Notes: Tuesday, September 27-Tuesday, October 4, 2011 (part 1 of 2)

1. "British Muslims reviving polygamy"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/british-muslim-reviving-polygamy/story-e6frg6so-1226147865652

Labels: Islam, polyamory

2. "E[very] child should take a citizenship pledge at school, and all Australians should know the pledge by heart, the Social Inclusion Minister, Tanya Plibersek, said last night"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/my-oath-citizens-should-know-it-says-minister-20110927-1kvib.html?skin=text-only

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/love-of-australia-is-about-more-than-lifestyle-20110928-1kwfd.html?skin=text-only

Labels: liberalism, secularism

3. H.H. The Pope implicitly criticises the arrangements of union between Church and State which existed in history's Catholic Confessional States?

Excerpts from an item in a recent edition of the Vatican Information Service's daily e-mail bulletin:

IT IS TIME FOR THE CHURCH TO SET ASIDE HER WORLDLINESS

VATICAN CITY, 25 SEP 2011 (VIS) - At 5 p.m. today at the concert hall of Freiburg im Breisgau, the Holy Father met with representatives of Catholic associations active in the life of the Church and of society.

[...] "In the concrete history of the Church, however, a contrary tendency is also manifested, namely that the Church becomes settled in this world, she becomes self-sufficient and adapts herself to the standards of the world. She gives greater weight to organisation and institutionalisation than to her vocation to openness", the Pope said.

And he went on: "In order to accomplish her true task adequately, the Church must constantly renew the effort to detach herself from the 'worldliness' of the world. ... One could almost say that history comes to the aid of the Church here through the various periods of secularisation, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform".

"Secularising trends", he added, "whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like, have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she has set aside her worldly wealth and has once again completely embraced her worldly poverty". In freeing herself of material ties, "her missionary activity regained credibility".

Benedict XVI recalled that history shows how a Church detached from the world can bear more effective missionary witness. "Once liberated from her material and political burdens, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world", he said.
[...]PV-GERMANY/ VIS 20110926 (750)

It's mainly the last of those paragraphs in which I'm interested here (I provide the others mainly for context, and the full text of His Holiness's speech is available here). Does it contain an implicit criticism of the arrangements of union between Church and State which existed in history's Catholic Confessional States? (I don't ask that rhetorically. What do you make of that speech and particularly that paragraph of it?)

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Church and State, Confessional State, secularism

4. On Quærit semper

Excerpts from an item in a recent edition of the Vatican Information Service's daily e-mail bulletin:

MOTU PROPRIO "QUAERIT SEMPER"

VATICAN CITY, 29 SEP 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father yesterday promulgated "Quaerit Semper", an Apostolic Letter "Motu Proprio data" which modifies the Apostolic Constitution "Pastor Bonus", transferring certain functions of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to a new office established in the Tribunal of the Roman Rota. The office will deal with the procedures for dispensation from unconsummated marriage and causes for the nullity of priestly ordination.

Extracts from the document are given below.

[...] "In the current circumstances it seemed fitting that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments should dedicate itself chiefly to giving fresh impetus to promoting sacred liturgy in the Church, in keeping with the renewal promoted by Vatican Council II through the Constitution 'Sacrosanctum Concilium'.

[...] The new norms will come into effect as of 1 October.
MP/ VIS 20110929 (460)

See also the following web-pages:

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39116

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=28449

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/09/motu-proprio-quaerit-semper-rearranges-the-cong-for-worship-and-roman-rota/

Labels: liturgy, Quærit semper, Roman Curia, Vatican II

5. Prof. Hamilton on differences between men and women:

With women to take on military combat roles, it is time to sound the Last Post over the rotting corpse of feminism. It's what has to be done to their minds. When the Defence Minister says the individual has to have "the right physical, psychological and mental attributes", he's thinking of male mental attributes - those needed to kill.

Putting women in the front line is a victory only for the campaign to obliterate difference, as if everything women were before the advent of feminism was the creation of patriarchy. But didn't women's life experiences and history provide distinctive qualities more needed today than ever? We should celebrate the uniquely female rather than bury it under the demand for equality.

Women's morality differs from men's. Feminist philosopher Carol Gilligan argues women are motivated more by care than duty, and inclined more to emphasise responsibilities than rights. They seek reconciliation through the exercise of compassion and negotiation rather than demanding "justice", through force if necessary.

War best represents the continued hegemony of male thinking, with the grunt culture of hyper-masculinity inescapable because survival depends on it. And no institution more purely reflects the male understanding of power than the armed forces, built on the idea that the world is a place of conflict where disputes can be resolved by lethal force, and the more lethal the better.
[http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/women-at-war-is-the-final-surrender-20110929-1kz77.html?skin=text-only]

Labels: gender differences

6. Br. André Marie on "The Freedom and Exaltation of Holy Mother Church"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39121

Labels: Church and State, Confessional State, Leo XIII. Pecci, T.L.M.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Confessor, A.D. 2011

Notes: Wednesday, August 17-Tuesday, August 23, 2011

1. "53 per cent of Australian Christians support same-sex marriage"

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-year-older-but-no-wiser-as-mps-sign-on-again-20110816-1iwao.html?skin=text-only

http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/wp/a-majority-of-christians-support-marriage-equality/

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2011/08/18/rebellion-deception-and-the-hallmarks-of-our-condition/

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

2. "A man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple will have his name stripped from their child's birth certificate after a successful legal bid by the birth mother's ex-partner"

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fathers-name-stripped-from-birth-certificate-20110817-1ix2m.html?skin=text-only

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/sperm-donors-who-helped-lesbian-couple-has-name-stripped-from-birth-certificate/story-e6frg6nf-1226116649813

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2011/08/17/on-learning-how-to-think-perhaps-for-the-very-first-time/

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/jacobs-lesson-act-now-to-fix-our-hospitals-20110818-1j0b9.html?skin=text-only
(under the heading "Birth certificates must include biological detail")

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/socialise-dogs-thats-the-key-to-living-together-20110819-1j2n9.html?skin=text-only
(under the heading "Birth certificates")

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/the-best-interests-of-no-one-at-all-20110818-1j00s.html?skin=text-only

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/birth-certificates-fail-to-tell-us-the-whole-story-20110818-1izjr.html?skin=text-only

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-birth-certificate-is-a-factual-document-not-a-rewrite-of-history-20110818-1izq4.html?skin=text-only

Labels: birth certificates, G.L.B.T.

3. "Why the Gender [pay] Gap Won’t Go Away. Ever."

http://city-journal.org/2011/21_3_gender-gap.html

Labels: economics, gender differences, work

4. "in 2004 the Howard government amended the 1961 Marriage Act to ensure legally married same-sex couples overseas would not receive legal recognition here in Australia"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/gays-denied-human-rights/story-e6frg6zo-1226118404188

Labels: G.L.B.T., law, marriage

5. "General Superior of the SSPX Called to Rome"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38614

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38619
(note: In the third-last paragraph (counting "Kyrie eleison" as a paragraph) of Msgr. Williamson's column, the words "on the SSPX's own" were underlined in the e-mailed version (or at least, they were in the one which I received) but have not been in the version to which I link above this parenthesis.)

Labels: Roman Curia, S.S.P.X.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Philip Benizi, Confessor, A.D. 2011

Notes: Tuesday, August 9-Tuesday, August 16, 2011 (part 1 of 2)

1. Dr. Sudlow on an essay which, according to him, "reframes the problem [of whether Dignitatis humanæ is in continuity with pre-Conciliar teaching] completely"

http://thesensiblebond.blogspot.com/2011/08/coercion-and-liberty-reframing-debate.html

The core of this 'reframing' seems to be, in Dr. Sudlow's reading, as follows:

the Church has only dogmatically asserted its power of coercion over the baptised, and any State which acts as the civil arm to help the Church in this matter does so by delegation of the Church and NOT by its own power.

The problem with that, and the reason for which I disagree that it is "game-changing", is that although the State does indeed exercise coercive power over the Baptised in matters of religion by delegation of the Church, nevertheless, the State is competent to act by its own power when it seeks to repress offences against the Catholic religion; trying to make someone do what he does not want to do (coercion) is quite different to preventing him from doing what he wants to do.

Labels: Church and State, Dignitatis Humanæ, morality, religious liberty, theology, Thomas Pink

2. A Herald letter which corrects misconceptions about religious exemptions from taxation

Under the heading "Churches do pay" here:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/show-some-humanity-and-let-them-remain-20110808-1ijd4.html?skin=text-only

Labels: taxation

3. "Report finds boys exhibit behavioural problems earlier than girls"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/report-finds-boys-exhibit-behavioural-problems-earlier-than-girls/story-fn59niix-1226111957815

Labels: gender differences

4. A couple of recent comments from Dr. Brown

4.1 On the Eucharist as memorial

Mainly his third point here:

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/08/on-the-matter-of-ad-orientem-worship/#comment-288650

Labels: liturgy

4.2 A joke

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/08/waiting-for-zagano/#comment-288765

Labels: liturgy, N.O.M., T.L.M.

5. Mr. Brent on voting turnout

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/turnout_schmurnout/

Labels: voting

6. An attempted defence of sodomite-catamite 'parenting' which (defence) backfires

From a letter to the Herald last week:

Maurie Stack and Martin Bell (Letters, August 11) should not assume that two lesbians raising children are depriving those children of a relationship with their biological father.

[...] [The Lesbian letter-writer's children] also know who their donor father is and we have always fostered contact and a relationship with him. We are not alone in this family model.
[http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/love-not-biology-determines-good-parenting-20110811-1iorr.html?skin=text-only]

The problem with this line of argument is that once they acknowledge that contact and a relationship with the biological father is a good thing, one has to ask them Why do you deprive the children of the best form of contact and relationship, which is that in which the biological father lives with his children? I suppose that defenders of depriving children of this good would try to deflect the argument by pointing out that it is not just Lesbian households in which the biological father does not live with the children. This attempted evasion is answered by pointing out that fathers who legitimately live away from their respective families do so for some greater good, e.g. in the case of overseas military service, whereas Lesbian couples do so for an evil, namely, the indulgence of their disordered preferences. (And as for fathers who illegitmately live away from their respective families, one need only point out that two wrongs don't make a right.)

(And of course, the same goes, mutatis mutandis, for Gay 'co-parents' whose children have only intermittent contact with their respective biological mothers.)

Labels: families, G.L.B.T., morality, parenthood

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Joachim, Confessor, A.D. 2011

Notes: Wednesday, June 22-Wednesday, June 29, 2011

1. A couple of items regarding women in the paid workforce

1.1 Mr. Thompson on several points regarding women in the paid workforce

Here is an excerpt from an article entitled "They have babies, pay them less" and which appeared on page three of the print edition of the Sydney Daily Telegraph on Friday, June 24, 2011:

Alasdair Thompson, chief execu-tive of the New Zealand Employers & Manufacturers' Association, also claimed women were less pro-ductive because they took career breaks to have babies.
"Why do they take the most sick leave? Women do in general. Why? Because once a month they have sick problems," Mr Thompson said during a live radio interview to argue against a law aimed at reducing the wage gap between men and women.
"The fact is women have babies, they take time out with their careers," he added, admitting his statements were "contentious".
[...] Mr Thompson later tried to hose down the controversy, apologising for his comments.
[dashes in the original, my square-bracketed ellipsis]

I wonder what the evidence is for whether women take more sick leave than men, whether, if they do indeed take more sick leave, it is because of women's problems, and whether maternity leave hampers women's productivity?

Related web-pages:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/gender-row-exec-has-a-point-expert/story-e6freuyi-1226081435028

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/kiwi-employers-head-castigated-over-claims-women-take-more-sick-days-than-men/story-e6frev00-1226080815733

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/new-zealand-employers-group-chief-says-women-dont-deserve-equal-pay/story-e6frg6so-1226080763729

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/kiwi-employers-head-castigated-over-claims-women-take-more-sick-days-than-men/story-e6frez7r-1226080755986

Labels: economics, gender differences, work

1.2 Some facts and figures regarding women in the paid workforce and children in childcare

http://www.smh.com.au/national/childcare-rebate-put-paid-to-staying-home-longer-20110624-1ghsr.html?skin=text-only

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/numbers-add-up-as-mothers-return-to-work-sooner-20110623-1ghjk.html?skin=text-only

Labels: economics, work, youngsters

2. Darwin on something which would invalidate his theory of evolution

This is an extract from a very small article entitled "Insights unveiled as Darwin's scribbles enter the digital era" and which appeared on page twenty-four of last weekend's (June 25-26, 2011) edition of The Sydney Morning Herald:

Darwin wrote alongside this: "If this ["that there were definite limits to the vari-ation of species"] were true adios theory."

Labels: evolution

3. "Russian Orthodox Church to tinker with its liturgy"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37841

Labels: R.O.C.

4. A couple of recent reported facts regarding the death penalty

4.1 "Since 1978, [Californian] voters have consistently opted to widen the capital punishment net so that the state now has the most sweeping laws in the country, with some 39 eligible crimes"

http://www.smh.com.au/world/executions-cost-300m-each-in-california-study-20110621-1gdfu.html?skin=text-only

Labels: death penalty

4.2 "Australia ... annually co-sponsors a resolution of the UN Human Rights Commission that calls for all nations to abolish [capital] punishment"

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/subtle-shifts-offer-hope-of-abolition-20110626-1glm2.html?skin=text-only

Labels: death penalty

5. "A Bibliography of the Current Crisis in the Catholic Church"

http://truerestoration.blogspot.com/2011/06/bibliography-of-current-crisis-in.html

That came to my attention via this AQ thread:

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37842

Labels: modernism, N.O.M., Vatican II

6. "Liechtenstein archbishop in Mass 'boycott'"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37862

Labels: Church and State

7. "Students get insight into Holocaust horrors"

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=26928

This bit was particularly evocative:

This year three Santa Maria College students ... prepared a liturgical movement in response to ... Walter Rapoport, Chairman of the Council of Christians and Jews Victoria.

(In the Australian Conciliar church, "liturgical movement" means liturgical dance.) It brings to mind pagan dancing girls swirling around an idol of "The Holocaust".

Labels: Jews

8. "Kremlin eliminates Putin challengers"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/kremlin-eliminates-putin-challengers/story-e6frg6so-1226080860884

Labels: Russia, Vladimir Putin

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, A.D. 2011

Notes: December 30, 2010-January 3, 2011

(You'll notice that, as well as the list of labels at the end of this blog post, in this and future editions of "Notes" I'll include a list of labels for each item at the end of each item.)

1. "Chimps play on gender lines"

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/chimps-play-on-gender-lines-20101227-198lu.html?skin=text-only

LABELS: gender differences

2. Fr. Zuhlsdorf on, among other things, the origin of Ordinaries signing their respective names with a cross sign in front of those names

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/12/wdtprs-nobis-quoque-peccatoribus%e2%80%9d-and-joe-bagofdoughnuts-bp-of-black-duck/

LABELS: trivia

3. Prof. George et al. against a critique of their natural-law argument against so-called gay marriage

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/12/2277
(brought to my attention by this post at Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog)

LABELS: G.L.B.T., marriage, morality, natural law, Robert George

4. "[S]exual and reproductive health" (things such as abortion and contraception?) among the priority areas in the Federal Government's National Women's Health Policy 2010:

[The Hon. Nicola] Roxon [M.P., Health Minister] and Status of Women Minister Kate Ellis released the Government's National Women's Health Policy 2010.

[...] Health priority areas identified in the policy include chronic diseases, mental health, sexual and reproductive health and healthy ageing.
[http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/healthier-future-for-gen-y-girls/story-e6freuzr-1225978255293]

LABELS: abortion, contraception, health

5. Cardinal Pell on the incongruity of ostensibly genuine Catholic politicians defying Church teaching

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sunday-telegraph/youre-either-one-of-us-or-youre-not/story-e6frewt0-1225980084014

Predictably, this has generated much discussion in a thread at the Catholica Forum. I wonder whether it was self-satire when, after this quotation (which is itself almost satirically over-the-top):

Where I draw the line is when he tries to impose his own Catholic Sharia Law on the rest of the community. He has the right to criticize Catholic politicians for failing to do this, but the good thing is that they are ignoring him, just like everyone else seems to do. That's the triumph of secularism.

"desi" wrote:

All together now for a great big chorus of:

'And so say all (well, a huge number anyway) of us, and so say.....'!

LABELS: George Pell, morality

6. Mr. Sheehan on Aboriginal over-representation in the criminal justice system:

I don't believe most Australians feel ''shame'' that Aborigines are 15-times over-represented in the criminal justice system. I believe they feel anger, as the victims of crime. Australians are sick of the chasm between rhetoric and reality, and the idea that the only acceptable public narratives for Aboriginal people are that of victim or artist or noble custodian. The percentage of incarcerated Aboriginals would be even higher if so many were not given a free pass by the justice system, which in turn has led to a self-perpetuating culture of violence.
[http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/cast-adrift-from-reality-the-slick-spruikers-of-our-shame-20110102-19cz9.html?skin=text-only]

LABELS: A.T.S.I.

7. As the Cloister closes its doors (not necessarily forever), a Window opens

So Coo-ees from the Cloister "will close in 2011":

http://coo-eesfromthecloister.blogspot.com/p/we-have-had-hoot.html

though not necessarily forever:

http://thewardenswindow.blogspot.com/2011/01/wilson-bypassed-as-same-sex-rights.html?showComment=1294038914531#c6147065956221964640

and there is a successor blog (whose blogger is no 'novice'!):

http://thewardenswindow.blogspot.com/

LABELS: blogs

8. A Holy Roman Emperor asking for respect for religious freedom for Christians subject to the Shah of Persia?

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- For almost 400 years, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples has sent missionaries around the world. Now, in the new Propaganda Fide Missionary Museum, the public can see many of the items they sent back to Rome. The new museum also documents how certain challenges to faith recur. For example, there's a letter written in the mid-1600s by King Leopold of Germany, the Holy Roman Emperor, to the Shah of Persia asking him kindly, but forcefully, to respect the religious freedom of Christians in Persia. ...
[http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20101209.htm]

I would be interested to read (an English translation of) that letter.

LABELS: Leopold I. Habsburg, Persia, religious liberty

Reginaldvs Cantvar
3.I.2011

Notes: Saturday-Monday, November 6-8, 2010

1. Interesting review of The Grand Design

The review in question was published in The Sydney Morning Herald's Spectrum supplement at the weekend, and is available on-line here. The following excerpt was remarkable:

Even if M-theory is the best candidate for a Theory of Everything, it will not, as Hawking concedes, result in anything more than a collection of unproved and unprovable hypotheses.

2. Exactly (precisely?) what I was thinking!

Here's a letter which was published on page twenty-five of today's edition of the Sydney Daily Telegraph and which points out an all-too-common grammatical error which vexes me too:

For years the signs at railway stations have warned us that steps "may be" (that is are permitted to be) slippery when wet. Finally, this ungrammatical phrase is now correct. To avoid slips on the newly refurbished Macarthur station, carpets are being laid as a safety measure. Perhaps State Rail should have warned the wet areas "might be" (this expresses possibility, not permission) slippery.
M. Chaldecott Lindfield

The four effects of law are to command ('You shall ...'), to forbid ('You shall not ...'), to permit ('You may ...'), and to punish (to trangress any of the preceding three is to incur the obligation to suffer the just penalty); see St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, Ia IIæ, Q. 92, a. 2.

3. The Stockholm Bloodbath: An episode in Scandinavian history of which I had not heard

I was interested to learn the following in the "on this day" section of the history page of today's Sydney Daily Telegraph (p. 39):

1520

The execution of more than 80 Swedish nobles and clergy, who opposed their country's invasion by Christian II of Denmark, begins in Stockholm. The dissidents are accused of heresy.

Apparently that episode is known as the Stockholm Bloodbath, about which you can read more at Wikipedia's page on it.

4. The latest development/s in Australia regarding so-called gay marriage

4.1 "Mark Arbib wants Labor to back gay marriage"
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/arbib-wants-labor-to-back-gay-marriage/story-fn59niix-1225948555751

4.2 "Powerbrokers call for gay marriage debate"
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/powerbrokers-call-for-gay-marriage-debate/story-e6frea8c-1225948877549

(See also the responses in The Australian's editorial and letters sections.)

5. Interesting books reviewed in the weekend papers

A Place for Truth: Leading Thinkers Explore Life's Hardest Questions
Edited by Dallas Willard
IVP Books,321pp, $27.95

[...] Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences
By Cordelia Fine
Icon Books, 338pp, $29.99
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/where-faith-and-reason-meet/story-e6frg8nf-1225946773855]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of the Four Crowned Martyrs, A.D. 2010

Notes: Thursday, October 14, 2010

A good question from Ms Farrelly

In the Herald today:

Fine's insistence that boys and girls are born with identical brains does not explain how an un-gendered mind, fully steeped in boy-type context, can reach adulthood with the life-or-death conviction that it is actually, profoundly, female. How could that happen? [http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/gender-and-feminism-a-guilt-trip-20101013-16jyv.html?skin=text-only]

Interesting opinion piece by Mr. Sheridan

in today's Australian. An excerpt:

Like World Youth Day, the canonisation of Mary is one of those fairly rare occasions when popular Catholicism breaks through the gatekeepers of official culture in Australia and commands some mainstream attention.

Christianity generally is massively under-regarded in Australia. More people go to church every Sunday than go to football, but the media coverage is hardly commensurate.

I cannot recall seeing Pell on ABC1's Q&A, yet there is a Muslim representative on about every fourth episode of that show. There's certainly nothing wrong with having Muslims on the show, but it's almost as if there is a policy that any mainstream Catholic Church leader is ipso facto boring, not to be listened to or simply not a suitable person to participate in the mainstream media.

This is a sign both of a kind of immature provincialism in our culture and a serious ongoing prejudice against orthodox Christianity of any kind.

There is, of course, specific anti-Catholic prejudice, of the kind seen in the ridiculous treatment of Tony Abbott on ABC1's Four Corners when he became leader of the Liberal Party.

This kind of prejudice used to be called the anti-Semitism of the intellectual and its tired persistence in Australian culture is sad, not only because of the unfairness of the prejudice but because of the consequence it has of the media missing so big a part of modern life.

[...] Of course, all the great secular dictators have taken the church seriously and understood it is one of their most formidable opponents. This is partly because the universality of the Catholic Church transcends all national borders.

Adolf Hitler planned to abolish the papacy and set up a separate pope in every country he ruled. ...
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/attack-on-christianity-will-undermine-society/story-e6frg6zo-1225938377118]

That last sentence came as a surprise to me, though; I hadn't heard about that before. Also, while Protestantism might have been 'foundational' for "secularism", Catholicism certainly wasn't, and only hopped on that bandwagon in recent decades i.e. with Vatican II.

Msgr. Hart contra Mr. Pead (and vice versa)

This comment in a thread at AQ brought to my attention an interesting pair of letters to Christian Order regarding the late-2003/early-2004 scandal over Knights of the Southern Cross/Freemason co-operation and fraternisation:

http://www.christianorder.com/features/features_2004/features_apr04_bonus.html

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Callistus I., Pope, Martyr, A.D. 2010

Notes: Thursday, September 9, 2010

"Same-sex adoptions law faces further vote"

In today's Herald:

THE NSW Legislative Council voted last night in favour of same-sex adoptions but approved an amendment which means the legislation will now return to the Legislative Assembly for a further vote.

After a lengthy debate, 22 voted in favour of the legislation in the upper house and 15 voted against it in a conscience vote.

The margin was much greater than the two-vote margin in the Legislative Assembly.

After approving the legislation in principle, the Legislative Council debated a series of amendments.

The most notable was one moved by the Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, seeking to tighten an earlier lower house amendment that Frank Sartor had moved and which sought to release faith-based organisations from the application of the legislation.

This amendment was approved by the same 22-15 margin, which will now result in the legislation returning to the Legislative Assembly where it will be subject to a further vote.

This has triggered concerns that the legislation could be voted down, since two MPs absent last week are expected to oppose the legislation. That would then give the Speaker the casting vote and the legislation could be blocked.

At the conclusion of yesterday's debate, Penny Sharpe said: ''The bill does nothing but give same-sex couples access to applications.''

Ms Sharpe moved the legislation on behalf of Clover Moore, who introduced the legislation to Parliament. [...]
[http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/samesex-adoptions-law-faces-further-vote-20100908-151cp.html?skin=text-only]

A couple of points:

• I wonder what, precisely, was Mr. Hatzistergos's amendment?
• Interesting that the reporter speaks of "concerns" being "triggered", rather than, say, 'hopes' being 'raised', or if he wanted to sound neutral, a 'possibility emerging'

A surrogacy Bill for New South Wales (plus an example of the kind of mayhem which makes such legislation desirable for surrogacy's supporters)

From yesterday's Sydney Daily Telegraph (page thirteen of the print edition, on-line version posted below):

SURROGACY laws will be introduced into NSW, giving people legal rights as parents when someone has a child on their behalf.

The proposal was brought to Cabinet by Attorney-General John Hatzistergos, with a conscience vote planned in both houses.

The proposal would ban commercial surrogacy but allow gay couples to use surrogates to have their children.

Strict age limits would be provided on the "carriers" of children, with the minimum age for carrying a child to be 25.

The laws follow a conscience vote at the national ALP conference on the issue and a parliamentary committee report earlier this year which found parents raising a surrogate child were not recognised as legal parents.

That committee recommended allowing parents in surrogacy arrangements to apply for legal parentage of a child six weeks after the child is born. At present, surrogacy is not illegal, but parents of a surrogate child have no rights.

[...] The conscience vote follows that on same-sex adoption which was expected to pass the Upper House last night.

Creating conscience votes on social issues were partly intended to create a "wedge" between Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell, who tends to vote as a small "l" liberal on such matters, and religious-right powerbroker David Clarke, Labor sources said. [...]
[http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/conscience-vote-called-on-surrogacy/story-e6freuzi-1225915564718]

And here's the example to which I referred in the heading for this item:

"Struggle over 'ownership' of baby split gay parents"
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/struggle-over-ownership-of-baby-split-gay-parents-20100908-151cr.html?skin=text-only

Expect a future Parliamentary inquiry into 'multi-parent adoption/surrogacy' (the possibility of such an inquiry was mooted in one of the pro-gay-adoption submissions to the gay adoption inquiry, but I don't have time to track down the reference). A surrogate child can, of course, have as many as five persons who can be said in some sense to be his or her parents--the sperm donor, the egg donor, the surrogate mother, and the two (or I suppose that that should be 'at least two') persons who intend to raise the child.

"The gender myth"

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/the-gender-myth-20100908-151d3.html?skin=text-only

Interesting to read that article in the light of the thoughts of that 'female-to-male transsexual' last week. Also, two of the experts whom that article quotes say respectively that "[y]es, there are basic behavioural differences between the sexes" and that "[y]es, boys and girls, men and women, are different", but the author's thesis is that these differences can be mitigated (or, for that matter, reinforced and exaggerated). One of the experts says that

We are being told there is nothing we can do to improve our potential because it is innate. That is wrong. Boys can develop powerful linguistic skills and girls can acquire deep spatial skills.

But by acknowledging that there are innate, if not insuperable, differences between the sexes in these abilities, potentials, and tendencies, she seems implicitly to say that men and women respectively have a sort of 'comparative advantage' over the opposite sex in these abilities, potentials, and tendencies. Actually, those advantages would seem to be absolute, not comparative, since an absolute advantage is a greater productive capacity, whereas a comparative advantage is just a lower opportunity cost--hence boys can indeed "develop powerful linguistic skills", but girls can do so more easily, and similarly for spatial skills. I'd have to give this more thought, though.

H.H. The Pope and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Inter-religious Dialogue on religious liberty

Two items from today's Vatican Information Service daily e-mail bulletin:

SHARED VALUES AND RIGHTS FOR DIALOGUE AMONG CULTURES

VATICAN CITY, 8 SEP 2010 (VIS) - Following his general audience this morning, the Holy Father received members of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The meeting marked the sixtieth anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, which "commits member States of the Council of Europe to promote and defend the inviolable dignity of the human person".

Speaking English, Benedict XVI referred to the topics on the parliamentary assembly's agenda, such as "persons who live in particularly difficult situations or are subjected to grave violations of their dignity". He made particular mention of "people afflicted with handicaps, children who suffer violence, immigrants, refugees, those who pay the most for the present economic and financial crisis, those who are victims of extremism or of new forms of slavery such as human trafficking, the illegal drug trade and prostitution, ... victims of warfare and people who live in fragile democracies". The Pope also dwelt on the organisation's efforts "to defend religious freedom and to oppose violence and intolerance against believers in Europe and worldwide.

"Keeping in mind the context of today's society in which different peoples and cultures come together", he added, "it is imperative to develop the universal validity of these rights as well as their inviolability, inalienability and indivisibility. On different occasions I have pointed out the risks associated with relativism in the area of values, rights and duties. If these were to lack an objective rational foundation, common to all peoples, and were based exclusively on particular cultures, legislative decisions or court judgements, how could they offer a solid and long-lasting ground for supranational institutions such as the Council of Europe? ... How could a fruitful dialogue among cultures take place without common values, rights and stable, universal principles understood in the same way by all member States of the Council of Europe?"

He went on: "These values, rights and duties are rooted in the natural dignity of each person, something which is accessible to human reasoning. The Christian faith does not impede, but favours this search, and is an invitation to seek a supernatural basis for this dignity".

The Holy Father concluded by expressing his conviction that "these principles, faithfully maintained, above all when dealing with human life, from conception to natural death, with marriage - rooted in the exclusive and indissoluble gift of self between one man and one woman - and freedom of religion and education, are necessary conditions if we are to respond adequately to the decisive and urgent challenges that history presents".
AC/ VIS 20100908 (440)

COMMUNIQUE CONCERNING "KORAN BURNING DAY"

VATICAN CITY, 8 SEP 2010 (VIS) - The Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue today released an English-language communique describing its "great concern at the news of the proposed 'Koran Burning Day' on the occasion of the anniversary of the 11 September tragic terrorist attacks in 2001 which resulted in the loss of many innocent lives and considerable material damage.

"These deplorable acts of violence, in fact, cannot be counteracted by an outrageous and grave gesture against a book considered sacred by a religious community. Each religion, with its respective sacred books, places of worship and symbols, has the right to respect and protection. We are speaking about the respect to be accorded the dignity of the person who is an adherent of that religion and his/her free choice in religious matters.

"The reflection which necessarily should be fostered on the occasion of the remembrance of 11 September would be, first of all, to offer our deep sentiments of solidarity with those who were struck by these horrendous terrorist attacks. To this feeling of solidarity we join our prayers for them and their loved ones who lost their lives.

"Each religious leader and believer is also called to renew the firm condemnation of all forms of violence, in particular those committed in the name of religion. Pope John Paul II affirmed: 'Recourse to violence in the name of religious belief is a perversion of the very teachings of the major religions' (address to the new ambassador of Pakistan, 16 December 1999). His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI similarly expressed, 'violence as a response to offences can never be justified, for this type of response is incompatible with the sacred principles of religion' (address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, to the new ambassador of Morocco, 6 February 2006)".
CON-DIR/ VIS 20100908 (300)

It's always disappointing to see the Vatican preaching religious liberty, but it's interesting to see how this supposed right was qualified in each item: His Holiness spoke of "[k]eeping in mind the context of today's society in which different peoples and cultures come together", which can be interpreted in an orthodox manner so that religious liberty is conceived of as a legitimate policy of prudent tolerance in societies which are far from unified in the true Faith (though I don't mean to suggest that that is how the Holy Father would want his words interpreted), and while the P.C.I.D. speaks of

Each religion, with its respective sacred books, places of worship and symbols, ha[ving] the right to respect and protection.

which is in itself false, because obviously a false religion has no innate right to respect and protection, the P.C.I.D. explains this respect as

the respect to be accorded the dignity of the person who is an adherent of that religion and his/her free choice in religious matters.

which remedies some of the heterodoxy of the preceding sentence, since obviously we need to respect everyone for their (ontological) dignity, but since a choice of falsehood and evil deserves no respect, the heterodoxy is not completely eliminated.

Blog comments by me

Just one, at Mr. Schütz's blog:

Cardinal Pole
September 9, 2010 at 5:34 am

Earlier on, Paul G asked

“If gay “marriage” is made legal, can anyone explain to [him] the reason for keeping polygamy illegal?”
Peregrinus wrote in response that

“The fact that someone rejects one of the key characteristics of the Christian concept of marriage (heterosexuality, openness to procreation*) doesn’t necessarily mean that they will must reject another of them (exclusivity).”

That’s true, but the problem is that the characteristic which advocates of so-called same-sex marriage reject at least implicitly is the characteristic of the complementarity of the spouses. ‘Marriage’ in the most general sense of the word is the uniting of two complementary parts into a whole. Hence a carpenter might speak of ‘marrying up’ two interlocking pieces of timber. The complementarity which is the defining feature of matrimony is primarily and at least initially sexual complementarity (and ‘sexual’ in the proper sense of the word, not the at best semi- or quasi-(really, pseudo-)sexual complementarity of a sodomite and his current catamite).

So for ‘gay marriage’ advocates, husband and wife are conceived of not as complements, but as substitutes. And if so, and there can hence be a husband and a husband or a wife and a wife in a marriage, then why not a husband and a husband and a husband, or four husbands, or two husbands and a wife, or whatever? If spouses are substitutes, not complements, then it seems arbitrary to fix the number of them at two per marriage.
[http://scecclesia.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/yes/#comment-16877]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Peter Claver, Confessor, and of St. Gorgonius, Martyr, A.D. 2010

Notes: Thursday, September 2, 2010

The latest on the N.S.W. same-sex adoption Bill

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/keneally-to-support-samesex-adoption-20100901-14nnf.html?skin=text-only

Also, a story from the other day which I seem to have missed earlier (it came to my attention via yesterday's CathNews):

"Keneally denies Greens deal on adoption"
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/keneally-denies-greens-deal-on-adoption-20100831-14f4n.html

A 'female-to-male transsexual' on the differences between men and women

In an opinion piece in today's Herald: (warning: The article could be an occasion of sin for some readers)

[Dr. Bettina] Arndt told [the opinion piece's author, Mr. Paul Sheehan] her favourite person in [her latest] book is a transsexual, Anita Wolfe Valerio, who became Max Wolf Valerio, and wrote a memoir about the metamorphosis from woman to man. In The Testosterone Files, published in 2006, Valerio confronts, from first-hand experience, the divide caused by differing male and female testosterone levels: ''Now that I am Max, I see this rift, this fundamental chasm between men and women's perceptions and experience of sexuality, is one that may never be bridged. There certainly can be no hope for understanding as long as society pretends that men and women are really the same, that the culture of male sexuality is simply a conflation of misogyny and dysfunction. That the male libido is shaped and driven primarily by socialisation that can be legislated or 'psychobabbled' out of existence.''
[http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-secret-desires-of-men-and-why-they-go-unfulfilled-20100901-14nhj.html?skin=text-only]

'Historic' Labor-Greens pact

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-julia-gillards-high-risk-greens-embrace/story-fn59niix-1225913033761

Mr. Muehlenberg on justice: "Biblical justice", retributive justice, and distributive justice

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/09/01/%e2%80%98social-justice%e2%80%99-versus-biblical-justice/

I don't have time to do a proper rebuttal, or at least critique, of Mr. Muehlenberg's post, so I'll just offer a few thoughts without weaving them into a properly-structured essay:

Mr. Muehlberg says that his intention in writing that post is to

concentrate on just two [kinds of justice]: retributive justice and distributive justice. The former goes back at least to Aristotle and means simply, “to each man his due”. It has to do with giving people what they deserve. Thus we speak about ‘just deserts’ and so on.

The latter term is a more recent concept, and has to do with equality of outcome, and redistributing certain goods, including wealth, to ostensibly help out the less fortunate. It is what is often meant when the left – both secular and religious – speak about social justice.

Now the first problem is that it is justice in the broadest sense of the word, not justice in the narrower sense of retributive justice, which is said simply to render to each his due. Retributive justice is concerned with rendering to the evil-doer what is his due, namely, a punishment proportionate in severity to the severity of his evil-doing. Before reading Mr. Muehlenberg's post I had never heard of the term 'retributive justice' being used to describe anything other than the justice applying to evildoers.

As for distributive justice: As regards the virtue of justice among humans (obviously neither Mr. Muehlenberg nor I are concerned with justice towards God, which is the virtue of religion), there are two 'sub-virtues', so to speak, under it: Commutative justice and social justice. Commuative justice is individual-to-individual justice, whereas social justice is individual-to-society or society-to-individual justice. Sometimes the term 'social justice' is (or perhaps I should say "before the term 'social justice' was appropriated for describing what would be at best really social charity, and at worst assorted politically-correct causes, the term 'social justice' was ...") used only for individual-to-society justice (otherwise the term 'legal justice' is commonly used, since the individual's duties as a member of society are prescribed for him by law), while distributive justice is society-to-individual justice. All distributive justice means is that the burdens and benefits of being part of a society are distributed to each member of society in proportion to each member's talents and abilities and capacities and so on. So there is nothing sinister or 'un-Biblical' about the term at all; the alternative to distributive justice would be the injustice of burdens and benefits being conferred on everyone without taking into account the burdens and benefits which they have already received from nature or other circumstances.

Mr. Muehlenberg goes on:

At the risk of oversimplifying matters, it seems that the notion of retributive justice is more closely aligned with biblical notions of justice, while distributive justice is further afield from Scriptural principles. But this can hardly be defended adequately in a brief article, even in a most superficial fashion.

But although Mr. Muehlenberg goes out of his way to stress that he does not intend to offer an exhaustive treatise, he is still signalling that it is his opinion that distributive justice is "further afield from Scriptural principles". That opinion is clearly fallacious given the outline which I have provided of the true meaning of distributive justice, but the basis for this opinion becomes clearer in his next paragraph:

We would need to closely examine biblical terms such as justice, righteousness and the like. We would need to look at contemporary economic options as well. And we would need to study the historical record to see whether wealth redistribution has in fact worked, and really helped the poor. But let me tease things out just a bit more here.
[my emphasis]

So Mr. Muehlenberg's focus is on wealth redistribution--by 'distributive justice' he seems to conceive of something involving redistribution of wealth/income in order to achieve "equality of outcome". But distributive justice does not mean taking some of the wealth and income of the rich and transferring it to the poor so that they have equal wealth and income. It just means that when the government seeks to impose a burden on its subjects it needs to take into account what burdens and benefits they already have, and likewise for distributing the benefits of living in society. So as regards wealth redistribution, there is not necessarily any sin against properly-understood distributive justice involved in allowing inequality of wealth and income to persist, but there would be a sin against distributive justice on the part of the government if the government were to treat poor people the same as rich people, e.g. by taxing them all at a flat rate of taxation. Mr. Muehlenberg should have no problem agreeing that such a thing would be unjust, given that he agrees that "treat[ing] unequals equally ... is neither fair nor just."

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Stephen, King, Confessor, A.D. 2010