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"And That's What I Like About The South!"

Plain ol' common sense here!

First Thoughts on the New Liturgical Abuse Document

I'm taking my lunch hour now, so I have a few moments to write. Here are some notes on the new document on liturgical abuses:

1. The title of the document is Redemptionis Sacramentum (for once, the Vatican gives a document a title of manageable length!). It is online in English here and in Latin here (the English translation occasionally needs to be clarified by consulting the Latin original). You can also read Cardinal Arinze's presentation of the document here.
2. The document is loooong, but it is easier to read than most Vatican documents. Most of it consists of short, numbered paragraphs that deal with particular liturgical abuses.
3. I'm going to begin immediately processing the document for a special report that Catholic Answers will publish. This special report will be prepared on an expedited basis and will be available very soon (I'll let you know when). It will contain quotes from the document, along with supporting documentation from other sources, set in a framework that makes the whole thing easier to understand.
4. The document is good. It does not break a lot of new ground (that was not its purpose) but it reaffirms many prior points of liturgical law, clarifies some additional things, and in general reinforces traditional liturgical sensibilities.
5. Of particular note are the following:

• The document contains a system for classifying liturgical abuses according to their severity and gives numerous specific examples. This is a first. The Holy See has not to date created as detailed a system for ranking liturgical abuses as the one this document contains. The fact it gives so many specific examples is especially helpful since it counters the tendency of some to say, "Well, technically that's not allowed by the rules, but I don't think it's that serious."
• The document is very aggressive regarding the local bishop's responsibility to clean up liturgical abuses in their own dioceses. There is a section toward the end that is quite strong (for the Vatican) in saying that bishops must correct these abuses speedily and be willing to punish the malefactors if they don't comply.
• The document ends with a section that basically invites the faithful to complain about liturgical abuses (in a polite, respectful way, of course).
• As if the previous two points wouldn't sufficiently set the cat among the pigeons, the document also contains a passage that suggests that those who have been appointed as extraordinary ministers of the Holy Communion should refuse to serve in situations where their use is not warranted.
• In a similarly eye-opening vein, the document suggests that, in order to keep Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest distinct from Mass, serious thought should be given to the question of whether Communion should even be offered at such celebrations. (Implication: It may be more advantageous to not have Communion services when a priest is unavailable in order to keep alive an authentic hunger for the Eucharist and for Mass in the people.)
• The document also deals with lots of the standard themes that the Vatican has been hammering for a while (e.g., no lay person is ever allowed to preach the homily at Mass or read the Gospel), but these acquire new teeth with with disciplinary elements the document contains.

One specific question I've already had from a reader:

I would love your commentary on section 112 dealing with when Latin can be used. Aren't all celebrations of the Mass scheduled in the US by ecclesiastical authorities supposed to be doen in English? How does this help?

Here's what section 112 states:

Mass is celebrated either in Latin or in another language, provided that liturgical texts are used which have been approved according to the norm of law. Except in the case of celebrations of the Mass that are scheduled by the ecclesiastical authorities to take place in the language of the people, Priests are always and everywhere permitted to celebrate Mass in Latin.

Section 112 helps because it clarifies that priests are permitted to celebrate the Mass in Latin (meaning the current rite of Mass, not the prior, Tridentine rite, which is a separate question) except in particular circumstances. Those circumstances are where "the ecclesiastical authorities" (for practical purposes that means the local bishop in most circumstances) schedule a Mass in a particular language. For example, a bishop could say, "Fr. Jones, I want you to make sure that one of your Sunday Masses is in Spanish for the benefit of your Spanish-speaking congregants" or "I want you to schedule at least one Mass daily in English for your English-speaking congregants." But he could not say "Fr. Jones, I want you to schedule all your Masses in English to the exclusion of Latin." Thus, a parish can add a Latin Mass if it wants, and it doesn't have to be reserved as a "private Mass" for the priest or any special group.

At least, that's the way section 112 reads. We'll have to see if the Holy See is willing to stick up for what it said. (If Cardinal Arinze has anything to say about it, it will. He has real backbone on liturgical matters.)

FLASH!!! The Long-Awaited Vatican Document on Liturgical Abuses Is Out

Commentary ASAP.

Getting Confirmation About Confirmation

A correspondent writes:

I came into the Church as a convert at the Easter Vigil in 2002. I found out last night that my Confirmation sponsor was never himself Confirmed. While he has a certificate of baptism that has the word "Catholic"; on it, the church at which he was baptized was probably not in full communion with Rome, and so there is some question about whether my sponsor was even Catholic. Does this affect the validity of my own Confirmation?

My sponsor also told me that the priest, who is also the diocesan canon lawyer, told him that the validity of my Confirmation is not affected. However, while I have trusted my sponsor implicitly in the past, the fact that he failed to tell me that he might not be eligible to be my sponsor because he was not Confirmed himself has really shook me up.

I sympathize with your situation. However, your priest is correct that your sponsor's lack of qualifications do not affect the validity of your confirmation. Here's what the Code of Canon Law says:

Insofar as possible, there is to be a sponsor for the person to be confirmed; the sponsor is to take care that the confirmed person behaves as a true witness of Christ and faithfully fulfills the obligations inherent in this sacrament [Can. 892].

Note that the canon says "Insofar as possible, there is to be a sponsor." Thus even the complete absence of a sponsor does not affect the validity of a confirmation. The presence of a sponsor simply is not required for the sacrament to be valid.

Hope this sets your mind at rest!

April 20, 2004

Reporter Displays Microscopic Understanding of Own Topic

As I was saying, reporters frequently have next to no understanding of what they're writing about. This article on nanotechnology by CNN reporter Marsha Walton is a great example. I won't bore you by pointing out all the problems it has, but consider this section:

Noisy atoms found

Physicists studying nanotech made another serendipitous find: They discovered that atoms make noise.

Atoms are moved from one location to another with a special type of electric current known as a tunneling current. Monitoring the sound of that manipulation reveals a sort of "cry of protest" from the atom.

"That jumping back and forth, between its preferred place and where we are really forcing it to be, turns out to make this noise," Celotta said.

The idea that atoms make protest noises like calves being prodded during a round up is interesting, but it isn't the literal truth. Remember: We're talking about the motion of an individual atom, folks, and sound does not exist on that level. Sound is "mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (as air) and is the objective cause of hearing" (Merriam-Webster's Dictionary). One atom by itself cannot make a sound because it is not a medium. Only a bunch of atoms together (like a collection of air molecules) can be a medium.

I suspect that the physicists the reporter was talking to were trying to simply things for her and use the term "noise" metaphorically, referring perhaps to an energy emission from the atom as it is jostled out of place by tunneling current. That emission could be monitored by sensitive equipment, but it isn't sound in the literal sense. The reporter, apparently not knowing enough to separate metaphor from reality, passed it off to her readers as the literal truth. One more for the "reporter doesn't understand the subject of the report" file.

I do have to admit that I liked one bit of the story, in which a scientist said:

"Early on, the scanning tunneling microscope was more used like an archeologist's tool, where you were seeing things for the first time. "It was like Galileo looking up at the stars, but you were looking inward and saying, 'Boy is that neat; I never imagined that would happen,' " Celotta said.

"And now we are getting more like mankind tends to be, rearranging it the way we want it," he added.

Cool. I support rearranging things the way we want them. That's what humans do. Atoms should be pushed out of their comfortable positions and rounded up into configurations that are useful to humans.

Keep movin', movin', movin'
Though they're disapprovin'
Keep them dogies movin'
Rawhide!
Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope, throw, and brand 'em
Soon we'll be living high and wide.
My hearts calculatin'
My true love will be waitin',
Be waitin' at the end of my ride.
Rawhide!

April 19, 2004

Homosexuality in Nature, Part II

A reader writes:

I hope you don't mind me asking you this, but I read on your blog [here] about your debate with that homosexual. Two questions came to mind that I'd really like answered. First, even though animals do things humans shouldn't do, WHY do animals do them? Is homosexual mating between animals a disorder in the creation caused by the Fall?? If not, then there seems to be only one option for Catholics: femininity and masculinity are not inherently attracted to each other. So why did God make them attracted to each other in humans though??

There are several questions bundled here, but let me try to unpack them:

1. It is not clear the extent to which the Fall of Man affected nature. We know it affected man in a very profound way, but its effects on nature are significantly undetermined. This subject commonly arises in connection with death. We know that human death entered the world through the Fall, but Aquinas states that this did not apply to animals, as lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) were still carnivores before the Fall and therefore killed things. A parallel may be true of homosexual behavior. Among humans it entered the world on account of the Fall, but it may have already been there in animals.
2. The basic reason that animals sometimes engage in homosexual behavior is a subset of why animals do all kinds of things that among humans would be immoral. They do all kinds of other things like this, too: Eating their own kind, killing their young, torturing animals they are about to kill, etc. And those are only the tip of the iceberg. Many species also mate indiscriminately, commit rape, take multiple mates, use violence to prevent others from mating, etc.
3. The basic reason that animals do these things is that they simply have no moral consciousness. There are varying degrees of consciousness among animals, and these result in different kinds of behavior. For example, one kind of sea slug (at least I think it's a sea slug; I'd have to check) has a very rudimentary behavioral response to other life forms. It follows the rule: "Try to eat it. If you can't eat it, try to mate with it." The slug (or whatever) is simply too dimwitted to make a more fine-grained appraisal of how to interact with other life forms. Other creatures--such as mammals--are more intelligent (including the aforementioned lions and tigers and bears, for example). Mammalian species have a finer-grained set of distinctions they apply to other creatures, but in some species they aren't always capable of reliably distinguishing between members of their own species (or closely related species). This can result in attempts to mate with an individual other than they thought they were mating with.
4. Even if an animal did realize that it was trying to mate with a different individual than it usually does, it probably wouldn't care. Animals follow a variant of the rule "If it feels good, do it." Among the higher animals, the rule is more like "If it feels good--and you think you can get away with it--do it." This rule, of itself, is going to result in some homosexual behavior among animals. Some animals will wind up in situations where they experience physical pleasure "mating" with members of their own gender, and this will motivate them to do it. If they think they can get away with it, they will.
5. The question is: Why do animals lack moral consciousness? A simple explanation is that they simply aren't smart enough to have it. That's true, but that may not be all of the answer.
6. It may be that animals simply are not moral subjects. For an animal not designed to have a moral nature, it's hard for me to think of its acts as moral or immoral. I don't blame a boulder or a tree if it falls on a good guy and kills him. Neither do I praise the boulder or the tree if it falls on a bad guy and kills him. Its "actions" are neither moral nor immoral. They just are. The boulder or tree is simply not a moral subject. It is very tempting to say that the same is true of animals. If so, then they aren't merely blameless for their actions because they are ignorant of their actions' moral dimension. They are blameless because their actions have no moral dimension.
7. These questions are interesting to think about, but we don't have definitive answers on them. What we do have definitive answers about is humans: Humans are moral subjects, their actions do have a moral dimension, and the only two circumstances that diminish their culpability for committing wrong actions are lack of knowledge and lack of volition.
8. We also know this: Masculinity and femininity are innate in humans, but in some cases there are disorders that can mute these. There can also be homosexual temptations.
9. Among humans, these disorders are consequences of the Fall. Regardless of how other species may have ended up with homosexual impulses, God doesn't make people with homosexual temptations or any other kind of temptations. As Scripture states: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire" (Jas. 1:13-14). Those desires are there because of the Fall.

The reader continues:

Secondly, is it right to befriend a active homosexual and try to be on good turns, dialoguing with the person?? In the past I was under the impression that such people are corrupt, so we can't treat them the way we might treat a Protestant in debate. But are active homosexuals really on the same level as serial killers?

I'm less certain that I understand everything you're after here, but here goes:

1. It's certainly not wrong to befriend a person with homosexual temptations and try to discuss matters with him. In fact, helping him see the problem with acting on his temptations would be a spiritual act of mercy.
2. There is a spectrum of gravity among sins, and although homosexual acts and murder are both mortally sinful, the latter is clearly the worse of the two. So no, active homosexuals are not on the same level as serial killers. (If someone told you that they are, he's dead wrong--no pun intended.)
3. It's problematic to talk about any individual as "corrupt" in an unqualified manner. We all have flaws, temptations, and sins in our past. Homosexuals may have a different set than most of us, but ultimately we are all sinners.
4. We also all share basic human dignity that no amount of sin and corruption can remove. We can commit offenses against our dignity, but we cannot remove it, for God built it into us as an inalienable gift. God loves us all, and Christ died for us all. That is what should be at the center of our minds and be the guiding principle of our approach to those with homosexual temptations or with any other temptation--which is to say, that should be the guiding principle of our approach with everybody.

April 17, 2004

Hieroglyphs Without Mystery

When I was a boy I was fascinated by hieroglyphs. I was also frustrated by the fact I couldn't read them. It was the 1970s, and the Tutankhamun treasures exhibit was all the rage (as was Steve Martin's "King Tut" song). I remember looking intently at the colorful pictures of Tut's treasures in my parents' National Geographic magazine, but the meaning of the hieroglyphs never revealed itself to me.

A couple of years ago, I had some language-study downtime, was looking around for a language to study just for fun, and decided to work on Middle Egyptian and the hieroglyphs it is traditionally written in. I got a few books on the subject, started studying, but didn't get too far before I got busy and had to set the study aside.

Some months later I was having lunch with a visiting priest, and he brought along a friend of his mother's. I didn't know the woman's first name, but I noticed that she was wearing a golden medallion around her neck with a cartouche on it. I leaned forward, studied the cartouche, blinked when I realized what it said, and then leaned back and announced: "Your name is Mary!" She laughed, confirmed that it was so, and explained that some years before she had visited the pyramids and they had all these medallions with people's names on them for sale. She seemed delighted by the fact I could read her name from the medallion--perhaps because this confirmed that the salesman hadn't lied to her about what it said.

Recently I decided to pull the books off the shelf and get back to studying them. I know that Borders and Barnes & Noble have lots of glossy, full-color books on hieroglyphs, but many of these aren't meant to be read but to sit on your coffee table to give bored visitors to your home something to do. They're okay, but--just like my parents' National Geographic--pretty pictures is about all you'll get out of them. If you'd like to get some exposure actually reading hieroglyphs, let me make a recommendation.

The best book I've found as an introduction to the subject is Hieroglyphs Without Mystery by Karl-Theodor Zauzich. (Don't worry; he's German. This kind of name is apparently normal over there.) It is head and shoulders above the others on the subject. It's also shorter and less expensive than many of them.

After an introductory section stressing the fact that you don't have to be a genius to learn hieroglyphics (which is true), there come the two most important parts of the book. The first of these teaches you the sounds of the hieroglyphic alphabet and other major symbols, gives some common vocabulary items, and basic grammar rules. It is the only chapter of the book where you are expected to memorize anything.

This section makes the hieroglyphic writing system quite easy to understand. In fact, the whole book is written in a way that is much simpler and easier to read than the great majority of language books I've used. I was particularly impressed by how the section on grammar made the rules it covered easy and intuitive to understand. It presented them far more simply and naturally than most of the language books I've read.

I've read the same grammar rules presented multiple times, because Egyptian is a Semitic language, part of the same language family as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. Having studied several Semitic languages, I've gotten to the point where my knowledge of one feeds into the others (the same way that if you know one of the Romance languages you can guess grammar or the meaning of words in another). When I got to the vocabulary section in this book, I was a little surprised that there wasn't that much vocabulary overlap there the other Semitic languages I've studied, but that's not too odd since the others are Eastern (Asian) Semitic languages and are more closely related to each other than they are to Egyptian, which is a Western (African) Semitic language. Once I got to the grammar section, though, I was back on familiar ground. The grammar is very similar to that of the Eastern Semitic languages, so I've read the same things explained before. What I was taken with was how simple Herr Zauzich made it to understand the rules compared to the other books I've read.

The third section of the book is the most important one. It's the longest and the one that really sets this book apart from the others on hieroglyphics. Basically, Zauzich shows you photographs of a bunch of Egyptian artifacts--boxes, alabaster chests, an alabaster cup, tomb inscriptions, etc.--and then takes you by the hand and walks you through the translation of what's written on them. Many of these artifacts are from King Tut's tomb, including the big, gold mummy coffin whose image you've undoubtedly seen before ('cause I've just put it next to this paragraph). It's a real charge to actually be reading and understanding what's written in these inscriptions, particularly as you start to figure them out before Zauzich explains them. You also learn to understand Egyptian names that you've heard all your life. For example, Tutankhamun = tut (image) + ankh (life, living) + Amun = "Living image of Amun."

You also pick up a good bit about Egyptian culture as you go along. For example, Zauzich points out that hieroglyphics are more complicated than they need to be (though still nowhere near as complex as Chinese or Japanese writing) since a perfectly good alphabet is part of the system. The alphabet was probably invented last and did not supplant the older, more complicated symbols for a religious reason: The Egyptians viewed writing as a gift of the god Thoth, so they couldn't junk a bunch of their symbols without hacking off the god of writing. Thus hieroglyphics persisted until Egypt was converted to Christianity, at which point the hieroglyphics associated with the old religion were dropped and the Egyptians began to use a variant of the Greek alphabet we now know as the Coptic alphabet.

I was a little surprised that Zauzich didn't explain the cultural reason behind one sign. The hieroglyph for the word "god" (netcher) looks like a flag on a flagpole. He notes that you need to understand the cultural background to get why this is the case, but he doesn't go on to explain that the reason is that ancient Egyptian temples had such poles, and they came in the writing system to represent what you worshipped at a temple.

He does, however, explain one of my favorite hieroglyphs. It's a little sparrow that Egyptians put at the end of a word as a kind of commentary when they considered a thing evil, bad, weak, or small. Egyptologists refer to it as "the evil bird." (Apparently the ancient Egyptians had a poor opinion of sparrows.)

The book could do a few things better. For example, it could better explain the pronunciation of words, but it's still an excellent work that I'd recommend as an entry point for those interested to finally discover what all those beautiful Egyptian art inscriptions say.

It'll also give you a feel for what it's like for Daniel Jackson to go romping all over the galaxy reading tomb walls. And you'll never watch the movie Stargate the same way again.

April 16, 2004

Language Resources

I get a lot of questions from folks asking for recommendations for language learning resources, particularly for the biblical languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin). For some time I've wanted to compose a list of them, and I finally have!

Take a look here.

The list includes many of my favorite language resources, including ones for modern languages. In composing the list I picked resources with an eye toward making language learning as painless as possible (and you would be amazed at how painless some of the techniques now in use are; see particularly my remarks on the Pimsleur Method). Also included are recommendations for how to find a teacher if you'd rather do that than self-study.

Jimmy Akin vs. James Akin

I'm not getting this question as much of late, but I think I'll go ahead and answer it here anyway. The question is: Is Jimmy Akin the same as James Akin, and if so, why the name change?

The answer to the first part of the question is yes, as long as you are referring to the James Akin who is the director of apologetics and evangelization for Catholic Answers. I am the same person as myself. (In fact, it would be metaphysically impossible for me to not be me.)

The answer to the second part of the question is as follows:

• Jimmy Akin is my legal birth name. It is what is on my birth certificate. (Ah'm from Texas, y'see, an' it's a Southern thang.)
• As a young man, struggling to prove my adulthood, I decided to start going by "James" because it sounds "more grown-up."
• In the last few years, I decided that I didn't need to prove how grown up I am anymore and started thinking about changing it back.
• The clincher was: I'm a junior. In other words, my dad's name is also Jimmy Akin. I know it didn't please my father when I changed my name to James. I'm sure it couldn't come off as anything but a kind of rejection when I change the name he gave me--his own name--but I was immature and anxious to prove my adulthood to the world, and I did it anyway.
• So, on the principle of "Honor thy father," I decided to change my name back to Jimmy.
• I researched how one does that in California, got the forms, filled them out, took out the relevant ad in a local "newspaper" (really a xeroxed bundle of papers with a staple) that exists to do nothing but print legal notices, went to court, and got the situation fixed.
• Afterward, I took a copy of the court order, framed it, and sent it to my dad for Christmas. (I also sent him a DVD player.)
• Finally, I announced the change on "Catholic Answers Live" and explained it.
• And then I explained it again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and again . . .  ad nauseum.

The question is starting to taper off now, but I decided to explain it here so there'd an explanation on the web that I can point people to (and thus have less repetitive explaining to do).

It took people a while to get used to the change. That's only to be expected. I was pleased, though, when shortly after I made the change one woman on the Catholic Answers Cruise pointed out: "The name Jimmy suits you better than James because you're such a smart aaaa-aleck.""

So now you know! And please, don't call me "James." That's not my name.

"Jimmy Akinisms"???

And speaking of things characteristic of me, a reader writes:

Jimmy, you write just like you speak, too. That big, italic, bold "However," [in this blog entry] is a classic "Jimmy Akinism" we hear a lot on Catholic Answers productions, after you've patiently outlined what truth is contained in a false claim, but are about to point out the glaring mistake(s) in it.

Hmmm . . . I never thought of that as characteristic of me, but I do recall saying it. It's always been my philosophy to give every inch you can to a viewpoint you're critiquing. Makes it easier to topple it when you pull out the rug from under it. (Allowing more rug under it = more traction for toppling purposes.)

I s'pose everyone has their characteristic words and phrases. In fact, the Roman historians used to chronicle the characteristic expressions of their emperors. For example, one of the emperor Augustus's favorite expressions was "Quick as boiled asparagus!" (by which he meant, "Very quick!").

I'm curious now . . . any other "Jimmy Akinisms" folks have noticed?

April 15, 2004

Spiritual Headship?

A correspondent writes:

I was wondering what our belief as Catholics are concerning a question my Husband has. He says that the man of the household should be the "spiritual leader" of his family. He is not Catholic, and only turned "fundamentalist/independent" 5 years ago. Before that I was the sole source of my families (we have 1 daughter) faith building. Our daughter (who is 12) is very active in the church, and loves the faith as I do. She is an alter server, reader, and sings on Sunday morning Mass services. So, I was wondering where -if it does say -in the Bible that the man should be the spiritual leader of the family, since I don't want to go to my husbands new church and feel that we are rooted in the Catholic faith. How do I explain to him that this isn't going to happen, and possibly refer to scripture in explaining this to him?

This is a sensitive subject, and I hesitate to comment on it without having the space to explore the subject thoroughly and make sure that what I am and am not saying is clear. Nevertheless, I'll try to answer as best I can. First, some basic principles:

1. Men and women are equal in God's eyes. They have equal dignity, and Christ died for both genders equally.
2. Husbands and wives have an equal right to the goods of marriage and equal responsibility toward making the marriage work.
3. There are differences in the genders. For example, men tend to be larger and stronger than women, while women have longer life-spans and more agility.
4. These differences manifest particularly on the level of statistical averages, and the remarks I am about to make are to be understood in this light. The average trends do not always hold on the level of individuals (e.g., some men are physically smaller than some women, some women are physically stronger than some men).
5. Some differences between men and women are non-physical. For example, though the genders are of approximately equal intelligence, women have greater verbal aptitude than men, and men have greater spatial aptitude than women.
6. One of the differences between the genders is that men are designed for physical competition and combat in a way that women are not (it goes along with being larger and stronger). They are correspondingly configured mentally and emotionally. Put negatively: Men are more aggressive, more competitive, and less risk-averse on average than women are. Put positively: Men tend to have a stronger leadership drive than women.
7. The differences between the genders translate into a corresponding differentiation of roles. For example, men are generally better suited to roles that require greater physical strength (e.g., being a weight lifter); women are generally better suited to roles requiring greater agility (e.g., being a gymnast).
8. In a few cases, the differences in roles is absolute: Only women can give birth; only men can be priests.
9. In most cases, however, the differences do not lead to an absolute division of roles, and in any given marriage whichever partner is better suited for a task is usually the appropriate one to do it.
10. In general, men are configured physically and cognitively to serve as the primary leader/protector of the family, while women are configured physically and cognitively to serve as the primary nurturer/caregiver. (Though it is to be immediately pointed out that men also need to nurture and care for the children. Both parents have equal responsibility to make sure the children get what they need as they grow and develop. Men are by nature configured to be the secondary nurturer/caregiver for the family, just as women are configured to be the secondary leader/protector.)
11. Apart from the siring and bearing of children, however, the distinction in roles within marriage is not absolute. Many spouses are in situations where one spouse refuses to, is ill-suited to, or is incapable of fulfilling the typical roles just described. For example, some women have husbands who are physically or mentally incapacitated and unable to fulfill the functions that typically would be expected of a leader/protector--or, the husband may refuse to fulfill these roles, or he may simply be less suited to them than his wife. In the same way, some husbands may have wives who are physically or mentally incapacitated and unable to fulfill the functions that typically would be expected of a nurturer/caregiver--or, the wife may refuse to fulfill these roles, or she may be less suited to them than her husband.
12. In such atypical cases, the good of the family must be provided for, and this frequently means that one spouse may need to fulfill an atypical role for his or her gender. E.g., a woman with an alcoholic husband may need to exercise the primary leadership he is incapable of exercising responsibly; a man with an alcoholic wife may need to provide the primary care for the children that she is incapable of providing responsibly.

The above points form the natural law foundation needed to answer your question. With them in mind, two things should be pointed out:

First, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition recognize the difference in gender roles just described. For example, this is evident in Scripture passages such as the following:

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor. 11:3].

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband [Eph. 5:22-33].

Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, when they see your reverent and chaste behavior. Let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold, and wearing of fine clothing, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. So once the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves and were submissive to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are now her children if you do right and let nothing terrify you. Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered [1 Pet. 3:1-7].

These passages have to be applied with some care. There are elements of these passages that are culturally conditioned. For example, the 1 Corinthians passage is part of a longer, culturally-conditioned discussion of women's head coverings in church.

More fundamentally, these passages are directed toward the typical situation described in point #10, above, not the atypical situations mentioned in points #11 and #12. But the passages do recognize the natural law situation and the fact that, under normal circumstances, men are the natural leaders of the family.

They do not say that the husband is or should be the spiritual leader of the family, but this is clearly implied (e.g., by Christ being the spiritual leader of the Church, by men being able to serve as priests, etc.). So your husband has a point: Men should be the spiritual leaders of their families.

However, we have already noted that there are atypical situations. Not all men are able (or fully able) to exercise leadership functions, the spiritual one included. The passage from 1 Peter is directed toward one such situation: that of a Christian woman with a non-Christian husband (most likely he would be a Jew, since Peter is addressing Christian Jews living outside Palestine; see 1 Pet. 1:1). Such a husband obviously cannot fully be the spiritual leader of his family (and he wouldn't be the spiritual leader of it at all if he were a pagan rather than a Jew). In such a situation, the wife is still called to recognize his leadership role where he is capable of exercising it (hence Peter's exhortation to her), but not where he is incapable of exercising it.

This situation is not the same as yours since your husband is a Christian, but it is analogous in that he does not share the fullness of the Christian faith (i.e., he is not a Catholic). To the extent that he shares Christian truth, he is capable of serving as spiritual leader (e.g., by leading the family in prayer, provided the prayers are compatible with the Catholic faith and he's not trying to covertly "preach at" you and your daughter through them). However, until such time as he becomes a Catholic, he is impeded from fully exercising spiritual leadership. In particular, he is impeded to the extent that he tries to alienate you or your daughter from the Catholic Church--which simply is the Church that Jesus founded and the only one that maintains the fullness of Christian faith and grace.

You and your daughter have an obligation to maintain your Catholic faith and practice, and he must respect that. Even if he does not recognize the Church for what it is, he must recognize your conscience in the matter, and it would be a violation of your conscience to abandon Catholic faith and practice. In this regard, there are a few Scripture passages you may wish to show him.

First, in explaining your perspective on the matter, you may wish to point to the reply of the apostles when they were told to stop preaching Jesus:

We must obey God rather than men [Acts 5:29].

You must obey God by maintaining Catholic faith and practice, regardless of what you husband might say, just as also the women Peter was writing to must continue Christian faith and practice regardless of what their husbands might say.

It also might be helpful for your husband to reflect on Romans 14, in which Paul is dealing with controversies among Christians at the time (e.g., whether it was okay to eat certain foods, whether it was necessary to observe Jewish holy days). Paul pointes out that, apart from the question of which side was right in these controversies, each side must follow its conscience, and for either side to violate its conscience would be mortally sinful. (For example, in 14:20 he speaks of "destroy[ing] the work of God" by getting a person to do what his conscience says is wrong.)

As you explain this to your husband, try to understand also where he is coming from: In Protestant circles it doesn't matter nearly as much what church one belongs to. As a result, it is a much more normal thing for wives to begin attending their husband's church in Protestant circles. This is more reasonable because by switching from one Protestant church to another one is not abandoning the Church that Christ founded. However, you as a Catholic are not in that situation. For you it would be abandoning Christ's Church to join another church, and he needs to understand and respect the situation you are in, even if he does not share your beliefs about the Church.

It also may be useful for your husband to reflect on the fact that no successful leader--inside of the family or out of it--continually insists on his prerogatives as a leader. Successful leaders follow the servant-leader model provided by Jesus (Mark 10:42-45), and appeal to their authority as infrequently as possible. Unfortunately, too many Christian husbands try to use the verses above as tools to get their way on trivial matters, and in so doing they undercut their ability to serve their family and provide it authentic leadership that is pleasing to Christ.

I hope this helps, and I encourage my other readers to keep your situation in prayer!

April 14, 2004

End-Time Theories

A reader writes:

Is there an official position of the Church regarding the temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem? 

No, there is not.

If not, what is your opinion? 

My opinion is that it will be. St. Paul writes:

Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thess 2:3-4).

Here Paul seems to be speaking about a future event, and he refers to "the temple of God" (which, to a Jew of Paul's kind, would only mean the Jerusalem temple). Yet since the temple is currently in ruins, this suggests that it will be rebuilt before the end.

The reader continues:

The article on Catholic.com about "The Antichrist" seems to suggest that it's a given.

Yeah, that's because I'm the author of that tract.

Also, could you recommend a good Catholic interpretation (book or website) of the Book of Revelations?  I need de-programming from my previous pre-trib exegesis.

Understood. Like so many former Evangelicals, it took me a while to learn to see Bible prophecy through non-dispensationalist eyes, though I did that before becoming Catholic.

I wish that I had a good Catholic book to recommend to you on the subject, but I don't. There aren't any ones (a) that are in print, and (b) that I am aware of, and (c) that would be likely to give you what you are looking for. So let me recommend some articles:

1. The Rapture: Are You Pre, Mid, or Post? This is a basic look at Catholic teaching on the end times. I am not the author of this, though I did revise it.
2. Apocalypse Not
3. The Structure of Revelation
4. The Flow of Time in Revelation
5. Hunt-ing the Whore of Babylon
6. The Earthquake Generation (This Rock, Feb. 1998)

UPDATE: A reader points out to me that Carl Olson's book Will Catholics Be Left Behind? is also a good resource for ex-dispensationalists. This is true. I can recommend this book as well.

Hope this helps!

April 13, 2004

Girl Talk?

I was intrigued today when I saw a news story on the web about Nushu, billed as a language used only by women in China. As y'all know, I'm fascinated by languages, and the idea of a women's-only language is especially intriguing, as it's most unusual. In fact, the article's author wrote that Nushu is "believed to be the world's only female-specific language." If that were true, Nushu would be really cool!

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that this article needs to be filed in the "reporter doesn't know what he/she's talking about" file. My experience with the press has convinced me that the great majority of reporters have only the most superficial understanding of what they are writing about, but I had hoped that on The Discovery Channel's web site (where the story appears), they would be able to get the basic facts of the story related to the science of linguistics right.

Yet as I read the article, my suspicions began to grow that Nushu was not, in fact, a language. According to the article, "The language's origins are unclear, but most scholars believe Nushu emerged in the third century during a time when the Chinese government prohibited education of women." The reporter's implication would seem to be that Chinese women came up with their own language in response to the education edict.

The third century is certainly old enough to have a language develop. English didn't develop until five hundred to a thousand years after that, depending on what you're willing to count as English. But though the time frame for Nushu is fine, the implied method of its origin is all wrong.

I can think of ways that one might get a women's-only language, but that isn't one of them. As to how one could arise, suppose that there was a language in general use in a society at one point and then began to be supplanted by a new language. Suppose also that this society had a female priesthood that preserved the old language in their sacred rites. In this way, you would develop a women's-only language. In fact, one could argue that at a certain stage of European history, Latin could have turned into a men's-only language, though in reality there were always women who knew it (e.g., nuns who prayed in Latin and the daughters of educated noblemen, like St. Thomas More's daughter Margaret).

But think: Why would the women of China invent a language just because they were prohibited from getting an education? It's not very plausible. How would such a language help them? Would they conduct covert classes in it? But then if they could conduct covert classes, why would they need a special language to do them in? It would seem to only add another barrier to the education process, first forcing people to learn a new language before teaching them anything else.

In order to have a language--as opposed to a code--one needs a vocabulary of at least 5000 words (and even that is an incredibly restrictive vocabulary that many linguists might say is not enough for a true language). Such a restrictive vocabulary would not be enough to allow one to conduct classes without using lots of loan-words for technical subject vocabulary, and if women were heard using such loan words, the men would know what they were up to when speaking in Nushu.

These and other problems (which I won't go into lest this entry get too long) made me begin to strongly suspect that Nushu is not a language at all, but either a code with a teensy tincey vocabulary or--more likely--a script (writing system).

A script is not a language, it's simply a way of reducing a language to written form. A language can be represented in many scripts (or by none if it is an unwritten language). Though in English we're used to using an alphabet based on the Latin script, there is no reason why that needs to be the case. For example, here are three English sentences written in scripts that I have handy on my computer:

Each of these sentences says "This is an English sentence written in __________", with the name of the script filled in (respectively, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic). If you want to try and figure out what character corresponds to what letter, remember that Hebrew and Aramaic read right-to-left instead of left-to-right. (Hey, maybe future data-archaeologists mining the Old Web will run across this page and the above will serve as a Rosetta Stone to unlock the meaning of lost languages!)

It would make a lot more sense for women in China to develop their own script than their own language. Scripts can be much smaller and thus easier to create and learn than languages. Logographic scripts (like normal Chinese) are truly huge, with thousands of characters, but you can make them much, much smaller. An alphabetic script (where each character stands for a sound) may only be two or three dozen characters. A syllabaric script (where each character represents a syllable) might be a few dozen or hundred characters.

Checking a few web sites about Nushu, I found that they regularly described Nushu as a script, apparently a primarily syllabaric one with about 700 signs. I haven't looked into it enough to tell, but it seems that Nushu may be a mixed script, incorporating some logograms (characters that stand for words). In this respect, it may be like Egyptian hieroglyphics, which is also a mixed script with about the same number of characters.

If you'd like to see some examples of Nushu writing, see here. Also, Wikipedia has a good but brief article on Nushu. Both make the point that the name Nushu means "women's writing," an admission I note on second reading is made even in The Discovery Channel article.

So, unfortunately, we don't have a true example of a women's language in Nushu, but we can still admire the inventiveness of Chinese women in coming up with their own multi-hundred-character script. Let's hope that linguists are able to fully preserve it!

BTW, for any men who are reading this:

Gwon-ca tobbishla Nu'a'mari ex-locsishin-wa tet calculus-lu da astronomy-lu gwon-wa ito'ilu.

April 12, 2004

Fulfilling the Sunday Obligation on Saturday: Part Deux

In response to a recent blog entry, a reader writes:

let's say I'm Latin rite, and so I must go to Mass on the Feast of the Assumption. Can I go to an Eastern rite liturgy instead, even if they don't celebrate the Assumption on that day? It's not just different readings, ceremonies etc., but it's a daily mass instead of a Solemn mass.

As noted before, here is what the law says:

A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass [CIC Can. 1248 §1].

Note that there is nothing in this about the rite you are attending having to be celebrating the same feast or offering a "solemn Mass" or anything like that. The fact is that by going on such a day you are celebrating the feast and fulfilling your obligation regardless of what is going on around you. By attending "a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite" you are "satisf[ing] the obligation of participating in the Mass." Period.

Upcoming Events?

A reader writes:

Do you have a list of events that you will participate in in the near future? I would love to attend one. I heard the Bible Answer Man debate against James White, and you're the first Catholic I heard clearly refute all of White's arguments while yours were still standing. Thanks for your witness!

Catholic Answers does have a schedule of upcoming events for our speakers, though I'm afraid that my administrative duties don't let me travel that much, so I don't get out on the stump that often. Other than the Catholic Answers cruise this October, I don't think I have any currently scheduled public engagements.

I will try, however, to note on the blog when I have a public event coming up so folks in the area can check it out if they're in the area.

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