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March 26, 2004
A correspondent writes:
The Code of Canon Law is not as detailed as one would like regarding the disposition of blessed articles in situations such as you describe. Nevertheless, it seems possible to determine a reasonable course of action. Here are the relevant points:
As a result, it seems that you can simply relegate the ring to secular
use and then exchange it in good conscience. March 25, 2004 A reader writes:
The Church's basic position, as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is as follows:
This means that posthumous organ donations are themselves morally praiseworthy but must be done in accord with moral law--for example, you cannot kill a person to get his organs. Unfortunately, this appears to be precisely what is done in the case of some organ harvesting (e.g., for hearts) but not for other (e.g., for corneas). Because one cannot consent to an immoral act, one cannot consent to the harvesting of organs that are collected in an immoral manner, so these cannot be donated (until harvesting methods are changed). However, one can donate other organs that are harvested in a moral manner. (NOTE: To keep this entry from getting unduly long, we'll leave the question of "brain death" for another day. However, it is my understanding that in American hospitals doctors harvesting hearts do not insist on proof of complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity before taking the heart. Thus the requirement even of "brain death" is not imposed in typical harvesting cases. If any doctors are reading this and can confirm or deny this, please let me know.) Regarding the resurrection, the Catechism notes (CCC 999-1000) that the manner of the resurrection exceeds the ability of our present intellects to comprehend it. However, it would seem theologically certain that we will be raised in a way that results in us being physically unimpaired (thus having one, perfectly-functioning heart, regardless of how many transplants or mechanicals we had during life). The degree of the destruction done to the body (e.g., reducing it to dust and ashes) does not matter. And those who had deformities in this life either will not have them or will not be impeded by them in the resurrection. My personal guess, though I cannot prove it, is that we may well be able to change around our bodies at will in the next life. In any event, we won't be suffering due to bodily flaws or limitations. For an interesting cautionary tale regarding the potential abuses of organ harvesting, see Larry Niven's Hugo-nominated sci-fi story "The Jigsaw Man." This was the story, incidentally, that coined the term "organlegging," and the dangers it warns about are as relevant today as when it was written. Fascinating reading for pro-lifers interested in the way society could go. March 24, 2004 A reader from Australia writes:
The differences between Catholic and Protestant Bibles in the original languages are essentially confined to the Old Testament. There is not a dispute over the Greek text of the New Testament between the two groups. Both Catholic scholars and Protestant scholars (which is to say, leaving aside Catholic Douay-Rheims Onlyists and Protestant King James Onlyists) face the same set of options in determining the best readings for particular passages, and the discussion is not polarized along confessional lines. For your purposes--learning to read in the Greek New Testament--more or less any edition will do. I wouldn't even turn you away from one of the Textus Receptus editions for basic learning to read purposes (though these editions are not as accurate as contemporary ones done after the advent of New Testament textual scholarship). The standard version that most scholars, Catholic and Protestant, work from is the United Bible Societies/Nestle-Aland text. Here is an inexpensive, leather-bound edition put out by the American Bible Society. As far as textbooks to learn from, yes, I recommend Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek. It is the best text currently on the market, bar none. (At least until I get around to finishing mine, which is going to be some time, especially with Secret Project #1 filling up my schedule in the interim.) You also need the workbook that goes with it. If you want to get Mounce's own lectures on tape or CD to self-study with, you can order them from his website. Two dictionaries that I recommend are:
For those not ready to take the plunge into learning Greek, but who would like to get a little exposure to it (enough to use Greek NT-related study tools, such as the dictionaries I just recommended), I recommend Mounce's Greek for the Rest of Us. Hope these do for now. I'm working on a permalink page for this site in which I'll give a bunch more language resource recommendations. I also have a couple of articles on the subject coming out in the July-August and September issues of This Rock. Good luck in your studies! New Testament Greek is an easy and rewarding language to learn! Another reader writes:
This question has to be handled on two levels, the linguistic and the theological. Since I haven't seen what Dodd said, I can't speak directly to that, but let's talk about the position you described. It is very risky to mix linguistic and theological arguments in the way you described. Too often people let their theological commitments govern how they read the linguistic evidence, and this can lead them astray, even out of the best of motives (and even if their theology happens to be correct). The proper procedure is to try to first establish what the text says on purely linguistic grounds (or as near to pure as one can get) and then try to establish what it means theologically. Linguistically, when hilasterion is used as a noun (it can also be an adjective), it appears to mean "propitiation" or "appeasement" (like its cognate noun, hilasmos). Abbott-Smith (who I just recommended, above) doesn't list "expiation" as a possible meaning (though some newer dictionaries may, possibly through the influence of Dodd and others of the same mindset). I wouldn't appeal to this as a rock-solid conclusion, however, for several reasons: (1) Before doing so I want to check a bunch of dictionaries, including highly technical ones, (2) I'd want to dig into the original sources that the dictionaries and concordances reference to see if the word is regularly used in a way that would exclude "expiation" as a likely meaning, and (3) we often at this late date simply cannot tell the precise nuance a word is being given. It's clear that when Paul describes Jesus as a hilasterion (e.g., Rom. 3:25) that he means that it is through Jesus that the consequences of our sins are removed. That much is obvious. But the precise nuance he wants to give the term is far less obvious, whether it is the idea of turning away or satisfying wrath (propitiation/appeasement) or making amends (expiation) or something else. To establish the latter nuance with certainty, a lot of careful scholarly work would have to be done, and a completely satisfying answer might not be attainable due either to a lack of linguistic evidence or ambiguity in the evidence. Nevertheless, let's go with the understanding that hilasterion and its cognate terminology should primarily be understood in terms of turning away or satisfying wrath. Though I can't document it the way I'd like at the moment, this seems to me to be the likely understanding of the nuance Paul wishes to call to mind. Having dealt with the linguistic level, let's kick it up to the theological level. What does propitiation mean theologically? Those who would argue that the idea taken literally is more suited to pagan than to Christian theology are correct. Pagan deities might literally feel passions like anger, but Christian theological had established long before the time of Trent that God does not literally have passions (see Aquinas on this point). As a result, when God is described as being angry or hating something, such as sin, there is a figurative component to the language (again, see Aquinas on this point). When people sin, God is not literally burning with anger, because his infinite beatitude cannot be diminished by what creatures do. Instead, as Aquinas and Catholic theology in general points out (see Ott's discussion of this), Scripture and the Magisterium are using language with a figurative component when they speak in this way. The same component is present when the language of propitiation is used with regard to God. To say that God has been propitiated does not mean that he has stopped burning with anger (something he was not doing in the first place) but that the person now will not experience the painful consequences of sin that he otherwise would have experienced. The sacrifice of the Mass, by bringing about this state of affairs by applying the fruits of Christ's sacrifice, is thus propitiatory. What Trent was concerned to do was to repudiate Protestant hypotheses that tried to explain the Mass as a sacrifice of thanksgiving only and not one that put away sin. It was not trying to establish more precisely the concept of propitiation and relied on the understanding of it that Catholic theology had already worked out (e.g., as in Aquinas and the scholastics). So, bottom line, from what I can tell without extensive digging into the linguistic evidence, I'd probably translate the hilasterion passages with propitiation/appeasement-related terms but then in commentaries or homilies (if I were a priest or deacon) explain what these mean theologically. March 22, 2004 A reader writes:
The Church does not have an official position on all of these questions. It does, as you note, teach the latter, because St. Paul does in Romans, though even then there is room for discussion about what the corporate conversion of the Jewish people means (e.g., someone might say that it means only most Jews, others might mean that it means absolutely all Jews; I view the latter as unlikely given how God tends to do things in history, but it's not incompatible with the Catholic faith). Regarding your first four points, however, it would be hard to establish an authoritative position of the Church on any of them in Magisterial documents. They would all seem to be permitted exegetical options, and thus, as you put it, there appears to be "room for these beliefs in the Church." I should issue a caution here, however. Sometimes the points you name are put in a larger package of known as Dispensationalism. This is not a Catholic school of thought, and it has many problems, including (in my personal view) an excessively futuristic reading of the book of Revelation. I don't know what sources you are drawing upon in formulating these views (besides the obvious Scripture passages used to support them), but I would exercise caution regarding them and not try to build a highly detailed view of the future. Also, I'd be careful in applying these views to the current political situation. Holding the positions you maintain does not mean endorsing a uniformly pro-Israel point of view. Even during biblical days, when the promises of blessings and curses you mention were unquestionably in operation, Israel as a nation made mistakes that it would have been foolish to support. So great were the mistakes that God himself disciplined the nation through foreign invaders that took away the land. This serves as a warning both to Israelis and non-Israelis against an "Israel, right or wrong" policy. In the present situation, both Arabs and Israelis have violated the human rights of each other, and neither side is free of guilt. Both have blood on their hands. Hope this helps, and welcome home! March 19, 2004 Although eating meat on Fridays during Lent normally is prohibited, this does not apply on Fridays that are solemnities. The Code of Canon Law provides that:
Since today--Friday--is the solemnity of St. Joseph, the law of abstinence doesn't apply. Patrons of the highly-effective Atkins Diet, rejoice! March 17, 2004 One apologetic note: Some of Protestants--particularly those of Irish descent--have sought in recent years to claim St. Patrick as one of their own. In other words, they have argued that he believed in Protestant Christianity and was not a Catholic. This is completely false. It amazes me that they can even make such a preposterous claim. St. Patrick was a Latin-speaking bishop commissioned by the pope and whose writings abound with Catholic teaching. Only a person who had never read them, or never read them with any degree of attention, could miss this fact. For the evidence, see here. Also you can read St. Patrick's Confession. One of my favorite contemporary media authors is Joe Michael Straczynski, or JMS as his fans call him. He is the creator of Babylon 5, former head writer of Murder, She Wrote and the 1980s Twilight Zone, and current author of Amazing Spider-Man. He uses the Internet rather a lot and keeps people up to date on what he's working on. Often he mentions projects that he can't yet give full details on, and so it's fun to try to guess what these projects are. I've decided to do something similar. I have a project, henceforth known as Secret Project #1, which I am working on. I am not yet in a position to announce the details, but it's already been given a preliminary approval by Catholic Answers. This is going to be a very exciting project. Nothing like it exists in Catholic apologetics (though something like it does exist in the Protestant community). When it is publicly rolled out (probably within the next six months), it will cause a stir. As soon as that happens, I'm going to have to get to work . . . bigtime. Secret Project #1, once it is no longer a secret, is going to take at least five years of concentrated effort on my part. The project itself should go on for much longer than that, with major ripples spawning multiple side-projects, but I'm going to have to work my tail off for five years. It's the most ambitious single project I've ever been involved in. Now that we're past the early meeting stage on the project, the next step is for me to prep a few samples, which should happen later this month or early next. I'll let you know when it does, as well as on the progress of the project in general. (There! And I got through all that without even mentioning Secret Project #2.) |
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