Christianity and Other Religions

Christianity and Other Religions, by Bernhard Blankenhorn, OP

Derveni papyrus

Review of Gabor Betegh, The Derveni Papyrus. Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation.
(Richard Janko's bio)

The Derveni Papyrus in the Homeric Scholia
The Derveni Papyrus and the Homeric Scholia

From Dissoi Blogoi:
Judging On the Merits
On the Difficulty of Understanding Papyri

Ellopos Blog
PhDiva

Holy See Address on Promotion of Human Rights

Code: ZE06103022

Date: 2006-10-30

Holy See Address on Promotion of Human Rights

"The Time Has Come to Apply Principles of Authentic Religious Freedom"

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 30, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address delivered last Friday by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See's permanent observer to the United Nations, to a General Assembly committee. The panel was reflecting on the "Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Human Rights Questions, Including Alternative Approaches for Improving the Effective Enjoyment of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms."

* * *

Mr. Chairman,

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election and leadership of this Committee and thank the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief for her report on the elimination of all forms of religious intolerance.

Three of the themes considered during her June 2006 visit to the Vatican merit particular attention, namely, the coexistence of different religions and religious communities, the propagation of religion, including the sensitive issue of proselytism, and the relationship between freedom of expression and religion. My delegation shares the Special Rapporteur's position that the need for interreligious dialogue at all levels is of crucial importance not only for resolving disputes, but also for fostering peaceful coexistence that enables all religions to live side by side and in mutual respect.

As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, my delegation is seriously concerned that freedom of religion or belief does not exist for individuals and communities, especially among religious minorities, in many parts of the world. We are also concerned that the high level of religious intolerance in some countries is leading to an alarming degree of polarization and discrimination. We share a grave duty to work together to reverse this trend.

While religious tolerance is sometimes characterized as accepting or permitting those religious beliefs and practices which disagree with one's own, the time has come to move beyond this type of religious tolerance, and to apply instead the principles of authentic religious freedom.

Hrm... authentic religious freedom eh? And in what is this rooted? Dignitatis Humanae could be reconciled with the Tradition, especially since it's concession to the public good leaves a lot of wiggle room, imo.

Religious freedom is the right to believe, worship, propose and witness to one's faith. It grants the opportunity and creates the occasions for people to profess freely the tenets of their faith. Furthermore, it includes the right to change one's religion and to associate freely with others in order to express one's religious convictions. Religious tolerance is simply a starting point, a basis for universal religious freedom and there cannot be full religious tolerance without an effective recognition of religious freedom.

But: are there limits to this right or freedom? Is any faith permissible? Or only that which is compatible with "natural religion"?

We know well that, historically, tolerance has been a contentious issue among believers of different faiths. However, we have come to a turning point in history which demands more of us, including a commitment to interreligious dialogue. At the same time, my delegation is increasingly convinced of the indispensable importance of reciprocity, which, by its very nature, is apt to ensure the free exercise of religion in all societies.

So is this more of a diplomatic statement, like certain parts of DH, or a theological one?

The Holy See continues to be concerned by a number of situations where the existence of enacted or proposed legislative and administrative measures for placing limits on the practice, observance or propagation of religion are a reality. Likewise, the Holy See is concerned with those situations where religion or freedom of religion is used as a pretext or a justification for violating other human rights.

Furthermore, there appears to exist a recurring case of intolerance when group interests or power struggles seek to prevent religious communities from enlightening consciences and thus enabling them to act freely and responsibly, according to the true demands of justice. Likewise, it would be intolerant to denigrate religious communities and exclude them from public debate and cooperation just because they do not agree with options nor conform to practices that are contrary to human dignity.

National and global decision making, legal and political systems, and all people of good will must cooperate to ensure that diverse religious expressions are not restricted or silenced. Every individual and group must be free from coercion and no one should be forced to act in a manner contrary to his or her beliefs, whether in private or public, whether alone or in association with others. It is important here to pay particular attention to the needs of the weakest groups, including women, children, refugees, religious minorities and persons deprived of their liberty. The disturbing signs of religious intolerance, which have troubled some regions and nations, at times affecting even majority religious groups, are much to be regretted.

Free from coercion--this is to be found in DH. But what of rightful suppression of religion? Is there such a thing?

Part of the founding ethos of the U.N. is the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Therefore, it is this Assembly's duty to continue to provide the leadership that ensures and protects these fundamental rights and fosters full religious freedom in every land.

Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion: there can be no legislation of what goes on in the "internal forum"--our thoughts and desires. But outward observance and communication--there can be legislation regarding these actions, can there not?

In our diverse and ever-changing world, religion is more than an internal matter of thought and conscience. It has the potential to bind us together as equal and valuable members of the human family. We cannot overlook the role that religion plays in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick and visiting the imprisoned.

Nor should we underestimate its power, especially in the midst of conflict and division, to turn our minds to thoughts of peace, to enable enemies to speak to one another, to foster those who were estranged to join hands in friendship, and have nations seek the way to peace together. Religion is a vital force for good, for harmony and for peace among all peoples, especially in troubled times.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Original text in English; adapted]

Notes on Aristotle

Indication that the Prime Mover is not only the Ultimate Final Cause but also the First Efficient Cause? Movement of Animals, Book I, 1
(see Broadie)
Whether soul is moved (On the Soul I 3-4); how the First Mover moves it (Metaphysics Book Lambda, 7) -- final cause only?

Nature of light:
On the Soul II, 7 (necessity of a medium)
Is speed of light instantaneous? Is this what Aristotle is arguing here against Empedocles? If this is the position of Aristotle, is it consistent with what he says about change?

See Richard SORABJI, "Aristotle on colour, light and imperceptibles,"Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies (Bull. Inst. Class. Stud.) ISSN 0951-1253

2004, n^o47, pp. 129-140 [12 page(s) (article)]University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, London, ROYAUME-UNI (1984) (Revue)

Stuff on torture

At Against the Grain:
The Torture Debate: Part 1, 2, 3, 4
(Dave Armstrong participates in the comments.)
Dave Armstrong's own blog

Fr. Harrison, O.S.: LT118, 119
Tom McKenna
Rerum Novarum

Plus: Cardinal Dulles on the death penalty
McGinley lecture
First Things (An exchange between Cardinal Dulles and his critics)
His review of Noonan's A Church That Can and Cannot Change

On touch

An addendum to the sex post which Sarge found so shocking...

The hands (and fingers) are the tools for touch manipulation. The hand is proportioned for these functions. I don't think the same can be said for the tongue.

Theologians to Discuss the Economy

Theologians to Discuss the Economy

ROME, OCT. 29, 2006 (Zenit.org).- A theologians videoconference organized by the Congregation for Clergy will be held this Tuesday on the theme "Economy: Love of God, Production and the Free Market."

It will mark the 50th such worldwide videoconference organized by the Vatican dicastery. The monthly videoconferences over Internet link theologians from around the world.

The conference can be followed live, beginning at noon (Rome time), on the dicastery's Web page, www.clerus.org. Texts of the talks will be posted there later.

Internet users must install "Real Player" in their computer to follow the event with images and audio. The organizing dicastery's Web page gives the link to download it.

Speakers will include Bishop Gerhard Müller of Regensburg, who will address the theme "Model of the 'Social Market Economy' and Its Roots in the Social Doctrine of the Church," and Monsignor Michael Hull of New York, who will talk about "Moral Criteria of the Managerial Function."

Is everything really ok between a married couple?

Warning: this post is somewhat explicit.

Many Catholic theologians and apologists claim that so long as the placement of the sperm within the vagina is not thwarted or replaced by something else, then anything goes--anal sex, oral sex, etc.

For examples, this seems to be a typical response over at the EWTN Q&A section:

The rationale for the Church's stance that deliberate sexual stimulation (of any type, not just oral sex) outside of completed marital intercourse is wrong is, in part, because it is inherently selfish. Rather than giving completely of themselves to the other, the couple is using each other for sexual satisfaction while avoiding the responsibilities involved (e.g., complete unity, openness to new life).

The implication is that deliberate sexual stimulation within completed marital intercourse is ok, when used as a means to an end. Similarly:

Hi,

To make it absolutely clear:a couple can never have oral sex as a replacement for normal sex.

Oral sex is only allowed as a prelude to normal sex. I suggest you get Christopher West's book, "Good News About Sex and Marriage." It's available through shopcatholicl.com. It would be good for both of you to read it.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

I need to read Love and Responsibility, but I doubt that John Paul II directly addressed the question of oral sex and anal sex. Some, however, have used what he has written to justify oral sex. From a blog, Catholic Writings:

Before he was elected Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla wrote in his book “Love and Responsibility” that in an act of sexual intercourse, the couple should strive to attain climax at the same time. This highest point of the sexual union between husband and wife should be shared by both.

This ideal certainly is hard to achieve, given that, as said above, men reach orgasm much quicker than women. It is therefore the husband’s responsibility to slow down and “read” his wife’s body language, which will tell him when she is about to climax.

This is one area when oral sex is allowed between husband and wife - to help the woman to climax at the same time as the husband.

However, in the event that the man does climax first, it is also his responsibility to ensure that his wife also climaxes during this act of sexual intercourse by physical stimulation.

If the husband is engaged in coitus with his wife, how is he going to give oral sex at the same time? Manual stimulation, perhaps, but oral sex seems to be physically impossible, even for a contortionist.

Again, over at EWTN:

Dear Fr.:

In a recent post, you answered that oral sex deviates from the unitive and procreative aspects of the marriage act. However, I think some detail must be made clear to arrive at the fullest picture of truth, otherwise incorrect conclusions might be drawn and sometimes those incorrect conclusions can bring great sorrow to the marriage bed and that's not what the church intends.

Although oral sex may not be licitly performed to completion, as that inhibits the procreative aspect of married sex, it should be noted that 1) oral sex as a prelude to intercourse is licit and 2) the statement is only fully true when discussing oral sex from wife to husband; oral sex to fulfill sexual pleasure for a husband TO his wife actually aids in the unitive aspect of married sex. As long as the completed sex act end with sperm ejaculated into the vagina, other techniques for aiding the wife's sexual pleasure are actually encouraged, be it oral or manual. John Paul II wrote as much when he spoke of the obligation of a husband to give his wife sexual pleasure in Love and Responsibility. It is no secret to know that very many women simply cannot achieve orgasm with direct intercourse alone. For a wife to be left without this unitive aspect of lovemaking is actually against the teachings of the church. If you think about it, it's basic biology as God created us and human body parts are part of His design (a theology of the body, so to speak): God created a man with one sexual organ, a penis, and it allows the man to assist in procreation and it gives the man (and woman, to a lesser extent) sexual pleasure. God created a woman with a vagina for procreation and a clitoris that does nothing else but give the woman pleasure. For all parts of the body to be used as God planned it surely is good.

However, having said that, it is quite clear that oral or manual sex in place of completed intercourse is always sinful. In this day and age, when we are bombarded with deviant sexual behavior in and out of marriage, it is imperitive that clear teaching of Catholic sexualtiy not be shyed away from, as that is what will keep marriages strong. (By they way, I got much of this information from the previous priest who did the Q&A for the EWTN NFP forum; it's legit, I promise!)

Pleasure is the unitive aspect of lovemaking? Unitive in an equivocal sense, or common in praedicando. What is actually unitive is coitus itself, when a man and woman join as one flesh.
Is pleasure the purpose of coitus? Or is it, as Aristotle teaches, the completion of the act? I think the reason we have problems understanding traditional sexual morality is because we are so engrossed with pleasure, and don't understand its place within natural teleology.

This is almost as bad as the position which says anything is ok between two consenting adults.
Where does this confusion arise? Perhaps it is an attempt to reconcile proportionalism (or a system that focuses exclusively on the intention) with the Church's teachings about contraception and sex (in so far as they remain 'physicalist'? or so the critics would say), leaving as much freedom as possible for the moral agent. (The "new" casuistry.) Or perhaps it arises from some form of "personalism" (though it is not clear to me that personalism has different historical sources and causes as proportionalism).

The Church's teachings against artificial contraception are on solid ground; but it seems to me that many of the explanations offered to defend her teachings do not pay sufficient attention to the morality of the external act, and its object. Is it commensurate for the penis to be put anywhere other than the vagina? It seems to me that the answer is no.

Certainly, there are health risks associated with anal sex? Frequent anal sex can lead to incontinence after the loss of muscle tone and the diminished ability of the sphincter muscle to contract, etc. But it seems that arguing anal sex is wrong based on future consequences is a consequentialist argument. It is not the same as pointing out that there is an affinity between the penis and the vagina, in so far as there is natural lubrication provided by secretions, and protection against friction given type of cells constituting the vaginal wall, and so on? There are all sort of physiological details that reveal it is proper for the penis to be in the vagina, in contrast to the anus, where there is no lubrication and the muscle wall is rather thin and susceptible to tearing, and so on.

What about the use of the hands for manual stimulation? It seems that between a married couple, the use of the hands to caress, excite and please is ok, so long as the marital embrace is not frustrated or replaced. What of the mouth? There seems to me to be a difference between kissing as a sign of reverence, and using it as a tool for stimulation. And then of course there is the women using her mouth as a substitute vagina. As for men "giving oral sex," one notes that the [chauvinistic] Greeks thought that this practice was unmanly.

While the use of the hands to stimulate the genitalia seems ok, it does not seem to me that the same can be said of using the mouth and tongue. It may be difficult to formulate an argument why, beyond 'modest repugnance,' but as evidence I would point to the fact that the sense of taste has for its organ the tongue, and the sense of smell often works in conjunction with the tongue (and its organ, too, is located in the head, on the face). Given the proximity of the components of the reproductive system to those of the urinary system, without an adequate cleaning of the genital area, one suspects that through the two senses just mentioned there would be sufficient reason to be repulsed from following through on the act.

Of course some may point to homosexual behavior among animals--but it is neither that common nor that dominant within a species; the strength of the desire for pleasure (or in the case of males to ejaculate?) -- can lead to certain acts, but this does not mean that they are "in accordance with nature" except in so far as they proceed from the sense appetite.

Small wonder that the missionary position is the favorite among women -- it fosters intimacy, parity between man and woman. Many of the other positions seem to play to a focused on the self, especially when the male is at advantage -- pleasing him or his ego, or lording his supposed sexual prowess over the female. One comment heard in the past is that certain positions are rather animalistic, since they are those used by brute beasts (and missionary is physically impossible for them); while between human beings, the missionary position does seem optiumum, especially since it fosters communication between two spouses in a way that respects both the complementarity of male and female and the equality based on their nature. Other positions that foster face-to-face orientation seem to be better for that reason--communion, relating to the other at all levels, and promoting what is proper between rational animals, rather than to brute beasts.

This too might be an argument against oral sex; when one is performing oral sex, there is no longer face-to-face parity between the two spouses. How would I otherwise respond to the argument that the man giving oral sex is being "generous" in trying to please his wife? Perhaps
the key is, again, this possibly narrow focus on pleasure. Of course, we tread a minefield when dealing with the statistics behind vaginal versus clitoral orgasms; there is plenty of polemics one both sides, though many argue that only a clitoral orgasms is possible for most women. One wonders if men were more considerate and attentive to the rhythms of their wives that the occurence of vaginal orgasms would be more frequent. Would it not be better to recommend that the husband spends more time preparing himself and his wife for the conjugal act, and spends a little time afterwards embracing her and communicating with her to show his love and affection? If women do not derive much satisfaction from sex and instead look forward to the cuddling, would it not be a sign that sex should be more like cuddling?

(Can a Catholic couple read the Kama Sutra?)

I wonder about the credibility of women who claim they like other positions -- have they been degraded either through abuse or voluntary acts? Or is their response due to a lack of self-respect; they see themselves as nothing more than sex machines and give the response they think males want to hear?

(Dr. Laura unfortunately also believes that anything goes between a married couple, and I believe she is in error on this point.)

Some websites where the answer no is given:
Christdot forum
Presentation Ministries:

Does the Church say that oral sex as foreplay in marital relations is OK?

No, the Church has never said anything officially on this. So the Church has not said oral sex followed by vaginal sex is OK, nor has the Church said it is not OK. In this case we must apply basic moral principles without the help of the Church's specific guidance. In all marital relations, each spouse should have a profound respect for the other. All marital relations should ex-press the total self-giving of the spouses to each other. Therefore, lust, which by definition focuses on self-gratification, is contradictory to love. Also, the natural functions of our bodies should be respected; so unnatural acts are wrong. Applying these principles, I believe that oral sex in marriage is wrong and sows seeds of destruction which will eventually undermine a marriage. Because of this, pastors and caring people should bring up this subject rather than let spouses sow the seeds of destruction in their marriages.

Misc:
On the Impossibility of Same-Sex Marriage

Martin Stone tonight!

Martin Stone's Talk is "Adrian of Utrecht and the Transformation of Moral Thought in Fifteenth-Century Louvain" and will be presented on Tuesday, Oct. 24th at 7:30 in the Fifth Floor Lounge of McGuinn.

Professor Martin Stone is Associate Professor of Renaissance and Early Modern Philosophy at the Hoger Instituut voor Weijsbegeerte at the University of Louvain and also a permanent Visiting Professor at King's College, London.

He did his BA at King's College, his Maitrise at the Sorbonne, his M. Phil. at Birkbeck College of the University of London and his Ph.D. at The Warburg Institute of the University of London - writing his dissertation under the superivision of David Wiggens and Jill Kraye.

He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Melborne, the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and the University of Cologne. He has lectured at Utrecht, Budapest, Trier, Strasburg, Leipzig, Bayreuth, Munich, Cardif, Helsinki, Belfast, Fribourg en Suisse, Zurich, Prague, Vienna and is now on his way to Salt Lake City. These lectures throughout the world have been on a wide-variety of subjects (liberum arbitrium, grace, probabilism, practical reasoning, casuistry, Jesuit casuistry) and a wide variety of thinkers - some familiar: Molina, Baius, Gerson; and some less familiar: Antoninus of Firenze and Adrian of Utrecht.

As editor or co-editor, he has produced an impressive number of volumes: Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy; The Proper Ambition of Science; Theories of the Will and Human Action: From the Ancients to the Present Day; Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries; and Reason, Faith and History.He is preparing a two-volume series for Oxford University Press entitled: The Subtle Arts of Casuistry: I: The Casuistic Tradition from Aristotle to Kant; II: Ordinary Morality and Practical Reasoning. More related to his present talk is his promised Oxford University Press volume: A Virtuous Man in Sad and Dangerous Times: The Life and Thought of Adrian of Utrecht.

-----------------------------------------
Shirley Gee
Department Administrator
Political Science Department
Boston College
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill MA 02467
(O) 617-552-4144; (F) 617-552-2435
geesh@bc.edu

faculty page

Johan Huizinga

The importance of leisure?

Homo Ludens
wiki; Age of the Sage; another page

see also Hugo Rahner's Man at Play

Foolishness and wisdom...

Is it not the case that those who have lesser natural gifts with respect to the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom might nonetheless live a more meritorious life, and thus have a greater share in the beatific vision than those with greater natural intellectual gifts but who waste their talents?

Hence another possible understanding of the scriptural inversion of the foolish and the wise?

(Natural gifts -- primarily endowments of the body, especially the inner senses. I don't see how there can be a differences between the intellects of individuals.)

Feasibility Study wanted

1. How possible is it to start an independent college, one that issues a degree equivalent to a Bachelor's but attainable by students of secondary-school age?

2. At this school, there would be a student to teacher ratio of around 15:1 (perhaps 10:1, but that depends on tuition and operating costs).

3. Tuition would be kept as low as possible, in the range of $5000 to $10000 a year.

4. It should not need to be said that the education provided at this independent college would be a true liberal education, following a good plan of studies recognizing the hierarchy of the sciences. It would also have a strong liberal arts component, with special attention given to rhetoric and composition.

5. The number of classrooms needed would be around 6? The size of the student body: around 100 students? The length of studies, 6 years or so, terminating in the Bachelor of Arts.

6. Administrative work would be divided among the faculty as much as possible, and the number of actual administrators and support staff kept to a minimum. In this vein, maintenance and cleaning of the facilities should be done by students and teachers as much as possible, once a week, in order to eliminate the need for a janitorial staff.

7. If the only thing preventing such a project from taking off is that accreditation will not be given by any American agency since it is a threat to the status quo, then the possibility of creating a new accreditation agency that would maintain high standards and requirements, especially with respect to teacher credentials and the curriculum, should be examined.

8. The use of computers and electronic media within the classroom should be discouraged as much as possible. Any vocational training should be kept as separate as possible, especially any involving the use of computers.

9. An urban location might be ideal in so far as it would be better able to attract local students, and a project such as this should emphasize its roots in the local community. On the other hand, given the lack of economically self-sufficient communities in the United States, one should strive as much as possible to create such schools in areas where a healthy agrarian lifestyle is practiced.

10. With these sort of considerations in mind, how difficult would it be to get such a school started? What costs (like rent) be the limiting (and possibly prohibitve) factor? Can they be offset by donations from benefactors (especially donations of land and buildings)?

11. Even if such a project is feasible, does it have a future in this country? Or will it be possible only after relocalization has begun?

Other niceties:
1. An "Asian" understanding of the relationship between teacher and student. (But one removed of the family metaphor and understanding.)

2. Physical training component. (This would of course require additional facilities and equipment.)

Also, we need to examine whether a liberal education should also be universally available, or if only for individuals with certain vocations. If the latter, then what sort of education is to be given to the others?

Some notes on personhood and humanity

Perhaps those who wish to use personhood and talk of dignity would admit that someone is human, and yet not a person (and therefore justify euthanasia being inflicted upon certain people, and so on).

X is human if X has powers a, b, c.
We know X has powers a, b, c if we observe it exercising powers a, b, c.

We do not observe it exercising powers a, b, c. --> We do not know X has powers a, b, c. --> We do not know it is human.

This is not the same as:
We do not observe it exercising powers a, b, c. --> X is not human.

Which would be a invalid conclusion.

Now is the following sound?
X is human if and only if it has powers a, b, c.

It does not seem so.

After all, it might be that:
The conceptum has the power of development, through which it is able to generate the organs needed for rational powers. And, it seems that the conceptum is the same thing as the mature adult, in so far as there is a continuity of existence. There is no external agent observed to be generating a human being from the conceptum; rather the conceptum develops itself.

(Can this be taken as an additional argument for the real distinction between the soul and its powers?)

Another word on mediocrity

If I were trying to discredit Christianity I would make sure those who appointed themselves to be defenders of Christianity against those relying on contemporary scientific dogma were bad philosophers and not very self-aware.

Stephen Barr on Dawkins, Science, and God

here

It may be that minds of the sort we encounter in living organisms arise as a consequence of the activities of complex physical structures. However, that “consequence” cannot be one that is physically explicable, in the sense that it follows logically from the mathematical laws of physics.

Yes, if spiritual activities cannot be quantified, they how can they be explained by quantities?

However, the deeper understanding provided by the more fundamental branches of science presents us with a very different picture. That order which appeared to “arise spontaneously” from chaos or slime did no such thing. It arose from profound principles of order that were there from the very beginning.

The wonderful structure of the solar system emerged because the dust and gas from which it formed obeyed the deep and beautiful laws discovered by Newton. Those laws in turn flow from the deeper and more beautiful laws of General Relativity discovered by Einstein. The slime from which life arose was made of atoms that had all the structure and intricacy and potentiality that chemists devote their lives to studying. Those laws of chemistry are themselves the consequence of the beautifully elaborate laws of electromagnetism and quantum mechanics, which in their turn come from the even more profound structures studied in “quantum field theory.”

As one moves deeper into nature—to levels about which the natural historian and zoologist can tell us nothing—one encounters not less and less form but increasingly magnificent mathematical structures, structures so profound that even the greatest mathematicians are having difficulty understanding them.

How could mathematicians, who study quantity, understand nature to begin with?

Dr. Barr accepts contemporary narrative put forth by scientists about the origin and history of creation, rather uncritically. Not surprisingly, given his training, he uses scientific laws [as expressed in the "language" of mathematics] to explain the universe. Perhaps as a way to counter a charge that his account is reductionistic by affirming that the basic constituents of Creation are, in actuality "profound structures"--more complex that we can guess, because the mathematics used to describe such entities are complex (as evidenced by quantum physics). Hence, the origin of complexity. In response to the objection that it seems he is playing with equivocal notions of complexity (complex entities are complex, basic structures are complex, basic structures therefore completely explain complex entities), he might even argue that those things which are constituted from the basic elements are even more complex than we now recognize. Still, this does not really solve the problem of complexity--either complex things are more complex than basic things, or they are not, and one who claims that they are not is going against our basic knowledge of the world. Ultimately Barr is being reductionistic, even if he thinks his reductionism can serve to prove God's existence. If there is complexity in the basic elements of nature, it is there in potentia, not in actu; what is complex in actu are those actually existing complex things, such as human beings. It's an intellectual sleight of hand to explain complexity through what is more simple. This line of reasoning is valid if one is looking at material causes, but not if one is looking at formal causes. An argument that incorrectly proves God's existence while discarding real differences between substances and their formal causes is a useless argument, no matter how much it may appeal to the scientist who wants to defend his religious beliefs.

At the foundations of the natural world, we do not find merely slime or dust or some dull insensate stuff. We find ideas of sublime beauty. Dawkins looks at mind and sees atoms in motion. Physicists look at those atoms, and deep below those atoms, and see—or, at least, some of them have seen—the products of “sublime reason,” “a great thought,” a Mind.

In other words, in nature we see a different arrow: It moves from Mind to ideas and forms, and from ideas and forms to matter. In the beginning was the Logos, St. John tells us, and the Logos was God.

If he relied on an Aristotelian account of nature I wouldn't have any problems with this last part, but it seems more amenable to an early Platonic/Pythagorean understanding, and if so, it has its problems. The danger for scientists who are believers is that they can attempt philosophical arguments* reconciling what they believe as scientists with what they believe as Christians, but being a scientist (and a Christian) is no guarantee that their reasoning is correct.

*Virtually any reasoning that goes beyond the scientific method and dealing with something other than the object of their experiments; or something that attempts a general [causal] account of reality (fundamental philosophy of nature, or physike)--for example, laying out the basic principles or laws of nature.

First potentiality

Alexander Pruss, "A Miscellany of Pro-Life Arguments; IV: Personhood"

3. Hardware and Software

But perhaps I was unfair to the pro-choice arguer in aligning the position with Aristotle. Maybe the distinction to be made is between having the capacity to develop certain mental structures and having the mental structures in place. The fetus lacks the mental structures on this view, while the sleeping adult has them (there they are, in the brain).

However, this distinction would be problematic, at least outside an Aristotelian framework. For it is not like that there is are helpful distinctions between hardware and software (i.e., structures and the information they hold), or between having a structure and being able to engage in an activity, that would allow one to make the distinction the way one needs to.

We could imagine an organism that for the winter encodes all of the information in its brain into a very small cyst, then eats the brain, and in the spring grows a new brain and populates it with the information from the cyst. When the information is in the cyst, do we say that there are developed structures or not? If we answer in the negative, then our criterion seems to be that the information doesn't count because it cannot be used immediately--a brain needs to regrown first. But by this criterion, a sleeping adult human does not have developed structures, since she needs various changes--physical (electrochemical) changes--to occur in her brain before she can be awake.

But if we say that there are developed structures when the brain is replaced by a cyst in this hypothetical organism, then how is this different from a case where structures are encoded in DNA?

Now one distinction that could be made is that not all the information necessary for us to become persons is found in the DNA. Interaction with the environment is necessary. Could be. But can we make such a sharp distinction between what forms solely from internal influence and requires mere sustenance from the outside, and what comes from the outside?

The use of thought experiments to clarify reality... I've critiqued this practice before, haven't I?

The point is that we have a better understanding of development now, which can be used to "update" Aristotle's biology, rather than invalidate it. Does the developing conceptum have the same organs that the mature adult has? Obviously not. Does this mean that it does not have the same capacities/powers as the adult? Yes, in one way, no in another.

If a power is dependent upon a corporeal organ and seated on it, does that power really exist when the organ is absent? What if that power is not purely spiritual (like the intellect) but is corporeal?

(It seems to me that "mental structures" is less precise than "organ" or "tool." Is this just the analytic disposition to create and use new technical terminology when ordinary language and the Western intellectual tradition suffice? It seems so to me.)

When the information is in the cyst, do we say that there are developed structures or not? If we answer in the negative, then our criterion seems to be that the information doesn't count because it cannot be used immediately--a brain needs to regrown first.

A very questionable hypothesis to begin with. What exactly is information? Is it the act of a power/organ? Or merely the material correlate to that act? I deny that there can be such information in the cyst, since a cyst cannot be the bearer of information.

If we accept the genetic reductionist model of life, then DNA may encode for "mental structures" but in a conceptum those mental structures do not exist in actuality, only in potentiality--only when DNA is transcribed and the structures are really generated do they come into existence.

So it is correct to say that the conceptum has a first potentiality, or do we need to speak of something like a pre-potentiality? At the moment I am leaning more towards the second than the first; what impact would this have on our understanding of natures? I think we can understand that a thing has a certain nature, even if not all of its first potentialities are yet present, as long as other potentialities are being exercised which lead to the development of those absent potentialities.

David Quinn debates Richard Dawkins

on the reasonableness of religious belief

Click here to listen to the debate.
The Turbidy Show

Via Amy Welborn.

Downsizing academia

If we manage to transition to a post-oil economy, many teachers will be out of jobs, since no one (including the government) will be able to afford to pay for most of them. Universal secondary education may no longer be possible--and certainly universal college education not at all. All of the useless studies will fall on the wayside, and those secondary schools that survive will have to streamline themselves and focus on the basics. Nonetheless, a Catholic school, aware of its tradition, is in a good position to continue passing on our intellectual heritage--one does not need to read up on the latest scholarship in science, history, and so on, to have a basic foundation in natural philosophy, for example, one that affirms the existence of God rather than blindly denying Him. As for history--if local communities can be restored, one will be less concerned with the history of giant nation-states (though this may still be valuable, if such links are consciously maintained, but how many people care about their Anglo-Saxon or French or Italian or Germany identity?), and perhaps the American project itself can be evaluated with new eyes.

Meocracy now

by Jeff Mirus

In this article Dr. Mirus contrasts theocrats with meocrats. What are meocrats? "Those who ultimately regard their own materialistic selves as the measure of all things."

How do we identify meocrats, and how does one become a meocrat? There is some difficulty in identifying meocrats because a meocrat looks very much like a person of principle caught in an inconsistency, or a religious person caught in sin. You become a meocrat only when you persistently, over an extended period of time, deal with your inconsistencies (or sins) by redefining your principles to suit your inclinations. If you do this, you will also find yourself taking delight in the failures of persons of principle to live up to what they believe, and you will publicly denounce sin and failure as hypocrisy whenever you can, the better to discredit those who claim a transcendent point of view.

If this sort of behavior sounds familiar, it may be because meocracy is one of the most potent forces in American politics today, and it is rooted in that unbridling of the passions which we call vice. By its very nature, vice clouds the intellect. It begins by making it difficult for people to reach sound conclusions about how best to live personally and how best to promote the common good politically. It continues by causing increasingly stupid people to deny that transcendent principles and values are anything more than peculiar prejudices. And it ends in the blind defense mechanism by which people define good as evil and evil as good, adopting false principles to protect their passions.

Why make up "meocrat" then--let's just call a spade a spade--what Dr. Mirus is talking about is rule by the vicious and the corruption of reason.

Although it is very hard to find a theocrat in America, it is not hard to find those who create the same kind of conflict by denying transcendence and redefining reality to suit their own inclinations. Yet transcendence is essential to both public discourse and the proper exercise of authority. Without transcendence, there is only meocracy, because without transcendence there is only me.

Is it more important to have knowledge of the transcendent than to have a genuine love of the political common good? Is it possible for a virtuous agnostic to exist and rule well? It seems to me that this is a false dichotomy--one does not need to believe in God or recognize His existence in order to be aware of the common good and to live in accordance with it.

Evangelical Catholic Apologetics

website

Of particular interest, philosophy page, writings on creationism

Incompetence as a punishment

God's permitting of the vicious to have positions of authority is certainly a punishment for the community or people. But what about the ascendancy of the mediocre, the incomptent, and those who are unqualified in other ways?

Whether it be leadership roles in a political community, or the position of teacher within academia (with the noble but serious role of imparting the truth), where is merit recognized?

Confucius could not serve in government, though he wanted to. Teaching for him was a fall-back; if he could not serve, perhaps he could pass the tradition along to the next generation and they would succeed in obtaining a position. One recalls in A Man for All Seasons, St. Thomas encourage young Roeper to teach instead of seeking a post in government, because he did not have the integrity or character to serve the common good (but apparently he had the gift to be a good teacher? or maybe not even that).

Now? Academia itself is filled with those who seek status and fame and the incompetent. The imparting of wisdom and truth? There is no such thing, within the Humanities, and in the Sciences usually some form of materalism undergirds what is being written and taught. The medieval project was to restore secular learning to its proper place, but subordinated to God as the ultimate end. If God is not the Standard of Truth, then what else could be? Now, instead we have the ignorant and unreasonable passing off their ignorance as wisdom, and they have made themselves the standard of truth. They have no training in logic, and cannot evalute the epistemic status of their own first principles and presuppositions, nor defend them.

Clyde Wilson writes:

In all countries, the bulk of the population are mediocre in talent. In the U.S. we put them in charge of government, armies, news media, public discussion, universities, and most of our other important institutions. Especially if their mediocre talents are accompanied by impenetrable self-importance.

Sir Anthony Kenny

He will be honored with the Aquinas medal at this year's ACPA meeting.
School of Advanced Study
British Academy
Gifford lectures
wiki
Portrait at Balliol College.
Review of Aquinas on Mind by Gyula Klima
Review of Aquinas on Being by Robert Pasnau
Review of Aristotle on the Perfect Life
Sir Anthony Kenny - an Oxford philosopher expelled for talking about Aristotle
An agnostic happy to nurse the 'vice' of religion

Also:
Peter Geach (wiki)
Portrait of Dr. Geach and Dr. Anscombe

A review of his Truth and Hope. A review by Fr. Kerr.

Notes on Geach on the resurrection (not sure what the source is for the notes--an obsession with personal identity?)

In the Ryle Room

GEM Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity
Oswald Sobrino comments
Obituary in First Things; John Haldane; Fr. Rutler
Anscombe's Virtues: Simply Wrong?
Remarks on Anscombe's "Causality and Determination" by Dr. Freddoso
War and Murder

Luke Gormally (Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics)
(married to Mary Geach, daughter of Peter Geach and GEM Anscombe)

Whatever happened to Thomism?

The Analysis of Memory

In Our Time programs

"In Our Time" is a program on BBC4. While I can't say all of the experts invited on to the show are good, there are some of interest:

GREYFRIARS AND BLACKFRIARS (audio file)
Contributors
Henrietta Leyser, medieval historian and Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford

Alexander Murray, medieval historian and Emeritus Fellow of University College, Oxford

Anthony Kenny, philosopher and former Master of Balliol College, Oxford

AVERROES (audio file)
Contributors

Amira Bennison, Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge

Peter Adamson, Reader in Philosophy at King's College London

Sir Anthony Kenny, philosopher and former Master of Balliol College, Oxford


HEROISM (audio file)
Contributors

Angie Hobbs, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick and author of Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good (Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Anthony Grayling, Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London

Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at the University of Cambridge

DUTY (audio file)
Contributors

Angie Hobbs, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick

Annabel Brett, Fellow of Gonville and Caius and Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge

Anthony Grayling, Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London

FREEDOM (audio file)
Guests
John Keane
Professor of Politics, University of Westminster, author of a forthcoming history of democracy

Bernard Williams
Professor of Philosophy, University of California, author of the forthcoming Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton Press, October 2002)

Annabel Brett
Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge, editor with Quentin Skinner of Liberty, Right and Nature (Cambridge University Press).

VIRTUE(audio file)
Guests
Galen Strawson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading
Miranda Fricker, Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London
Roger Crisp, Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford.

MACHIAVELLI AND THE ITALIAN CITY STATES (audio file)
Contributors:
Quentin Skinner, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge
Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London
Lisa Jardine, Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London

THE OATH (audio file)
Contributors:
Alan Sommerstein , Professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham
Paul Cartledge , Professor of Greek History at the University of Cambridge
Mary Beard , Professor in Classics at the University of Cambridge

The rest of the archive.

M. Pakaluk takes on J. Whiting's interpretation of Aristotle

Her reading of the NE, in particular. Jennifer Whiting's faculty page.

Never Say Never AgainBut This Cannot Be the Correct Reading!Whiting on Philanthropia
Another
Apologia

From the latest post:

We should distinguish: an interpretation which aims to get it right about Aristotle's thought, from an interpretation in which the interpreter, really, is engaging in a kind of 'systematic' philosophy, though using a discussion of Aristotle as a means to doing so.

The latter is, to my mind, disreputable, although it is extremely common. Systematic philosophy should stand on its own. To such interpreters I would say: "Instead of giving us an interpretation of Aristotle as a Rawlsian, please write an essay on justice using Rawls' ideas. Instead of an article arguing that Aristotle is a 'naturalist' (in our sense), write an article defending philosophical naturalism (if you can). " And so on. Each philosopher is what he is, and not another philosopher. Aristotle is not a naturalist (in our sense) or a materialist; he is not an exponent of Rawlsianism or Parfitianism; Aristotle is not a thomist or a neo-platonist. Aristotle is Aristotle.

But the alternative, the only legitimate path, in my view--to get it right about Aristotle's thought--most definitely requires great accuracy in reading and understanding an Aristotelian text. So these are not simply small points.

How very true.

Dr. Pakaluk has been looking at select essays from The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, edited by Richard Kraut. Previously he dealt with the essays by Susan Sauvé Meyer and Rosalind Hursthouse.

His most recent posts on Myer's essay.
Precise of Myer on the Voluntary
More Difficulties
Meyer on the Voluntary--One Last Loose Thread

Note: look up Aristotle on light
Allen Speight
Annette Baier lecture

One has to wonder about the quality of scholarship these days and how the passing on of wisdom and knowledge has suffered because the academy has succumbed to political correctness and the multiculturalist/diversity-for-diversity's-sake agenda.

Integrated Humanities Program

UNFLINCHING FRENCH BENEDICTINES MAKE U.S. BEACHHEAD
By Kirk Kramer

Great article about the foundation at Clear Creek, but I'm excerpting the part that discusses the work of Dr. John Senior and others at the University of Kansas:

In 1970, at the height--or more accurately, the nadir--of the student upheavals which were at the heart of the social revolution which shook the West as profoundly as the Communist Revolution of 1917 shook Russia, with the same destructive consequences for the human happiness of individuals and the common good of society, three professors, Frank Nelick, Dennis Quinn, and John Senior, received a grant from the American government to begin "an experiment in tradition" at Kansas University. They established a course of studies in the liberal arts, first known simply and elegantly as Pearson College, a name later changed to the more bureaucratic-sounding Integrated Humanities Program. This program, for first- and second-year undergraduates and undergraduettes, was a four-semester sequence of classes in which the students read the Great Books of Western civilization. Many studied Latin, taught orally. For the purposes of this article, it will be enough to give Pearson College's motto and say a word about it.

Nascantur in admiratione. Let them be born in wonder. Aristotle in the Metaphysics says that philosophy begins in wonder. By 'wonder' he does not mean the vice of curiosity, by which, for example, men are tempted to read newspapers and watch the evening news on television. He is speaking of the thing we experience when we look up at the starry sky or enter Chartres Cathedral or behold a "tall ship" with all her sails catching the wind, cutting through the sea. It is the wonder that the cowboy knew who sang, in words that became part of the state song of Kansas:

How often at night/When the heavens are bright/With the light of the glittering stars/Have I stood there amazed/And asked as I gazed/If their glory exceeds that of ours.

Home, home on the range. . . .

This passion of wonder that Aristotle wrote about, and that every man, no matter how debased, has the capacity for, is the reason that men create poetry, understanding that word in the broadest sense: not only poems, but also stories, plays, dance, music, ultimately everything man makes or does that is not merely useful, but for his delight. In Pearson College, Mr. Senior (he earned a Ph.D. at Columbia, but eschews the pretentious title Doctor, in a gesture reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' saying that the only people who get doctorates are Americans and women) and his colleagues taught, and asked their students to read, poetically--to study Plato and Chaucer and Shakespeare in order to know and to understand and ultimately to love the world better. The professors did not seek to cram facts into their students' skulls in the fashion of Thomas Gradgrind. Still less did they wish to "deconstruct" or debunk the texts read in their classes. They wished their students to read the Odyssey and the Aeneid and the Song of Roland in the spirit St Benedict enjoined in the opening lines of the Holy Rule: "Hearken, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart."

The heart. The great books of our civilization (by which the present writer does not mean Hegel or Marx or Sylvia Plath) are not addressed only or chiefly to the mind. They speak to men's hearts. "Were not our hearts burning within us as he spoke to us on the way?" Not our feelings, not our intellects--our hearts. Just as women are prone to emotionalism, men (viri) are prone to rationalism, and one is as disordered as the other. Great teachers teaching the great books in the poetic mode to docile (the word is not an obscenity) students--this dymanic will move hearts and give a true integration to the human person with all its faculties. If grace is allowed to work, as it was at K.U. thanks to the example of three Catholic professors who simply lived their Faith, the results can be remarkable. In Pearson College, the results were extraordinary. Hundreds of students sought instruction in the Catholic Faith (freely, it should hardly be necessary to add).

Stuff on Dr. John Senior:
Our Schoolmaster Remembered
Magister Johannes

His books: The Death of Christian Culture and The Restoration of Christian Culture are out of print, and difficult to find.

Leszek Kolakowski: Modernity on Endless Trial

Michael Oakeshott: What is History? And Other Essays

Robert P. Kraynak: Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World (Frank M. Covey, Jr. Loyola Lectures in Politial Analysis)

Joseph Raz

homepage; Legal Philosophy in Oxford
(wiki)

"The Problem of Authority"
Joseph Raz in conversation

Related links:
Comparing Liberalisms: John Stuart Mill & Joseph Raz

Misc:
Analytic Philosophy in America
Philippa Foot (wiki)
OUP: Philippa Foot on 'the good life'
Philippa Foot Bibliography
Philippa Foot's Moral Beliefs
Morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives

Legal Theory Blog

Leiter Reports

Thomistic Summer Seminar 2006

David S. Oderberg

David S. Oderberg's homepage
Interview
The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law: lecture, Q&A (first brought to my attention by Laura A-B.)
Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will
Why I am a Relativist
Critique of John Pul II

Misc
A review of Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions

Fred Sommers and the New Syllogistic
The Old New Logic
Essays on the Philosophy of Fred Sommers
The world, the facts, and primary logic., Fred Sommers
Predication in the logic terms., Fred Sommers

William C. Purdy's homepage

Vatican Document on Corruption

How many people are going to read this?

Vatican Document on Corruption

"Makes Societies Less Just and Less Open"

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 10, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the document "The Fight Against Corruption," written by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, issued today by the Vatican press office.

* * *

"The Fight Against Corruption"

1. The International Conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on the theme "The Fight against Corruption" was held in the Vatican on June 2-3, 2006. Participants included high-level officials of international organizations, specialists and scholars, ambassadors to the Holy See, professors and experts.

The purpose of the conference, as stated by Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, was to arrive at a better understanding of the phenomenon of corruption, to identify the best methods for countering it and to explain the contribution that the Church can make in this undertaking. Distinguished speakers, scholars and experts on the phenomenon in question helped the participants gain insight into what corruption is and how to counter it at the global level (Antonio Maria Costa), in the private sector (François Vincke), in the public sector (David Hall), in civil society (Jong-Sung You), in rich countries and in poor countries (Eva Joly), depicting the harsh impact of this phenomenon on the poor people of the world (Cobus de Swardt) and the characteristics of a culture of corruption (Paul Wolfowitz). Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi presented an overview of the aspects of the social doctrine of the Church regarding these issues.

2. The phenomenon of corruption has always existed, nonetheless it is only in recent years that awareness of it has grown at the international level. In fact, with regard to conventions on corruption and plans of action adopted by individual states and groups of states and by international organizations in the area of international trade, in the discipline of international commerce and especially in the field of finances, the majority of these efforts have been made in the last 15 years. This means that corruption has only recently become recognized as a significant phenomenon and that a negative judgment of it is spreading at the worldwide level, while at the same time there is a growing awareness of the need to fight it. To this end, methods for an empirical analysis and a quantitative assessment of corruption have been put into place that will allow for a better understanding of the dynamics behind the illegal practices connected with it. Thus, it will be possible to come up with more adequate methods, and not only law-based systems and repression, to fight these phenomena.

This recent change was brought about in particular by two important historical factors: The fall of ideological blocs after 1989 and the globalization of information. Both of these processes have contributed to shedding greater light on corruption and making people more effectively aware of it. The opening up of borders as a result of the process of globalization has made it possible for corruption to expand with greater facility in respect to the past, but also offers greater opportunity to fight it, by means of more resolute and coordinated international cooperation.

3. Corruption is a phenomenon that is not limited by politics or geography. It exists in rich countries and in poor countries. The economic impact of corruption is difficult to establish with precision; in fact, available data is often inconsistent. Nonetheless, we are dealing with enormous amounts of resources that are taken away from the economy, from production and from social programs. The costs are borne by the citizens: The price of corruption is paid by using monies intended for the legitimate use of society.

Corruption crosses all social sectors: It cannot be attributed only to those who work in the economic sector or only to public officials; nor is civil society exempt. Corruption is a phenomenon that involves both individual states and international organizations.

A ready climate for corruption is fostered by a lack of transparency in international finances, by the existence of financial havens and by the disparity between the level at which corruption is fought -- often limited to the level of single states -- and the level at which corruption is carried out, usually at the supranational and international levels. It is also facilitated by limited cooperation between states in the fight against corruption, by the excessive differences in the norms of various legal systems, by the lack of media coverage of corruption in parts of the world, and by the lack of democracy in various countries. Without a free press, without democratic systems of checks and balances, without transparency, corruption is made that much easier.
Corruption is a cause of great concern today, in that it is also connected to drug trafficking, to money laundering, to the illegal trade of arms, and to other forms of criminality.

4. If corruption causes serious harm from a material point of view and places a costly burden on economic growth, still more harmful are its effects on immaterial goods, closely connected to the qualitative and human dimension of life in society. Political corruption, as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches, "compromises the correct functioning of the state, having a negative influence on the relationship between those who govern and the governed. It causes a growing distrust with respect to public institutions, bringing about a progressive disaffection in the citizens with regard to politics and its representatives, with a resulting weakening of institutions" (No. 411).

There are very clear and empirically demonstrated connections between corruption and an absence of culture, between corruption and functional limitations of institutional systems, between corruption and the index of human development, between corruption and social injustices. This is not merely a process that weakens the economic system: Corruption hinders the promotion of the person and makes societies less just and less open.

5. The Church considers corruption to be a very serious fact that distorts the political system. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church offers a very negative judgment: "Corruption radically distorts the role of representative institutions, because they are used as an arena for political bartering between clients' requests and governmental services. In this way political choices favor the narrow objectives of those who possess the means to influence these choices and are an obstacle to bringing about the common good of all citizens" (No. 411). Corruption is listed "among the causes that greatly contribute to underdevelopment and poverty" (No. 447) and sometimes it is also present within the very mechanisms by which aid is given to poor countries.

Corruption deprives peoples of a basic common good, that of legality: respect for rules, the correct functioning of economic and political institutions and transparency. Legality is truly a common good intended for everyone. In fact, it is a critical key to development, insofar as legality makes it possible to establish correct relationships between society, the economy and politics, and insofar as it makes possible the framework of trust on which economic activity is based. As a "common good," it must be appropriately promoted by all people, in fact all peoples have a right to the good that is legality. Among those things that are owed to men and women by virtue of their being human persons is, precisely, legality. The practice and the culture of corruption must be replaced by the practice and the culture of legality.

6. From the perspective of overcoming corruption, very positive developments are seen in the transition from authoritarian to democratic societies, from closed to open societies, from vertical to horizontal societies, from centralized to participatory societies. But this passage is not automatically positive. Great care must be taken that the new openness does not undermine the strength of moral convictions and that plurality is not a hindrance to solid social bonds. The breakdown of moral standards in many advanced societies can conceal a great danger of corruption, as great as the danger present in the rigidity of so many archaic societies. There are societies that are highly structured, very rigid and closed, and even societies that are authoritarian within themselves or toward the outside world. There are societies that show much greater flexibility and mobility, with streamlined structures and democratic institutions that are open and free.

On the one hand, we can note how corruption is facilitated in the first type of societies, because it is more difficult to become aware of the presence of corruption within them: Those who are corrupt and who corrupt others can remain hidden and even protected when there is no transparency and when the state is not authentically based on the rule of law. Corruption can perpetuate itself because it can count on a situation of stability. On the other hand, however, we can easily note how, in the second type of societies also, there are hidden dangers. Excessive pluralism can possibly cause an undermining of the ethical consensus of the citizens. Confusion arising from different life styles can also weaken moral judgment with regard to corruption. The disappearance of the internal and external borders of these societies can lead to facilitation of the international exportation of corruption.

7. To avoid these dangers the Church's social doctrine proposes the concept of "human ecology" ("Centesimus Annus," 38), which can also be a useful criterion in the fight against corruption. The attitudes of corruption can be satisfactorily understood only if they are seen as the result of a breakdown of human ecology. If the family is not put in a position to fulfill its educational role, if laws contrary to the authentic good of men and women -- such as those against life -- miseducate citizens concerning what is good, if the pace of justice is excessively slow, if basic morality is weakened by tolerance of transgressions, if living conditions have deteriorated, if schools do not stimulate personal growth and do not create independence, it is not possible to guarantee "human ecology"; and the absence of human ecology allows the phenomenon of corruption to thrive.

In fact, it must not be forgotten that corruption implies a whole series of relationships and complicity; it involves the numbing of consciences, blackmail and threats, unwritten agreements and conspiracies that first involve, overall, people and people's moral conscience, and after, their structures. This, then, is the context for the enormously important task of the moral education and formation of citizens, and for the duty of the Church, which -- with her communities, institutions, movements and associations, and with the presence of individual members of the faithful in every segment of modern society -- can play an ever more significant role in preventing corruption. The Church can cultivate and promote the moral resources that will help to build a "human ecology" in which corruption will not find an hospitable habitat.

8. The Church's social doctrine makes use of all its fundamental guiding principles, which it puts forth as indications of personal and collective behavior, placing them on the front-line in the battle against corruption. These principles are the dignity of the human person, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, the preferential option for the poor, the universal destination of goods. Corruption stands in radical contrast to all these principles. It exploits the human person, disdainfully using men and women for selfish interests. It represents an obstacle for achieving the common good, because it is based on individualistic criteria of selfish cynicism and illicit special interests.

It is a contradiction of solidarity because it gives rise to injustice and poverty, and a contradiction of subsidiarity because it does not respect the different social and institutional roles but corrupts them. It also acts against the preferential option for the poor by hindering the proper delivery to the poor of the resources intended for them. Finally, it stands in contrast to the universal destination of goods because the good of legality, as we have already seen, is a human good for every man and woman, intended for all people.

The whole of the Church's social doctrine proposes a perspective of social relationships that is completely at odds with the practice of corruption. Thus we can understand the gravity of this phenomenon and the Church's utterly negative judgment with regard to it. We can also understand the origin of the great resource that the Church brings to the fight against corruption: the entire body of her social doctrine and the work of those who are inspired by it.

9. The fight against corruption requires a greater conviction, by means of the consensus given to moral evidence, and a greater awareness that this fight will provide important social advantages. According to the teaching of "Centesimus Annus": "Man tends toward good, but he is also capable of evil. He can transcend his immediate interest and still remain bound to it. The social order will be all the more stable, the more it takes this fact into account and does not place in opposition personal interest and the interests of society as a whole, but rather seeks ways to bring them into fruitful harmony" (No. 25).

This is a very effective and realistic criterion. It tells us to aim at the characteristics of virtuous behavior in men and women, and also to encourage these characteristics; to think of the fight against corruption as a value, and also as a need; that corruption is an evil, and that it also involves a great price; that rejecting corruption is a good, and also an advantage; that abandoning corrupt practices can lead to development and well-being; that behavior marked by honesty is to be encouraged and behavior marked by dishonesty is to be punished. In the fight against corruption it is very important that responsibility for illicit acts be exposed, that the guilty be punished with reparative measures aimed at restoring socially responsible behavior. It is likewise important that there be rewards for countries and economic partnerships that work in conformity with an ethical code that does not tolerate corrupt practices.

10. On the international level, the fight against corruption requires that people work together to increase transparency in economic and financial transactions and to enact within different countries uniform legislation in this area. At the present time funds arising from corruption are easily concealed, as are the dishonest gains of corrupt governments; these governments are able to export huge amounts of capital effortlessly with many forms of complicity. Harmonized or uniform legislation is to be encouraged as a step in prevention, so that poor countries do not attract this illicit capital solely because such uniform legislation is lacking.

Since organized crime knows no borders, international cooperation between governments also needs to increase, at least with regard to juridical cooperation in the area of extradition. The ratification of agreements against corruption is very important, and it is desirable that the number of countries ratifying and enforcing the U.N. Convention against Corruption increase. There remains, however, the problem of the concrete application of these agreements, since -- because of political motivation -- they are not observed in many countries, even in countries that have signed them. It is necessary that a common accord be found also at the international level for confiscating and recovering what has been illegally obtained; at present, norms regulating such procedures exist only within individual Nations.

It is the hope of many that an international authority against corruption will be established, with the ability to act autonomously even while working in conjunction with States, and with the ability to verify whether crimes of international corruption have been committed and, if verified, to punish the perpetrators. The principle of subsidiarity can be useful in this area, applying it to the different levels of authority at work in the fight against corruption.

11. A particular kind of attention is called for with regard to poor countries: they must be helped, as noted above, when there are voids at the level of legislation and when they do not yet have adequate legal institutions for the fight against corruption. Bilateral or multilateral cooperation in the area of justice -- for the improvement of prison systems, the acquisition of investigative competence, the structural independence of the courts with respect to the government -- is most useful and is to be fully included in aid given for development.

Corruption in developing countries is sometimes caused by Western corporations or even by state or international agencies; other times it is brought about by corrupt local oligarchies. Only with a consistent and disciplined approach on the part of rich countries will it be possible to help the governments of poorer countries to acquire credibility. A most desirable approach is certainly the promotion of democracy in all countries, the promotion of a free and vigilant press, and the revitalization of civil society. Specific plans on the part of international agencies, developed on a country-by-country basis, can lead to good results in this area.

The local Churches are heavily involved in the formation of a civil conscience and in the education of citizens to a true democracy; episcopal conferences of many countries, have made interventions against corruption and on behalf of a society that is governed by law. Local Churches should cooperate in a valuable manner with international organizations in the fight against corruption.

Vatican City, Sept. 21, 2006
Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino
President

Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi
Secretary

JCD Clarke

J.C.D. Clarke
distinguished faculty page; Department of History page
wiki
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Papal Address to Bishops of Western Canada

Papal Address to Bishops of Western Canada

"The Human Need to Confront Sin Never Goes Away"

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 9, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Benedict XVI delivered today to the bishops of the Western Catholic Conference of Canada, with whom he met on the occasion of their five-yearly visit to Rome.

* * *

[In English]

Dear Brother Bishops,

"We should celebrate and rejoice ... he has come to life; he was lost and is found" (Lk 15:32). With fraternal affection I warmly welcome you, the Bishops of the Western Catholic Conference of Canada, and I thank Bishop Wiesner for the good wishes offered on your behalf. I warmly reciprocate them and assure you, and those entrusted to your pastoral care, of my prayers and solicitude. Your meeting with the Successor of Peter concludes the visits "ad limina Apostolorum" of the Canadian Bishops' Conference. Notwithstanding the increasingly secular climate within which you serve, your reports contain much from which you can draw encouragement. In particular, I have been heartened to note the zeal and generosity of your priests, the selfless dedication of the Religious present in your Dioceses and the increasing readiness among the laity to embolden their witness to Christ's truth and love in their homes, schools, places of work and in the public sphere.

[In French; translated by ZENIT]

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most appreciated passages of sacred Scripture. Its profound illustration of the mercy of God and the important human desire for conversion and reconciliation, as well as the restoration of severed relations, speak to men and women of every age. Man's temptation to exercise his freedom by distancing himself from God is frequent. Now the experience of the Prodigal Son makes us see at the same time that in history and in our own lives, when freedom is sought outside of God, the result is negative: loss of personal dignity, moral confusion and social disintegration. However, the Father's passionate love for humanity overcomes human pride. Freely lavished, it is a forgiving love that leads people to enter more profoundly in the communion of Christ's Church. It truly offers all peoples unity in God and, as perfectly manifested by Christ on the cross, reconciles justice and love (cf. "Deus Caritas Est," No. 10).

[In English]

And what of the elder brother? Is he not, in a certain sense, all men and women as well; perhaps particularly those who sadly distance themselves from the Church? His rationalization of his attitude and actions evokes a certain sympathy, yet in the final analysis illustrates his inability to understand unconditional love. Unable to think beyond the limits of natural justice, he remains trapped within envy and pride, detached from God, isolated from others and ill at ease with himself.

Dear Brothers, as you reflect upon the three characters in this parable -- the Father in his abundant mercy, the younger son in his joy at being forgiven, and the elder brother in his tragic isolation -- be confirmed in your desire to address the loss of a sense of sin, to which you have referred in your reports. This pastoral priority reflects an eager hope that the faithful will experience God's boundless love as a call to deepen their ecclesial unity and overcome the division and fragmentation that so often wound today's families and communities. From this perspective, the Bishop's responsibility to indicate the destructive presence of sin is readily understood as a service of hope: it strengthens believers to avoid evil and to embrace the perfection of love and the plenitude of Christian life. I wish therefore to commend your promotion of the Sacrament of Penance. While this Sacrament is often considered with indifference, what it effects is precisely the fullness of healing for which we long. A new-found appreciation of this Sacrament will confirm that time spent in the confessional draws good from evil, restores life from death, and reveals anew the merciful face of the Father.

Understanding the gift of reconciliation calls for a careful reflection on the ways to evoke conversion and penance in man's heart (cf. "Reconciliatio et Paenitentia," 23). While manifestations of sin abound -- greed and corruption, betrayed relationships and exploitation of persons -- the recognition of individual sinfulness has waned. Behind this weakening of the recognition of sin, with its commensurate attenuation of the need to seek forgiveness, is ultimately a weakening of our relationship with God (cf. Address at Ecumenical Vespers, Regensburg, 12 September 2006).

Not surprisingly this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in societies marked by secularist post-Enlightenment ideology. Where God is excluded from the public forum the sense of offence against God -- the true sense of sin -- dissipates, just as when the absolute value of moral norms is relativized the categories of good or evil vanish, along with individual responsibility. Yet, the human need to acknowledge and confront sin in fact never goes away, no matter how much an individual may, like the elder brother, rationalize to the contrary. As Saint John tells us: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1 Jn 1:8). It is an integral part of the truth about the human person. When the need to seek forgiveness and the readiness to forgive are forgotten, in their place a disturbing culture of blame and litigiousness arises. This ugly phenomenon, however, can be dispelled. Following the light of Christ's healing truth is to say with the father: "My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours" and we must be glad "because your brother ... who was lost ... is found" (Lk 15:31-32).

The lasting peace and harmony so longed for by individuals, families and society underpin your concerns to deepen reconciliation and understanding with the many First Nations communities found in your region. Much has been achieved. In this regard, I have been heartened to learn from you about the work of the Catholic Aboriginal Council for Reconciliation and the aims of the Amerindian Fund. Such initiatives bring hope and bear witness to the love of Christ which draws us forward (cf. 2 Cor 5:14). Yet there is still much to be accomplished. I therefore encourage you to address with compassion and determination the underlying causes of the difficulties surrounding the social and spiritual needs of the Aboriginal faithful. Commitment to truth opens the way to lasting reconciliation through the healing process of asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness -- two indispensable elements for peace. In this way our memory is purified, our hearts are made serene, and our future is filled with a well-founded hope in the peace which springs from truth.

With fraternal affection I share these reflections with you and assure you of my prayers as you seek to make the sanctifying and reconciling mission of the Church ever more appreciated and recognizable in your ecclesial and civic communities. With these sentiments I commend you to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and to the intercession of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. To you and to the priests, deacons, Religious, and lay faithful of your Dioceses I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing.

[Original text: multilingual]

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