Numbering the Stars with a Fresh Pair of Eyes

The Gospel reading for this past Sunday is one of the more famous passages from the Book of Genesis. God  tells Abram (a childless, 75-year-old man) to number the stars.  When he can’t, God says, “And so shall your descendants be.” One of the things that makes this scene so captivating is that, for anyone who’s ever stared up at the night sky out in a rural area, it’s easy to imagine what this would have been like for Abram. As one sermon put it:

Abram was standing there looking at what seemed to be an infinity of stars and began to wonder. In a time where a gathering of more than 1000 people would have been hard to imagine, Abram stands with his neck craned up at the stars and tries to imagine that many people. Maybe he even had to lie down on the ground to get a good look. Maybe the sheer number of stars just pushed him down to the ground. Maybe he felt as though the stars might take him away if he didn’t feel something solid beneath him.

There’s only one problem. This encounter between God and Abram almost certainly takes place during the day, which changes everything. 

Read the passage again, and pay close attention to the ending.  This is Genesis 15:5-12:

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld,
 God's Promise to Abraham (from Bibel in Bildern) (1860)

And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. 

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chalde′ans, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in two, and laid each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him.

So the “number the stars” encounter apparently happened before the sun set: that is, while it was still daytime.  The passage continues from there, with God telling Abram about how his descendants will be sojourners and slaves in a foreign land, but would eventually return to the Promised Land.  By Gen. 15:17, “the sun had gone down and it was dark.”

Understanding this passage as daytime radically changes the meaning of the passage:

• Numbering the Stars: “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Abram fails to number the stars, not just because there are so many of them, but primarily because he can’t see them. They’re there, but they’re invisible to him, because one star, the sun, radically outshines them all.
  
  
• Abraham's Faith: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Galatians 3:6). That’s how St. Paul paraphrases of Genesis 15:6.  As Hebrews 11:1 puts it, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  It takes faith for Abraham to trust that God will give him offspring, when he is childless. But the “things not seen” here doesn’t just include Abraham’s offspring, but the stars. Remember that this is still the very ancient world: notions that the stars were still there during the day had to be taken by faith.
  
  



Fra Angelico, Christ in Majesty (1447)

• Christ the Sun: Another thing that Abraham wouldn’t have known at the time was that, he actually could see a single star: the sun.  This star so dwarfs the others, in terms of its illumination of earth, as to render every other star invisible by comparison. It’s not just the brighter star amongst the cosmos, but the star around which the world turns, and whose heat gives the world life. So it is with Abraham’s offspring. One of them, Jesus Christ, stands out in a radically different way.
  
  
• The Nature of the Promise:  Because we assume that this passage takes place at night, we tend to think that the promise “So shall your descendants be” is a promise of the innumerability of Abraham’s offspring. But St. Paul seems to say that this is a misreading (or at least, an incomplete reading) of the passage.
  
  In Galatians 3:16, Paul writes, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many; but, referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ which is Christ.”* If Paul’s point includes the promise of Genesis 15 (and it seems to: Paul referenced it in Gal. 3:6), then we should read the promise of Genesis 15 are being primarily about Christ, the Sun.
  
  
• The Moon and the Stars: If Christ is the sun, who are the stars? They’re the other offspring of Abraham, referenced (and prophesied) in this passage in a secondary sense.  These offspring are the Saints, “those who share the faith of Abraham” (Romans 4:16; John 8:39). And filling out this celestial analogy is the moon, who reflects the sun. In the Church, that would be Mary, whose soul “magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46), and who is “clothed with the sun” (Rev. 12:1), and surrounded by twelve stars (Rev 12:1; Mary was surrounded by the Apostles, cf. Acts 1:12-14).

That one seemingly insignificant detail, the time of day, turns out to have radical implications of the meanings of the passage, and it suddenly stands out more clearly as a Christological prophesy (perhaps one of the ones that Jesus alluded to Abraham receiving, in John 8:56).

*St. Paul’s point is obscured a bit by modern English translations, which tend to be squeamish about using the terms “seed” or “seeds” to refer to offspring. For example, the RSV:CE uses “descendants” in Genesis 15:5 and “offspring” and “offsprings” (a made-up word) in Galatians 3:16. But in both Greek and Hebrew, the words would be “seed” or “seeds,” which would make this point appear more clearly.

**Special thanks to Dan Weger and Deacon Raymond Buehler for helping me organize my thoughts on this post.

How to Become Pope

Here’s a viral video on the process of how a man becomes the pope.  In the past two days, it has received almost 700,000 views:

After last week’s Q&A on papal resignation, a blogger by the name of C. G. P. Grey wrote me, asking if I’d look over a script he was preparing on the papacy.  If you’re not familiar with his work (and I wasn’t), he has created a series of YouTube videos called “Grey Explains,” that strive to inform people on current events and world affairs in an educational and funny manner. For example, here’s a video he made distinguishing the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England.

Pope Benedict XVI’s Coat of Arms

Since he’s not a Catholic, Grey explained that he wanted to make sure that he got the details correct, and that he wasn’t being inadvertently offensive to Catholics. So I looked the proposed script over, and sent back some comments. His original draft was already well-researched, so I was mostly just adding nuance. He rewrote part of the script, resulting in the video above.  On his blog, he also provides the script for the video.

Grey also added “footnote” videos with some additional nuance.  At a few points in the main video, you can actually click the bottom right corner, and it’ll open the appropriate “footnote.” The footnote videos further explain that:

• “The Catholic Church” is actually 23 different sui juris Churches in communion with the pope;
• Only the Latin Church requires priestly celibacy (and even the Latin Church has certain exceptions for priestly celibacy), although all 23 Churches require episcopal celibacy. 
• While Cardinals are almost always bishops, they don’t have to be.

All in all, I think he did a fantastic job both grasping Catholic nuance, and explaining it to a largely non-Catholic.  I hope that his attention to detail will serve as a positive example for others (like reporters) covering the Catholic Church.

Of course, anyone actually ambitiously striving for the papacy, like the main character in this video, would probably not make it very far at all.  It’s worth remembering that those who want the papacy don’t get it, and those who get the papacy don’t want it.  If nothing else, Benedict’s resignation has hopefully made at least that much clear.

Answering Your Questions About Papal Elections

On Tuesday, I answered questions about the papal resignation.  Today, I want to address the questions you might have about the upcoming papal election.  As always, if you have any questions or comments, fire away in the comments below.

Q. Who Can Be Elected Pope?

Any Baptized Catholic male.  However, since 1378, only Cardinals have been elected pope.

Q. Who Elects the Pope?

Josef Wagner-Höhenberg, A Meeting of the Cardinals (1864)

A. Since 1059, only members of the College of Cardinals have been allowed to vote in papal elections.  These days, there are two additional restrictions:

The right to elect the Roman Pontiff belongs exclusively to the Cardinals of Holy Roman Church, with the exception of those who have reached their eightieth birthday before the day of the Roman Pontiff's death or the day when the Apostolic See becomes vacant. The maximum number of Cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty. The right of active election by any other ecclesiastical dignitary or the intervention of any lay power of whatsoever grade or order is absolutely excluded.

So only those Cardinals who are under age 80 at the time that the Holy See becomes vacant (which looks looks like it’ll be February 28, 2013).  Those Cardinals over eighty may still “take part in the preparatory meetings of the Conclave,” but not in the Conclave itself.

This means, by the way, that the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano (age 85), will not be attending the Conclave.  Neither will the vice-dean, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray (age 90).  The presiding Cardinal at the Conclave will instead by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (age 79), the most senior Cardinal-bishop.

Q. How Many Cardinals Are Eligible to Vote?
Of the 209 living Cardinals, only 117 will be voting in the Conclave. (most of the rest are too old).  These 117 Cardinals are known as “Cardinal-electors.”

Q. What’s a Conclave?
The meeting of the Cardinal-electors to elect the next pope.  The proceedings are highly confidential, and the Cardinal-electors are sequestered, meaning that they are prohibited from all contact with the outside world (including, of course, reading the newspaper, watching television, or listening to the radio).  During this time, the Cardinal-electors will stay in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.  The Domus Sanctae Marthae is said to be fairly simple, but the conditions for Cardinal-electors used to be much worse:

The Domus Sanctae Marthae (foreground)

Prior to the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis — promulgated on February 22, 1996 that changed the rules governing papal conclaves — participants were forced to sleep in the Apostolic Palace on rented cots, usually borrowed from seminaries in Rome. After participants were sealed under lock and key in the Apostolic Palace, the electors would live in makeshift rooms built throughout the palace, including within hallways and offices. The rooms, assigned to each Cardinal by lot, would often be constructed by nothing more than a sheet hanging on a rope. Sturdier walls would not be available because of the cost and because they would damage the Palace walls. In addition to the rented cots, each room would be equipped with a Crucifix and kneeler, a desk and one or two chairs. The Cardinals would have to share common bathrooms, often with ten Cardinals assigned to each. The situation would especially be difficult as a significant portion of Cardinals tend to be elderly.  

Pope John Paul II, after himself participating in two Conclaves, decided to make the process more comfortable and less strenuous on the elderly Cardinals and commissioned the construction of Domus Sanctæ Marthæ.

The most extreme case that I know of came in the 13th century.  At the time of Pope Clement IV, the Cardinals were divided.  There were an equal number of French and Italian Cardinals, at a time when France was invading Italy at the time.  The Cardinals deliberated nearly three years, from November 1268 to September 1, 1271, before settling on a papal legate, Tebaldo Visconti (who was not a Cardinal).  

To “encourage” the deadlocked Cardinals to decide on a candidate, they local magistrates locked the Cardinal-electors into the Papal Palace of Viterbo (Palazzo dei Papi di Viterbo).  They then removed the roof to the building, and reduced the Cardinal-electors’ to a diet of bread and water (even after this, it still took more than a year to make a decision).

Q. Where does these Rules Come From?

Pope Gregory X

After Visconti (see above) became Pope Gregory X, he promptly set out to reform the process of papal elections, creating the modern Conclave.  That said, each pope can establish or modify the rules governing papal conclaves. John Paul II established the current system in 1996, in the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis. There has been only one modification since then, related to the majority needed for voting (see the next question for details).

Q. How Large of a Majority is Required?
Two-thirds, rounding up if the number of Cardinal-electors isn’t divisible by three. In this case, there are 117 Cardinal-electors, meaning that the next pope will have been chosen by at least 79 of the Cardinal-electors.

[In 1996, John Paul II modified this general rule slightly: after 30 or 31 ballots, the Cardinal-electors could (by simple majority) change the majority required for the election, provided that it remained at least a simple majority.  In 2007, Benedict XVI changed the rule back, the only change to the Conclave process since 1996.]

Q. When Will the Conclave Begin?

February 28, 2013 is the day that Pope Benedict is scheduled to resign.  The Cardinals will then wait fifteen days (until March 15) to begin the Conclave: that date can be pushed back until as late as March 20, for serious reasons.  

Generally, this period of time is spent handling things like a papal funeral: and it’s tactful to give time to send off the deceased pope before replacing him. But in this case, since Benedict XVI isn’t dead, there is talk of changing the timetable.  Barring a change to the rules, however, March 15 is the earliest day that the Conclave can begin.

Q. What Happens Between Now and Then?

Either way, it isn’t as if the Cardinals will be spending early March simply twiddling their thumbs.  A number of the Cardinal-electors have important day jobs. For example, Cardinal Dolan is (amongst other things) Archbishop of New York and president of the USCCB. That creates a duty “to make necessary arrangements, before the beginning of the election, for the handling of all non-deferrable official or personal business.” So it’s unlikely that they’ll be spending early March simply twiddling their thumbs.

Additionally, during early March, the entire College of Cardinals (including those over eighty) will assemble for what’s called a General Congregation.  Typically, these General Congregations decide on the logistics of the deceased pope’s funeral. Since Benedict isn’t dead, they’ll just do the other parts:

Pope Benedict’s
Fisherman’s Ring

• Ensuring the destruction of Benedict’s “Fisherman's Ring” (his official papal ring), and the lead seal that he uses for Apostolic Letters;
• Handling various administrative issues during the sede vacante (vacant See), like approving the expenses of running Vatican City;
• Preparing for the Conclave (assigning rooms, setting the schedule for voting, etc.);
• Selecting “two ecclesiastics known for their sound doctrine, wisdom and moral authority the task of presenting to the Cardinals two well-prepared meditations on the problems facing the Church at the time and on the need for careful discernment in choosing the new Pope.”

This last task lets the entire College of Cardinals get a sense (or express a sense) of the most pressing problems facing the Church. Hopefully, this will help the Cardinal-electors in the prayerful deliberation to come.

There are also Particular Congregations created to handle specific jobs.  The logistics of organizing the papal election, and ensuring its secrecy, can be a bit daunting, like “sweeping” the Vatican Apostolic Palace, to ensure that no one has bugged it with audio or visual devices in order to record the secret proceedings.

Q. What Happens During the Conclave Itself?

Michelangelo, The Last Judgment (1541)

Between March 15-20, the Conclave itself will begin. The Cardinals stay in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, and deliberate and vote in the Sistine Chapel, and provisions are made to ensure that no one speaks to them en route.  This is also the reason for Michelangelo’s Last Judgment behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel: to remind the voting Cardinals of the eternal consequences of their actions.

On the first day, each Cardinal swears an oath of secrecy.  Once they have finished, the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations gives the order “Extra omnes,” which means that everyone else has to leave.  The Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations stays behind with the Cardinal-electors, and a priest (previously chosen by the General Congregation), who preaches to the Cardinal-electors the second meditation, “concerning the grave duty incumbent on them and thus on the need to act with right intention for the good of the Universal Church.”

They then proceed to voting.  Depending on the schedule set by the General Congregation, voting begins on either the first or the second day.  If it is on the first day, they vote only once (in the afternoon).  After the first day, voting occurs four times a day: twice during the morning session, and twice during the evening session.  If the Cardinals have not decided on anyone after three days, they take a break (of up to one day) to pray and informally deliberate.  They then vote up to seven more times.  If they still haven’t elected a pope, they take another break, “for prayer, discussion and an exhortation given by the senior Cardinal in the Order of Priests.”  Then, it’s back to voting again.

Q.  How does the Voting work?

Previously, there were three permissible forms of voting:

• Election by compromise: the Cardinal-electors, if they wanted, could unanimously designate select a group of nine-to-fifteen Cardinals, who would then make the choice for the whole Conclave.  This method of voting, which was how the deadlocked Cardinals finally selected Pope Gregory X, was last used in 1316, and is no longer permitted.
• Election by acclamation: the Cardinal-electors shouted out the name of their preferred candidate.  This was last used in 1621, and is also no longer permitted.
• Election by scrutiny: the Cardinal-electors vote by secret ballot.  This is the only permitted method presently, and has been the method used for centuries. These votes are then counted by three randomly-selected Cardinals (called “Scrutatorum,” or “Scrutineers”), while three others gather the ballots of any sick members (“Infirmarii”), and three others ensure that the Scrutineers are doing their jobs properly (“Recognitorum,” or “Revisers”). 

If I am not mistaken, new Scrutineers, Infirmarii, and Revisers are selected for each session, meaning that the same group of Cardinals doesn’t oversee more than two votes.

In the current method, each Cardinal-elector writes the name of the man he believes should be the next pope on his ballot, disguising his handwriting.  He then folds the ballot.  If he is able-bodied, he then proceeds to the altar, and swears, “I call as my witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected” before depositing the ballot in the box.  If a Cardinal is in the Sistine chapel, but too weak to process to the altar, one of the Scrutineers will come to him.  After this, the three Infirmarii take ballots and an empty ballot box to the Domus Sanctae Marthae for any bed-ridden Cardinal-electors.

Newly-elected Pope Pius XI giving the Apostolic Blessing
Urbi et Orbi from the balcony of the Vatican Basilica.

Once all of the ballots are collected, the ballot box is shaken, and ballots are counted.  If no one has two-thirds, the ballots are burnt along with damp straw.  The black smoke signals to the people awaiting outside that we don’t yet have a pope.  If someone does garner a two-thirds vote, they then ask him to become pope:

The Cardinal Dean, or the Cardinal who is first in order and seniority, in the name of the whole College of electors, then asks the consent of the one elected in the following words: Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff? And, as soon as he has received the consent, he asks him: By what name do you wish to be called? Then the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations, acting as notary and having as witnesses two Masters of Ceremonies, who are to be summoned at that moment, draws up a document certifying acceptance by the new Pope and the name taken by him.

The pope-elect is free to decline, but generally, Cardinals unwilling to become pope announce this if there’s any risk of their being elected.  If the man accepts, we have our next pope! At this point, in the pope-elect isn’t yet a Bishop, he’s immediately ordained.  If he is already a bishop, his acceptance becomes the pope instantaneously upon his consent. The Cardinals then “approach the newly-elected Pope in the prescribed manner, in order to make an act of homage and obedience,” and the Conclave ends “immediately after the new Supreme Pontiff assents to his election, unless he should determine otherwise.”

The Cardinals then make an act of Thanksgiving to God, and the Cardinal Proto-Deacon, Jean-Louis Tauran, announces to the public, assembled in St. Peter's Square, “Habemus Papam!” (“We have a Pope!”). The new pope then comes out and imparts the Apostolic Blessing Urbi et Orbi from the balcony of the Vatican Basilica.

Answering Your Questions About Papal Resignation

Pope Benedict’s announcement yesterday that he is resigning has taken the world by surprise. In response, I’ve already heard a number of questions, and it seemed wise to create a basic Q&A to clarify any confusion you might have about papal resignation.

Q: Can the Pope Resign?

A: The first reaction several people expressed to Benedict’s resignation was “I didn't know the pope could do that!” At least one person has told me that Benedict was supposed to have consulted with the College of Cardinals first.  No doubt, Benedict’s resignation comes as a shock, but canon law actually contemplates the possibility of a papal resignation, and it doesn't require consulting anyone:

Can. 332 §2. If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.

Obviously, this canon exists for a reason. If that wasn’t enough, there have been a handful of popes throughout history who have resigned: Benedict IX, Gregory VI, St. Celestine V, and Gregory XII.

Q: Why is Benedict Resigning?
A: Unfortunately, the Internet was almost immediately abuzz with baseless scandal-mongering.  For example, one of the first questions I was asked was, “Is this to ensure that we don't find that Benedict was involved in abuse cover-ups?”

Regarding the sex-abuse scandal specifically, it’s worth remembering that then-Cardinal Ratzinger was one of the strongest forces for good within the Church on this issue.  And Phil Lawler, whose book analyzing the sex abuse scandal is the best that I've seen yet, has been clear on Benedict's positive role here.

More generally, I know that scandal-mongering on all sides will view as proof of (insert pet cause or rumor), as scandal-mongers often do. But there's no evidence for any of it. Instead, the facts are pretty clear:

• Pope Benedict, at age 85, is the fourth oldest pope, at least out of the last seven hundred years.  By way of comparison, Pope John Paul II died at age 84.
  
  
• Although he was expected to have a short reign (being 78 when he was elected), Benedict has already served a longer-than-average pontificate.  The average pontificate lasts about 7.2 years.  Benedict will have served 7.86 years.
  
  
• That Benedict's health has been declining is no secret.  Back in October 2011, Benedict began using a rolling platform in processing down the aisle of St. Peter's Basilica.  At the time, CWN noted that “at the age of 84 he has slowed noticeably.”  That was well over a year ago.
  
  
• The modern papacy isn't what it used to be.  There was a time when a pope never needed to leave Italy (or even Vatican City).  But both Paul VI and John Paul II were globe-trotting popes, accessible to the Catholic faithful all over the world.   This aspect of the modern papacy requires a certain physical stamina no longer possible for Pope Benedict, whose doctor has forbidden him from transatlantic travel, presumably including events like the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  
  
• Benedict has long argued that the modern papacy may call for the resignation of an infirm and dying pope.  For example, a few years back, Benedict told Peter Seewald:  “If a Pope clearly realises that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation, to resign.”  Seewald included this interview in his 2010 book Light of the World. Maybe we should have paid more attention, in hindsight.
  
  
• Certainly, Benedict's resignation sounds very much like his statement to Seewald, remarking that “in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

The clear picture emerges is of a pope who has believed (for years) that the modern state of the papacy may call for a pope to resign, should his health deteriorate beyond a certain point.  Apparently, he now considers himself to fit this description.

Pope Gregory XII, the last pope to resign.

Q: When was the Last Time that a Pope Resigned?
A: One reason Benedict's announcement is such a surprise is that the last papal resignation was in 1415.  put another way, the last time a pope resigned, Protestantism didn't exist, and the New World hasn't been discovered.

Q: What will we call Pope Benedict After he resigns?
A: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. [Update: I may have spoken too soon on this one.  While this was the initial report, there’s now talk about “Bishop of Rome, emeritus,” and keeping “Your Holiness” as an honorific. That may not be settled until the next papacy.] He will remain a Cardinal, and a member of the College of Bishops... just as any other Bishop-emeritus remains a bishop.

Q: Where will Ratzinger Go?
A: First, to the Papal residence in Castel Gandolfo.  Then, once renovations are complete, he will move into a cloistered convent located within Vatican City.  This is according to Fr. Lombardi, Vatican Spokesman (h/t Commonweal).


Q: Will Cardinal Ratzinger Vote for the Next Pope?
A: Not according to Fr. Lombardi.  Benedict will take no part in the conclave at all.

Speaking of the conclave, I'll do another Q&A soon on the upcoming papal election, so feel free to add any questions you have (about the resignation or election) in the comments below.

And, of course, have a blessed Lent!

Update: I have finalized the Q&A on the papal conclave.

The Church's Prayer for the Next Pope

If you're looking for something to pray in the weeks to come, here's the Collect for the Election of a Pope or a Bishop from the Roman Missal:

"O God, eternal shepherd, who govern your flock with unfailing care, grant in your boundless fatherly love a pastor for your Church who will please you by his holiness and to us show watchful care. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

We will be praying it daily here at the seminary, until a new pope is elected.  It would make for a good private devotional, as well, particularly for those shaken by the announcement of Benedict's resignation.

Pope Benedict XVI to Resign

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has announced that he will step down on February 28th due to his failing health:

"Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

"Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer."

This will make him the fifth pope in history to resign the papacy. I am sure that there is much more that shall be said about this news in the days and weeks to come.

Your Heart and Soul are Made for God: Why Settle for Less?

St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life, which I have been reading lately, arose out of correspondence he had with a woman who was looking for help in living out the life of a Christian amidst the secular world. If anything, the book has become only more valuable since then, as secular culture is more hostile to Christianity today than it was in the 16th century.

In Book V, Chapter 10, he describes in beautiful, almost poetic terms, the soul’s search for happiness in sin, and in God.  I suspect that anyone who has ever searched for lasting happiness apart from God will be able to relate with his description of the insufficiency of that happiness. But Francis’ tone isn’t one of condemning sinners, but of calling them to more -- calling them, in fact, to Jesus Christ:

Simon Vouet, Heavenly Charity (c. 1640)

your soul is possessed of a noble will,
capable of loving God,
irresistibly drawn to that love; 

your heart is full of generous enthusiasm,
and can no more find rest in any earthly creation,
or in aught [anything] save God,
than the bee can find honey on a dunghill,
or in aught save flowers. 

Let your mind boldly review
the wild earthly pleasures
which once filled your heart,
and see whether they did not abound
in uneasiness and doubts,
in painful thoughts and uncomfortable cares,
amid which your troubled heart was miserable. 

When the heart of man seeks the creature,
it goes to work eagerly,
expecting to satisfy its cravings;
but directly it obtains what it sought,
it finds a blank,
and dissatisfied,
begins to seek anew; 

for God will not suffer our hearts to find any rest,
like the dove going forth from Noah's ark,
until it returns to God, whence it came. 

Surely this is a most striking natural beauty in our heart; why should we constrain it against its will to seek creature love?

St. Augustine describes this same reality, at the beginning of his autobiography, The Confessions, when he prays, “You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.”

Philippe de Champaigne, Saint Augustine (c. 1650)

And note what Francis and Augustine have in common. Both of them are acknowledging that, all too often, we turn from God in pursuit of some fleeting pleasure that leaves us unsatisfied. But rather than condemning our hearts for their foolishness, these great Saints view this as a sign of the value of our hearts. As Francis says above, our dissatisfaction in anything short of God isn’t a punishment, but “a most striking natural beauty in our heart.” And he wrote this as a reminder of “how noble and excellent a thing your soul is.”

In fact, it’s precisely because our hearts and souls are so valuable that we know two things: (1) that there will be competition for them, from unworthy suitors [sin, and the pleasures of the world]; and (2) that the only suitor worthy of our heart and soul is their Maker, our God.  St. Francis’ advice is to remind your soul of its worth:

“You are capable of realising a longing after God, why should you trifle with anything lower? you can live for eternity, why should you stop short in time? One of the sorrows of the prodigal son was, that, when he might have been living in plenty at his father's table, he had brought himself to share the swine's husks. My soul, you are made for God, woe be to you if you stop short in anything short of Him!” Lift up your soul with thoughts such as these, convince it that it is eternal, and worthy of eternity; fill it with courage in this pursuit.

Indeed, why would we ever content ourselves with anything less than God? To do so would be to settle for less than our own God-given worth.

How to Establish a Pro-Life Framework

There’s a faulty notion that the abortion issue is inherently religious: that one must be a Christian (or at least possess particular subjective beliefs about when life begins) in order to be against abortion.  In fact, the pro-life view is founded squarely on modern science.

I wrote about this a couple weeks ago, regarding the scientific consensus that life begins at conception. One of the responses to that post was that the question of when life begins “is only HALF of the abortion debate.” This is certainly true.  So let’s lay out both halves of the argument against abortion.

I. The Pro-Life Framework

An AAA-1, or “Modus Barbara” Syllogism,
of which this is one.

Properly understood, the pro-life argument can be reduced to a simple syllogism:

1. Major premise (moral / ethical): It is immoral, and should be illegal, to intentionally kill an innocent human being.
   
2. Minor Premise (scientific): An innocent human being is formed at conception / fertilization. This being is distinct from either the mother or the father. In other words, conception creates a new member of the species Homo Sapiens.*
   
3. Conclusion: Abortion is immoral, and should be illegal.

*Now, there may be other moments at which a unique human being is (or could also be) created, whether at the moment of twinning or in an artificial environment. But the fact that human beings might be formed at moments besides conception doesn’t rebut the claim that “a human being is formed at conception / fertilization.”

II. Where is the Debate?

One advantage to this framework is that you need not be a Christian, or even religious, to hold to these two views, anymore than one needs to be religious to think that murder is always and everywhere wrong.

As I pointed out in the earlier post, there is no legitimate debate over the minor premise. We can say, objectively, that a unique human life begins at conception. In virtually every case, people who claim to be attacking the minor premise (debating when human life begins) are really debating the major premise (whether they think it’s wrong to kill a human being prior to a certain point in human development).

Even the arguments about sentience aren’t really attacking the minor premise. They’re attacking the major premise by redefining what we mean by “human life.” So the only question remaining in the abortion debate is whether it's ever moral to intentionally kill human beings.

It’s true that this doesn’t end the debate, but it does clarify it. It clarifies that the defenders of abortion aren’t confused over the science (or at least, shouldn’t be). Rather, they’re defending the rather astonishingly claims that not all human lives are worthy of moral or legal protection.  At this point, the pro-life side just needs to show that murder is always and everywhere wrong.

III. Scientific Terminology and Euphemism

I think that is particularly important to use terms which are both clear and objective, as I have found that the defenders of abortion run from both clarity and objectivity in terminology. In this way, the defenders of abortion are behaving like the defenders of any other atrocity: by perverting language to obscure the reality of what they’re defending.  George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, railed against this tendency in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language:

George Orwell

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. [….]

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

What Orwell describes is precisely what we’ve seen in the debate over abortion, particularly regarding the use of medical jargon and technical scientific terminology, in place of clear English. Let me use a grisly example.  A particular abortion procedure involves delivering a child partway, but in the breech position, so that his feet come out first. The abortionist stops the child from being fully delivered by slitting open the back of his skull, and using a suction catheter to suck out his brains, killing him, and crushing his skull.

This mode of execution is called, by pro-lifers, “partial-birth abortion,” a term which is both accurate and clear. But those defending this horrendous practice have hidden themselves behind a wall of euphemisms, referring to it by obscure medical terms like “intact dilation and evacuation,” “dilation and extraction (D&X, or DNX),” and “intrauterine cranial decompression,” terms which no ordinary person understands.  Like defending the “elimination of unreliable elements,” it’s easy to justify “intrauterine cranial decompression,” until you realize that what they mean by “cranial decompression” is “sucking out a baby’s brain mid-birth.”

That’s one reason why I think using terms like “human being” (or even “human organism”) is helpful. Undeniably, a unique human organism exists from conception. This is a purely scientific question, and it is worth putting this point forward in a scientific way.  After all, someone using terms like “fetus” or “embryo” can hardly fault you for using technical terminology.  We can know whether or not a particular subject is a member of the species Homo Sapiens, objectively and scientifically.

And here, you’ll find defenders of abortion (ironically) running away from objective scientific terminology. Instead of “human organism,” they’ll use terms which are either less descriptive (like “clump of cells,” which could refer to either a human organism or any other organic matter), or meaningless.  That is, one typical tactic is to redefine words like “person” to mean whatever one wants it to mean.  That’s not an exaggeration: defenders of abortion will say what “personhood” means to them.  I am reminded of a scene from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

So be on the watch for attempts to retreat into “sheer cloudy vagueness,” to turn the discussion from whether abortion kills a human being, to when a human being is really a “person.”  If you find yourself debating someone who insists on making up their own definitions to words like “person,” you might at least call them to have the intellectual integrity to at least make up their own words to describe the realities they are defining.  If nothing else, it shows the utter absurdity of redefining terms arbitrarily.