Every major research paper usually comes with its own set of crises. In this case, a major mind with regard to crafting an outline for the faith and reason paper. Frankly, I have neither the time nor the patience this semester to read the material thoroughly and derive a thesis to write about. So, in a moment of clarity, I threw out the old topic of evolution and decided upon a new one, on exegesis of Scripture, just three weeks before the due date. The good news here is, I have a rough outline with 8 itemized headings already - and just a page on each will already bring the paper very close to being done. Additionally, I already have resources from a previous class that can help, and I daresay finding books will not be too difficult.

In other news, having just read Martin Luther's treatise on Christian freedom, my lingering impression is of someone who has no idea what they're talking about. As far as I was concerned, the first part of the work reads almost exclusively as standard Protestant fare on faith and works, while part two in isolation is a very nearly Catholic presentation on the matter of works. Part two is not the Luther I often hear of - perhaps that's due to citing the Deuterocanon, or maybe it's because he calls everyone who wants to throw aside good works wicked. Don't even get the fundies started on his claim that ceremonies and fasting and all the rest are good and necessary. The idea there is workable except for the problematic idea of the human person as a divided entity which underlies the whole.

My fundamental observation, though, is that everything that went wrong in Luther's thought here is due to his misattribution of the Bride of Christ as the individual soul of the faithful, rather than the Church. Applying most of his ideas on justification and works to the Church instead of the individual, at least in my opinion, would make this treatise read within the Catholic tradition. Then again, this is only a first read, and I'm certainly no expert on Luther or ecclesiology. Any thoughts on this idea?

Posted by Justice at 1:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Today offered a lesson in broken communication between the choir and the liturgical planners. The choir had prepared the psalms and antiphons for the Year B readings for Laetare Sunday. Somebody forgot to tell them that the Year A readings were being used this time around, meaning the psalms and antiphons didn't mesh terribly well with the readings.

In unrelated news, rumor speaks of a possible joke occurring this Saturday for April Fools. I didn't catch enough to be sure, but I sure hope that it was simply idle chatter...

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Having now blown the afternoon of one day and the entire daylight of another, mostly spent waiting to have someone look over and make sure the paperwork was in order, I finally have my Ohio taxes ready. The State of Ohio will be sending a whopping $2 refund, the amount they withheld. The City of Steubenville may eventually be writing a check for $8 to return what they withheld. Personally, it wasn't worth the time - I was perfectly willing to let these small amounts go, just because I didn't want to waste the time filling out the forms for $10. Since Ohio was difficult about it and demanded I file, on pain of a possible $500 penalty, I will take great pleasure having them waste their time and resources to cut two measely checks. New York and the IRS were smarter, and neither is requiring me to fill out anything this year.

At least Ohio seems to have caught on and isn't withholding so far in 2006. The City of Steubenville continues to insist on the matter, so this futile exercise is bound to be repeated next year.

Posted by Justice at 2:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In case you missed it last year, EWTN will be re-airing Pope John Paul II's funeral April 1 at 7 PM Eastern time, and the inauguration Mass of Pope Benedict XVI April 19 at 10 PM.

Posted by Justice at 2:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

...vestment colors go nuts. Today's vigil featured a priest vested in red - either trying to do rose without having it, or somehow mistaking the color of the day with the consistory. It also had the rather odd feature of the priest doubling in the role of cantor by heading over to the musical area to sing and play tape-recorded music. While the effort is nice, the priest really looked weird doing it, besides the recording being very boring by this point, as the exact same tunes have been played every vigil in Lent thus far and it's a pretty simple and choppy synthesizer trying to sound like a piano. I'm pretty sure everyone's getting tired of Common Psalm 130 too, which has also been used every vigil Mass.

Last Gaudete Sunday, I mentioned how I saw vestments in three different colors at another parish, rose on the main celebrant, purple on the deacon, and red on the pastor when he dropped in for announcements. I'll be there again tomorrow, praying that the homily there also does not turn into a lesson on diocesan finances as it did today at the vigil.

As a sidenote, the gospel lesson for this day, John 3:14-21, is useful for my exegesis paper, particularly in verse 18 and following:

He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.

In Romans 2:1, the "man" is told that he has condemned himself through hypocritical judgment. That would seem to say of the man in Romans 2:1 that he shares the qualities of the unbelievers given here. The judgment upon them seems to fit in with Romans 2:2. Time to check the interlinear tomorrow and see if the Greek matches.

UPDATE: According to the interlinear I checked, there is indeed a grammatical match between the passages. Also, while scanning the various books I checked out, it seems Romans 2 is one of the most disputed parts of all of Romans. Why on earth do I keep choosing difficult exegetical passages?

Posted by Justice at 1:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

I hate weeks like this. Little work got done, which is much like last week, which is very annoying, since I am now down to the 4 week warning before big things are due. The four major papers still require 47-55 pages of writing, in addition to the reading of a book for one of them, and research for 2 others which I have yet to start. While it's not time to panic yet, wasting two valuable weeks of time was not helpful.

This weekend will hopefully see most of the exegesis paper get done, particularly since the research work is mostly done there. Next weekend is when I want to get my Ratzinger book review knocked off...and then I can focus on writing my faith and reason paper. Three weeks should hopefully be enough time, though knowing me, it's hardly a sure bet. The history paper, the largest of the bunch, is lowest on the priority list, both because it's worth the least percentage-wise, and also due last of everything.

Meanwhile, there is the question of summer classes. There are two enticing options on the list. First, there's a 3-week mini-session directly after the end of the semester in which I can knock off the graduate class I missed this spring. There is also a 9-week intensive Latin course (equivalent to 12 credits), which is appealing due to my fondness for the language, though if they insist on a fee of $4000 to pay for said credits, that won't be happening anytime soon.

Blogging will definitely be slow for a while. There may yet be a week to March, but I'm already about as stressed as I normally am toward the end of April when finals are approaching.

Posted by Justice at 1:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I spent the weekend visiting Andy of CF, a nice way to spend the end of Spring Break, and also to catch up after his recuperation. It's also liable to be the last time I can afford to take a full weekend off for fun for a long time. Close friends are really a joy of life - and fittingly, our last game of Carcassonne, one of my favorite games, ended up an exact tie between us, 247-247 (leaving aside the fact that I sabotaged him with a cathedral late in the game to obtain the tie).

Sidenote - Pittsburgh's roads are miserable. On the way out, we got lost three times, once on a major interchange, twice on a road that actually makes three right turns at intersections. The ride to the Byzantine church this morning involved two problems, caused by an unexpected one-way, another by a road name that forked instead of going straight. Tonight's ride back involved twice getting lost due to the same road that caused problems on the way out. Pennsylvania civil engineers take note - it would be best if continuing straight meant staying on the same route or road name, instead of constantly having to exit or turn to stay on the same road.

Posted by Justice at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

From Ann Althouse on the subject of marriage:

Legal marriage isn't just about love, it's an economic arrangement. Having the state authorize your union is not the same thing as having your friends and neighbors approve of you and your religious leaders bless you. It affects taxes and employee benefits -- huge amounts of money. A gay person with a pension and a health insurance plan is incapable of extending those benefits to his (or her) partner. He (or she) can't file a joint tax return. That's not fair. A polygamous marriage, however, puts a group of persons in a position to claim more economic benefits than the traditional heterosexual couple. That doesn't appeal to our sense of fairness.

That suggests something of a problem with the concept of "legal marriage." I think of my parents as, well, parents, not as two corporate entities that created a joint venture to raise me, with the option of getting out as soon as it was no longer profitable for them. Quite frankly, looking at marriage in an economic sense is disastrous for children, since we are never on the plus side of the ledger of people thinking sheerly in terms of money. We're the $500,000 or whatever financial drain that they have to support for at least 18 years, if not longer. No wonder families are so small these days.

But this argument of fairness somewhat misses the mark. As a single guy, I can't pass along any insurance benefits or pension programs that I may pick up along the way. In essence, this happens simply because I have chosen not to get married - there are still people I love, but they can't benefit because I haven't chosen to marry them. My situation is largely the same as it is for a gay couple - they have chosen not to enter into the traditional marriage structure, and don't have an inherent right to pass along benefits simply because they may happen to love each other. I can't arrange that for my parents, even though I love them a lot. If we're going to knock this down to mere economic arrangements, the only fair way to do this is to allow everyone to simply name someone of their choice - but then, that's not really marriage. Economics may be the best argument going for gay marriage, but I doubt gay activists are simply after economic parity, otherwise, they'd support something that would bring parity regardless of the nature of the relationship.

Honestly, I do think there is a problem with the current system of joint returns - preferably, I would rather that whole system be available solely for the benefit of parents, since ostensibly, the rearing of children is the main reason the state has any business recognizing marriages in the first place (which may be why things like marrying close relatives are illegal). The rest of it is merely a residual function from when church and state happened to be relatively linked. If you doubt that, consider that New York still has laws on the books allowing an annulment if it's discovered that the spouse is impotent - something paralleled in Canon Law.

On to polygamy, there is no legal basis to stop it. Polygamy has a long tradition in world history, and Christianity seems to be one of the few exceptions to that idea. Also, the fact that we don't consider it a crime for a man to have sex with multiple women at the same time means that the only thing illegal is the fact that the guy tries to enter into multiple marriages with the state. If a guy just kept three houses and three wives, and they married in some sort of ceremony, but for all legal purposes always acted as individuals, I doubt there would be any legal crime. De facto, most sorts of sexual relationships are already legally okay, except for things like prostitution and sex with minors, and I wouldn't be too sure those will stay illegal forever. A marriage certificate does nothing to change the essence of such relationships, but it does degrade the value of marriage traditionally so-called, just as has no-fault divorce.

Bottom line - there is not going to be any sort of middle ground here. Either the government defines marriage as it is traditionally intended to be in the Christian West - a man and a woman who commit to each other for life, with some possibility of having kids - or this is simply going to devolve into a sort of "anything goes" system, toward which it has been increasingly headed. In the past few years, I've already heard of Jacques Chirac marrying someone to a dead person, a man being forced to marry a goat, and I wouldn't be surprised if I heard that someone got the bright idea of marrying two corpses on the premise that it's what they would have wanted.

Posted by Justice at 11:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

St. Philip Neri, that is. I was assigned a short biography of him for a class, and really liked what I read. Most of the time, saints seem somewhat unapproachable, even though I agree with their positions. Philip, however, really resonates - I can especially relate to spiritual indecision, the general doubt about visions, his humor, and also his endearing and gentle approach toward sinners.

Incidentally, Philip may be the first saint I've heard of who deliberately distracted himself so that he could make it through a Mass. Apparently, if he contemplated God seriously, he went into ecstasy - late in life, when celebrating private Mass, the server used to leave him for 2 hours or more after communion.

Quite an inspiring read.

Posted by Justice at 9:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

One of my former students apparently asked, in a later math class, for the instructor to take the integral of my name.

I ruffled more than a few feathers in my day with admittedly Draconian grading policies on math (I graded discrete math for three years; now I tutor it), but I did get at least one person who suffered my red pen thanking me after the fact. For that, I will put up with all the jokes at my expense in the world.

N.B. - Other odd but true fact: despite graduating with my B.S. last May, I never understood the concept of parameterization until tutoring this past fall, when it made sense trying to explain it to someone else.

Posted by Justice at 3:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I am trying to fill out income tax returns for the state of Ohio. As this is my first time having to deal with tax forms, I'm slightly confused on how to do this, which isn't made any easier by the fact that I'm not a resident of the state, had taxable wages in another state, had no federal income tax liability but had tax withheld here, but not enough to make it worth going to a tax preparer for help (we're talking about $10 here, but Ohio requires me to file or face a $500 penalty). Frankly I'm not sure why I didn't qualify for a total exemption from the withholding - I make nowhere near the $10000 minimum threshold for tax liability.

If there are any Ohio readers out there who can help me out, an e-mail would be most appreciated.

Posted by Justice at 12:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Internal site statistics indicate that I've been hit 13 times for the search string "ewtn a network gone wrong". That may not sound like much, but it's the second most popular search this month, behind the ever popular "latin jokes" search phrase that keeps coming in from Lambeth (a bit ironic given they are the scene of a joke of the Latin Church...)

Is there something I'm missing with EWTN? Granted, there are always going to be people despising good things like that, but I don't exactly post much about EWTN, so I'm somewhat confused why an internet backwater like me keeps getting those sorts of visitors.

UPDATE: I have been informed that this is due to a book by a rad-trad attacking EWTN. In other words, most likely the same tired old arguments applied to something else. If they spent half as much energy on genuine problems instead of yearning for things to be just as they were in the 1950s - or 1550s, depending - the Church as a whole might be in better shape.

Posted by Justice at 10:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spring break has finally arrived, granting me a little respite in the semester's hectic schedule. I'm staying in Steubenville, and will be attempting to get a modest bit of work done during the break. Not exactly too exciting, but I do NOT want to let an opportunity to get ahead slip away.

Over the course of the next week, this is my plan:

- Read 4 books, and do the corresponding 3-5 page reflection papers on each
- Finish research for my exegesis paper
- Write a draft of the exegesis paper
- Finish 1 Ratzinger book, and read another
- Begin researching my faith and reason paper

That's ambitious, especially since this is me, but if I can get all that done, it will take out between a quarter to a third of the term's remaining work. I would much rather be facing 3 papers in late April/early May without the weekly reading than face 4 papers along with the weekly reading.

At the same time, I don't plan on killing myself either. My bet is that if I simply go to the library every day when it opens (8:30) and stay until closing (4:30), I should be able to knock off the reading, research, and papers with ease, and leave the evenings open.

Posted by Justice at 12:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My great grandmother on my mother's side passed away sometime this week. Unfortunately, I knew very little of her, and I doubt I've seen her at all in the last five to seven years. Prayers for her and for the family at the wake would be most appreciated (particularly toward them patching things up).

Posted by Justice at 3:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This may just be me, but aren't upbeat songs of glory and praise a little inappropriate given that it's Lent? Sometimes I wonder exactly how much coordination goes on between music and liturgy - if the music people are asked to cut the recessional for a period of silence, isn't that kind of offset when the rest of the music sounds as though this was hardly a penitential season at all?

Posted by Justice at 1:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It's that time of the semester again...when I start thinking ahead to those end-of-semester papers that I've known about for nearly 2 months, but haven't done much towards yet. I may well be ahead of schedule.

For theological foundations, the objective is to write a 12 to 15 page paper on a topic that deals with one of the many dialectics between faith and reason. I've chosen to deal with the dialectic of "Theology and Science" and I intend to write about creation and evolution.

I need a minimum of five sources, so if anyone can recommend a useful one that deals with the subject, please leave a comment in the box. Articles are as welcome as books.

Posted by Justice at 9:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Professor Reynolds:

All actions in life are choices. Some are good, and some are bad - and usually, the determination of that comes from the analysis of the act itself, not the motivations. Some choices out there are illegal - and when someone chooses to do them, intentions and circumstances may increase/decrease the penalty, but they don't change the basic fact that a crime was committed. No one is fundamentally opposed to the idea of choice as an exercise of free will - but some of us have very different ideas on what choices we will praise, excuse, or punish.

Abortion simply is not one of those issues where there is a middle ground - either it's objectively not a bad act at all, in which case only the US policy of on demand makes sense, or it's objectively a bad act, in which case, it should be illegal. While it might be possible to legislatively craft some sort of dividing line, it dodges the issue, setting up an arbitrary boundary line instead of asking the difficult question - what satisfies the criteria of personhood?

Posted by Justice at 1:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I wouldn't put too much stock in these things, since I was once mis-cast as a liberal (indeed, the most liberal member of the entire government class of 20 or so), but this quiz seems to have me pretty well cast, at least in the categories listed:

#1: Conservative
#2: Neoconservative
#3: Centrist
#4: Paleoconservative
#5: Libertarian
#6: Paleo-libertarian
#7: Liberal
#8: Third Way
#9: Left-libertarian
#10: Radical

The bottom six definitely deserve to be the bottom six in my case, while the top four do tend to suit me somewhat better.

HT: DD.

Posted by Justice at 9:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The news that Pope Benedict XVI has renounced the long-held papal title of "Patriarch of the West" poses the question of why he chose to do that. I'm not entirely sure that I buy the explanation that it's an overture to the Orthodox. The pope doesn't strike me as the sort of man who makes symbolic gestures without there being some substance behind them, unless he has some reliable evidence that this will produce some fruit.

Granted, the title is kind of an oxymoron, since the Pope kind of runs a worldwide Church these days, except for the Eastern Orthodox pocket...and somehow, I doubt he wants to go with the title "Patriarch of the Donut" to express the shape of the Latin Church. What would be interesting is if he means for the dropping of the title to go along with a change in structure to something more akin to the regional/national structure found in the Orthodox world along the lines of a partriarchal system.

Reading his material, he has expressed dissatisfaction with episcopal conferences as they have functioned since Vatican II. A patriarchal system could, at the same time, take the rug out from under the dysfunctional elements there as well as ease Orthodox concerns about Vatican power. I doubt such a thing is in the offing, although it would be priceless to hear one day that there's going to be a US patriarch who would essentially be in charge of liturgy and the other things that patriarchs do...and then to hear that Bishop Burke is being named to the post.

Anyway, back to reality, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this.

Posted by Justice at 9:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

For some reason, I am pondering church seating tonight - as in, do you sit on the right side of the church or the left side?

I ask because I've noticed something very odd regarding this question - back in my home diocese, I almost always sit on the left side of the altar (this holds true across at least 6 different churches). Here in Steubenville, however, I almost always sit on the right side of the altar (this holds true with at least 4 churches). I'm wondering why, exactly, that is.

As far as I am consciously aware, only in 1 of these 10 churches does my seating choice have to do with the Blessed Sacrament's location (where it is on the left of the sanctuary and exposed there as well). Why on earth would I always sit on one side in one area, and on the other side elsewhere?

Posted by Justice at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

One thing that will be interesting this Lent is to see how much practicing moderation will bring down the weight (in a somewhat damning clue about normal habits, the two and a half weeks pre-Lent led to a drop of 8 pounds without adding in any exercise beyond walking here and there). It would be awesome to come to Easter below 200 pounds, although it's more of a side benefit - the real hope is that spiritual health will get a bigger boost than the physical.

There are two somewhat humorous anecdotes to begin Lent as well

- St. Peter's tried to burn their own palms this year, in what appears to be their first attempt. This meant that they ended up with completely "dry" ashes that didn't stick to foreheads very well. The addition of water to try and fix this, of course, also went completely awry. So, I ended up with a very light cross that faded rather quick, but which felt more like dust.

- The chapel tonight featured a homilist who brought a "victim soul" up to the ambo, whereupon the priest proceeded to load him down with a pair of ciboria in his hands, the lectionary on outstretched forearms, the chalice on top of the lectionary, and the Missal on top of the chalice. For a moment, I took seriously the idea that he was going to put one of the lit candles up there too, before he stopped fiddling with the candle. After loading the poor guy with that stuff, he left him for a few minutes, making a point about how it's impossible to pick up your Cross if you're holding on to a bunch of good things (using the books and vessels may not have been the best example, though it made the point). At any rate, I'm sure it gave the sacristan a good scare, as it did for me being the server closest to this scene (as the priest would mention later, gravity likes to work against him).

NB: Carnival readers looking for the theology paper stuff, that's located here.

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