Father Komonchak had a very interesting post two months back called “Remembering 1989″ about trying to convey the sense of watching history being made (as we like to say) to those who were hardly born when historic events happened–like the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was put in mind of that post as I was reading what seems like yet another round of talk about an Anglican “schism”–I put the word in quotes because many don’t describe it that way, or want to cast what is happening in terms of a Reformation or something more prophetic-sounding. The talk regards a meeting of conservative Anglican leaders in Jerusalem ahead of the decennial Lambeth Conference in England of all the word’s Anglical bishops. (Well, all except a certain gay bishop and a schismatic African.) Here is The New York Times take. The Tablet cites the conservative bishops as calling this “a second Reformation,” while over at the America blog, Austen Ivereigh prefers “realignment.”

Yada yada yada. Which is actually my point: Perhaps it is the result of having covered this story for too long, and having attended too many Episcopal Church conferences on this and other topics (gays, homosexuals, lesbians) that promised a definitive answer of one sort or another, only to have the issue put out for further study, or a later deadline. And there is much to be said for that.

But is this really “it” this time? Is this really a schism, a split, a reformation? Will all those apocalyptic ledes I wrote years ago finally be true? Above all, how can we know when something is historic? I recall reading that Europeans at the turn of the second millennium had a Y1K panic of sorts. But was there a widespread historical consciousness of a “Great Schism” in 1054? Was Oct. 31, 1517 a momentous date only decades, perhaps centuries, later? Apropos of the coming holiday, I believe July 2 was actually supposed to be the memorable Day of Independence. But the Founding Fathers, though we now attribute omniscience to them, might have been aghast at the idea of being called Revolutionaries. Did Sassoon et al know it was the Great War? It surely wasn’t World War I back then. And on and on.

How possible is it to recognize something as historic when you are in the moment itself? And how much does our modern history-conditioned consciousness shape the way we view the present events? In this age of infotainment and commentary characterized solely by the use of the superlative, is everything historic? Or has the very concept been so overused it means nothing? And thus is it possible to know, until centuries later, the import of the events in, in this case, Jerusalem and Canterbury?

Perry Miller, The New England Mind, vol. 2: From Colony to Province, p. 124:

“In 1657 Commissioners of the United Colonies tried to force Rhode Island (which was not, of course, in the Union) to banish Quakers; that colony replied with the curious observation that Quakers had proved, when tolerated, to be hostile only against persecutors. “Surely we find that they delight to be persecuted by civill powers, when they are soe, they are likely to gain more adherents by the conseyte of their patient sufferings, than by consent to their pernicious sayings.” Roger Williams was shocked by the doctrines of George Fox and wrote against them, and the colony’s authorities assured the Commissioners that Quaker teaching did indeed threaten the overturn of all civil government. But Rhode Island found itself obliged, by its previous declarations, to tolerate differences of opinion, and so made this astounding discovery.”

Yesterday the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople celebrated together First Vespers of the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Pope Benedict, in his splendid homily, inaugurated the Year of St. Paul: a year of renewed reading and meditation upon the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles.

The Pope’s homily is not yet posted on the Vatican website, but here is Asia News’ translation of a key passage:

In the letter to the Galatians, [Paul] provided for us a very personal profession of faith, in which he opens his heart to the reader of all times, and reveals the deep driving force of his life. ‘I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me’ (Gal. 2:20). Everything that Paul does begins from this centre. His faith is the experience of being loved by Jesus Christ in a completely personal way; it is the awareness of the fact that Christ has faced death not for some anonymous person, but out of love for him – for Paul – and that, as the Risen One, he still loves him. Christ has given himself for him. His faith comes from being transfixed by the love of Jesus Christ, a love that shakes him to his core and transforms him. His faith is not a theory, an opinion about God and the world. His faith is the impact of the love of God on his heart. And thus his faith is itself love for Jesus Christ.

From the Independent:

It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

From the Toronto Star:

Fast-growing churches, frustrated with the slow pace of municipal planning, often find themselves pushed into setting up shop in rural areas on the edge of town, where they end up contributing to suburban sprawl, a Ryerson University study has found.

“They rapidly gobble up prime agricultural land, adding to the sprawl and causing burden on the city’s infrastructure,” says the study by Sandeep Kumar Agrawal, an associate professor of urban planning.

Once the new church is built, the parishioners soon follow, and housing springs up around the building – determining the character of the new subdivision.

Would it make sense for the Church to impose a moratorium on opening new suburban parishes in an effort to avoid encouraging Catholics to move out to places where they are guaranteed to spend a lot of time driving?  My guess is that it wouldn’t have much of an impact, even on Catholics.  That is, I suspect that, at least for Catholics, parishes are following parishioners, and not the other way around.

A Reuter’s blog gives the text of a talk that Bishop Fellay, head of the SSPX, gave on the Vatican ultimatum listing conditions for the re-integration of the Society into the Church.  In the speech Fellay refers to a talk that Archbishop Lefebvre gave many years ago, and this is also useful to read because it shows clearly how the issues as seen by the SSPX are not a simple matter of retaining the unreformed rite.  As the Reuters piece indicates, within the SSPX there are people far more intransigent that Fellay can at times appear to be.

Two weeks ago we had a vigorous discussion about the merits of certain aspects of the revised English translation of the Roman Missal.  The discussion was sparked by the unexpected failure of the revised Proper of Seasons to gain the necessary two-thirds vote at the recent USCCB meeting.   The conference is now canvassing its members who were absent to see if there are sufficient votes to ultimately approve it.

Advocates for the revised translation appear to be “working the room” in an effort to sway the undecided.  Bishop Arthur Serratelli, who is chair of the bishop’s Committee on Divine Worship, recently published an essay in his diocesan newspaper that responded to some of the arguments made by critics of the translation:

The new translations also have a great respect for the style of the Roman Rite.  Certainly, some sentences could be more easily translated to mimic our common speech. But they are not.  And with reason.  Latin orations, especially Post-Communions, tend to conclude strongly with a teleological or eschatological point. The new translations in English follow the sequence of these Latin prayers in order to end on a strong note. Many of our current translations of these prayers end weakly. Why should we strip the English translation of the distinctive theological emphases of the Latin text? A slightly non-colloquial word order can lead the listener to a greater attention to the point of the prayer.

Our present liturgical texts are framed in simple syntax.  The new translations use more subordinate clauses. This, in and of itself, does not render them unproclaimable. By the very fact that, in some instances, the new translations require thoughtful and careful attention to pauses when speaking helps to foster and create a less rushed and more reverent way of praying. Not a small gain for a proper ars celebrandi.

The new translation at times may use uncommon words like “ineffable.” The word is not unspeakable! For sure, this word does not come from the street language of the contemporary individual. But, then, why cannot the liturgy use words that elevate the language from the street to the altar?  People may not use certain words in their active vocabulary. This does not mean they will be baffled by their use in the liturgy. “If indeed, in the liturgical texts, words or expressions are sometimes employed which differ somewhat from usual and everyday speech, it is often enough by virtue of this very fact that the texts become truly memorable and capable of expressing heavenly realities” (Liturgiam Authenticam, 27).

The ICEL has also weighed in.  Rocco has the full text of their document, which echoes the point that Bishop Serratelli makes about wanting the prayers to end on a strong note.  The text also focuses attention on a single word that has become the focus of some controversy:

There remains the issue of ‘gibbet’, which Bishop Galeone and others criticize as too archaic for liturgical use. None of the critics of this word seems able to produce a workable alternative. It should not surprise us that an English translation for Latin patibulum is difficult to find, since that word denotes an instrument of torture no longer in use. It is made up of the root pati-, ‘to suffer’ and the suffix –bulum, which, to quote the Oxford Latin Dictionary, ‘forms substan-tives from verbal bases denoting instruments’. As a stabulum is a structure devised to facilitate standing (from stare) and a conciliabulum is a structure devised to facilitate the holding of meetings, so a patibulum is a structure devised to facilitate suffering. ‘Guillotine’, ‘electric chair’ and ‘syringe’ share the purpose of patibulum, but not its shape. ‘Gallows’ denotes a device similar in shape and purpose to a patibulum, but in modern speech seems only be used for structures designed for hanging by a rope. ‘Yoke’ is a possible translation, but it has the weakness that it denotes the shape of the device but not its purpose, whereas the pati- element in patibulum draws attention to its purpose. A vivid modern translation might be ‘death-machine’, but this would be found unacceptable by those many commentators who prefer blandness in liturgical language.

In choosing ‘gibbet’ to translate patibulum, the Commission has been aware that the phrase ‘the gibbet of the Cross’ was used by Saint John Fisher.

As Terry Teachout points out, it’s  been exactly sixty years since Shirley Jackson published her much anthologized “The Lottery.” I still remember the jolt the story gave me when first reading it in grade school. (Let’s beg off the question of *why* I was reading this story between absorption in radio broadcasts of Minnesota Twins games.) Would it make such an impact today? I doubt it, and not just because of Wes Craven. What seemed threatening in 1948 is an oppressive, small-minded community. What seems threatening in 2008 is an absence of  community, a sense of a nation bowling alone.

Earlier this week, Krugman had an op-ed criticizing the longstanding policy of encouraging homeownerhip. His bottom line was that homeownership is not for everyone, and that government shouldn’t be trying to push as many households as it can into that form of tenure:

There are, of course, advantages to homeownership — and yes, my wife and I do own our home. But homeownership isn’t for everyone. In fact, given the way U.S. policy favors owning over renting, you can make a good case that America already has too many homeowners.

Krugman mentions three costs of homeownership: financial risk, immobility, and long commutes. The third is more a product of land-use policies as homeownership, since there is no reason, apart from poor land use laws, for homeownership to be more affordable (in absolute terms) in the farthest flung suburbs. Liberalize zoning regulations within urban cores, and that problem largely disappears, particularly in the present environment of high gasoline costs. The second “cost” (immobility) is actually both a cost and a benefit. As I and others have argued, the immobility of homeownership stabilizes neighborhood communities by increasing the cost of exit. And the stability of communities of homeowners gives them some unique and attractive characteristics. There is obviously a tradeoff involved in assuming such immobility, but it’s not clear that it’s a net negative, even for low-income homeowners.

The one cost that I think Krugman is correct in identifying is financial risk. Read the rest of this entry »

A story in this morning’s NYTimes, “For Iraqi Christians, Money Bought Survival,” reveals a little-known (to most of us in the U.S., I suspect) story of how Iraqi Christians have been paying off militias in exchange for their lives. The story starts with Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, who died earlier this year after he was kidnapped because he apparently thought it was safe enough to stop paying the extortion money. This story, as the entire tragic story of our enormous collateral damage to the church in Iraq, is shameful for the United States. Yet this Times piece raises questions of moral or ethical culpability on the part of Iraqi Christians:

Officials say the demands could be hundreds of dollars a month per male member of a household. In many cases, Christian families drained their life savings and went into debt to make the payments. Insurgents also raised money by kidnapping priests. The ransoms, often paid by the congregations, typically ran as high as $150,000, several priests and lay Christians said. In a paradox, this city, long the seat of Iraqi Christianity, also became known as the last urban stronghold of Sunni insurgents. Another, more painful, paradox is that many of Iraq’s remaining 700,000 Christians paid to save their lives, knowing full well that the money would be used for bombs and other weapons to kill others. Archbishop Rahho was a man of God who preached peace in his sermons. How he was contorted into fulfilling the role of providing payments to the insurgents is a complex question.

Is it complex? My reflex is to absolve him and other Christian leaders of the burden of guilt, without too much complex thinking.

A friend recently sent me this piece from the Wall Street Journal. In it Alan Jacobs takes on atheists of the Hitchens/Dawkins variety for their unfounded assumption that a world without religion would be better. He argues that “the dark forces in all human lives” move under the guise of many different commitments, religion only being one among them. Thus, it is not right, as Hitchens/Dawkins would have it, to link religion to motives for evil. But, as Jacobs is a Christian, I wondered if this implied the correlating thesis that religion ought to be linked to motives for good.

It seems to me there are two possible readings. 1. A world without religion wouldn’t be any better or worse. This implies a strong skeptical reading, which assumes that religion doesn’t reliably motivate for good or bad. Making it, as Jacobs says, a “thin religious veneer” painted on action. 2. A world without religion would be no better, but it would be worse. This is less skeptical, suggesting that religion motivates the good but not the bad.

The second option seems presumptive on the part of the religious person. Also, given the difficulties in linking religiosity to behavior and sorting out our ethical motivations more generally, which Jacobs brings out well, it seems difficult to argue for or against religion on the grounds of its moral value. Thus, I guess I lean toward the first, stronger reading. But, I’m not exactly comfortable with that. I would like religion to “do” something, but maybe that’s just the pragmatist in me.

I have been complaining for some time that the US bishops have not spoken out strongly enough against torture.  With the new study guide on torture, developed through a collaboration between Catholic members of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the Office of International Justice and Peace of the USCCB, they finally have.

There are lots of useful resources in the study guide, but the bottom line can be summarized in a statement from Pope Benedict that incorporates a quote from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: “The prohibition against torture ‘cannot be contravened under any circumstances’”.
HT: Paul V. Murphy

It appears the pope has made them an offer–can they refuse?

I had a chance to visit Paris last week for a few days. Unsurprisingly it was great fun, even if I had to cover my eyes when looking at the pricetags in bookstores and on  menus. I also had dinner one night with a friend, a French academic who spent a semester at Notre Dame a few years ago. He casually mentioned that he had enjoyed some recent pieces, which he identified by name, in……Commonweal. (He reads on the website.) So we may not be well known in Rome, at least according to John Allen,  but we do have a few European admirers.

Over at Pontifications, I take a look at the latest numbers from both the voluminous Pew “Religious Landscape Survey” and the lesser-noted survey from Georgetown’s CARA institute and the conclusion seems inescapable: The GOP is losing the Catholic vote by a huge margin, from near parity in 2004 to a 15 percent (or higher differential) for the Dems today. War (and no peace), tax policies, and no traction on abortion and gay marriage explain some of the falloff.

What do you think of his hard truths?

Last week found Michelle Obama attempting to re-introduce herself to the American public with a New York Times article as well as an appearance on The View.  The Times article presented Obama as an accomplished lawyer, mother and civil rights crusader and ended with her saying that she would “walk anyone through her life.”  If I was concerned about Barack shying away from telling the story of those he helped organize on the South Side of Chicago, I was reassured by this article that the person, whom he has called “the heart and soul” of his campaign, could not avoid these narratives because they are her own.

The Times article also brought back memories of another accomplished future-First Lady, and so I dug up this 1992 article on Hillary Clinton, which made me think that this former rival might have some advice for Mrs. Obama, as she attempts to navigate the apparently obligatory trip from equal working partner to White House-wife.  Yet, these two articles left me hopeful that our political sphere had indeed progressed in the last 16 years.  While the article on Hillary focused mainly on her need to soften her image and, to that end, gave little by way of resume, the treatment of Mrs. Obama showed no reluctance in touting her impressive stats.  Aside from one dismissive comment by Sen. Claire McCaskill, who said, “All she has to do is be likeable,” I was encouraged by Mrs. Obama’s determination to pick up where Hillary had left off and use her expertise to be an even more visible asset to Barack’s presidential bid.

Of course, the View appearance hit all of the hackneyed sound bytes one has come to expect from a prospective First Lady-favorable references to the current First Lady, what-not-to-wear tips, hair and make-up woes, etc.  With all of her accomplishments, I was left wondering if she would rather be fielding questions on heathcare, afterall she is an administrator for a major Chicago hospital, than talking about whether her husband still takes out the trash.  I suppose she’ll have to wait until her own presidential campaign.  Maybe then we’ll finally be able to listen to a woman who knows more than we do.

His writings on Early Christianity are a treat to read.

“Nothing is sadder than someone who has lost his memory, and the church which has lost its memory is in the same state of senility.”

In his great column today, Peter Steinfels asks an important question about NRLC’s decision to feature Karl Rove as a keynote speaker at its annual convention:

Is it politically naïve to be surprised that the nation’s leading anti-abortion organization, which describes itself as nonpartisan, would make the star of its election-year convention the embodiment of the Bush administration’s politics at their most calculating and hard-hitting? Or that his presentation, on the Fourth of July, no less, is titled “Renewing Life in America — An Old-Fashioned Political Rally”?

I don’t think so. Read the whole thing right here.

Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright on the Colbert Report

This past Monday I was privileged to be part of a small group that gathered to witness the raising of the exterior cross of the Diocese of Oakland’s new Cathedral of Christ the Light.  I made a short video of the event for those who may be interested.  The cathedral will have its first Mass during the third week of September.  Apologies for the video being a bit grainy.  Something to do with the YouTube upload.

Forgive the self-promotion, but I’ll make it brief: Beliefnet has asked me to continue as the blogger on things Catholic, supplanting the pope-oriented “Benedictions” blog with a re-baptized (ordinary tap water) with something called “Pontifications.” Many would agree such a label suits me better, and it presumes a somewhat broader reach across Catholic faith, culture, politics, the lot. You all have more than enough to chew on over here, but you may find some entertainment, or even a bit of enlightenment now and then at “Pontifications.” My latest post, e.g., is an interview with Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, the retired Australian auxiliary who recently completed a U.S. tour to promote his controversial book, “Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.” His arguments spurred some local and Roman opposition, but I found him to be very commonsensical and deeply faithful to the church and the tradition. I also have posts on Tim Russert, Dan Brown (eye roll, please) and a recipe for the Pope’s Risotto. All welcome. Grazie mille.

Robin Lovin thinks so.

HT: Mirror of Justice

Stanley Kurtz treats Obama’s relationship with black churches in Chicago in a recent piece in the June 30 issue of The National Review, which relies heavily on an article Obama wrote in 1988 entitled, Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City. Kurtz attempts to skewer Obama on his relationship to these churches by suggesting that he “was for black liberation theology before he was against it.” In the Why Organize? article, Obama writes:

“Nowhere is the promise of organizing more apparent than in the traditional black churches. Possessing tremendous financial resources, membership and – most importantly – values and biblical traditions that call for empowerment and liberation, the black church is clearly a slumbering giant in the political and economic landscape of cities like Chicago. A fierce independence among black pastors and a preference for more traditional approaches to social involvement (supporting candidates for office, providing shelters for the homeless) have prevented the black church from bringing its full weight to bear on the political, social and economic arenas of the city.

“Over the past few years, however, more and more young and forward-thinking pastors have begun to look at community organizations such as the Developing Communities Project in the far south side and GREAT in the Grand Boulevard area as a powerful tool for living the social gospel, one which can educate and empower entire congregations and not just serve as a platform for a few prophetic leaders. Should a mere 50 prominent black churches, out of the thousands that exist in cities like Chicago, decide to collaborate with a trained organizing staff, enormous positive changes could be wrought in the education, housing, employment and spirit of inner-city black communities, changes that would send powerful ripples throughout the city.”

Of course, Kurtz attempts to foster the fear in his conservative readership that Obama’s days as an organizer are still close to his heart, meaning that he will make social gospel theology (read: communism) and minority empowerment (read: Malcolm X) important planks in his political agenda. Kurtz clearly has a caricatured understanding of what constitutes social gospel theology, but Obama missed a major opportunity to correct those who hold such an ossified view by so unceremoniously resigning from a church he would surely have included as a “slumbering giant” in the community organizing movement. He has fueled a lot of his campaign by talking up his community organizing experience, and it was his associations with pastors like Reverend Wright and congregations like Trinity that helped him build the foundation of his political career. Now, though, it appears that he is willing to closet the theological worldview that was once a “promise” of change.

As a political thinker, I understand that distancing himself from the sometimes radical language of the social gospel, especially as taken up by some black churches, was a politically necessary move. As Alexander Cockburn said in a recent piece in the June 23 issue of The Nation, “The assignment of every supposed liberal on the presidential campaign trail is to engage in the task of political redefinition, so that bankers, CEOs of the Fortune 500, Rupert Murdoch, the Sulzbergers, the Grahams, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Abe Foxman and all the others all deem that candidate ‘safe.’” Yet, Cockburn contines, “Lately Obama has shown an eerie and relentless skill in the tasks of reassurance. Though necessary to a certain extent, it’s an ominous talent.”

While “ominous” may be too strong a word for it, Obama’s deft negotiation of the political landscape does give cause for concern. As someone interested in the state of public theology, I think a great opportunity to expand the discussion beyond the Bush brand of evangelical Christianity was missed. Furthermore, I fear that, in his rush for broad appeal, those communities, who have trusted him to speak truth to power, will be left in the wake of political efficiency. Only time will tell, but I hope Obama doesn’t forget the wisdom he said could be gained from “the beauty and strength of everyday people,” and that it is through “stories and songs of dashed hopes and powers of endurance, of ugliness and strife, subtlety and laughter, that organizers can shape a sense of community not only for others, but for themselves.” If he is elected, it will be, in part, because he promised to tell these stories. In my view, he missed the opportunity to give voice to one liberative, yet often publicly silenced, theological story-one that sorely needs to be preached. I hope he doesn’t miss many more.

For a similar critique of Obama on this matter, from someone closer to the black church, see Yale Prof. Andre Willis’s blog post here: http://www.theroot.com/id/46329

Above-the-fold story in this morning’s New York Times breaks the news that Big Oil (the American variety) is getting a no-bid leg up on the oil industry in Iraq 36 years after Sadaam Hussein booted them.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry.

For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity.

This sounds like the perfect plan to confirm every worst fear everyone ever had about our Iraq adventure. Shows the administration isn’t always inept. The above story should also be considered in light of the administration’s push to open offshore and domestic drilling, and should definitely be read in tandem with this Times editorial on the purging of a Pentagon watchdog who tried to blow the whistle on a Texas defense contractor’s suspicious billion-dollar billing.

The June 7^th issue of the Economist contains a very interesting article on the philosophy of Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales.  In it, Wales describes his early interest in Ayn Rand‘s brand of hyper-individualistic capitalism, which understood reality as “fixed and objectively knowable.”  The article suggests that Wikipedia “seems to fit well with Rand’s contention, elaborated more fully by libertarian thinkers such as Friedrich von Hayek, that decentralized markets work best because they are so much more efficient than centralized bureaucracies at digesting information.”  The article notes that, in this instance, the object of the market is knowledge rather than, say, the price of corn.  Claims to efficiency aside, the question I found intriguing concerns whether the commodity won on Wikipedia’s virtual capitalist battleground is in fact knowledge.

The article reports, quoting Wales, “‘I think that reality exists and that it’s knowable,’ he says adding that Wikipedia aims not for truth with a capital T but for consensus.  ‘You go meta,’ he says, meaning ‘beyond’ the disputes and to the underlying facts….  Through this process, says Mr. Wales, Wikipedia articles eventually reach a fairly steady state called the ‘neutral point of view,’ or NPOV….  ‘Wikipedia resolves the postmodern dilemma of truth by ultimately relying on process,’ says Gene Koo of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Centre for Internet and Society.  ‘Its process is both open and transparent.  The levers of power or not destroyed-Foucault taught us that this is impossible-but simply visible.’  To which Mr. Wales responds, more simply, the NPOV is a way of saying: ‘Thanks, but, um, please let’s get back to work.’”

What struck me about this is the fact that Koo seems to think Wales’ pragmatism, which seeks to get “beyond” dispute for the sake of efficiency, can somehow be reconciled with Foucault’s insight that knowledge is produced precisely in the breach of contestation.  This is to say that conflicting views of “fact” are always already interlaced with power dynamics and other interests such that the “truth” of the matter must always be situated somewhere in a continuing discussion.  For example, check out the entry on Roman Catholicism, does it capture the truth or the facts?  Whose facts does it convey?  It seems to me that what gives one cause to worry about Wikipedia is not that it contains potentially inaccurate information, but rather, that it suggests the illusion that “facts” can be offered irrespective of a point of view and that “reality” is one and the same with “consensus.”  Furthermore, it elides spirited discussion in favor of dispassionate forensics-the former being the real stuff of human inquiry and the latter a task any monkey could do.

On that note, check out the website 1000000monkeys.com, which is premised on the old joke that a million monkeys on an indefinite typing spree could produce Shakespeare.  Here we have literature being produced in the same Wiki-way.  Is it art?  Again, where is the conflict, the soul, the passion, the risk?  In the end, I worry that when conflict becomes consensus, everything becomes kitsch.

Just in from the National Pastoral Life Center:

Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News will speak at the Philip J. Murnion Lecture for the Catholic Common Ground Initiative Friday, June 27 at 8 p.m. at the Pryzbyla Center of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  The topic of the lecture is, “Tim Russert, the Political Process, and Common Ground for the Catholic Church.”  Before his untimely death, Tim Russert was scheduled to offer the public lecture. The Initiative will also grant its highest honor, the Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Award, to the Most Reverend Gerald F. Kicanas, Bishop of Tucson and vice-president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, on the occasion of the lecture.  A response to the lecture will be offered by the Rev. J. Cletus Kiley, president of The Faith and Politics Institute in Washington, D.C.

Good get, NPLC. And congrats on the new Web site–and blogs!

QUESTION: My son and daughter-in-law belong to a church with different beliefs from mine, and thus my new grandchildren, a few months old, were not going to be baptized. My 1950s Catholic background would not let me sleep, so I snuck them off to the laundry and performed private rites. Do I get eternal reward or damnation? — NAME WITHHELD

If you hadn’t guessed, this query arrives via The Ethicist, aka Randy Cohen of the New York Times Magazine. Read his answer here, and let me know what you think–or what your answer would be. Then let me know if you think this question was real. Though I suppose parish priests have heard worse.

Pope Benedict XVI would like every Catholic parish in the world to offer the Tridentine Mass. Parishes would offer catechism classes to train Catholics to worship at the Tridentine Mass every Sunday, and help them to understand the theology behind this ritual. But the pope is not looking to return to the past. In fact, those who think the pope is trying to roll back the reforms of Vatican II are ignorant.

This, according to Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos at a news conference in London that Catholic News Service reported on.

Sometime in the last few days I read (but can’t remember where) a funny story that brought back memories of going to confession and of hearing confessions. We were required to report not only the nature of the sin, but also how often we had committed it:–”I talked back to my mother six times.”–so that the priest would know how serious the problem was.

In the story I read, a good Catholic boy somehow managed to start a fire that resulted in the family house being burned down. When he went to confession the next time, he said: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I burned down our house–once.”

If anyone else saw the story, perhaps you could let me know and I’ll add the link.

Thanks to David Nichol (below), here’s the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/14/AR2008061401903.html