Field Trip

Today we five -- Smiter, Mrs. Smiter, Smiter Jr, Smitrilla and Smitrinian, took a field trip to a nearby city, to see its zoo. The weather was hot, so we went early, but it was still quite crowded. We couldn't decide if the baby reindeer or the baby giraffe was cuter. The baby reindeer was definitely more shy. On the way there, in the early morning fog, we could see bedewed spider webs in the grass along the road. At one point, we passed a small meadow, with literally hundreds of webs on every tall weed and blade of grass. They were packed in so close together; we've never seen anything quite like it. We cheer their insectivorous ways, as long as they remain outside.

Trivia point of the day: The scientific name for the Asian Spectacled Eider is, apparently, "histrionicus histrionicus." To us, they seemed much more laid back than that, but then, we weren't trying to eat them -- it is bad form, at the zoo, I believe -- so perhaps their behavior was not truly representative...

Inadequate information is just another form of GIGO

Today I received an email "action alert" from the USCCB's office of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, urging me to contact my Senators to express my support for extending unemployment benefits through November. A vote is expected soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow, July 20. (I'd link to it, but it's not on their website yet.)

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying anything against the federal government providing unemployment insurance, in and of itself. Since my days as a starving graduate student, I've never been unemployed, Deo gratias, but were I to find myself so, I would be very grateful for this kind of support.

However, this "action alert" was very frustrating for two critical areas of inadequate information.


1) The name/number of the bill was not noted. Without that, I need more time than I can spare right now to find it, and find out what else it says, before I know whether I want to urge my Senators to vote for it, or against it. Congress has a nasty habit of hiding all kinds of bogus items in legislation for totally other purposes. This bill on extending unemployment insurance might have anything hiding in it: military spending, a ban on sled dogs, federal funding for abortion... anything. The only way this kind of garbage will stop, is if we the voters make it stop, by terminating the political careers of those who insist on this kind of corruption. And to do that, we need to know where to find it. We need to read the bills ourselves.

2) the urge to support the bill was followed by a summary of Catholic social teaching, as it might be applied to the issue of supporting the poor who are poor because unemployed. It gave the unmistakable implication that Catholic social teaching equates to federal government expansion of power. Here the deficiency seems to be an ideological one. Yes, support for the poor as a moral obligation rooted in solidarity. But, to imply that the only way to do so is for the federal gov't to pay out unemployment benefits, is simply false. As I said, I think the federal gov't should do this; but I also think that subsidiarity is relevant here. The federal gov't ought not be the only monopolizer of our charity for the unemployed (or any of our charity, for that matter). What about private charities? What about parish-based support, especially for those parishioners who are "transitionally" unemployed? What about Catholic-owned businesses hiring some of those unemployed? I could think of half a dozen other options, without breaking a sweat. All of these kinds of solutions also need to be on the table, no?

If the USCCB staff really want to be helpful to those of us in the trenches, then pay attention: give us adequate information to respond to, both about theory and about the particulars of an individual situation.

Saints Peter and Paul

On the feast of Saint Paul and Saint Pete
I'm joyfully feeling replete
with absence of sin
(I've been to the bin)
and chocolate cake* oh-so-sweet!

*In fact it's a cobbler, but "chocolate-cherry cobbler" hardly scans. I auditioned variations like "choc-cherry grunt oh-so-sweet." This one was a serious contender, and I needed two, um, "curtain calls," to make up my mind. (No, I'm still using that plate, thanks.) I suppose it works metrically, but not sufficiently aesthetically -- or at least, the words aren't aesthetical. The reality, on the other hand, is quite aesthetical, if I do say so myself.

Saint Ambrose

A peach of a bish in Milan
discovered that many had gone
in dribs and in droves
for the glittery troves
where Arius lost his elan.

So up in the pulpit he got
to preach on the Truth quite a lot.
And we of today
can still hear him say
"No time when the Son of God's not."

Peerlessly, then

Of readers good Xena's the first.
Her theology she wants versed.
I hear and obey
by night and by day,
to rhyme her some lines in a burst.

I'm drunk with power...

because I have a readerless blog!! This means I can publish anything I want... WITHOUT PEER REVIEW!!!!!!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Brevia Theologica: defending the transitional diaconate

When the heresiarch Arius tried to work out a logical doctrine of the Trinity to protect God's impassibility from the Passion of the Son, he made the error of dividing what should not be divided; namely, the "one substance" of the divinity, the unity of the three Persons. It is logical, if only by the standard of natural reason, but it fails in soteriology, and so ultimately failed to account for what it tried to account for.

It seems to me that there is a modern parallel in some circles of sacramental theology. Those who propose to do away with the "transitional" diaconate, as it is called, make the same error Arius once made, dividing the unity of the one sacramental reality of orders, so that the (purely natural) logic of the distinction between deacon and sacerdos will be clear.

In a similar way, this error also fails in soteriology. First, the proclamation of the Gospel - the invitation - must precede communion in the Holy Eucharist - the "banquet." If the priest does not receive the sacra potestas of kerugein as a deacon, the invitation is disconnected from the banquet, and our Holy Mass becomes two separate ritual actions, rather than one action with two parts. The salvific graces of hearing the Gospel then do not lead to and culminate in the Eucharist; while the Eucharist risks becoming ahistorical and mythologized, detached from the concrete Gospel proclamation.

Second, Christ was both deacon ("the servant of all") and priest (simultaneously victim, priest, and altar of the one perfect sacrifice); and indeed, He is both in the same act of His Passion. If we detach these two aspects of His saving act in the sacrament of Order, we detach the two meanings of the act. Service and sacrifice then point away from each other, rather than to each other; and even, they become mutually exclusive meanings of the Passion. Service then leads only back into the world -- the "shipwreck of the world," recall -- and fails to connect in any meaningful way with grace. Sacrifice, meanwhile, again risks an ahistorical mythologizing, in which grace fails to penetrate to the level of everyday life (service).

Third, given that Christ did not institute the diaconate prior to His Passion, if the diaconate is detached from a meaningful relationship to the sacrifice of the ministerial priesthood, and hence from the actual graces of the Eucharist, how does one defend its sacramentality? In the same way, what becomes of the "fullness of orders" of the episcopate, and therefore of the whole doctrine of apostolic succession?

Arius's solution didn't work with respect to the Trinity. It doesn't work with respect to Holy Orders, either.