be found in how they treat some passages in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. Here's what a leading neo-geo has to say about it:

One of the clearest official and authoritative statements from the Catholic Church defending the doctrine of geocentrism comes from the catechism issued under a decree of Pope Pius V, known as The Catechism of the Council of Trent or more simply, The Roman Catechism. (Bob Sungenis, GWW2, 163).

"One of the clearest official and authoritative statements"....keep that phrase in mind as we look into this a little further. Bob deploys several passages from the Roman Catechism to try and make this case. Here's one of them:

He also gave to the sun its brilliancy, and to the moon and stars their beauty; and that they might be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years. He so ordered the celestial bodies in a certain and uniform course, that nothing varies more than their continual revolution, while nothing is more fixed than their variety.

Now a lot of non-geocentrists are going to look at that and say, Okay, but I agree with that. How exactly does that clearly teach geocentrism? Bob deploys another passage from the Catechism of Trent to try and answer that:

Rather, to expel any doubt about what objects are revolving the catechism adds that the sun, moon and stars have a “continual revolution.” Although the unspecified reference to “revolution” might cause a heliocentrist to infer that the sun’s revolution does not necessarily mean it is revolving around the Earth, a few pages later the catechism disallows that inference by stating the following:

The earth also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world, rooted in its own foundation and made the mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place which he had founded for them.…

The problem for Bob is the context that he left off after the ellipses makes his application of this passage to the earth's place in the universe untenable. Let's have the whole passage, including what he omitted:

The earth [terram] also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world [mundi], rooted in its own foundation, and made the mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place which he had founded for them. That the waters should not inundate the earth, He set a bound which they shall not pass over; neither shall they return to cover the earth. He next not only clothed and adorned it with trees and every variety of plant and flower, but filled it, as He had already filled the air and water, with innumerable kinds of living creatures.

While mundus can mean "universe", it can also just mean "world", e.g. Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur, "The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived." But from the whole context it appears that the Catechism is using the word "earth" (terra) in terms of the "land", as distinct from the "air" and "water" and the word "world" (mundus) to mean the whole globe. (This echoes the wording of Gen 1:10, "And God called the dry land, Earth [terram]".) Thus in this context "rooted in its own foundation" means that the land is fixed in place with relation to the water, not in relation to the cosmos. If "earth" here means the entire globe then the passage ceases to make sense, since in the last sentence the "earth" is specifically contrasted with the "air" and "water" and God certainly didn't cover the entire globe, including the air and water, "with trees and every variety of plant and flower".

This passage, then, doesn't represent a description of the globe's place in the universe and it has no application to geocentrism. I should note that the English version of this Catechism by J. A. McHugh and C. J. Callanon which appears in many places on the Internet (e.g. here) has the heading "Formation of the Universe" over this section. This is a mistranslation of the Latin, De terrae creatione, which is correctly translated "Creation of the earth" (as in, e.g. the translation by J. Donovan (link). It is perhaps this mistranslation—along with an insufficient attention to context—that has misled certain neo-geocentrists to read this as if it addressed the earth's place in the universe.

There are a couple of other passages Bob cites to try and bolster this notion that the Catechism of Trent teaches geocentrism, but they get weaker and weaker.

But though God is present in all places and in all things, without being bound by any limits, as has been already said, yet in Sacred Scripture it is frequently said that He has His dwelling in heaven. And the reason is because the heavens which we see above our heads are the noblest part of the world, remain ever Incorruptible, surpass all other bodies in power, grandeur and beauty, and are endowed with fixed and regular motion.

...all goods both natural and supernatural, must be recognised as gifts given by Him from whom, as the Church proclaims, proceed all blessings. If the sun by its light, if the stars by their motion and revolutions, are of any advantage to man; if the air with which we are surrounded serves to sustain us...nay, those very causes which philosophers call secondary, we should regard as so many hands of God, wonderfully fashioned and fitted for our use, by means of which He distributes His blessings and diffuses them everywhere in profusion.

Obviously, non-geocentrists can affirm all that this Catechism says. There is no explicit affirmation of geocentrism here whatsoever; these are generic statements that fit modern cosmologies equally well. Yet despite the weakness of this evidence in favor of his pet cosmology, Bob speaks of the "Roman Catechism’s dogmatic assertion of geocentrism" (GWW2, pp. 164f.). This is a manifest exaggeration.

We have seen that, far from containing a "dogmatic assertion of geocentrism", the Catechism of the Council of Trent says nothing at all on the subject. The evidence strongly suggests that this is a modern, private interpretation of the Catechism based on a mistranslation and a misunderstanding. The following fact should pretty much clinch that case. Bob claims that this is, "One of the clearest official and authoritative statements from the Catholic Church defending the doctrine of geocentrism. . . " But surely, if that were true, this would have been the very centerpiece in the original Galileo controversy. And yet this source was was never, as far as I have seen, brought up either by the Congregation of the Index or the Congregation of the Holy Office during the Galileo affair. The silence is deafening.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent does not teach geocentrism as an article of faith. And of course, the Church's next universal Catechism, promulgated by Pope John Paul II, also says not a word about geocentrism either. And yet the Holy Father stated in Fidei Depositum IV:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith.

"[A] statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine..." But not a peep about geocentrism. That silence too is deafening.

Neo-Geo Double Standards and Exaggerations on Magisterial Documents

2010-12-22T08:50:00.119-06:00

Jane: I don't know what we did, but it must've been something dreadful.

Michael: He sent the police after us and the army and everything.

Jane: Michael, don't exaggerate.

One thing I have noticed in reading neo-geocentrist material is that so far, to a man, they materially exaggerate the nature and authority of the magisterial documents generated in the Galileo incident and, as a corollary, consistently downplay the nature and authority of the documents that have emanated from the Holy See since that time.

Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. presents a good summary that supports what I have already laid out elsewhere:

In the case of Rome's 17th-century insistence on geocentrism, we have a teaching which: (a) was promulgated only in disciplinary documents, not in formally doctrinal ones; (b) was never promulgated directly and personally by any Pope, only indirectly, through the instrumentality of the Vatican Congregations of the Index and the Holy Office; (c) was endorsed by the papacy for only 141 years (1616-1757); (d) was never greeted with the emphatic and morally unanimous endorsement of the world's Bishops, only a respectful acquiescence; and (e) never in any case affected the concrete lives and destinies of any more than a handful of professional scientists such as Galileo. (Roma Locuta Est - Causa Finita Est)

Father makes some important points. I would emphasize with him that the documents with which we are dealing are uniformly disciplinary—he is correct that the Catholic Church has never issued any doctrinal decree affirming, geocentrism. And he is right that there is no document specifically on geocentrism "promulgated directly and personally by any Pope". But that is not how the matter is presented by the neo-geocentrists. They consistently exaggerate the authority of the relevant documents.

I first noticed this when dialoguing with one "Cassini" (a pseudonym) on the Catholic Answers Forum. I noticed that he consistently referred to the 1616 decree from the Congregation of the Index and the 1633 decree from the Congregation of the Holy Office as "papal decrees". This is an error of fact, plain and simple. I said in my reply to him:

the 1616 and 1633 decrees concerning Galileo were not “papal decrees”. Period. They were issued by Roman congregations. A papal decree and a decree from a Roman congregation are two different things. No amount of cajoling can make one into the other. In fact, the Catholic Encyclopedia states that the 1633 decree “did not receive the pope’s signature”.

In fact, neither decree was actually signed by the Pope. I will return to this point in a moment. For now it is sufficient to note that these are not papal decrees. But they are consistently presented by neo-geocentrists as if they are. In an extended discussion on Dave Armstrong's blog, "johnmartin" (also a pseudonym) spoke of the 1616 and 1633 decrees as "Papal statements". And neo-geocentrist Mark Wyatt edited the Wikipedia article on "Modern Geocentrism" to say this: "three popes have made official declarations against Galileo and Copernicus' writings (as well as other heliocentric writings) and in support of the geocentrist viewpoint" (Wikipedia, "Modern Geocentrism", 21 Oct 2005).

But the prize for the most egregious exaggeration has to go to Bob Sungenis, who recently wrote: "all the popes prior to the last 100 years were directly preaching against heliocentrism." Really now? Every Pope, from St. Peter to St. Pius X was "directly preaching against heliocentrism"? An interesting assertion, but total nonsense. It is distinctly reminiscent of Sungenis' false claim on his other fixation—the Jews—that, "all popes prior to the [sic] Vatican II have made very strong statements against fraternizing with the Jewish religion" (documented here and here, section 8.) Sungenis' nonsensical exaggeration that "all the popes prior to the last 100 years were directly preaching against heliocentrism" strikes a stark contrast with Fr. Harrison's factual statement that "Rome's 17th-century insistence on geocentrism . . . was never promulgated directly and personally by any Pope".

Father Harrison's statement is a fact, but there is one seventeenth-century papal document that has at least some connection to the geocentrism controversy. It is a papal bull called Speculatores Domus Israel promulgated by Alexander VII. It is true that in some sense it touches upon the geocentrism controversy. But even here we find the neo-geocentrists materially misrepresenting the content and the authority of the document.

First, the facts. In 1664, Pope Alexander VII undertook to republish the Index of Forbidden Books. The Index at that time contained hundreds of works, spanning dozens of different topics. Along with the republication of the Index, Pope Alexander also attached the various decrees that had been promulgated by his predecessors in conjunction with various works being placed on the Index ("the aforesaid earlier classifications and annotations (wherever these exist) will be cited, along with the decrees by which the books were originally censured.") His stated reason for doing so was "quo rei ab initio gestae series innotescat," or, following Fr. Brian Harrison's translation, "In this way the case history of each censured book will be made known" (GWW2, p. 225).

The salient point to consider is that this papal bull was not about Copernicanism. It was about which books were to be placed on the Index. This fact is obscured by the way neo-geocentrists cite this bull. Yes, amongst the many decrees that were included were those connected with the various prohibitions of heliocentric works. But it does not place any special weight on heliocentrism, nor does it explicitly cite the text of any of the prior decrees, whether on heliocentrism or any other topic. It lends no additional weight to any of the decrees attached to it—rather, as Alexander VII states himself, his purpose was to establish "the case history of each censured book".

But what do neo-geocentrists do with this papal bull? First, they emphasize that this was truly a papal action, which is true as far as it goes. Some Vatican documents are reviewed by the Pope and ordered to be published by him, but they only carry the authority of the curial dicastery that actually wrote the document and do not carry the authority of a papal document or act. Such documents are referred to as having been approved “in forma communi.” Other documents are reviewed by the Pope and approved by him in a special way such that they are officially made “his own” and therefore acquire the full authority of a formal papal act. Such documents are referred to as having been approved “in forma specifica.” When a Pope wants to elevate the weight and authority of a document from “in forma communi” to “in forma specifica” all he must do is to sign it with the Latin phrase “in forma specifica approbavit.” (Consecrated Phrases: a Latin Theological Dictionary, p. 62)

But while it is true that Speculatores Domus Israel represents a papal action put forward in forma specifica (with papal authority), we need to ask, for what purpose was that authority invoked? To promulgate a doctrinal decree on heliocentrism? No. It was invoked to promulgate a disciplinary document.

Now neo-geocentrists will on the one hand admit the importance of this distinction. Speaking of Alexander VII's bull, one neo-geo plays up its importance by appealing to its approval in forma specifica:

In this way, the pope’s decree against books teaching heliocentrism was in the forma specifica venue, one of the highest magisterial vehicles for the dissemination of papal authority. (GWW, vol. 2, p. 224).

Interestingly, in his response to me, this same individual took a dramatically different tack when the distinction between in forma communi and in forma specifica was to his disadvantage. In that case, he soft-pedaled the fact that the 1616 and 1633 decrees of the Congregation of the Index and the Holy Office were both approved only in forma communi, not in forma specifica ("Response to David Palm on the Galileo Issue", p. 10). While this double standard is telling enough, his assertion elsewhere that the authority of another document promulgated by this same Pope somehow bleeds over to elevate the authority of Speculatores Domus Israel is downright silly:

What is significant about the genre of Alexander VII’s decree is not only its forma specifica venue but also how popes following him regarded Alexander’s previous decrees. For example, in Pius IX’s dogmatic declaration on the Immaculate Conception in 1854, he cites as supporting documentation the writings of Alexander VII more than any other pope. In reference to Alexander VII’s apostolic constitution, Sollicitudo Omnium Esslesiarum [sic] of December 8, 1661, Pius IX says Alexander VII “authoritatively and decisively declared the mind of the Church” (GWW, vol. 2, p. 226.)

So, according to his argument, Alexander VII issued an apostolic constitution, a document bearing the Church's highest authority. This apostolic constitution was on a topic entirely unrelated to Copernicanism. But it was cited by a later Pope. And this somehow automatically elevates the authority of all of Alexander VII's decrees, even one manifestly issued in a form bearing a lesser authority and on a disciplinary topic at that. Anyone who knows anything about ecclesiastical documents will see that this is utter nonsense.

Second, the neo-geocentrists play up various strongly-worded phrases in the document. Thus Pope Alexander states that he "approve with Apostolic authority by the tenor of these presents, and: command and enjoin all persons everywhere to yield this Index a constant and complete obedience..." (Wikipedia, Alexander VII). Certainly this is a strongly-worded phrase. But to what is it directed? Is it directed to establishing anti-heliocentrism as a binding doctrine of the Church? No, it is directed to the republication of the Index of Forbidden Books. Catholics are indeed expected to respect and obey the Pope, even in a disciplinary matter such as the Index of Forbidden Books. But again this does not make any particular thing on the Index a matter of binding doctrine. The Index itself was duly modified several times—including the removal of the various Copernican works—and was eventually done away with altogether. Clearly, then, these are matters of discipline and not of doctrine, even though certainly Catholics are expected to abide by the disciplinary injunctions of the Pope.

But the most egregious abuse of this papal document is when the neo-geocentrists misrepresent it as if its main topic was Copernicanism. For example, Mark Wyatt stated in his edit of the Wikipedia article on Modern Geocentrism: "Alexander VII, in a Papal Bull declared that 'the Pythagorean doctrine concerning the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun is false and altogether incompatible with divine Scripture' and the principles advocated by Copernicus on the position and movement of the earth to be “repugnant to Scripture and to its true and Catholic interpretation" (Wikipedia, "Modern Geocentrism", 25 Oct 2005.) This gives the impression that the central topic of the bull was the condemnation of Copernicanism. But this is simply false. The subject of the bull was the republication of the Index of Forbidden Books. Many decrees, not just those dealing with Copernicanism, were attached to this publication in order that a complete history may be established. And—this is important—in no case was the text of any of them cited in the bull. It is highly misleading to state, as Wyatt did, that Alexander VII's bull "declared" anything with respect to Copernicanism. It is false to present Speculatores Domus Israel as if its subject was Copernicanism.

The obvious proof that Speculatores Domus Israel was a disciplinary document is that the contents of the Index were duly modified several times and eventually the Index was done away with altogether.

So, to summarize, the Congregation of the Index, which issued the public 1616 decree, had as its competence which works should and should not be included on the Index of Forbidden Books. At that time it was ruled that works presenting the Pythagorean theory as a thesis rather than a hypothesis should not be read by Catholics and therefore a number of works that did so were put on the Index. It was therefore a disciplinary decree and not irreformable.

The Index of Forbidden Books was duly and authoritatively updated several times, including the deletion of all of the works concerning Copernicanism from the Index. This, then, covers not only the 1616 decree but also Pope Alexander VII's republication of the Index, prefaced by the papal bull Speculatores Domus Israel.

The 1633 decree of the Holy Office, which was also approved in forma communi, concerned the person of Galileo and his breach of the 1616 decree by continuing to publish books and teach the Copernican hypothesis as a thesis. This too was a disciplinary action against him. Yes, it was publicly announced, as the geocentrists have pointed out. But the Catholic Encyclopedia rightly states:

As to the second trial in 1633, this was concerned not so much with the doctrine as with the person of Galileo, and his manifest breach of contract in not abstaining from the active propaganda of Copernican doctrines. The sentence, passed upon him in consequence, clearly implied a condemnation of Copernicanism, but it made no formal decree on the subject, and did not receive the pope's signature. (Galileo)

The seventeenth-century Popes knew perfectly well how to promulgate doctrinal decrees binding on the whole Church. But they consistently refrained from doing so with regard to geocentrism.

(The neo-geocentrists constantly insist that only another formal, canonical trial can reverse the 1633 decree. They assert that "Canon Law" says so, while never actually citing Canon Law to that effect. They cite various private conversations or correspondences to try and establish this assertion, but never anything official or magisterial. Readers should always be aware of this lack of supporting evidence when evaluating such claims.)

I propose that the Church officially reversed the disciplinary actions of the seventeenth century as follows:

16 August 1820 The Congregation of the Holy Office, with the pope's approval, decrees that Catholic astronomer Joseph Settele can be allowed to treat the earth's motion as an established fact. . . .

11 September 1822 The Congregation of the Holy Office decides to allow in general the publication of books treating of the earth's motion in accordance with modern astronomy. . . .

25 September 1822 Pope Pius VII ratifies this decision. . . . (from Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 307)

Thus the Holy Office—the same Roman congregation that was involved in 1633—reexamined the issue and gave permission throughout the Church to present non-Pythagorean views of the solar system as theses rather than just as hypotheses, a reversal of the discipline expressed in the 1616/1633/1664 decrees. Note well that this is not simply a matter of removing books from the Index. This was an act of the Holy Office giving positive permission for Catholics to teach non-Pythagorean views of the solar system. This really is, then, the reform and reversal of the earlier ruling.

In addition, as I have already pointed out, the Church also laid out general principles on which such questions may be addressed. Pope Leo XIII stated in the papal encyclical Providentissimus Deus 18-19 that the Holy Spirit did not put any such information about the physical nature of the universe in sacred Scripture. This was reiterated by his successor Pius XII in Divino Afflante Spiritu 3. And this is bolstered by John Paul II in his speech to the Pontifical Academy of Science in which he echoes his predecessors by stating that, "the Bible does not concern itself with the details of the physical world" (here). As neo-geocentrist advocate "Cassini" has candidly admitted, "The only interpretation of note in the history of the Church that the encyclical [Providentissimus Deus] could be referring to was the fixed sun/moving earth heresy [sic]" (link). Neo-geocentrists have yet to propose any reasonable alternative issue that Leo XIII (echoed by Pius XII) was addressing.

Thus it is the official papal doctrinal teaching that the matter of geocentrism is not a matter of faith and morals and that Catholics are free to hold various views on cosmology.

But even if this were a matter of faith and morals the decrees of Roman congregations—especially those confirmed only in forma communi—are not infallible or irreformable. By definition "not infallible" means liable to err. As Ludwig Ott states:

With regard to the doctrinal teaching of the Church it must be well noted that not all the assertions of the Teaching Authority of the Church on questions of Faith and morals are infallible and consequently irrevocable. Only those are infallible which emanate from General Councils representing the whole episcopate, and the Papal Decisions Ex Cathedra (cf. D 1839). The ordinary and usual form of the Papal teaching activity is not infallible. Further, the decisions of the Roman Congregations (Holy Office, Bible Commission) are not infallible. Nevertheless normally they are to be accepted with an inner assent which is based on the high supernatural authority of the Holy See (assensus internus supernaturalis, assensus religiosus). The so-called "silentium obsequiosum." that is "reverent silence," does not generally suffice. By way of exception, the obligation of inner agreement may cease if a competent expert, after a renewed scientific investigation of all grounds, arrives at the positive conviction that the decision rests on an error. (Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 10; emphasis mine).

Numerous Catholic scholars and scientists of great erudition and fidelity to the teaching of the Church have concluded that, indeed, the 1616 and 1633 decrees of the Roman congregations do rest on an error. Indeed, a Roman Pontiff has explicitly admitted that there was an error. Pope John Paul II said publicly that, "The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture" and that "the sentence of 1633 was not irreformable . . . the debate which had not ceased to evolve thereafter, was closed in 1820 with the imprimatur given to the work of Canon Settele" (here).

It is clear that the Church considers this matter to have been officially dealt with and that Catholics have freedom to embrace the view of cosmology that they believe best fits the scientific evidence.

And my personal advice to the neo-geos — Don't exaggerate.

§

Pope Leo XIII On Literal Interpretation and the Unanimous Consent of the Fathers

2010-12-16T18:42:00.033-06:00

I mentioned on this blog that, unfortunately, there are some Catholics out and about noisily claiming that the view that the earth is the immobile center of the universe is a core part of the Catholic faith. I have already explained elsewhere why this view is untenable, but there are a few additional aspects of this issue that I want to examine over the course of the next weeks.

Much is made in neo-geocentrist circles about Pope Leo XIII's dictum that the exegete of Scripture is, "not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires" (Providentissimus Deus 15).

From this papal teaching, neo-geocentrists conclude that we are bound to what they claim is the "literal" interpretation of certain passages of Scripture, namely, that the sun revolves around the earth. But this claim is undermined by this admission made by a prominent neo-geocentrist writer:

the most important fact that is invariably missed by modern biblical exegetes who advocate heliocentrism is that Scripture's phenomenal language (e.g., the "sun rises" or the "sun sets") also applies to the geocentric system. In the geocentric system the sun does not "rise" or "set"; rather, it revolves around the Earth. When the geocentrist sees a beautiful sunset he does not remark: "Oh, what a beautiful revolution of the sun," just as the heliocentrist does not say: "Oh, what a beautiful rotation of the Earth." The geocentrist knows that the sun "rises" or "sets" only with respect to the Earth's horizon, and therefore, reference to a "rising sun" in Scripture is just as phenomenal in the geocentric system as it is in the heliocentric. (Galileo Was Wrong, vol 1, p. 226).

Here the neo-geocentrist seems not to realize that he has actually dismantled the geocentric appeal to Pope Leo XIII's dictum concerning the "literal and obvious sense" of Scripture. By admitting that both "geocentrists" and "heliocentrists" view these passages of Scripture as utilizing phenomenological language, he therefore admits that neither of them take these words in their "literal and obvious" sense. The literal and obvious interpretation of “the sun rises” or “the sun goes down” is that it literally goes up or down, not that it revolves around the earth and so it only appears to go up, or that the earth rotates on its axis so that it only appears to go down. There is nothing “literal and obvious” about taking the phrase “the sun rises” or “the sun goes down” to mean that the sun revolves or that the earth rotates. The words by themselves do not convey either meaning.

So, both “geocentrists” and “heliocentrists” interpret these words in light of what they believe to be the physical motions of various heavenly bodies. And even the geocentrist admits that the words themselves do not convey the details of the underlying physical reality. From the words themselves, one cannot determine which is correct - the sun revolves around the earth or the earth revolves around the sun. That information simply is not there.

A typical geocentrist response might be that some of the passages cited in support of geocentrism contain phenomenological language, but not all of them do. However, an examination of the passages cited reveals that, in fact, they do all employ phenomenological language. Passages like 2 Kings 20:11 and Isa 38:8 describe the movement of the sun’s shadow on a sundial, not the movement of the sun itself. And another prominent passage claimed for geocentrism, Psa 19:5-6, speaks of the sun coming forth from its “tent” and its “rising” - again, admitted above to be phenomenological language. [Please see my Addendum and correction at the end of this essay.]

Both the geocentrist and non-geocentrist agree that these passages are not to be taken literally, but represent the language of appearances, the phenomena that were visible to the observers. But once the geocentrist admits this, he can no longer appeal to these passages as if they literally describe the underlying physical phenomena. And once they no longer literally describe physical phenomena, then no case can be made from them concerning “the essential nature of the things of the visible universe” nor can any claim be made to Leo XIII's dictum concerning the literal sense of Scripture.

But the neo-geocentrist has a ready reply. What, then, of the teaching of Trent, Vatican I, and Leo XIII that we must never interpret Scripture contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers?

At least one neo-geocentrist has fixated exclusively on the words of a selected sentence of the First Vatican Council and claimed that, on that basis, any view expressed by the Fathers, even if they do not cite Scripture, even if they make no indication that it is a matter of faith and morals, falls within the sphere of the “unanimous consent” to which we are bound (see here). It is bad enough that this ignores the previously section of Vatican I that specifically mentions “faith and morals”. But it also ignores the clarification that Pope Leo XIII made when discussing both Trent and Vatican I:

His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in renewing the decree of Trent declares its "mind" to be this - that "in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church, whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers." (Providentissimus Deus 14; my emphasis).

It is only in matters of faith and morals that the unanimity of the Fathers binds. This is the teaching of Trent, Vatican I, and Leo XIII.

Now, keeping these two points in mind, we progress to Providentissimus Deus 18 where Pope Leo XIII explicitly states that in areas where the writers of sacred Scripture utilize "more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses", the Holy Spirit "did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation"

Therefore, both the appeal to Pope Leo XIII's reference literal sense of the text and the appeal to a supposed unanimous sense of the Fathers fails to establish any obligation on a Catholic to interpret various passage of Scripture in support of geocentrism.

I have already touched upon the events of the seventeenth century in connection with the Galileo case and have explained why I do not believe that even those official ecclesiastical actions constitute a binding of Church to geocentrism as a matter of faith. I hope to return to address some details of those actions in future postings. But to summarize here:

Since 1) it is in matters of faith and morals that the Church exercises her authentic magisterium and 2) it is only on matters of faith and morals that the unanimity of the Fathers may be invoked as binding and 3) Pope Leo XIII and Pius XII made absolutely clear that the Holy Spirit "did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation", therefore it cannot be said that the Church ever taught geocentrism as a matter of faith in her ordinary magisterium. And it is admitted even by the neo-geocentrists that she has never done so in her extraordinary magisterium. Geocentrism is not now, nor has it ever been, a part of the Church’s ordinary magisterium (on this, see also Jeffrey Mirus, Galileo and the Magisterium: a Second Look)

[ Addendum:

It has been pointed out that the specific argument I used in the first edition of this essay with regard to Joshua 10:13—namely, that the sun is said to go “down” demonstrates that the biblical author employed phenomenological language—is incorrect because the Hebrew text does not actually include the word “down”. This is true and I appreciate the correction.

Although that specific argument would have strengthened my case, it still stands more than sufficiently without it. To demonstrate this, I’d have recourse to another phenomenon that has been enlisted by neo-geocentrists, namely, the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. At Fatima, tens of thousands of people saw this event, as described by journalist Avelino de Almeida: "Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was biblical as they stood bare-headed, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws — the sun 'danced' according to the typical expression of the people." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

Here we have another miracle concerning the sun (and let me note at the outset that I do consider both the Fatima event and the event recorded in the book of Joshua to be miracles). The eyewitnesses indicated that from their vantage point the sun moved. But the fact is that this was not a universal phenomenon. It was a localized apparition. We know this because the only people who saw this phenomenon were those at Fatima and the Holy Father in Rome. No one else in the world reported witnessing this event. But the language used by the witnesses to describe the miracle, by itself, does not tell the reader whether this was a localized apparition or a universal event.

And this is precisely the point I was making in the essay—that is the nature of phenomenological language. To return to the text of Joshua, we can see that were this a localized apparition rather than a universal event the language would be the same. A poster on the Catholic Answers Forum put it well:

(1) If there was a natural explanation, then it wouldn't strictly be a miracle. (2) It certainly was a miracle. (3) In fact I believe it was the same sort of miracle that took place at Fatima.  Note, however, that in neither case is it necessary to assume that either the earth or the sun actually departed in any way from their ordinary motion. Why? Because in neither case were these miracles witnessed by the entire world. The miracle at Fatima was witnessed only by those present at Fatima, and by the Pope in Rome. Not a single other person in the entire world reported seeing the sun dance and fall towards the earth that day, which is a huge indication that the motion of the sun at Fatima was a localized vision, not a true physical displacement. Likewise with the miracle of Joshua: nobody else in the entire world reported seeing the sun stand still (or refuse to rise) for 24 hours. Not a single pagan culture existing in the world at that time recorded that event in their history. You know what that tells me? That Joshua's miracle of sun was a localized apparition, not a true physical cessation of any celestial motion. Now, am I denying that God could have moved the heavenly bodies in such a miraculous manner, if He had so chosen? No, I'm not denying that. I'm simply saying that, even though He could have, it certainly doesn't look like He did. Instead, as usual, He chose to be significantly more subtle. (http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=6714255&postcount=138)

Two counter-arguments may be addressed briefly by way of anticipation. First, I anticipate that my reply will elicit yet another exaggerated appeal to a supposed “unanimous consent of the Fathers” on Joshua 10:13. The main thing to keep in mind when discussing this matter of the Fathers viz-a-viz geocentrism is that, as Popes Leo XIII, Pius XII, and John Paul II have made clear, geocentrism is not a matter of faith. Nor is it ever presented as such by any of the Fathers of the Church. The same writer on the Catholic Answers Forum summarizes well:

…providing quotes which prove that the Church Fathers personally held geocentrism (which is all John Salza does) is not the same as providing evidence that they held it to be a a [sic] revealed truth of the Christian faith. In fact, none of the Church Fathers (much less all of them) ever made such a claim. Again, let me point out that when Saint Thomas argues for geocentrism in the Summa, he argues based on the observations of a natural scientist and a pagan: Ptolemy. Not a single Church Father. Not a single passage of Scripture. Ptolemy. Geocentrism is a question for natural science, not a truth of the Catholic faith. (http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=6714246&postcount=135)

Second, there are those who claim that various alleged accounts of a "missing day" in certain ancient cultures and even "proven" by NASA. This notion was popularized by one Harry Rimmer in 1936. Rimmer put forward no substantial evidence for his assertions and there as been much written subsequently to undermine his credibility. See here, here, and here, for just a few sources. As for the various accounts brought forth from other cultures, any accounts of an allegedly common event would have to be documented as accurate and shown to present the event as having occurred on exactly the same day, otherwise the "evidence" would be useless to establishing anything more than a local apparition. Suffice to say that if one examines these alleged witnesses closely, it turns out that they are highly variable and conflicting. Thus their combined testimony does nothing to establish the events related by Joshua 10:13 as a global and indeed cosmic event.

As the author of Galileo Was Wrong states:

God’s omnipotence has no limits. There are innumerable ways God can accomplish the task at hand if and when the normal laws which govern the universe are set aside to make room for God’s divine ingenuity (GWW2, p. 66).

That is correct and thus a Catholic is not bound to any specific understanding about how God wrought the miracle related in Joshua 10:13f. But this passage by no means necessarily implies, let alone proves, a geocentric universe. ]

§

A Cardinal Comes Home

2010-12-16T18:42:00.012-06:00

My wife must just look particularly quotable to reporters. This is the second time at a Catholic event that she's been approached by a reporter for comment. The first one was another event at which then-Archbishop Raymond Burke ordained two men to the priesthood in the traditional Roman Rite, the first time that had been done by the prelate of a major See in his own cathedral since the promulgation of the Pauline Rite.

My family got to know Bishop Burke when he was the relatively new bishop of La Crosse, some twelve years ago. We have been privileged to have him as a dinner guest in our home and to interact with him on a number of occasions. The Diocese of La Crosse has a remarkable number of traditional Latin Mass apostolates for such a small diocese. The reason for that is Bishop Burke. Bishops throughout the country are now more and more bold in confronting dissident Catholic politicians in their flocks. The reason for that is Bishop Burke. He has truly been a leader in the episcopate of the Catholic Church. But the funny thing is that he is one of those men who really did not want or seek "higher office". He was simply chosen, essentially against his will. I think that bodes well for what God has planned for him.

We were both disappointed and yet pleased to see him move from La Crosse to become Archbishop of St. Louis. Then we were both disappointed and pleased to see him moved to the Vatican to become the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. But now we are just plain pleased to see him elevated to Cardinal.

The first American Pope? But let us pray that it may be so.

So what did my wife have to say to the media?

Lorene Palm of Westby, who brought her children to attend the Mass, said it was exciting to have a cardinal come from this diocese.

"We're thrilled."

And that about sums it up.

§

Geo What?

2010-12-06T21:19:00.014-06:00

Yes, alas there is a group of Catholics out and about arguing that it is a core part of Catholic teaching that the earth is the immovable center of the universe and that all the other bodies of the universe revolve around the earth.

My own commentary on the matter to date may be found here:

Geocentrism: Not at All an Infallible Dogma of the Catholic Church

The key to that whole commentary is the teaching of the Popes that the Holy Spirit did not put details about the physical universe in sacred Scripture:

There can never, indeed, be any real discrepancy between the theologian and the physicist, as long as each confines himself within his own lines, and both are careful, as St. Augustine warns us, "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known."(51) If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St. Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so."(52) To understand how just is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation."(53) Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us - `went by what sensibly appeared,"(54) or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to (Providentissimus Deus 18; my emphasis).

This teaching was reiterated by Pope Pius XII in Divino Afflante Spiritu 3. The attempts I have seen to bolster the claim that Leo XIII and Pius XII couldn't really be talking about geocentrism here are ridiculous. Indeed, the apparent motion of the sun with respect to the earth is the classic example of phenomenological language that is, "in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science". Bottom line is that if the Holy Spirit did not put such details in sacred Scripture, it's not a matter of faith.

I am most concerned with the theological implications of holding geocentrism as a matter of faith. As I argue in the article cited at the top of this entry, I believe that it results in a de facto denial of the Catholic Church's indefectibility. But I have examined the proposed scientific evidence for the view and find it implausible, to say the least.

Here are some good sources looking at a variety of aspects of this question:

Geocentrism Disproved: How Newton's Laws Prove the Sun Orbits, by Ken Cole

As the Universe Turns: Is it physically possible for the whole universe to orbit the earth?, by Gary Hoge

Dialogue on the Center of Mass of the Universe: Why the earth can't be the center of mass of the universe, by Gary Hoge

Dialogue on the Center of Mass of the Universe, Part 2: Why the earth can't be the center of mass of the universe, by Gary Hoge

Geocentrism: Was Galileo Wrong? by Dr. Ethan Siegel

Flogging a Pink Unicorn: Why Modern Geocentrism is Intellectual Blancmange, by Dr. Alec MacAndrew

Here is some great commentary by a couple of science-savvy homeschooling moms:

The New Geocentrism
Up-to Date Cosmology
Relative Claims to Absolute Truth
Geocentrism -- where's the physics?
A final note on geocentrism

Also see Dr. Jeff Mirus', Galileo and the Magisterium: a Second Look and Dr. Thomas Lessl's The Galileo Legend and Dave Armstrong's "No One's Perfect": Scientific Errors of Galileo and 16th-17th Century Cosmologies Rescued From Inexplicable Obscurity.

§

The Jewish People in Salvation History

2010-12-01T08:53:00.011-06:00

The Catholic Tradition has always seen that there is a place for the Jewish people in salvation history, even after the establishment of the Church by the Messiah, Jesus Christ. The Church is indeed the New Israel, but that does not mean that God is simply finished with Israel according to the flesh. I have written on this in several places and wanted to collect those essays in one place:

The Ongoing Role of the Jews in Salvation History

Here's a piece that I co-authored with Michael Forrest for publication in Lay Witness magazine:

All in the Family: Christians, Jews, and God

And here is a response to some criticism that was leveled against that article:

A Response to a Critique of "All in the Family"

Here is another short article co-authored with Michael Forrest responding to some comments by Bishop Cyril Bustros in the wake of the recent Synod of Bishops for the Middle East:

On the Relationship Between the Jewish People and God (the final comment below this article contains some additional detail in response to the feedback we got.)

§

As Through a Veil

2010-08-30T15:42:00.009-05:00

I have many times intended to put up a posting on the beautiful Catholic tradition of women covering their heads for Holy Mass. It's a fascinating topic to me and there are numerous angles from which to approach it.

Suffice, for starters, to say that I have found convincing the following analysis by a canon lawyer on whether the practice is still legally binding:

The Truth Unveiled: Head Covering Still Obligatory for Women Attending Mass

Apologist Patrick Madrid has also found this argument convincing and adds the helpful comment: "The fact that 'nobody does this anymore' is not a good reason not to observe this venerable Catholic custom." (The fact is, though, that this practice has not been universally abandoned, Deo gratias.)

But why does it matter? Surely there are more important things to discuss. I understand the position of those who don't consider this a very big deal. But here's why I consider this to be a sort of "paradigm issue".

We know that there are Traditions with a big "T" that are binding on all Catholics, that must be held in order to be a Catholic in good standing. And then there are traditions with a little "t", the various practices and customs which express, foster, and uphold our faith in myriad ways.

During the revolution of the past decades, two major things happened. First, many Catholics became convinced that, because they are at least in principle mutable, the traditions (small "t") could be changed willy-nilly. This turned out to be naive, I think, but I'm sure there were many individuals who went down this path in good faith. A second more sinister occurrence is that certain individuals and groups knew perfectly well that changing certain practices, small-t traditions, would actually change the faith of the people.

A good example of this is Communion in the hand. Yes, it was practiced in the early Church, so it's not intrinsically wrong. But in every Catholic Rite, from East to West, it had been discarded centuries ago as a practice fraught with practical and doctrinal difficulties. It was resurrected by the Protestant revolutionaries precisely in order to undermine faith in the Real Presence—they knew that some little-t traditions are pretty tightly coupled to the big-T Traditions they support and express. And then during the post-V2 liturgical revolution it was resurrected once again, not by the faithful, but by modernist prelates and groups like Call to Action. Do we have to wonder as to their motives?

It seems that in the aftermath of the liturgical revolution and now well into the counter-revolutionary phase, we have come better to understand the crucial role small-t traditions play in passing on the big-T Traditions in their integrity.

The veiling of women during the sacred liturgy has a much more venerable traditional pedigree even than Communion on the tongue, having been explicitly commanded by the Apostle and practiced universally from East to West until into the twentieth century. And what were the societal factors that were pushing for women to remove their head coverings? Were faithful groups like Catholics United for the Faith agitating for this, or was it not rather groups like the National Organization for Women with a very different agenda?

There are many Catholic truths expressed by this beautiful tradition, but one of them surely is the importance of gender distinction in God's created order—certainly that would seem to be expressed in St. Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor 11. Gender confusion is one of the greatest ideological challenges of our time. At the very moment when the prevailing culture was clamoring to flatten all gender distinctions, in the Catholic Church we saw the (illicit) abandonment of a major liturgical expression of that very truth. And with nothing put in its place to fill the void.

At least when Latin Rite Catholics in various countries were told to not to kneel anymore to receive Holy Communion, the injunction (albeit not very frequently obeyed) to approach the Sacrament with a profound bow was put in place to try and counter-balance the lost sign of reverence. But when women doffed the veil, what practice was put in its place to continue to express the Church’s teaching?

For these and other reasons, I see this as a perhaps small issue which nevertheless represents something much, much larger.

Perhaps that's precisely why this notion raises so many hackles, even among certain faithful Catholics. But I would ask one thing of those who are shocked, shocked I say at the notion that it might still be binding for women to cover their heads at Mass. Were you by any chance one of those Catholics who thought it was ridiculous for some of us to argue that the traditional Roman Rite, the "extraordinary Form" of the Roman Rite had never been legally abolished with the coming of the Novus Ordo? There were plenty of folks who did. Authors Kenneth Whitehead and James Likoudis laid out page after page in their book The Pope, the Council, and the Mass as to exactly how the traditional Rite had definitely been legally abolished—they considered it a certainty. And there was a certain plausibility to their arguments—it did indeed appear to be so. But there were nuances and principles involved that kept some of us from going along with the argument and continuing to insist that, despite certain appearances, the traditional Rite had not been legally abolished. Now, it turns out, they were wrong and we were right.

So, perhaps it would be worthwhile to keep an open mind about other potential examples.

A few counter-arguments have been offered to the idea that this tradition is still binding. Probably the most common one is a passage in Inter Insigniores. Here is the answer given by the individual who posted the canonical study to which I linked above, specifically treating the matter of this document:

Good, I was hoping someone would bring up "Inter Insigniores", from which your first point comes. There are several reasons why that little clause does not apply:

1. The direct and immediate object (or the "holding of the case", from a legal perspective) of that document was to affirm that only men could be admitted to the priesthood. The statement by Cardinal Seper on head coverings is obiter dicta, not essential to the holding and not binding as a pronouncement of law in any way. If this first point sounds overly legal to you, you shouldn't belong to a Church with a two millenia [sic] old tradition of canon law. Laws mean things, and rules matter.

2. The Cardinal was referring, not to women covering their head in church, but merely to the custom of women covering their hair everywhere, as had formerly in some parts of the world been the case. Read his exact words. There is nothing that compels the conclusion that he was referring to liturgical veiling. To say otherwise would be to say that the Cardinal intentionally made a somewhat seditious statement-- as this document came out before the 1983 Code and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the Canon 1262 was binding.

3. This document was issued by the CDF, which does not have competence over liturgical law. If this document was designed to amend the Code of Canon Law of 1917, it would have to had come from the Pope himself. If it was designed to change liturgical law, it would have come from the congregation with the comptetence [sic] to do so.

(NOTE: there are two types of approval a congregation's documents can receive from a Pope: in colloquial english general and specific. Specific approval [forma specifica] is necessary for the document to be binding with papal authority. Inter Insignores was of the first kind-- general. Summorum Pontificum was of the second kind-- forma specifica)

(in the comments to "Patrick Madrid Weighs in on the Veiling Debate")

I think those are cogent reasons demonstrating that that passage of Inter Insigniores was not intended to, nor could it, overthrow a canon in the 1917 code—even if it was addressing the liturgical practice, which is in doubt, it lacked both the competence and the authority to do so. And the argument of the author of the canonical study demonstrates, I think, that even after the promulgation of the 1983 Code the practice of veiling stands both as a liturgical law and as an immemorial custom.

Certainly, the strongest argument against the practice still being binding is the complete lack of enforcement or even (more mildly) re-enforcement of the practice from the hierarchy. Strange to me that women are still expected to veil in the presence of the Pope, but not in the presence of our Lord. Still, it is my hope that there will soon be signals from Rome that, like kneeling for Holy Communion, this practice is indeed to be fostered anew.

In the end, though, I agree with those who have stated that this beautiful and venerable tradition will return by the voluntary practice of Catholic women, not on the basis of ecclesiastical legislation. It is happening and that is a very beautiful thing.

A Quote for Posterity

2010-08-06T15:33:00.009-05:00

One of my roommates during jump school at Fort Benning, summer of 1987, was a helicopter mechanic from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), also known as the Night Stalkers.

In reply to the old canard, "Why would anybody want to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft?" he would shoot back,

"Listen, I'm an aviation mechanic and I'm here to tell you that there isn't any such thing as a perfectly good aircraft!"

Airborne, all the way!

News Flash: Catholics Don't Always Agree

2010-07-30T15:41:00.005-05:00

Occasionally I am mentioned in a blog run by a Protestant apologist who frequently challenges the claim of the Catholic Magisterium to teach with clarity and authority by pointing out that Catholics sometimes disagree. If that sounds like a less than entirely convincing counter-argument, it is.

I pointed this out in the comments section of one his (many) postings highlighting some instance in which Catholic apologists publicly disagree on something. Sure enough, right on cue, one of his regulars chimed in:

"That's funny. I thought that was the very argument used to discredit Sola Scriptura. I suppose divisions only count when considered within the framework of Protestantism."

When I posted a link to my own piece pointing out how the differences within Protestantism differ in principle from those between Catholics, the blogger simply posted his own link to a different article. What was really funny though, is that in the comments section of that very piece, he admitted this:

"To my knowledge, Roman Catholics follow Trent's definition of Justification, and for the most part, they are unified in their misunderstanding of Justification."

I see. So in other words, when the Catholic Magisterium has defined some matter—the doctrine of Justification, in the specific example he cited—it is exactly as I said. Both those within and those outside of the Catholic Church understand what was defined. They may disagree with it, but they know what the Catholic Church teaches. As I stated in my own article:

Thus, the Catholic Church has spoken with clarity throughout the centuries; even her enemies, whether within or from outside the Church, unwittingly admit this. And this clarity is indeed in stark contrast to the inability of Protestants to agree on even central doctrines.

That is a fact. It stands. The other beautiful fact is that a living Magisterium can revisit a particular issue, if any confusion remains (the doctrine of infallibility does not hold that a given authoritative exercise of the Magisterium will be comprehensive and free from all ambiguity, only free from overt error.) As my friend Gary Michuta has said, the Protestant Christian is in a situation much like a student who only has the textbook. If he has a question he can but consult the textbook again, even while other equally earnest and learned students derive very different answers. But the Catholic has a living Teacher who can answer questions. And if perchance one of the answers isn't comprehensive or maybe is willfully distorted, then the students can ask the Teacher for clarification.

My rejoinder to this fellow was as follows: "So as I pointed out in my own blog piece, both friend and foe alike understand what the Catholic Church teaches on justification—as well as on many other issues. Are you still stating that this does not differ from the situation faced by the Protestant Christian with respect to Biblical interpretation?" No response.

Can any one of these folks please tell me where the Catholic Church has ever taught that, because we have a Magisterium, Catholics will agree on everything? No such thing has ever been part of Catholic belief. And the history of the Catholic Church is absolutely riddled with examples of Catholics disagreeing—sometimes vociferously—with each other. The notion that having an authoritative Magisterium will dispel any and all disagreement on any and every subject is silly, a perfect example of a straw man.

The simple fact is that there is a difference, in principle, between the clarity brought by the Catholic Magisterium and the chaos that reigns among Protestant Christians due to the doctrine of sola Scriptura and the principle of private judgment. There are some fairly good arguments put forth by Protestants in challenge to the Catholic Faith. But this one is simply childish.

A Little Help from a Friend

2010-04-02T20:45:00.002-05:00

I will have more to say about the latest scandal after the sacred Triduum, but this piece is just too great to leave until then:

The dictatorship of relativism strikes back—and goes nuclear

by Lutheran theologian, John Stephenson

A Yawning, Gaping Double Standard

2010-03-30T17:25:00.005-05:00

Those who know me well know that I am not a huge fan of George W. Bush. Quite frankly, I think his presidency was a disaster on multiple fronts. So let's get the "oh you're just a biased conservative" schmatza out of the way.

And I totally agree with the guy (from the link below) who wrote that, "anyone who threatens the president is breaking the law and should be prosecuted. . . . I support the arrest and prosecution of any person who threatens Obama or any president of the United States."

Any president. Just so we understand each other.

Now, I always think I'm not going to be surprised by the orwellian nature of our society anymore, but the article at this link just totally blew me away:

Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years

.....juxtaposed with, oh, say, MSNBC's Ed Schultz foaming at the mouth, insisting that only conservatives ever, ever, ever do such things:

Ed Schultz Melts Down

And I thought it was only conservative talk show hosts who were angry and abusive. Guess not.

The Coptic Connection

2010-03-24T08:36:00.013-05:00

I frequently ponder afresh my own journey to Catholicism from evangelical Protestantism. What were the main things that drew me to the Catholic Faith? Two things stand out: authority and continuity.

My friend Dave Brown, an Eastern Orthodox Christian, points out that the ancient Coptic Church provides some interesting insight into the nature of Christianity from time immemorial. In Protestantism's Eastern Blind Spot he notes that many of the theological and liturgical features that certain non-Catholic Christians consider to be medieval "inventions" are found fully-formed in Christian communions which separated from Rome and Constantinople hundreds of years before the Great Schism:

The Coptic Church demonstrates that a liturgical and sacramental theology permeated the Christian Church 600 years before the East-West Schism. At the very least, we can say that at the time of the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), a Protestant theological approach is light years away. Did it exist before then? Were there Christians in the Early Church who looked like the Evangelicals of today? If so, they left no mark in either the Ancient Churches nor in the writings of the Church Fathers in East or West.

I made a similar point in my essay "Review of David Bercot's Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up?"

Christians have always been distinctively Catholic in their doctrine and worship. The Protestant "Reformation" was not a return to a lost "pure Christianity" but was in many areas something entirely new and revolutionary. Even David Bercot's attempt to do the Protestant "reformers" one better by resurrecting certain early Christian traditions is seen to be both inconsistent and lacking true authority. It is futile to try to uphold Protestantism of any stripe through an appeal to the early Church and it is good to recall the words of John Henry Newman in this regard:

"So much must the Protestant grant, that if such a system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, silently, and without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of what it found in the Church, . . . Let him take which of his doctrines he will, his peculiar view of self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition; his notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious worship; his denial of the virtue of the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or of the visible Church; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the Scriptures as the one appointed instrument of religious teaching; and let him consider how far antiquity, as it has come down to us, will countenance him in it. No; he must allow that the alleged deluge has done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been swallowed up by the earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless."

Some Christians, like Bercot, begin to feel uncomfortable with a wholesale rejection of the early Christian witness and so begin to take that witness seriously on a few points. But as we've seen he lacks consistency. Other fundamentalists and Evangelicals are more consistent than Bercot. They recognize that the early Christians universally held to doctrines such as episcopal Church government, apostolic succession, baptismal regeneration, the Eucharistic sacrifice, et al. But because they consider these to be errors, they conclude that the corruption of the Church must have taken place even earlier than the reign of Constantine. Indeed, it must have taken place during the Apostolic age. So we don't even get a couple of hundred years or even a few decades of Christian light on the earth. On this view the true Gospel was swallowed up before the bodies of the Apostles were cold and was only resurrected, 1) by the so-called reformation started by Martin Luther , or 2) by the "restoration" of a Joseph Smith or some other latter-day "prophet".

But such a position flies in the face of the clear promises of our Lord Jesus Christ to prevent any such wholesale defection of the Church from the true faith. No, the only possible solution is to cleave to a Christian body that can trace its lineage all the way back to the time of the Apostles. Only such a body can have any reasonable claim to be the Church established by Jesus Christ. And when we look at those few such groups that still exist today—what we might call the apostolic Churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Copt, Nestorian, Chaldean, Armenian )—they have these beliefs in common:

• Three-fold, hierarchical Church government comprised of bishops, priests, and deacons.

• Belief in the apostolic succession of bishops from the Apostles. Belief that schism from these bishops places one outside the Church.

• Belief in the infallibility of this visible, hierarchical Church when her hierarchs meet in ecumenical council and give an authoritative definition on a disputed doctrine.

• Belief in sacred Tradition alongside sacred Scripture as a means by which the Apostolic faith is transmitted to and in the Church. This entails a rejection of the modern doctrine of sola Scriptura.

• Seven sacraments: Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation/Chrismation, Holy Orders, Annointing of the Sick, Confession, Matrimony. That these sacraments are a true means of grace.

• Belief in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, a true transformation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ (whether or not they use specifically Aristotilean language to describe this change.)

• Belief in the Eucharist as the sacrifice of the New Covenant wherein the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ is re-presented by the priest to the Father and the graces that flow from that infinite sacrifice are made present and applied to Christians in time.

• Baptism of infants.

• Liturgical worship, in imitation of the heavenly liturgy.

• Belief in the necessity of obedience to Christ for justification. This entails a rejection of the new-fangled doctrine of sola fide, justification by faith alone.

• Veneration of the saints and prayers for their intercession.

• Veneration of the relics of saints and martyrs.

• Veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, requests for her intercession, belief in her absolute holiness throughout her life, belief in her status as Theotokos (Mother of God), belief in her perpetual virginity, and belief in her bodily assumption into heaven.

• Prayers for the faithful departed and belief in their purification before entering Heaven.

• Consecrated individuals living the religious life (monks and nuns.)

• Practices such as the use of incense, holy water, fasting, iconography, the sign of the Cross.

The historical record makes clear that this list represents the very minimum of the apostolic deposit.

My list above is hardly authoritative, but hopefully it is illustrative. It highlights one of the two great themes in my own conversion, continuity.

Evangelical Protestantism can claim many things to its credit, but one thing it certainly cannot claim is historical continuity back to the time of the Apostles. Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism, on the other hand, can each credibly sustain the claim of continuity. So in that arena the issue of authority looms largest. For me, the evidence for the divine establishment of the papacy remains convincing. But as a Catholic and traditionalist, I do at times resonate with my Eastern Orthodox brethren in finding certain exercises of the papal office to be problematic, difficult to reconcile with that very continuity to which we cling. It's an interesting dynamic, this collision between two fundamental aspects of the life of the Church. It highlights why, at least for this reluctant traditionalist, issues of continuity and authority remain always in the forefront of my thoughts.

Goodbye Old Friend

2010-03-08T09:18:00.016-06:00

My eldest daughter came to me this morning with teary eyes and the word we've been expecting for several days now--"Cody is dead."

Cody, an American quarterhorse, came to live with us in the fall of 2005. He was the first horse we had ever owned. His working life had been spent out West, cutting cattle, the job for which quarterhorses are bred. His was a hard life before he came to live with us and he literally had the scars to prove it.

I called Cody our "Been There and Done That" horse. He was unflappable and I trusted him. He was the kind of horse who would tolerate children and their rambunctious ways. And he carried literally dozens of children on his back in the years he was with us.

Cody was a good "learner" horse, an animal that my Emily could saddle herself and learn the basics of riding. He would occasionally get grumpy or balky, especially if he hadn't been ridden in a while. But he had been well trained and shown a firm hand he would rise to the occasion.

Of course, he wasn't above a few naughty antics, like the time he ran Emily right under some low-hanging branches in our yard and she was forced to make a hasty dismount.

But he was usually good for a peaceful ride on a summer morning....

...or an exhilarating canter across the field...

But he was old. He had a lot of problems with his teeth. It became more and more difficult for him to eat and every winter he would lose a lot of weight. He was getting uncertain in his footing and last fall Emily took a serious tumble when Cody stumbled and fell. This winter he seemed to be doing fairly well. But four or five days ago Emily came in from chores to say that he was down.

Pneumonia seemed the most likely diagnosis. We started him on penicillin and he did get back up on his feet. But he never recovered. Sometime in the night he lay down and breathed his last.

But even today we keep watch over his pasture companion Star, our Jersey cow, who is due to calf, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, but very soon. On a farm new life always follows death.

Cody bore his precious burdens--my children--nobly and well. We have many happy memories of him.

So goodbye, old friend. We will miss you.

Are You Anti-Semitic?

2010-02-19T12:19:00.028-06:00

Every month or so, I get an e-mail from one "Diego Milagro", aka "Mark Taormino", aka "Mark Verse", aka "Yitzhak Goldberg", aka "John Apostolico", etc. Always they highlight some evil thing that some Jewish person or group has done or said. To that end, I suppose they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jews, like the rest of us, are inheritors of Original Sin and therefore are (gasp!) sinners. But what they're intended to prove is that the Real Problem with the world is Jewish influence, Jewish control and, of course, Jews themselves. And apparently some of us Catholics share the blame, so says Joseph Bellinger: "They persist in these outrages because they consider Christians to be spineless milquetoasts - and for the most part, they are. So realistically speaking, expect their behaviour to become more egregious in the future. Christians EMPOWER them when they refuse to act" (e-mail of 30 Oct 2009). And according to Dr. Edgar Suter, (who sometimes "follows up" on these e-mails and who, for all I know, may actually be "Diego", et al.), certain Jews behave in anti-Christian ways because, "change agents like you encourage them in their anti-Christ Torah religion" (e-mail of 28 Oct 2009). Other tender tidbits from Suter include this blast in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's promulgation of a new Good Friday prayer:

Certainly the synagogue of Satan is quite experienced in the combined arts of shadow play and managed opposition. Of course Foxman will not be truly happy unless the Noachide Laws can be enforced so that we "idolators" who worship "that man" will be liable for execution. I find no satisfaction that Foxman is not yet in a position to ensure that "the best of the Gentiles should all be killed." [Sopherim 15, rule 10]. As for those impostors "who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie," Jesus was quite clear about their parentage at John 8:44, was He not? Abraham and Moses, but not the sons of the devil, are my elder brothers. (e-mail of 7 Feb 2008.)

Now judging by their private and public missives, these are the sort of fellows to whom you would reply, "What would you want us to do, burn down a synagogue or two to keep them in line?", to which you almost expect them to reply, "Well, it'd be a start......" What makes it a real laugh-riot (if such a topic can be funny) is that these fellows would vociferously deny that they are anti-Semitic. How do they pull this off? They insist that the notion of anti-Semitism is purely genetic, that you can only be anti-Semitic if you hate Jewish people because of their blood-line. Since they don't hate Jews because of their genetics—but just for their religious identity as "anti-Christs", "the synagogue of Satan" and seemingly everything they think, do, and say—then they're not anti-Semitic.

That's one extreme.

The other is the tendency to throw the anti-Semite card at the least provocation. So for example, Rush Limbaugh was recently accused by Abe Foxman of the ADL of "borderline anti-Semitic" remarks after Limbaugh stated, quite factually, that for certain "prejudiced people", the word "banker is a code word for 'Jewish'". So by some, even if you simply state the views of other people who may indeed be anti-Semitic, you're branded with the same label. But Norman Podhoretz, in his defense of Limbaugh, counters Foxman in part by noting that it's hard to find "so loyal a friend of Israel as Rush Limbaugh", which brings up another facet in the ever-expanding umbrella of what it means to be anti-Semitic. You see for some, unless you are an ardent and indeed sycophantic fan of everything the nation of Israel does, you're anti-Semitic. So when Hedy Epstein, a Jewish survivor of the Shoah, spoke out concerning alleged human rights abuses against Palestinians, she was automatically branded as anti-Semitic:

The mainstream, organized Jewish community, both locally and in other places, have called me anti-Semitic, a self-hating Jew. I'm not anti-Israel, but you're not allowed to criticize Israel or else you're anti-Semitic, and if you're Jewish you're a self-hating Jew. I don't hate myself. You're allowed to criticize every other country, including the U.S., but not Israel, why is that? ("Holocaust survivor explains why she became Palestinian rights activist").

The same thing happened to another Jewish survivor of the Shoah, Dr. Hajo Meyer. After speaking out about his beliefs concerning Israeli actions in Gaza, "His comments sparked a furious reaction from hardline Jewish lobby groups, with Dr Meyer branded an ‘anti-Semite’ and accused of abusing his position as a Holocaust survivor" ("Auschwitz survivor: ‘Israel acts like Nazis’").

And of course if one simply upholds traditional Catholicism and its belief in the universality of salvation through Christ, that's considered anti-Semitic too. So, when Pope Benedict XVI promulgated a new Good Friday prayer for the traditional Roman Rite, that was immediately denounced in certain Jewish circles:

Around the world, millions of Catholics are celebrating Good Friday, when they commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But for many Jews, this year's ceremonies leave a bitter aftertaste, due to a controversial new version of a prayer that many claim is anti-Semitic. ("Leading German Rabbi Condemns Pope's Good Friday Prayer")

So I'm sure that by the über-broad definition I too would be considered anti-Semitic. I firmly uphold the belief that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all men, Gentile and Jew, and that all men are called to embrace Christ for the salvation of their souls. And I don't consider myself a Zionist, being quite agnostic about whether Jews have any divine right to the land of Israel but downright certain that, even if they do, such a right could never excuse Israel from the requirements of morality and international law. I agree with Mark Shea when he said:

Now I believe in the natural right of a people to a homeland, so I have always supported the right of the Jewish people to theirs. (For the same reason, I think Palestinians should have a homeland.) I also believe the Jewish people remain Chosen and that the Old Covenant, though not salvific, can only be fulfilled in Christ, not abolished by man . . . . But I do not believe it follows that the State of Israel is therefore granted supernatural status. And I think the tendency of many conservatives to do just this is a very good example of the pernicious effects of treating a tradition of men as Divine Revelation.

So when I ran the link along with my reader’s outraged note, I remarked

This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder how long American Evangelicals (and even some Catholics) can be snookered by the notion that Israel is something other than a secular nation-state. The Golden Calf appeal to Money, Sex, and Power evident in the commercial is perfectly representative of typically debased postmodern secular culture and has nothing to do with ‘fulfillment of prophecy’. Israel has the rights and responsibilities of any secular nation-state, but to concoct some notion that it gets special privileges as God's Chosen State is rubbish. (http://www.mark-shea.com/tradmen.html)

The bottom line is that it is indeed all too easy to throw the label around and doing so without adequate justification just cheapens the currency of anti-Semitism. More mainstream definitions of anti-Semitism include these:

Oxford English Dictionary: Theory, action, or practice directed against the Jews. Hence anti-'Semite, one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews; anti-Se'mitic.

American Heritage Dictionary: 1) Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism. 2) Discrimination against Jews.

Webster's Collegiate: Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic or racial group.

And according to those reasonable definitions, the fact remains that there is such a thing as anti-Semitism, just as there is such a thing as anti-Catholicism. Some readers of this blog may be aware that I have added my voice to many Catholic apologists who have found the writings of Robert Sungenis to contain a significant amount of material that can only reasonably be labeled as anti-Semitic (see here and here). But I suppose that one man's "prejudice" and "discrimination" might be another man's reasonable criticism or opposition. So by what standard would a Catholic arrive at the conclusion that a fellow Catholic's words or actions are anti-Semitic? By the only standard that really matters, the Golden Rule. Cutting through all the bandying about of definitions, we really only need to ask ourselves: If we were to substitute the words Catholic/Catholics/Catholicism into various writings that address Jew/Jews/Judaism, would we find them anti-Catholic?

In Sungenis' case, the answer is unfortunately very clear. I would say that the same is true of some of the writings of E. Michael Jones. And because of the research I've done lately as a result of this controversy, I've seen more and more of this sort of anti-Jewish material gaining ground in certain Catholic circles. One does not want to be needlessly naïve—there are many adversaries of the Catholic Church and indeed some of them are Jewish. And there are any number of really disgusting displays of generally anti-Christian and specifically anti-Catholic bigotry involving Jewish people and we should raise our voices in protest and do what we can to keep this a level playing field—no one should get a pass on bigotry simply because he's Jewish.

At the very least I want to be clearly on record here: there's nothing traditional or Catholic about bigotry and Catholics should denounce it when they see it—but especially in their fellow Catholics. Charity begins at home.

"All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the law and the prophets."

Feelin' it in the Gut

2010-02-16T11:15:00.012-06:00

Like many traditionally minded Catholics, I have often wondered whether it was truly a good thing that Lenten observance was made so relatively easy in our modern day. Under Da Old Rulz, all of Lent was meatless and the Lenten fast (only one full meal and two smaller collations per day) extended through all of Lent. (And further back than that, abstinence extended to milk, eggs, oil, and marital relations!)

There are some who are returning, bit by bit, to a more austere observance of Lent and finding there real spiritual benefit. One family I know began some years ago to eliminate meat from their entire Lent, starting with Fridays and adding one additional meatless weekday each year until the entire season is meatless. Sweets are eschewed throughout Lent as well. More of the fast days are observed. They say that the children (and the parents!) truly yearn for Easter, the Feast that breaks the fast, and I can well believe it.

Certainly there is a carnal aspect to this—I suppose it could be reduced only to that and one doesn't want to yearn for Easter merely because one gets chocolate and ham. But grace builds upon nature. With an empty stomach it is much easier to resonate spiritually with the Psalmist who proclaims, "For He satisfies him who is thirsty, and the hungry He fills with good things" ( Psalm 107:9) It is easier to identify, at least in a small way, with our Lord's heroic fasting: "And He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry" (Matt 4:2). It is easier to enter into the spirit of penitence and yearn for the much needed mercy of the Lord: "'Yet even now,' says the LORD, 'return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.' Return to the LORD, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love" (Joel 2:12-13).

Great Lent is upon us. God be with you all.

So Who Interprets Just Like Me?

2010-02-09T14:51:00.017-06:00

You know how once in a while you will read something that is stated just exactly the way you wish you would have stated it yourself? I just ran onto that in a great conversion story by Tom Cabeen in the February 2010 newsletter from The Coming Home Network. Tom came to the Catholic faith out of a Jehovah's Witness background. Part of his search for truth very closely parallels mine. In my own conversion story published in This Rock magazine I wrote:

what was my standard of orthodoxy, the Bible or the creeds? If I appealed to creed or "the universal belief of the Church" in order to declare something unorthodox, was I not following something besides Scripture alone? This raised questions that I couldn't answer: What is orthodoxy? What is the standard of Christian orthodoxy? I began to suspect that it couldn't be just the Bible, because none of us could agree on what the Bible says. All appeals to the Bible can be countered with a different interpretation or an outright rejection of the authority of the Bible. Increasingly I turned to the creeds and to a nebulous collection of the "universal beliefs of the Church" to assure myself that what I believed was orthodox.

Tom says this differently and really captures this particular dynamic beautifully. He writes:

During my research, I kept running across references to the "Early Church Fathers." . . . What surprised me is how they applied the Scriptures. There was no official collection of Christian Scripture when these writers put pen to parchment, but they did quote from writings which later became part of the Christian canon. Often they applied a familiar passage in a way that was completely new to me. I was intriqued by the implications of this fact.

I began to see that the Bible is not self-interpreting. Most passages can be understood in more than one way. The problem is not resolved even if one is familiar with the original languages, as were all the ancient writers. Clearly, some parts of the sacred writings are to be taken literally, some metaphorically, others allegorically or figuratively. How do we sort out which is which? I had paid a lot of money for excellent commentaries, yet often I was surprised at the variety of explanations of a given passage I found among respected commentators from differing Christian traditions or denominations.

Slowly, I came to understand that there is simply no reliable way to determine if a particular Christian teaching is true [NB: here I would say "orthodox" rather than "true"] based only on whether or not it is logical, reasonable, and seems to be supported by "proof texts" from Scripture. Some other source of authoritative interpretation is needed. Some Christians expect to receive individual guidance from the Holy Spirit; others rely on scholarship, historical sources, or reason. But none of these methods produces consensus among all commentators or interpreters.

I finally realized that this is why every single denomination uses written materials in addition to the Bible, whether a catechism, commentaries, books, tracts, or other publications. No one just hands a Bible to a potential convert and says, "Read the book and you will understand the Christian message completely and clearly." Every Christian teacher must add explanation to Scripture in order to communicate the full Christian message.

I am reminded of a very aggressive Protestant apologist who is seldom left at a loss for words. But I have seen at least one question posed to him for which he was completely unable to come up with a reasonable answer. This particular person is a Reformed Baptist by doctrinal conviction and is vociferous that the Scriptures are perspicuous, that is, they are in all important points sufficiently clear that the ordinary person can discover their true teaching. But this person has been asked several times to explain how it is that, if the Scriptures are indeed perspicuous and they perspicuously teach the Reformed Baptist faith, we just can't find any Reformed Baptists in the early centuries of the Church? Indeed, we don't seem to find any of them until well into the seventeenth century. As Baptist scholar Dr. James McGoldrick states in his scholarly study into claims that earlier groups qualify as Baptist:

[A]lthough . . . groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern Baptists, when judged by standards now acknowledged as baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a Baptist church. Baptists arose in the seventeenth century in Holland and England (Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History. ATLA Monograph Series, No. 32. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994, p. 2).

Seems like if those doctrinal tenets are clearly taught in Scripture, somebody prior to the seventeenth century would have put them all together. I have yet to hear a really good answer to this challenge.

Now obviously just pointing out that Scripture is not self-interpreting does not by itself validate the claims of the Catholic Church. It's not a standalone argument--"See there, your system doesn't work so mine must be true." But it definitely keeps us focused on just what sort of "system" (to use a clumsy word) our Lord put in place to perpetuate the Christian faith. Did He really make it fundamentally dependent on a pastiche of writings that would not be definitively gathered into a collection for centuries and would be inaccessible to your average Christian for many centuries more? Or did He make it fundamentally dependent on His Church, an extension of His own Incarnation? I think Tom's fascinating conversion story points us in the right direction.

Beware the Google Scholar, Redux

2010-01-28T11:15:00.012-06:00

Some time ago I wrote a piece called Beware the Google Scholar, warning of the dangers of unsubstantiated information passed around on the Internet. Well I recently took part in a discussion over on the Speak Your Mind forum. Upshot of that is that I came away kicking myself for entering into the discussion at all. Also convinced that there are many subjects that just should not be discussed in such forums. To quote The Honeymooners: "Will you tell me one thing, please? How do you get us into these fixes?

Very simple. Very simple Norton........Because I have a BIG MOOOOOOOOUTH!"

But on a specific note, I got caught being a GS. Not entirely a GS--I actually read the quote in a book (does that make me a BS'er?) In Iota Unum (pp. 9-10), Pope Paul VI is cited as saying, on Nov 23, 1973: "[T]he opening to the world became a veritable invasion of the Church by worldly thinking. . . . We have perhaps been too weak and imprudent."

Now, did I follow my own advice and really vet it before dropping it into the forum? Nope.

It appears that this quotation is actually from a general audience on Nov 21, 1973. Okay, two days off, but still an inaccurate citation. And although the author of Iota Unum does indeed at least question whether the Holy Father makes a general observation ("we") or applies the statement more specifically to himself ("We"), the context indicates pretty strongly the former. So the quotation, which has been picked up in certain circles to indicate a self-criticism by the Pope, really should not be deployed in such a way. And so, as I said before:

And such are the dangers of the Google scholar. Lesson: always, always, always check your sources for accuracy, but especially if you got the information from the Internet.

Mea culpa.

A Priest in Residence!

2009-12-09T16:18:00.021-06:00

After almost ten years of daily prayers to God, we have a priest in residence at our Institute of Christ the King apostolate in St. Mary's Ridge, WI! My family joined this apostolate fairly shortly after it was started and we've been regulars ever since.

There have been a lot of ups and downs over this time. For several years we had the traditional Latin Mass only every other week, in La Crosse. Then Bishop (now Archbishop) Burke moved us back out to St. Mary's Ridge, where the ICRSS got its start in the United States. Shortly thereafter, we had Mass every week, with an Institute priest making the 260 mile round trip virtually every Sunday to say Mass for us after he had already said two Masses at St. Mary's Oratory in Wausau, WI. There have been some wonderful diocesan and other priests who have occasionally filled in for us, but 99% of the time we have been served, faithfully, by the Institute of Christ the King. And let it be known that, although even my family has been unable to attend Mass on several Sundays due to bad weather over those years, not one single time, not once, has the apostolate been without a priest on Sunday. Always, they have found a way to get to us. Now that is a missionary spirit.

Through the years we have seen growth, but it has been slow. For starters, we're in a very rural area, so we are not near any major population center. In the early years we advertised the apostolate to try and attract individuals and families to the area. We actually got many dozens of calls, but we were inevitably confronted with the same question: "Do you have a priest in residence?" And usually (though not always!) when we had to say No, the interested party would look elsewhere. As I expressed several times to the Institute superiors, it was a Catch 22: We can't grow without a priest in residence, but in order to get a priest in residence we need to grow.

Still, we grew. And now we have a priest in residence. Canon Glenn Gardner has come to be our priest and, starting on the first Sunday of Advent, 2009, we had our first Sunday morning Mass in almost ten years, with some over one hundred people in attendance. Now there will be a regular Sunday Mass at 10:30 am and daily Mass will be at 7 am. See here for the most current Mass times.

It is really an amazing testament to the resurgence of the traditional Roman Rite and, I think in no small measure, to the complete normalization of that Rite by Pope Benedict XVI. So now we have that thing we have been praying for: normalcy. We just want to believe as our fathers believed and to worship as our fathers worshipped. So thank you to Almighty God. To the Blessed Virgin Mary. To all the holy souls of St. Mary's Ridge. To Pope Benedict XVI for Summorum Pontificum. Thank you to Archbishop Raymond Burke and Bishop Jerome Listecki for their support of the Institute of Christ the King generally and this apostolate specifically. Thank you to Institute Superiors, Msgrs. Gilles Wach and R. Michael Schmitz. Thank you to the Institute priests who have faithfully served us over the years: Canons Olivier Meney, Richard von Menshengen, Denis Buchholz, Andreas Hellmann, Glenn Gardner, and Henri Fragelli. And thanks too to the priests of the Diocese of La Crosse, especially Frs. Redfern and Moreno, for saying the traditional Latin Mass for us. May God bless you all.

And now, if anybody wants to know more about a traditional Latin Mass apostolate in the beautiful rolling hills of southwestern Wisconsin just remember......we now have a priest in residence. Drop me a line and let's discuss all the good reasons why you should move here to join us.

Kneeling for Holy Communion: Can't Be Any More Clear

2009-10-29T15:02:00.008-05:00

I've broached the topic of kneeling to receive Holy Communion two times on this blog. Although those of us who have maintained the traditional practice of the Roman Rite have been labelled, even by certain orthodox Catholics, as "disobedient", the fact remains that kneeling for Holy Communion has always been the norm in the Roman Rite and it has never been forbidden for any Latin Rite Catholic to kneel to receive our Lord in the Eucharist.

A friend sent me a link to this video of the question being posed to Cardinal Arinze. This is a refreshingly unambiguous response. Can't get any more clear than that.

No Different Than Protestantism?

2009-08-18T12:10:00.007-05:00

James Swan's Beggars All blog has some recent postings that assert an oft-repeated contention, namely, that the all-too-obvious turmoil in the Catholic Church today is no different than the divisions within Protestantism. I wrote a "Quick Answer" for Catholic Answers some years ago on this topic and I think it is still valid. As a traditionalist, I have to agree completely with a Protestant or any other sort of interlocutor who insists that it's a scandal for open "dissenters" (a euphemism for heretics) to be allowed to remain visibly within the bosom of the Catholic Church. The substitution of a modern "pastoral approach" to such rebellion instead of the traditional remedy of excommunication for public heresy and blasphemy has caused considerable harm. So their objection has a surface plausibility in today's context that it did not in days when ecclesiastical discpline was taken more seriously. Still, I would contend that there is a difference in kind, in principle between "dissent" within the Catholic ranks and doctrinal divisions within Protestantism:

Question:

I have heard a Protestant apologist say that widespread dissent in the Catholic Church is no different than the divisions in Protestantism and this proves that having an infallible Church to interpret the Bible is no better in practice than just reading the Bible by itself. How should I respond?

Answer:

There is a fundamental difference between the divisions that take place within Protestantism and the “dissent” that takes place in the Catholic Church. The divisions between Protestants take place because they cannot agree on what the Bible teaches on a host of issues. They continually claim that the Bible is clear and easy to understand, but their quarrels about the meaning of the Bible on all these issues undermine that claim. Their differences center fundamentally on how to understand their own central authority.

But the disagreements between orthodox Catholics and “dissenting” Catholics of various kinds are quite different. Dissenters agree with faithful Catholics that the Church does officially teach just what faithful Catholics insist it does—they just want that teaching to change. The question is never whether the Catholic Church officially teaches that contraception is wrong, or that homosexual acts are sinful, or that divorce and remarriage are not permitted, or that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood. Even between Catholics and Protestants the debate never centers on whether the Catholic Church really teaches transubstantiation, or veneration of the saints, or the Eucharist as a sacrifice, or the infallibility of the pope. All parties understand full well what the Church teaches on these and a multitude of other issues. They prove this by insisting not that the Church actually teaches something different, but rather that the Church is wrong and should change her teaching to conform to their own ideas. Groups such as “We Are Church” prove this by calling for the convocation of Vatican III in order to implement their agenda, thus admitting that their beliefs have never been part of the teaching of the Church, including Vatican II.

Thus, the Catholic Church has spoken with clarity throughout the centuries; even her enemies, whether within or from outside the Church, unwittingly admit this. And this clarity is indeed in stark contrast to the inability of Protestants to agree on even central doctrines.

All in the Family: Christians, Jews, and God

2009-07-14T09:33:00.004-05:00

Michael Forrest and I have presented our contribution to the matter of the relationship of the biblical covenants in this article in the current issue of Lay Witness magazine:

All in the Family: Christians, Jews, and God

The reader should also note a very welcome clarification issued by the USCCB concerning the controversial Reflections on Covenant and Mission statement that was issued by a sub-committee of the USCCB in 2002:

A Note on Ambiguities Contained in Reflection on Covenant and Mission

A Bad Argument is a Bad Argument

2009-05-11T12:15:00.061-05:00

I recently collaborated on a piece recently posted by Ben Douglass entitled Unsound Sticks, or, Arguments Catholics Shouldn't Use. The early response to the piece has been interesting. Protestant apologist James White found the piece "refreshing" but, rather disappointingly, has sought to make more hay over the list than I think is warranted, alleging that:

posting something like this, given that it would decimate the arsenal of the most popular Roman Catholic apologists on the web and on radio today, can't make Mr. Douglass and his associates the most popular Roman Catholics around, but you have to give them a lot of credit for honestly recognizing these issues (issues I have been raising for many years). So kudos to Mr. Douglass and his associates! And a word of advice to Mr. Douglass: put on your asbestos booties and gloves before opening the resultant e-mails from the likes of Dave Armstrong and all the others who are so dependent upon these very arguments.

And:

I know there are very sincere folks manning the fort over on the far side of the Tiber. I noted Ben Douglass' article on bad arguments that are heard with the drumbeat of regularity coming from Steve Ray, Tim Staples, John Martignoni, Patrick Madrid, Art Sippo and the rest of the pop Roman Catholic crowd. I appreciate that a small minority of those defenders actually listen to what we are saying and can set aside enough of their bias to actually hear a sound argument when it is presented.

White overstates his case here. It is true that certain Catholic apologists, even "mainstream" ones, have used one or more of the arguments in the list. It has even happened that some of these arguments have been used to "lead" in a discussion, perhaps giving the impression that they were really the best that could be offered, and that is unfortunate. But I personally consider many (most) of these arguments to be thoroughly peripheral. And certainly none of these arguments need serve as the foundation of anybody's "arsenal". Catholics can and do regularly deploy much better; as Ben notes, "There are so many good arguments for Catholicism that the religion will do just fine without the arguments on this list." Of course, one can only shake one's head at White's gratuitous accusation that only "a small minority" of Catholic apologists are capable of setting aside their bias enough to "actually listen." Pot, kettle, and all that.

Much more disappointing than the swagger from James White was the unfortunate blast from Catholic apologist Dr. Art Sippo, who took such affront at the list that he decided to excommunicate the lot of us:

You know, I wish that alleged "Catholics" would stop doing the work of the enemies of the Church and telling us what we should not do. I find the list puerile and frankly
ludicrous.

Hoo boy, speaking of a lack of charity (see point #3).......Sancte Hieronyme, ora pro eis.

Much better was the contribution from Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong who, despite White's expectations to the contrary, agrees in the main with the list. Dave expresses significant reservation on only two of the points, #2 and #8. On #2, whether it's a good idea to use the term "anti-Catholic", I don't think there's much actual disagreement; the point states that the term should be avoided, not necessarily eschewed altogether. And it makes a distinction that I think Dave agrees with, namely, that the label should only be applied to individuals who have demonstrated a personal bigotry and should not be willy-nilly deployed against Protestants and others who merely have a theological opposition to Catholicism.

On point #8 Dave had a particularly good rebuttal, I thought. He presented a number of Catholic exegetes and two Popes who uphold the interpretation that the piece suggests ought to be avoided. I would counter, however (and Dave comes close to expressing this himself) that the interpretation of 2 Pet 1:20-21 which the point warns against is a secondary implication from the text and not its primary meaning. Dave rightly points out that there is a better text close at hand: 2 Pet 3:15-16.

Perhaps not so good was Dave's retitling of the article as "Dumb Catholic Apologetic Arguments". We never said the arguments were "dumb" and it gives an unhelpful, contentious, and pejorative twist to whole thing. I'd respectfully point out the obvious: that when one puts quotation marks around something it usually conveys that the words were used verbatim. So here's my unsound argument (or at least unsound practice) #19:

19. Don't deploy a paraphrase of your opponent's argument with quotation marks around it, suggesting that those are his exact words. If you quote him verbatim, use quotation marks. If you paraphrase, don't use quotation marks. And when you paraphrase, do so accurately; if your opponent would not agree with your paraphrase then you have not accurately represented his argument.

Shawn McElhinney also addressed the list. I have no comment on his criticisms of the apologetics community in general, not having enough knowledge of the specifics of the incidents to which he alludes to have a valid opinion. I would note that Shawn, like Dave, agrees in the main with the points we presented. Even on a few with which he ostensibly disagrees, I think he hasn't quite understood the exact thrust of the point and so I'm not convinced that he actually disagrees as much as he thinks.

Moving back over to the Protestant camp, I confess that I had to laugh at the contribution posted at the blog of Protestant apologist "TurretinFan" (and, again disappointingly, at James White's blog). Instead of presenting a list of unsound arguments, he presented a list of arguments that he considers to be sound but should nonetheless be avoided: So yes, the Pope really may be the Antichrist, but it's too hard for people to swallow nowadays, especially when the last two have been "relatively decent human beings." And yes, sexual molestation of children really may be "the necessary and natural outworking" of celibacy, but it's not a central issue, so probably best to skip it. Sheesh.

TurretinFan did advance one excellent point, on the matter of humility:

Avoid arrogance. If you make a mistake, don't be afraid to admit that you erred and to correct your mistake. This will, of course, damage the patina of perfection that you had going for you, but it is the better course of action.

I'm not saying you have to grovel, but simply admit your mistakes and move on. Learn from the experience, and remember that you are merely a human being who can and does err. Maybe your honesty will win over your opponent, maybe it will lead him to mock you. You cannot control that, but you can maintain your own integrity by correcting your mistakes.

Absolutely right. We all on occasion deploy bad arguments, even if in support of good cases. And I think it is safe to say that those who feel called to the field of apologetics are particularly vulnerable to temptations to intellectual pride. But again, it's really not about us, it's about the truth.

To that end and to his credit, Protestant blogger Steve Hays actually provides a short list of arguments from the other side that he considers unsound. Rather humorous that one he explicitly lists as a bad argument (as opposed to simply imprudent) is: "Don’t equate the pope with the Antichrist." I appreciate his desire to show good will with some reciprocation.

Rather troubling are the comments by Kevin Davis, another Protestant commentator:

Actually, I couldn’t think of much for an evangelical list. If we exclude the fringe (e.g. Chick tracts), the mainstream evangelical apologists dealing with Catholics are pretty decent. The problem with Catholic apologetics is not the fringe, it’s the mainstream apologists.

And:

I don’t have a lot of confidence in the moral acumen of most current Catholic apologists, but maybe the next generation will start caring more about truth and basic facts, instead of just winning as many converts as possible and keeping financially afloat.

As for fodder for the "evangelical list", a couple come to mind immediately. How about admitting that pretty much every attempt to support the denial that St. Peter is the "rock" of Matt 16:18 involves the abandonment of fundamental rules of grammatico-historical exegesis (see e.g. here)? Note that I am not wed to modern grammatico-historical exegesis as the only valid approach to the biblical text; but many of our opponents are and it is not too much to expect consistency, especially when we're being charged with intractable bias.

Or how about the Mother of all Bad Arguments (which became the central thesis in a putative doctoral dissertation, no less), the claim that there was a semantic shift in the meaning of the Greek phrase heos hou that excludes seeing the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin in Matt 1:25? (See my contributions toward debunking that whopper here, here, and here.) Certainly the list could be extended and I would welcome the endeavor from the Protestant side; believe me, not all bad arguments against the Catholic faith are found in Jack Chick comics.

I do want to emphasize that I did not participate in formulating our list in order to cast aspersions on the moral integrity (or intelligence) of any Catholic apologist, much less the Catholic apologetics "enterprise" in general. Mr. Davis' spin struck a particularly sour note, I think, given the spirit of what we were trying to accomplish. Shall I now unpack many of the disagreeable and sometimes downright disgusting exchanges I have had with certain "mainstream" Protestant apologists? No, I shall not because that is not what this is about.

The bottom line here is that we are all prone to deploy and sometimes cling tenaciously to bad arguments in support of our beliefs. But a bad argument is a bad argument, no matter who uses it; and a bad argument deployed in support of a true position is a real travesty. If we love the truth, if we have humility, we need to let them go.

The Song of the Lark

2009-04-02T15:37:00.004-05:00

The theme painting of this blog—The Angelus by Jean-François Millet—would rightly suggest that I am a great fan of the French "peasant farmer" movement (Millet's other two masterpieces, The Sower and The Gleaners are spectacular as well.)

My family was in Chicago over the Christmas holiday last and spent an afternoon in the Art Institute there. I was searching for my wife, to tell her that we probably needed to be going, when I rounded the corner and was brought up short by The Song of the Lark by Jules Breton (the best, I think, of all of his works, although I have only seen a few of the originals.) I just stood there, transfixed. Not very poetic of me, but my exact word was, "Wow!" I'm not even close to a great art aficionado, but this painting is so evocative that I got choked up the other day just describing it to somebody.

Obviously no digital specimen can come even close to capturing the wonder of the original. If you are in Chicago, go see it.

The Last Supper: We weren't there!

2009-03-12T11:39:00.015-05:00

Over the years I have noted, with some amusement, the many opposite appeals to what took place at the Last Supper in order to bolster this or that liturgical action today.

We are told, for example, that using a vernacular language in the liturgy is a Good Idea because Jesus used the vernacular Aramaic at the Last Supper. On the other hand, it is countered, it is good to use a special liturgical language in the liturgy because Jesus used the liturgical Hebrew at the Last Supper.

We are told that the priest should face the people at Mass because Jesus faced His disciples at the Last Supper. Nonsense, comes the counter-argument, it is certainly appropriate for the priest to face East because at the Last Supper Jesus and His disciples all faced East together.

We are told that Communion should be given in the hand, because that's how Jesus distributed the first Holy Communion at the Last Supper. On the other hand, we are told that it's unlikely that our Lord placed the sacred Species into the disciples' hands but rather, according to ancient Semitic practice, directly into their mouths.

I've even seen, very recently, that it is a Good Idea to come to Mass plainly dressed, because of course Jesus was plainly dressed at the Last Supper. On the other hand, the counter-argument goes, the Passover was a very special feast for the Jews and it is impossible to think that the participants, much less the one presiding, would not have dressed in their finest.

Well, to state the obvious, none of us were there. We don't know what language our Lord spoke at the Last Supper, nor what He wore, nor which way He faced, nor how He distributed Holy Communion. At best, we have more or less probable guesses based on historical research.

That being said, I think it fairly likely that He celebrated the Last Supper in the non-vernacular Hebrew, facing East with His disciples, "vested" in appropriately non-ordinary clothing, and may very well have placed at least the Consecrated Bread directly into the mouths of the disciples (indeed, I can easily imagine Him distributing both sacred species by intinction as well, following ancient custom). So at the very least traditional Catholic practice is in no way undermined and indeed is probably supported by recourse to the likely actions at the Last Supper. But that is the most that anybody could say, that certain things are more or less likely based on historical research. Because none of the eyewitnesses give us any of these details.

In the end, a lot of these appeals to the Last Supper are rendered invalid on other grounds. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that the precise details of the Last Supper, even if we had them, should be used to dictate how the Mass is celebrated today. There are many things that have quite rightly changed in their details from the way they were done in the earliest Church versus the way they are done today. As Pope Pius XII states in Mediator Dei §63:

Clearly no sincere Catholic can refuse to accept the formulation of Christian doctrine more recently elaborated and proclaimed as dogmas by the Church, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit with abundant fruit for souls, because it pleases him to hark back to the old formulas. No more can any Catholic in his right senses repudiate existing legislation of the Church to revert to prescriptions based on the earliest sources of canon law. Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.

Pray for the Holy Father

2009-02-23T18:47:00.007-06:00

"Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves." (Pope Benedict XVI, 25 April 2005).

Our prayers are with you, Holy Father. Stand firm.

Beware the Google scholar!

2009-02-13T09:32:00.018-06:00

[Note: Please see the comments below. This posting will be removed when the St. Benedict Center actually apologizes to the Holy Father and their readers for this incident.]

The St. Benedict Center, a religious order dedicated to promoting the teachings of the late Fr. Leonard Feeney, posted a blurb on their Web site last week proclaiming:

This Just in: Pope Says ‘Feeneyites’ OK

Wow, that's pretty big news for such a group. The "citation" given runs as follows:

With regards to those who hold strictly the absolute necessity of water baptism, it would be quite wrong to charge them with heretical constructs. As they merely assert that which was the near-universal consensus of the Patristic era, such a charge would be proximate to condemning all but a few of the Fathers as heterodox. (Der Glaube das Pimmelkopfgelauben, Communio April 1997 p 13. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.)

The quote has made its rounds. It appears at Fish Eaters, A Fearful Master, and miscellaneous other venues. That's how things make the rounds in the Internet. The quote was also picked up in a discussion thread over on the Catholic Answers Forum, where at least one individual who is well acquainted with the Holy Father's writings in Communio seemed to establish pretty conclusively that it never appeared in that journal. In addition, another poster on Catholic Answers had a German friend translate the "article" title; it turns out to be a rather crude swipe at the Cardinal.

So I did a little Google searching myself and found out—wow, what a surprise!—that this "article" is a hoax. A certain "Deacon Augustine" posting at the Angel Queen forum admitted that he had made it all up (and should indeed be well and truly ashamed of himself not only for the hoax but for his gross disrespect):

Johannus, pascendi and everyone else, I really must apologise to you all for the above "quote" I cited - please do not rely on it or cite it elsewhere.

It is entirely a spoof and my own invention, and was meant to be a satirical comment on what he might have said based on the "Razing the Bastions" type theology.

I was hoping the spoof source would have given it away, but I guess it looked too realistic and I should have put something like: (sarcasm).

Once again, my sincere apologies to anybody who took this seriously.

But notice: the lid on this hoax was lifted back in 2006. The St. Benedict Center is crowing about it in early 2009. Obviously, the writer there did not bother to try and validate the quote, since the same five minutes of effort on his part would have netted him the same information I found. Indeed, even worse, I alerted them to this hoax last week and, as of today, it's still up on their site. Pitiful.

And such are the dangers of the Google scholar. Lesson: always, always, always check your sources for accuracy, but especially if you got the information from the Internet.

James White vs. Jesus, Peter, and the Keys

2009-01-27T12:01:00.015-06:00

This is an essay of mine, originally posted on the Internet 13 June 1997, that used to be hosted on another Web site. I'm reposting it, since I think that some of the arguments presented are still worthwhile.

James White vs. Jesus, Peter & the Keys

Carrots in the Snow

2009-01-20T12:22:00.009-06:00

As I've mentioned elsewhere on the blog, I am an enthusiastic follower of the gardening methods outlined by Eliot Coleman in his outstanding book Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long. Coleman's methods work splendidly for me. One of his main themes is to try and harvest as much produce fresh from the garden for as long in the season as possible. This saves the time and energy involved in other preservation methods like canning and freezing, as well as giving one the most nutritional and tasty possible vegetables. One idea that he presents is to plant a coldframe full of closely spaced carrots late in the season. For me that means around August 15. You let the carrots grow unprotected until the weather gets pretty nippy, then close the coldframe and let them grow some more, then finally when it gets really, really cold you put down a thick layer of straw and leave the frame shut. The carrots will remain there safe well into the winter. Coleman notes that the very cold temperatures convert some of the starch in the carrots into sugar, making them extra sweet and tasty. His children call them "candy carrots" and actually prefer them to other snacks.

Does it work? Yup, in spades (pun intended.) I planted a frame full just about exactly on August 15 and followed the procedure all the way up through the start of very cold weather here. I started digging the carrots in late November and finally dug everything in the frame on December 15, just before the ground would have frozen solidly enough to prevent any more digging.

Wow! These carrots are about finger-sized, ridiculously crisp (each bite gives a resounding snap!), and deliciously sweet. In fact, a few days after I dug the main crop my daughter Michaela was asking for a snack. "How about some carrots?", I suggested. "Okay!", she replied enthusiastically and munched away happily on our own crop of candy carrots. Try this—you will love it.

What is a Traditional Catholic? Another View

2009-01-13T10:48:00.006-06:00

Someone on a thread in the Catholic Answers Forum asked a great question, what exactly is a traditional Catholic? I've tried to give a serious answer to that question here. But Wholly Roamin' Catholic came at it from a different angle. (When I privately pinged WRC to see if I could use his stuff, he immediately pinged me back to say that he had already used mine! I guess you call that cross-pollination.)

You've gotta love his take on this:

A traditional Catholic is not a person who "prefers" the old Latin Mass. Neither are they people who simply passed Catechism class.

They are people who adhere to a type of spirituality that is largely lost in the 21st Century Catholic Church.

Truthfully, it's easier to describe their outward signs than their character: the old Latin Mass is the biggest identifier... though there are certainly traditional Catholics who are marooned in Novus Ordoland; there are likewise non-traditional Catholics who go to the TLM.

Trads are people who listen to Catholic Radio... skeptically. They might have a blog. They can list their "top-five" favorite Ecumenical Councils... none of which will rhyme with "Attican Shoe". Their friends think they're fuddy-duddys. They've got Holy Water fonts in all the bedrooms and by the front door. They quote the Douay Rheims bible. They have an opinion on offering Mass in baroque vestments while in a gothic chapel. They're tired of tinfoil hat jokes. They may not like Bishop Williamson, but concede that sometimes he's right, and when he's right, he's really right. They can tell you about Assisi. When they're at a Novus Ordo Mass, they've got their hands folded like a Catholic during the Our Father. The women have an extra mantilla in the van-- just in case. The men have an opinion on the best type of pipe tobacco for any occasion. The boys have their own cassock and surplice hanging in the closet. The girls know how to play Dies Irae on the organ. They wear a t-shirt while they go swimming so their brown scapular doesen't float away. They're willing to drive an hour to go to Mass... every Sunday. They know the confession times of at least 4 churches. They invite priests over to play cards and smoke cigars. They pray to saints that you think may not really exist. They ask you to finish the sentence when you say "John Paul the Great"... the great what? They might own a live chicken. When they're at a Novus Ordo Mass, everyone watches them to figure out why they're hitting themselves during the "Lamb of God". They're kneel after Mass to pray... and miss out on the fun gladhanding with Father by the parish gift shop. They scoff when they pass the Masonic Lodge. They cross themselves when they pass a Catholic church. They mutter something about the "poor souls" when they pass a cemetary. They mutter something about St. Michael when an ambulance passes them. Their girls' first names are Mary. Their boys' middle names are Mary. Cappa Magna doesn't sound like a drink at Starbucks to them. They'll tell you at length why being "charitable" isn't always being nice and friendly.

It's complicated. Trads are not easily defined. You just kind of know them when you see them.

From the Popes...

2009-01-06T11:44:00.006-06:00

God forbid that the children of the Catholic Church should even in any way be unfriendly to those who are not at all united to us by the same bonds of faith and love. On the contrary, let them be eager always to attend to their needs with all the kind services of Christian charity, whether they are poor or sick or suffering any other kind of visitation. First of all, let them rescue them from the darkness of the errors into which they have unhappily fallen and strive to guide them back to Catholic truth and to their most loving Mother who is ever holding out her maternal arms to receive them lovingly back into her fold. Thus, firmly founded in faith, hope, and charity and fruitful in every good work, they will gain eternal salvation.

(Pope Pius IX, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore §9)

The Land's Bounty: A Garden Saga

2008-10-27T12:16:00.032-05:00

I have had gardens, off and on, for the past twelve years or so. I have always loved the idea of gardening, have read about it extensively, and have gardened off and on with varying degrees of success. But I have never been satisfied enough with my results or my level of experience to call myself a gardener. Until this year.

When we first moved to our current farm, about five years ago, there was too much "deferred maintenance" to allow much time for gardening. But three years ago I did lay out and tend a modest garden, using techniques that I gleaned from Eliot Coleman's Four-Season Harvest. I will be doing a complete review of that very important book in an upcoming posting. Using Coleman's tools and techniques allowed me, for the first time, to keep a garden under control. For me that's important. What I've done several times in the past is plant more than I can manage, in a rather haphazard way that prevents me from tending the garden as I should. And so eventually it becomes an overgrown weed patch. The thought of even stepping foot into that chaotic mess becomes more and more daunting until I basically just give it up as a bad job. But Coleman's tools and techniques, his whole vision and approach to gardening, hold out the promise of a garden so tidy and so (relatively) easily cared for that it becomes a beautiful place that veritably beckons to you to come and spend time there. Gardening, even on a relatively large scale, is hard work, yes, but not frenzied. The garden becomes an inviting place, a relaxing place. Chaos has given way to order and beauty.

That's the theory anyway. Well, after that modest but satisfying plot a few years ago, we got caught up in some major remodeling to our house and, after a long string of miscarriages, finally received the blessing of the birth of our daughter Bridget. Gardening once again was pushed aside by more important things. Now I'd trade a lifetime of gardens for Bridget, but after tasting a morsel of success in the past I was anxious to get back to it.

This year, with the increasingly abundant help of my older children, I tried again. I got a bit of a late start, so I was not able to get a full spring crop of some family favorites, like sugar snap peas. But sometime in May I laid out the plot according to a modified Coleman scheme, amended the soil one more time with the abundant compost that we have on our place, and began to plant. Many of the seedlings for this year's garden were tended in a coldframe (click here to see my earlier posting on this). Each of the three older children got their own plot, in which they could plant whatever they wanted. Between us, we grew the following:

* Swiss Chard
* Spanish Black winter radishes
* Lettuces, varied
* Spinach
* Carrots
* Beets
* Turnips
* Rutabagas
* Sweet corn (two varieties)
* Beans: purple, yellow, green, pole
* Watermelons
* Cucumbers
* Yellow squash
* Zucchini
* Pumpkins
* Broccoli
* Leeks
* Shallots
* Green onions
* Chinese cabbage
* Red cabbage
* Kale
* Tomatoes, two kinds
* Peppers, several colors
* Potatoes, three kinds
* Parsnips
* Tatsoi

In a word, the results have been awesome. We are still harvesting all of the vegetables we consume fresh out of the garden and have put literally hundreds of pounds of turnips, beets, rutabagas, potatos, carrots, cabbage, and radishes in the root cellar. God is very good and I am blessed, after all these years, to be able to call myself a gardener.

A Head's Up for Pre-Millennarians

2008-10-13T15:39:00.020-05:00

I just finished listening to a talk by an evangelical Protestant speaker, David Pawson, about "De-Greecing the Church". There is lots there that one could discuss, both positive and negative. But he made a claim that I have encountered many times, namely, that with regard to a literal, earthly reign of Jesus Christ for a thousand years after His Second Coming there is "not a trace of any other view....." for the first four hundred years of Church history. And this is a stock claim among premillennialists; do a Google search for "millennium", "early church", and "unanimous" and see. Indeed, I used to make this claim myself.

Now there is no disputing that at least two prominent early writers--Sts. Justin and Irenaeus--are explicitly pre-millennial. But strangely, advocates for this position (like Pawson) seem to have missed a very important phrase in St. Justin's own writing on the topic. Justin himself does hold that there will be such an earthly reign of Christ, but he notes:

I am not so miserable a fellow, Trypho, as to say one thing and think another. I admitted to you formerly, that I and many others are of this opinion, and [believe] that such will take place, as you assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise. (Dialogue with Trypho 80; emphasis mine)

So there you have it. Pawson (and others) are just plain wrong when they hold that the premillennial position was the unanimous position in the early Church, for even St. Justin Martyr in his day knew of "many" who thought otherwise.

Pawson also alleges, somewhat indignantly, that St. Augustine single-handedly torpodoed the premillennial view and actually was instrumental in having it formally condemned at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431:

The millennium has almost disappeared. And do you know the man responsible? Augustine. In his early ministry he preached that Jesus was coming back to reign for a thousand years to reign on earth and that's what all the Church believed and preached until then; there's not a trace of any other view. . . . We've got into all these different views since Augustine . . . He persuaded a council, in the year 431, in Ephesus . . . they condemned belief in the millennium as heresy. An official council of the Church. That's why you've never heard about it in most churches.

There are a few serious difficulties with what Mr. Pawson asserts here. First, the Council of Ephesus was held in AD 431 and St. Augustine died in AD 430, so his ability to persuade the Council to condemn anything was somewhat limited. (In fact, he was invited to Ephesus but never set out, having died of old age.) Second, although it is asserted by many Protestant scholars, the Council of Ephesus did not, in fact, formally condemn premillennialism (or "chiliasm", as it is often called.) Michael Svigel, in his article The Phantom Heresy:Did the Council of Ephesus (431) Condemn Chiliasm?, has very admirably chased down the source of this assertion and proven that it is quite overstated.

Certain bishops at the Council did refer to the doctrine of chiliasm as "deliramenta, fabulosique", (not exactly a ringing endorsement) but there was nothing like a formal condemnation issued by the Council at large. Still, this represents important evidence. Already in St. Justin Martyr's day (the mid-second century AD) there were "many" Christians who did not hold to chiliasm (again, contra the oft-repeated assertion that "there's not a trace of any other view.") And the chiliastic position gave way in the Church until, by AD 431 it had been essentially rejected--if not formally, at least strenuously--by both East and West. Some people would consider this a corruption. But for those who believe that the Church is the "pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15) and in our Lord's promise to "be with you always, even unto the end of the age" (Matt 28:20), then it is more appropriately seen as the winnowing action of the Holy Spirit, guiding the Church into all truth.

It is a recurring theme in anti-Catholic apologetics that St. Augustine, the great "boogey man", single-handedly scuttled doctrine after doctrine that had been unanimously held for the four hundred years prior. I have cited (and refuted) many examples in the chapter on St. Augustine in my review of David Bercot's Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up? Frankly, the thesis is ridiculous on its face. No one who knows anything about the relations between various local churches, the oft-times fiercely independent nature of the Catholic bishops, and the difficulty at times of having the East and West agree on anything could possibly believe that one man in an African bywater could over and over shift the entire body of Christendom away from what all had held for four centuries, to embrace some completely alien theology.

In the rejection of chiliasm St. Augustine lent his not-inconsiderable influence to a position that was already widely held throughout the Catholic Church.

Hey Father, Leave This Mass Alone!

2008-10-04T13:38:00.021-05:00

Well, it has finally happened. Last Friday we assisted at our first traditional Latin Mass in which the priest introduced a blatant, purposeful liturgical abuse. Just before Mass started, he went to the pulpit to announce that, since the cathedral was built in 1962 and (supposedly) had only "standing stations" for receiving Holy Communion, we were all to stand up to receive our Lord.

I am happy to say that, in our line at least, the convinced traditionalists and even many of those Catholics who would not self-describe as traditionalists knelt anyway. In the other line most stood. The priest's illicit directive created the appearance of division and perhaps even "disobedience", whereas of course the division and disobedience emanated entirely from him.

It was unnecessary. It was senseless. But it was hardly unexpected.

Some years ago, The Latin Mass magazine had an editorial in which concern was raised over opening the Gregorian rite to those priests who lack the formation and the mindset to say it well. I think that in many ways this is a valid concern. Now I'm not one who believes that having diocesan priests (or others who regularly say the Pauline rite) also say the Gregorian rite is an inherently bad thing. (Some traditionalists go so far as to imply a sort of "ritual impurity" if a priest also says the Novus Ordo. Although I concur with many of the serious negative critiques of the new rite, I think this particular position beyond the pale.)

It remains true, however, that priests who received their whole formation in a traditionalist seminary and therefore were specifically formed to say the Gregorian rite have a very different approach to the Catholic faith, to their priesthood, and of course to the liturgy itself.

Still, there are many fine diocesan priests who cultivate a traditional outlook and bring only the best intentions and motivations to their celebration of the traditional Roman rite. Such priests would, in fact, be more than willing to be corrected in order to bring their celebration of the ancient rite more in line with its text, rubrics, and spirit. I think this is all for the good, both for them and for those they serve.

But what if the priest does not have a traditional outlook and a real desire to submit himself to the text, rubrics, and spirit of the ancient liturgy? Well, it's asking for trouble to try to get him say it. In this case, the events of this past Friday evening were entirely avoidable, for that simple reason. This priest did not want to say the traditional Latin Mass in the first place. Or, to put it more accurately, I think, he didn't want to say it if any traditionally-minded Catholics were there. It seems that for some, the traditional Latin Mass is okay in the abstract, it's just that it's connected with those creepy traditionalists (you know, those folks who have taken the slings and arrows from both liberals and neo-conservatives for these past forty years for having the gall to insist on what has now been affirmed publicly by the Holy Father, that they had all that time been unjustly deprived of the Gregorian rite of the Mass.)

Indeed, when some years ago this particular priest was in a position of significant authority in this diocese and was interviewed by the diocesan newspaper as to what the laity should do when faced with liturgical abuse in their parish, he said they should go to the priest to point out his error to him. And if the priest refuses to listen, what should they do then Father? Nothing. That was his answer. They can do nothing. Because on his watch, at least, if they brought it to his attention he wasn't going to do anything about it.

Catholics confronted with what will inevitably be an increased number of attempts to introduce liturgical abuses into the traditional Latin Mass have a golden opportunity to replay the systemic acquiescence that led to and allowed the staggering institutionalization of abuses into the liturgy in 99.8% of the world's parishes. The threshold for liturgical abuse in the traditional Latin Mass should be zero. Vote with your feet. So fool me once, shame on you Father. But fool me twice, shame on me.

Okay, the lesson for Catholics seeking greater access to the Gregorian rite in the post-moto proprio era is: If a priest doesn't want to say the Gregorian rite, don't force him. Because he'll make you pay, one way or the other.

Note: A reader rightly corrected me that no priest should be "messing around" with any rite of the Mass. Although there are many options given to the priest who says the NOM, I am of the opinion that he should not take any of them as an opportunity to assert his creativity, but rather should say the NOM as much in the spirit of the venerable Roman liturgical tradition as possible. I appreciate the correction and have retracted my original statement.

The Reformation: A Break With Christian Consensus

2008-09-26T15:29:00.009-05:00

An essay I wrote long ago, reposted here:

The Reformation: A Break With Christian Consensus

Get That Thing Outa Here!

2008-07-23T20:20:00.006-05:00

I am fortunate in the extreme not to have to travel very much for my job. I used to travel quite a bit more and I consider myself a seasoned traveller. I do still occasionally have to spend the odd night away from home and my current job seems destined to send me to China once a year.

One aspect of travel that I struggle with is the hotel television. Oh, to be sure it's not as bad here in the U.S. as it is in, say, Sweden, where they pipe free, unrestricted hardcore porn into your room every night. It was there that I adopted a habit I have maintained ever since: every time I check into a hotel I ask them to get the TV out of the room. I had only once to say that it was "a religious conviction" and even in ultra-liberal Sweden, in excellent Old World style, the hotel staff began greeting me with, "Welcome again, Mr. Palm, the television has been removed from your room" before I had said a word. Now that's what I call service.

In the U.S. things are generally better, but far from ideal. There may be many Catholic guys out there who can easily avoid the not-quite-hardcore-but-still-awful stuff that is aired on HBO and
Cinemax. Good for you. I can't.

Men, if you have to travel it's very easy to get the hotel to remove the television. I have taken to faxing ahead, rather than springing it on the desk clerk who may be in a difficult position to respond to my demand on short notice. Rather, a few days ahead of my stay I fax the following letter. I have yet to have anything but 100% compliance with this reasonable request. Be prepared with a good answer for the curious desk clerk who asks about your request; be sure to say that you're a Catholic (not just a generic "Christian") and give a good reason. It's an excellent opportunity for a bit of evangelism. Here's a letter that you can adapt for your own use:

General Manager
Your Hotel
1234 Etc. St.
Homebody, YM 12345

Dear Sir/Maam,

I am scheduled to stay at your hotel next week, checking in on Monday, 10 December and checking out Friday, 14 December.

Due to religious convictions I would like to have the television removed from my room. Most hotels do not have difficulty complying with this request but I find that it is helpful to alert them ahead of time, to avoid any confusion or complication at check-in. If this request presents any difficulties please let me know and I can make other arrangements. Thank you very much for your assistance and I'll look forward to staying with you next week.

Best regards,
David

The now almost ubiquitous wireless Internet connection poses a new difficulty, but that is fodder for a future posting.

Makin' Hay While the Sun Shines

2008-07-10T12:04:00.014-05:00

We got our first crop of hay into the barn last week. Yeah, that's really late. It has been an unseasonably cool and wet summer. In fact, you may have heard about our neck of the woods on the news, for the record-breaking flooding two years running. The Palm HQ sits up on top of Carlson Ridge, so if we ever got flooded I would expect to see an ark floating by. But besides doing a lot of damage to the unfortunate folks down in the valleys, this amount of rain has made it tough for the farmers to get into their fields. Hence the very late hay crop. Moving hay into the loft is a great cardio-vascular workout. I commented to my neighbor who helps us put our hay up that no one needs a treadmill or a membership at the gym if he actually works his farm.

We had to get the loft in our small barn fixed this year. The roof of this outbuilding had been allowed to deteriorate and water damage had undermined the beams holding up half of the loft floor. Buildings go down surprisingly fast when rain can get in through the roof. We had the roof patched as soon as we moved to the farm; we're only just now getting around to having the loft fixed. But mission accomplished, just in time to get the first hay crop put up. (An added bonus is that the kids can fire up the rope swing again.

Hay is made of plants of whatever variety (in our case a mix of grasses, alfalfa, and clover) that are cut, dried, and then stored away for future consumption by animals. It used to be that every farm that kept animals had to put up hay, but most of the larger farms have moved over to corn silage. There is an interesting potential connection between our massive flooding and the move away from hay. A friend of mine was commenting just the other day that as recently as half a century ago much farm land was kept in a mixture of hay fields and cultivated crops. The hay fields helped to hold soil and prevent very rapid water runoff, especially here in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin where farms are often positioned on some pretty steep terrain. But with the big push toward maximizing agricultural profits (especially now through the cultivation of corn, corn, corn--see below), all available farm land is increasingly tilled annually for row crops. This in turn increases soil erosion and also speeds the run-off from these lands into lower lying areas. Throw some record-breaking rainfalls into that mix and you've got the makings for the disastrous flooding we've been seeing. It's interesting how man's greed and short-sightedness really can have some pretty major unforeseen side-effects.

Hay is always important in climates where animals cannot graze year round, but this year hay is a precious commodity. Due to the ethanol-from-corn insanity that grips our nation (more on that in a future posting) hay prices have gone through the roof, while supplies have declined sharply. I am thrilled to have 480 bales of first-crop hay in my newly repaired loft. That's more than enough for my small holdings (and there's at least one more crop coming), so I'll probably end up selling some. I'll try to cut my neighbors a good deal. Gouging folks on the fundamentals of life is pretty rotten; helping them out with what they need from the bounty of my land feels a whole lot better.

Objectively Subeerior

2008-07-09T18:13:00.009-05:00

Oh the ways of Divine Providence are mysterious indeed. Just when I swore off public controversy over the objective superiority of the Gregorian rite, the Lord makes clear that He has other plans. From my other blog, the Catholic Beer Review here is the Blessing of Beer from the Rituale Romanum:

V. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
R. Qui fecit caelum et terram.

V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.

Oremus.

Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisiae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi, et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti; ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corpus et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

R. Amen.

Et aspergatur aqua benedicta.

English translation:

V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.

V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

Bless, + O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race, and grant through the invocation of thy holy name; that, whoever shall drink it, may gain health in body and peace in soul. Through Christ our Lord.

R. Amen.

And it is sprinkled with holy water.

---------------

Now, here's the kicker. As Fr. Cory Sticha of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings Montana says,

Looking at the modern "Book of Blessings", I see that this blessing has been removed. I guess that's just proof that the Rituale Romanum is far superior. You have to love the old blessings which start, "Lord, bless this creature..." (my emphasis).

Removed, eh? So one rite contains a blessing of beer. The other one doesn't. Objective subeeriority established? I think so and I rest my case.

Reflections on Controversy

2008-07-02T20:17:00.012-05:00

I run two blogs. But it is a general policy of mine not to read too many other blogs and especially to avoid commenting much in the comboxes. They become a near occasion of sin for me, burning precious time and too frequently fomenting thoughts and attitudes that are much better left alone. (It is an absolute rule of mine never to post anonymously on a blog--that affords way too much temptation to say things that I would never ultimately want to be connected to.)

I broke that general rule the other day and was reminded again why I really must just Stay Away. The topic was liturgy, specifically the contrasts between the Gregorian rite and the Pauline rite. The fact remains that in the abstract such discussions are still valid. In principle, none of the traditionalist position has changed with respect to the nature of the liturgical reforms since Vatican II. And these discussions can still take place with some profit (I think Fr. Zuhlsdorf pulls that off pretty well.) But for that profitable exchange to take place there needs to be mutual respect between the parties involved, as well as a genuine desire on the part of both genuinely to learn and benefit from the discussion. At least in my two recent discussions, all of those features were lacking. The whole time the voice of conscience was telling me, "You really shouldn't be discussing this." I definitely should have bailed sooner than I did. Mea culpa.

I think my opponent made one good point, namely, that this is simply not the time for serious knock-down, drag-out debates about the liturgy, especially on the Internet. Our Holy Father has issued Summorum Pontificum and in its wake has come a veritable torrent of good news. Just last week the Transalpine Redemporists were reconciled with the Holy See. And there are serious movements toward a like reconciliation of the Society of Pius X. The Holy Father's courage is bearing fruit. He certainly doesn't need a knucklehead like me out there in cyberspace creating resistance to the traditional direction he's moving the Church.

A week ago my wife and I were interviewed by a reporter for a mainstream Catholic publication for an article on the motu proprio (I'll let you know if it gets published.) He asked what our reaction to Summorum Pontificum has been. Certainly our initial reaction was one of jubilation. We had prayed every day in our family Rosary for almost seven years that the traditional Roman rite would be normalized. But we were afraid each time we heard rumors of some impending action by the Pope that we would get a sort of "universal indult", yet another demand to get "permission" for that which had never been forbidden. In short, we were afraid that simple justice would be once more held in abeyance.

But in fact, we got the whole enchilada, with extra guacamole on the side and fried ice cream for dessert. It was more than we had hoped for, it was the complete vindication of the core of the traditionalist position on the traditional Latin Mass. Justice was served.

So in the face of that vindication I ask myself, why am I still out there swinging? For the most part the answer is plain old human weakness. My family was in the ecclesiastical refugee camp for seven years (and that's nothing compared to what some folks have weathered.) We've only been out for one. It just takes a while to adjust.

All Rite!, Part 2

2008-06-30T15:01:00.013-05:00

Some reflection and some feedback on my note below concerning whether the traditional Roman liturgy (Gregorian rite) and the Novus Ordo (Pauline rite) really should be considered two separate liturgical rites has prompted me to visit the topic one more time.

A fellow going by the on-line name "Jordanes" made an excellent observation here, namely, that the language of Summorum Pontificum fundamentally answers a juridical question and not primarily a liturgical one. It establishes the legal basis on which a priest of the Roman Rite can say either rite without "permission":

The word "rite" has different shades of meaning. Juridically, the 1962 Missal and the 1970/2003 Missal are two uses of the one Roman Rite -- but in the sense that the differences between the uses are much, much more numerous than the similarities, one can distinguish them as two different rites.

The decree that they are two uses, not two separate juridical rites, is supremely important, because if they were two different rites in the eyes of the liturgical law, then priests in the Latin Rite would need an indult to celebrate according to the 1962 Missal. However, since the Pope has made clear that they are two uses within one rite, all Latin Rite priests have permission to celebrate according to either the 1962 Missal or the 1970/2003 Missal, without having to obtain an indult from their bishop. In other words, if a Latin Rite priest wants to celebrate a "Tridentine" Mass, he may do so -- he doesn't have to ask his bishop first, and he doesn't even have to wait for a group of lay Catholics to approach him and ask him. He has that legal right as a Latin Rite priest with faculties to celebrate Mass according to his own rite, the Roman Rite. (This is better than the "universal indult" that traditionalists had desired -- the Pope says Latin priests don't even need an indult, whether universal or not.)

All the same, the debate about whether or not the two juridical uses are de facto different rites remains open.

Another fellow in that same combox characterized my argument thus:

In order to maintain the opinion, he argues that various practices (read: abuses) in how the Pauline Mass is observed amount to it being a different rite (at least in those instances). Pope says no. Palm says yes. I go with the pope, because he is the head of the Catholic Church.

In a soon-coming post I will have a few words to say about my participation in that discussion (the short take is that I shouldn't have been there or done that). I think most readers will see that I did not directly contradict the Pope, as charged. And it is only fair to point out that I did not argue in my posting below that the Pauline rite is a separate rite based on abuses of it--everything I cited as examples are approved by the Vatican.

Ultimately my position is derived from the much more complete presentation and much greater expertise of Msgr. Klaus Gamber in his very important book The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (bottom line is, if you're going to engage the traditionalist position on the liturgical reform, you have to read this book: period.) Msgr. Gamber goes well beyond the common sense approach of "Hippler's Law" (Arthur would kill me for calling it that), that Different Words + Different Rubrics = Different (Liturgical) Rite. Msgr. Gamber provides a detailed definition of what a liturgical rite is and why the Gregorian rite (or, as he calls it, the ritus romanus) must be considered a different liturgical rite from the Pauline rite (ritus modernus; and for Gamber this would be true even when the Pauline rite is celebrated entirely in Latin using the more traditional options.) I strongly urge a thoughtful reading of this book by an author whom none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger called, "the one scholar who, among the army of pseudo-liturgists, truly represents the liturgical thinking of the center of the Church."

Which brings us again to Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict. Quite contrary to this position being flatly contrary to Summorum Pontificum, I really do think that the 1998 talk to Una Voce provides a hermeneutical key to the document. At the very least it helps us understand how and why Cardinal Hoyos, whom the Holy Father himself put in charge of the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, would continue to use language that suggests that the traditional Roman liturgy really is a separate liturgical rite from the Novos Ordo. If someone really has a problem with speaking of the TLM and NOM as distinct liturgical rites then by all means take it up with Cardinal Hoyos. I just agree with him.

All Rite! -- They Really Are Two Rites

2008-06-18T11:16:00.016-05:00

Now we're cooking with gas! The liturgical counter-revolution is in full swing, with a wonderful new development popping up just this week.

I have had it in mind for a few weeks now to write a blog entry about Article 1 of Summorum Pontificum and its reference to the Novus Ordo and traditional Latin Mass as "two usages of the one Roman rite":

Art 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the 'Lex orandi' (Law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same 'Lex orandi,' and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church's Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church's 'Lex credendi' (Law of belief). They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite (link).

I and many others have been in the habit of speaking of the Novus Ordo and the traditional Latin Mass as two separate rites. Some speak of the "traditional Roman Rite" or the "classical Roman Rite" or perhaps even the "Gregorian Rite" in reference to the traditional Latin Mass and, sometimes, of the "Pauline Rite" in reference to the Novus Ordo. For me this distinction flows naturally and surely from the common sense observation first verbalized by my friend Dr. Arthur Hippler, namely, that Different Words + Different Rubrics = Different Rites.

This leads me to the point I wanted to make with regard to the Holy Father's statement in Summorum Pontificum. It seems to me that if his words were taken to mean that the NOM and TLM cannot be spoken of as different rites, then Article 1 would need to be interpreted strictly. Very strictly! If one is speaking of the Novus Ordo in Latin, said ad orientem, using the traditional Roman Canon, with all male servers, Holy Communion delivered on the tongue of kneeling recipients by priests, etc. as it is at St. Agnes in St. Paul or St. John Cantius in Chicago then yes, I suppose that one can see enough correspondence in word and action between the NOM and the TLM that one can speak of them as "two usages of the one Roman rite" (I think some difficulties remain, but they are best addressed by experts who know a lot more about liturgical intricacies that I do.)

This very distinction was addressed by Cardinal Ratzinger himself:

An average Christian without specialist liturgical formation would find it difficult to distinguish between a Mass sung in Latin according to the old Missal and a sung Latin Mass according to the new Missal. However, the difference between a liturgy celebrated faithfully according to the Missal of Paul VI and the reality of a vernacular liturgy celebrated with all the freedom and creativity that are possible - that difference can be enormous! ("Ten Years of the Motu Proprio")

An "enormous" difference. So then are we really talking about the same Rite once we branch out into the New Mass said entirely in myriad vernacular translations (containing myriad theological and linguistic problems), facing the people, with one of the optional "Eucharistic prayers", taking all sorts of other options in terms of both text and rubrics, altar girls (serviettes), Holy Communion distributed into the hands of standing recipients by "extraordinary" (who's fooling whom?) Eucharistic ministers, etc.? How would we contend with the common sense Different Words + Different Rubrics = Different Rites? Well, let's just say that I'm highly skeptical that in the latter instance we really are talking about "two usages of the one Roman rite" in the sense that it is impermissible to speak of them as two separate rites. Indeed, I would say that if a sung traditional High Mass and the celebration of the Novus Ordo I just described aren't two different rites, then there's no such thing as different rites in the Church.

So in light of Article 1 of Summorum Pontificum are traditionalists wrong to continue to speak of the traditional Latin Mass as a distinct liturgical Rite? It would appear not. Earlier this week, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos gave an interview in which he spoke openly of the traditional Latin Mass as the "Gregorian Rite". He stated that:

Many of the difficulties [in the reception of Summorum Pontificum] come out because they don’t know the reality of the Gregorian Rite – this is the just [correct] name for the Extraordinary Form, because this Mass was never prevented, never (my emphasis).

Father Zuhlsdorf's blog entry on this, with his additional commentary, certainly deserves to be read. The upshot is that if the Cardinal put in charge of the implementation of Summorum Pontificum by the Holy Father can speak of the Gregorian Rite, I guess that I can too.

Ultimately (you read it here first?), I think that Article 1 of Summorum Pontificum will come to be seen as some romanita designed to prevent undue alarm in liberal circles at the promulgation of the document. But I think that, in time and as the divergence of the two rites is made more obvious by the wider celebration of the Gregorian Rite, this way of thinking will give way to the common sense acknowledgment that we really are faced with separate rites. (Well, more than two really, because the Novus Ordo is very far from being one unified rite.)

And this isn't really that big a deal. In a talk given to Una Voce on 24 October 1998 then-Cardinal Ratzinger had already spoken of the Novus Ordo and the Gregorian Rite as "two rites". But he pointed out that there is plenty of historical precidence for multiple liturgical rites coexisting within the larger umbrella of the Latin Rite:

We must now examine the other argument, which claims that the existence of the two rites can damage unity. Here a distinction must be made between the theological aspect and the practical aspect of the question. As regards what is theoretical and basic, it must be stated that several forms of the Latin rite have always existed, and were only slowly withdrawn, as a result of the coming together of the different parts of Europe. Before the Council there existed side by side with the Roman rite, the Ambrosian rite, the Mozarabic rite of Toledo, the rite of Braga, the Carthusian rite, the Carmelite rite, and best known of all, the Dominican rite, and perhaps still other rites of which I am not aware. No one was ever scandalized that the Dominicans, often present in our parishes, did not celebrate like diocesan priests but had their own rite. We did not have any doubt that their rite was as Catholic as the Roman rite, and we were proud of the richness inherent in these various traditions. Moreover, one must say this: that the freedom which the new order of Mass gives to creativity is often taken to excessive lengths. The difference between the liturgy according to the new books, how it is actually practiced and celebrated in different places, is often greater than the difference between an old Mass and a new Mass, when both these are celebrated according to the prescribed liturgical books. ("Ten Years of the Motu Proprio")

The last sentence sounds just about like what I'm saying. Indeed, it appears that in Summorum Pontificum Article 1, the Holy Father is using the phrase "Roman Rite" in the same way that he used the phrase "Latin Rite" in the paragraph above. In fact, that may be the hermeneutical key to Article 1. In the paragraph above, he speaks of "forms" of the "Latin Rite", and then of these "forms" as the Roman rite, Carthusian rite, Ambrosian rite, etc. all existing within that one Latin Rite. In Article 1 of SP, he speaks of "usages" of the "one Roman rite". But that would not preclude us, as Cardinal Hoyos has done, of speaking of the Gregorian rite, the Pauline rite, etc. within that one Roman Rite. The vocabulary is different, but the references are the same. I think I've solved my problem.

The long and short of it is this: First, I don't think that Article 1 of SP locks us into speaking of the Novus Ordo and the traditional Latin Mass as the "ordinary" and "extraordinary" forms of the Roman Rite, lest we be charged with infidelity to the Holy Father. And second, the interview by Cardinal Hoyos is one more indication that this Pope is dead serious about work for a widespread restoration of Catholic Tradition. Deo gratias!

On Androgyny and Modesty

2008-06-12T18:49:00.009-05:00

This week I took my kids to an event for a day of instruction and fun. I was both bemused and chagrined when the instructor took the question of a young boy at the back of the class and proceeded, then and throughout the rest of the day, to refer to him as "her" and "she". Why the confusion? For two reasons, at least. First, the unfortunate lad sported one of those dual-purpose names that are given in approximately equal proportion these days to baby girls and boys. And he wore his hair down around his shoulders. Indeed, in this family mom, sister, and brother were more or less interchangeable--long hair, pants, neutral colors.

I felt sorry for the kid. The first time it happened he shot an anguished-angry look at his mother, who just smiled and shrugged. I'm hoping that the incident shakes him up just enough that he goes out and gets a crew-cut this summer, but not enough that he either a) starts to question his gender or b) decides to ditch all the hair and becomes some sort of angry skinhead.

I couldn't help but reflect on the contrast with my own children, especially my oldest daughter who was with me. Out of at least fifty girls and women at this event, my daughter was the only one not wearing pants/shorts. She was stylish, cute, modest (there's no need for modest to be synonymous with frumpy and ugly), but unmistakably feminine. In fact, she got several compliments on her outfit from the other girls.

Pretending that gender doesn't matter is one of the more laughable neuroses of our modern "culture" (gotta put that word in quotes, because it's not really much of a culture.) But it's not really a laughing matter because an enormous amount of social decline can be traced directly to gender confusion. But of course everyday experience and simple common sense tell us in innumerable ways that gender distinctions are hard coded into our genetics and into our souls. And the connection between body and soul has one of its most obvious expressions in the way we dress. Traditionalists have been in the vanguard on this, emphasizing lost virtues such as modesty and maintaining gender distinctions in dress in the face of an increasingly vulgar, sexualized, and androgynous society (although a lack of charity and prudence when discussing these points with others can easily degenerate into rash judgment; we're all feeling our way forward on these issues and we need to cut each other some slack as we sort things out.)

I don't think we need to dress like the Amish (to the contrary, as I said I do not think modest and feminine need equate to plain and frumpy) but I do find it very encouraging to see a trend in both traditionalist and neo-conservative circles which takes modest and gender-distinct dress seriously. To rebuild a culture requires a serious eye toward living a counter-culture.