Notes: Tuesday, May 22-Monday, June 25, 2012 (part 2 of 2)

9.2 Year Book Australia 2012, by Brian Pink/the Australian Bureau of Statistics, No. 92, ABS Catalogue No. 1301.0, ISSN 0312–4746:

http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/LookupAttach/1301.0Publication24.05.121/$file/13010_2012.pdf

Labels: demography, social trends

9.3 Census 2011:

http://www.abs.gov.au/census

Labels: demography, social trends

10. "[In Britain in 1952, o]nly 5 per cent of children were born to unmarried mothers, compared to 47 per cent today."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/diamond-jubilee-nostalgia-belies-austerity-of-british-life-in-the-1950s/story-fnb64oi6-1226371497270

Labels: demography, social trends

11. "Cardinal-designate Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, with Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, Secretary, has forwarded to Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan the Pontifical Council’s observations on the matter (Prot. N. 13095/2011). The observations, which were formulated in consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, clarify that married permanent deacons are not bound to observe perfect and perpetual continence, as long as their marriage lasts."

http://liturgy.co.nz/vatican-allows-deacons-to-have-sex/9746

(That came to my attention via this CathNews post.)

The comments at the web-page to which that Liturgy article hyperlinks as the source for the quotation in item 11's headline are worth at least skim reading. Of particular interest are this comment by Fr. Van Hove and this comment by one David J. White.

Labels: celibacy, Deacons

12. "Now [Family Planning NSW] train[s] most of the GPs in NSW."

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/pioneer-edith-weisburg-gave-birthing-choices/story-e6freuy9-1226375641772

(That article came to my attention via the version of it which was published as "Pioneer gave birthing choices", by Nathan Klein, p. 17 (on the "NSW Woman of the Year"), the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Thursday, May 31, 2012, Vol. 1, No. 2554.)

Labels: Family Planning NSW

13. "''Today no one would say, 'keep your sexual identity at home or in the club', but we feel able to say 'please don't bring your religion into our space'.''"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/sex-outperforming-religion-scholar-20120613-20aks.html?skin=text-only

Labels: social trends

14. The latest on the push for Gay-favourable blood donation policies

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4051102.html

(That came to my attention via this post by Terra.)

See also this Notes post from 2010.

Labels: G.L.B.T., Red Cross

15. "Uganda has announced a ban on 38 non-governmental organisations it accuses of undermining the national culture by promoting homosexuality."

http://www.smh.com.au/world/ban-on-progay-ngos-20120621-20qth.html?skin=text-only

Labels: G.L.B.T., N.G.O.s, Uganda

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. William, Abbot, A.D. 2012

Notes: Tuesday, April 12-Monday, April 18, 2011

1. Latest American figures on sexual abuse by Catholic priests

http://members7.boardhost.com/CathPews/thread/1302558767.html

http://www.catholicleague.org/nytstraighttalk.php

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36834

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=25812

Labels: sexual abuse

2. Dr. Gates on the G.L.B.T. proportion of the population

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/gay-equality-doesnt-add-up-until-we-do-the-numbers-20110412-1dcit.html?skin=text-only

Labels: demography, G.L.B.T.

3. Cardinal Pell with some facts about events in the post-Conciliar era

Pope Paul VI appointed no bishops who were opposed to the ethos of Vatican II, ...

[...] Incidentally it is a matter of historical record that at the 1971 Synod of Bishops, Pope Paul offered to the bishops the option of ordaining married men to the priesthood and the bishops declined to accept this.

[...] In Pope John Paul’s 27 years of pontificate 24 individuals were disciplined for their theological views, including eight who were silenced or removed, in the worldwide Catholic community of more than one billion believers.
[http://theswag.org.au/2011/04/some-gaudium-and-no-spes/]

His Eminence also asserts in that letter that "the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X ... are still in schism", which is not only false, even from Rome's perspective, but illogical for him given that in the same section of the letter he says that their putative excommunications were lifted.

Labels: celibacy, George Pell, John Paul II. Wojtyla, Paul VI. Montini, S.S.P.X., Vatican II

4. "Ethnic federation calls on PM to bolster multicultural policy"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ethnic-federation-calls-on-pm-to-bolster-multicultural-policy/story-fn59niix-1226039379342

Labels: multiculturalism

5. Discussion thread on the pre-1955 Holy Week liturgical schedule

Mainly of interest to me for the references to the present and past practice of the S.S.P.X. in that connection:

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36891

Labels: liturgy, S.S.P.X., T.L.M.

6. Figures on the use of contraception by American Catholics

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36893

Labels: contraception

7. Two items regarding John Paul II.

7.1 Review of a biography of John Paul II.

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36884

Labels: John Paul II. Wojtyla

7.2 List of quotations from John Paul II. regarding Islam

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=404020#404020

Labels: Islam, John Paul II. Wojtyla

8. Note regarding possible new admissions to the Order of the Garter

This Saturday, April 23 (which is usually St. George's Day), is Holy Saturday. Apparently,

This year 2011, St Georges Day will be officially celebrated on May 2nd. This is because Easter falls late this year and April 23rd is Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Under the rules of the Church of England, if St Georges Day falls within a week of Easter then Easter has precedence and St Georges Day is moved to after Easter. This will the first Monday in May, May Day Bank Holiday, ...
[http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/StGeorge.htm]

Now there are currently three vacancies in the Order of the Garter (judging by the list at H.M. The Queen's website, one would think that there were only two, but that list has not been updated to take into account the death of His late Grace The Duke of Grafton). If Her Majesty intends to fill some or all of those vacancies this year, I wonder whether the announcement will be made on Holy Saturday, or on May 2? Delaying any announcement till the latter date would be convenient in that The Queen could also announce Miss Middleton's admission to the Order as one of its Royal Ladies.

Labels: Order of the Garter

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Monday in Holy Week, A.D. 2011

Notes: Tuesday-Wednesday, January 18-19, 2011

1. "British gay couple turned away from B&B win discrimination case"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/british-gay-couple-turned-away-from-bb-win-discrimination-case/story-fn3dxity-1225990668968

Labels: discrimination, G.L.B.T.

2. Ms Tankard Reist on surrogacy

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gestational-carrier-is-an-ugly-term/story-e6frg6zo-1225990595552

Labels: parenthood, surrogacy

3. "Abortion Has Caused 300K Breast Cancer Deaths Since Roe"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35595

Labels: abortion, cancer, health

4. Dr. Peters and others on the obligation on clerics to be celibate and/or continent

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/01/continence-and-married-deaconspriests/

Dr. Peters has posted at his website a full, searchable P.D.F. version of his Studia Canonica article "Canonical considerations on diaconal continence” (previously only the abstract, which I have brought to your attention already in item 2 of this post, was available there):

http://www.canonlaw.info/a_deacons.htm

Unfortunately I do not have time to read it yet, though.

Labels: celibacy, Deacons, Divine positive law, Ecclesiastical law, Edward Peters, Priesthood

5. "Row over HIV health cash"

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/row-over-hiv-health-cash-20110115-19rvu.html?skin=text-only

Excerpts:

A BITTER row has erupted in Sydney's gay community after a group of prominent activists accused the state's leading homosexual health service of squandering millions of dollars in taxpayers' money.

Gay rights campaigner Gary Burns, HIV lobbyist Shayne Chester and journalist Peter Hackney have demanded the state government "demolish" ACON, formerly known as the AIDS Council of NSW.

The trio alleged the service, which specialises in HIV prevention, care and support, received $12.6 million in government funding last year but spent only $800,000 on programs and services. In a scathing attack, the group dubbed the organisation a "gravy train" and called on Premier Kristina Keneally to hand back ACON's work to NSW Health.

[...] Mr Chester said NSW had had high rates of HIV infection for more than a decade, and this was compounded by an increase in unprotected casual sex among gay men.

"Why is this happening?" he asked. "Because ACON, which is chartered with HIV education and prevention, is failing us."

[...] In NSW cases involving HIV infection peaked in the mid-1980s, with 1636 diagnoses reported in 1987. Since then rates have dropped dramatically, with 327 new cases recorded in 2009, although that is a slight increase from 323 in 2008.

Labels: ACON, G.L.B.T., H.I.V./A.I.D.S., health, vice

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of Sts. Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum, Martyrs, and of St. Canute, King, Martyr, A.D. 2011

Notes: Tuesday-Wednesday, November 2-3, 2010

1. Mr. MacIntyre on the history of Franco-British co-operation

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/britain-france-to-bury-the-hatchet-at-last/story-e6frg6ux-1225946879102

I was surprised to learn the following from that article:

David Cameron is not the first Tory leader to embrace closer military and political union with Britain's best enemy across the Channel. One of his predecessors once proposed an "indissoluble union" of Britain and France, suggesting that "the two governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain; every British subject will become a citizen of France."

The author of this proposal was none other than Winston Churchill. In 1940, with Nazi forces pouring into France, Churchill, backed by the war cabinet, proposed that the two countries become one, combining armies, parliaments and currencies. It was rejected by French collaborationists led by Marshal Petain, who insisted that Britain would soon "have her neck wrung like a chicken".

I think that I had heard of the following earlier, though:

French documents discovered two years ago reveal that, in 1956, French prime minister Guy Mollet proposed to Anthony Eden that France merge with Britain, with the Queen head of the amalgamated state. Eden turned down the idea, but was more enthusiastic about a suggestion that France join the Commonwealth.

2. Dr. Peters on the canonical obligation of clerical continence

http://www.canonlaw.info/a_deacons.htm
(Brought to my attention by this comment at AQ, to which I have responded with this comment.)

3. Blog comments by me

Just these two, both of which are quite short and hence not worth copying-and-pasting, so I'll just give their respective links:

http://scecclesia.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/thats-sooooo-20th-century/#comment-17950
http://scecclesia.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/thats-sooooo-20th-century/#comment-17968

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Martin de Porres, Confessor, A.D. 2010

Notes: Friday, June 18, 2010

"Athanasius" on celibacy, chastity, continence, and Tradition

http://athanasiuscm.blogspot.com/2010/06/celibacy-nunc-aut-numquam.html

Blog comment by me

At Mr. Schütz's blog:

Cardinal Pole
June 18, 2010 at 3:25 am

Wait, before you go: When you said earlier

“Thus is the Sabbath rest slapped in the face”

What did you mean by that, PE?
[http://scecclesia.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/revisiting-the-summit-ii/#comment-15333]

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Ephrem, Deacon, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, and of Ss. Mark and Marcellian, Martyrs, A.D. 2010

On ‘negative brainstorming’ at Catholica

http://www.catholica.com.au/gc2/occ/025_occ_171008.php

Mr. Frank Purcell has done a bit of ‘negative brainstorming’ for Catholica Australia, offering some predictable counter-recommendations for remedying the present malaise in the Church in Australia. Firstly: “Ensure only male celibates ordained”. Mr. Purcell raises the possibility of a connection between celibacy and child molestation:

Meantime, as the paedophilia scandal continues to grab headlines, let the Bishops continue to postpone any serious review of the possible relationship between compulsory celibacy and the incidence of paedophilia among our celibate clergy. That continuing scandal really helps to slow vocations to the priesthood and maintains the .momentum of the collapse.
(bold type in the original)

But I have never understood the causality that would have to underpin this argument. Would those who posit a connection between celibacy and child abuse be happy to have pædophiles ordained so long as they are married? What happens if the wife pre-deceases the husband? And dare I suggest that it might avail Mr. Purcell more to investigate the connection between homosexual tendencies and priest pædophiles? Well, I’d better not, or someone will haul me before the Human Rights Commissar (though celibates have no such avenue for redress, of course).

Secondly: “Refuse to allow any debate about the possibility of ordination of women”. Now the arguments against this are more or less well-rehearsed, so I’ll look at this from a slightly different angle: 99.9% of men will never be Priests. What of those men who want to become Priests but in whom the Church does not find such a vocation? Should they simply keep hounding the seminary until they get their way? Of course not (though the pervasive sense of entitlement among the Catholica crowd would probably lead them to disagree). They should consider another vocation. And so it is a fortiori for women, since it has been the constant teaching and practice of the Church that women cannot receive Holy Orders.

Thirdly: “Continue to focux [sic] on sexuality as the key doctrine of Christianity”. But this alleged pre-occupation is only apparent; it is really the pre-occupation of the Catholica crowd, stemming from their cultural and historical myopia. In an age when the masses flout Christian sexual ethics, it is incumbent on Holy Mother Church to remind her children of them. In other words, if the Catholica crowd and their fellow-travellers didn’t keep bringing the topic up, we wouldn’t have to hear about it so often.

It is curious also, and perhaps telling, that Mr. Purcell includes abortion under this heading, denouncing the Magisterium for calling “any woman who has an abortion a murderer”. Yet once a new human life has been conceived, it is no longer a matter of sexual ethics, but of life ethics. No doubt there are many who would regard abortion as a sort of retrospective contraception, but embryology tells us otherwise. What else is the abortionist but a hitman, and the infanticidal mother a conspirator who takes out a contract on her own child’s life? Mr. Purcell wants the Lord Bishops to

show a bit of compassion and uncertainty and join in a search with other Christians and people of good will for ways of handling this difficult issue.

(bold type in the original)

Now there is indeed an element of uncertainty at the heart of the matter. But if we don’t know whether any given fœtus has a rational soul or just a sensible soul, then it’s a classic case for the ‘deer hunter’ principle: if you’re out hunting deer in the forest and you see something rustling in the bushes but don’t know whether it’s a deer or your shooting buddy, then don’t shoot. Indeed, official Church teaching appears to have referred to this when it condemned the following error:

It seems probable that every foetus (as long as it is in the womb) lacks a rational soul and begins to have the same at the time that it is born; and consequently it will have to be said that no homicide is committed in any abortion.
(Moral error no. 35, condemned in a decree of the Holy Office, March 4, 1679
Dz. 1185, http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma12.php)

So the mere probability of human personhood at any given point during the pregnancy suffices to make abortion illicit; any uncertainty is not a mitigating circumstance or reason for sympathy in an abortion. If you’re not sure whether or not he or she (the child’s sex is given at conception) is a human person, then don’t, as it were, pull the trigger.

Fourthly and finally: “Ignore the fact that Australian culture is democratic”. But we belong to a universal Church; is Mr. Purcell’s idea of authentic inculturation that the Church should adapt to the prevailing governmental structures of the culture that it evangelises? What of the authoritarian, patriarchal nations that are yet to be converted? Here again is the cultural myopia of the Catholica crowd, along with the arrogant delusion that liberal democracy is the best possible way to choose a government and thus signifies the post-Cold War ‘end of history’, as Prof. Fukuyama put it. Perhaps here we see something of a convergence of Modernist and liberal-democratic eschatologies. Also linked to this arrogance and cultural myopia are Mr. Purcell’s confused notions of accountability and authority:

Representative democracy is a form of hierarchical authority. But the heart of democracy for Australians is that anyone with authority is accountable to the community.

He might be quite right as regards the second sentence, but the first one is a contradiction in terms: an hierarchy is literally a ‘holy rulership’, ‘holy’ as in ‘of God’; hierarchs exercise their authority as delegated to them by God, not delegated by the populace as in democratic political theory. If Church authority emanates from the faithful, then what need have we for God in this life? The Church becomes a self-sufficient closed circle, turning the symbolism of versus populorum worship into a reality in Church leadership. As for accountability, Bishops are indeed accountable: they must render an account to God for everyone under their authority. Does this not satisfy the Catholica crowd?

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of Ss. Ursula and Companions, Virgins, Martyrs, 2008 A.D.

Secularism vs. The Church after WYD08: the opening barrage

http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s2309743.htm

On the night that World Youth Day festivities came to a close, the A.B.C. launched its counter-offensive against the Church with an episode of Compass entitled “Catholic Dilemma: Part 1: - Sex or celibacy”. Presumably one is supposed to categorise it as a documentary, but it was so totally biased that it is no exaggeration to describe it as a piece of advocacy, advocacy for the insidious agenda of the ‘Catholics for Ministry’ set. This ‘documentary’ failed to explain in a remotely adequate way the meaning of the Mass as a True Sacrifice and the importance of celibacy for the Priest in associating himself with Christ, i.e. the importance of celibacy for theological reasons rather than practical reasons; is it really too hard to convey that the Priesthood is primarily sacrificial rather than pastoral (contrary to Vatican II’s re-orientations as enshrined in the 1983 C.I.C., see here for more on this: http://christianorder.com/features/features_2001/features_nov01.html) and that whoever will not renounce marriage and family (the second biggest sacrifice that one can make, next after the sacrifice of life and limb) is not worthy of being the one through whom Christ offers Himself to the Father?

Now, this is to be expected from a secular humanist programme (since the humanist can only ever understand celibacy as a means to the end of ‘greater availability’; for him man is the end of all things, so that even if he tries to understand things with God in the picture he can only ever see the value of celibacy in utilitarian terms rather than as a sacrifice offered directly to God—see here http://news.stjamescatholic.org/2006/week51/index.html for H.H. The Pope’s thoughts on the matter, under the title “Benedict XVI Meets Roman Curia For Christmas Greetings”) but what was inexcusable was the biased selection of interviewees, who were all either opposed or seemingly neutral to the question of celibacy; none offered (or was allowed to offer) an articulate, cogent justification for celibacy, though one did offer a timid, materialistic argument based on the cost of supporting a married Priest’s family. What I found most remarkable of all, though, was that by a brilliant rhetorical sleight-of-hand, Mr. Paul Collins was able to position himself and, by association, his fellow-travellers in ‘Catholics for Ministry’ as the defenders of the Catholic understanding of Mass against creeping Protestantism! Listen to this (from Mr. Collins himself):

We’re talking about the unavailability of Mass and the Sacraments. We’re talking
about replacing the celebration of Mass with readings from Scripture and a
communion service. Now with respect, I mean I have a fairly good record
ecumenically, but with respect that’s a more Protestant approach and I don’t
belong to a Protestant Church nor do I intend to join one. I belong to the
Catholic Church. And at the core of Catholic belief is the Mass. And if we don’t
have the Mass then it seems to me we are taking away from the essence of being
Catholic.

No mention of sacrifice or anything, of course; the word only appears once during the course of the show, and not in a strictly theological sense.

Surely the producers could have found, somewhere in this wide brown land, a forthright defender of the gift of celibacy? Just a single apologist for this venerable norm? Instead the producers took care to portray the requirement for celibacy as a mere matter of positive law (achieved by the use of a non-cassock-wearing Jesuit canon lawyer), with the possibility of a theological dimension rejected through Mr. Collins.

Add to these shortcomings the usual stereotypes of Rome and the Australian hierarchy as out-of-touch and unresponsive, in contrast to the two former priests, the married convert from Anglicanism and a ‘pastoral leader’ nun, hard at work (over-worked, even) at the “front line” and you have a piece of journalism that gives only one side of the argument. It was truly dreadful. One can hardly wait to see what rubbish they’ll offer next week (I expect the word ‘deaconess’ will get a good showing).

Reginaldvs Cantvar