Individuals and Couples – “Some defenders of Fiducia Supplicans have suggested that the document intends ‘couple’ to be understood merely as a pair of individuals, without reference to any special relationship between them.” What Is a “Couple” (Edward Feser)
Through Ordinary Acts – “The winter solstice is upon us, a time of deepest darkness, but also a time of rebirth. Today’s post is fitting for the season, as it’s a catalogue of seeds we can plant … ” Simple Acts of Sanity: A Seed Catalogue (School of the Unconformed)
Words on the Word – “Much happens between Abram’s vision of the stars and Sarah’s conception. For one thing, Abram’s faith wobbles. However promisingly God has spoken, he remains childless.” The Holy Family (Confrantibus)
The Future of Religious Liberty “Although conservatives have won several recent cases, I expect they’ll face continued legal pressure, especially now that federal employment law has been read to prohibit LGBTQ discrimination.” Religious Liberty in 2024: Healing our deep divides (World)
If AI Became Conscious – “Since the introduction of Chat GPT late last year, artificial intelligence has become pervasive in modern American life.” How to think (better) about the ‘AI moment’ (Pillar)
Fog of Distinctions – “The confusion surrounding the pope’s recent statement Fiducia Supplicans, a document that is ambiguous about whether Catholic clergy can bless those in same-sex relationships, says much about the times in which we live.” The Pope, Same-Sex Blessings, and Protestants (First Things)
Ohio House Bill 68 – “Ohio governor Mike DeWine (R.) on Friday vetoed a bill that would have banned both transgender procedures for minors and trans student-athlete participation in school sports in the state.” Ohio Governor Vetoes Ban on Transgender Procedures for Minors, Trans Participation in Sports (National Review)
Never-Ending Massacre – “Rights group estimates 50,000 Christians in West African nation have been killed since 2009.” World looks other way as Christians ‘killed for sport by jihadists’ in Nigeria (Fox News)
The Church Prevailed – “[A]s proved by this year and all its Catholic controversies—synods on synodalities, bishops removed from office, and spats between pope and cardinals—we are in sore need of stories that reinvigorate our trust in the Church’s ultimate victory.” The Church Will Always Triumph (Crisis Magazine)
Writers Struggle – “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be writers. Let them drive Ubers, make lattes, and such.” Is 2024 the Year When Writers Fight Back? (The Honest Broker)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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@ Individuals and Couples
Edward Feser puts Fiducia Supplicans under the scalpal to see when a “couple” is not a couple, if ever. Maybe the answer is to see how the Document itself might be coupled (!) to another document (or couple of documents) yet to come?
Is the individual document a kind of clericalist foreplay to introduce a later document, say, enabling and verbosely explaining how ordination of female DEACONESSES is and is not an ordination, but also a new “development”?
Might we even wonder about the nature of any new guideline for the selection of bishops, or even the functioning of a future CONCLAVE? Might the conclave be coupled (as a most problematic example) with fluid synodality? As in synodal nominations of some papabili (the 4th-century public acclamation: “Ambrose for bishop!”)? Or, after the conclave, then some kind of necessary synodal or multi-continental ratification, which is not fully a ratification but more of an ambiguous rump parliament (“not a parliament,” as in not a “blessing”)? So long as it is informal, non-liturgical, and spontaneous, and causes neither scandal nor confusion.
About such possible coupling of documents themselves, and taking a leaf from the ecological Laudato Si (where the following term is clearly meaningful): like tea leaves, how is everything “connected,” or coupled, or whatever?
“Sometimes they are two very close friends who share good things, sometimes they had sexual relations in the past and now what remains is a strong sense of belonging and mutual help. As a parish priest, I have often met such couples…”
***********
Well, the African bishop I heard on YouTube gave the best reply to this sort of nonsense: “We are not idiots.”
@ If AI Became Conscious
We’ve reached the stage when the concerned [Joe Vukov] commend a religious crusade against AI to prove human superiority. Kristin Collier, Mariel Courtois et al, all professors give reasons some theological why AI can’t acquire personhood. A daisy says one is more human than AI. It’s more than interesting that the concerned have religious leanings.
A danger arises in the possibility of enclosing sufficient knowledge and transmission aptitude into an AI system in which it can achieve beyond artificial intelligence artificial virtual independence simulating human intellectual capacity. A capacity which AI technicians may be unable to control. An example of technology power is the simple bank password dilemma when forgotten and the difficulty of correction. AI can be a good within a limited capacity, beyond which we surrender our gift of intellect to technology. God didn’t create us to become satisfied drones.
A computer is still a computer and never will be anything but a computer, a pile of rather simple electrical circuits, that appear complicated due to millions of layers, a purely contingent device no more capable of originating a value judgment that a book with printed ideas, or a televsion that broadcasts ideas, or a light bulb that illuminates the ideas of a book. The fact that pervasive human foolishness is taking this whole notion of AI seriously is simply another indicator of our spiritually bankrupt civilization. What we need to be concerned about is yet another irritant from a Pope who steadfastly refuses to call an unborn child a person as we wait the day when he’ll probably afford this distinction to a computer.
@ The Church Prevailed
Perhaps the castrated Origen had buyer’s remorse? Casey Chalk’s line of the month. Apart from Fr Origen’s literal interpretation of the Gospel, Chalk gives us a wonderful history of Spain’s entry into the New World, the adventures of tumultuous Church history always victorious in the end. A lionization of close friend Crocker’s book. That expected victory may be in store.
Or it may not. It’s a favor reminding us of past victories in a time of dark gloom. At the rate we’re hurtling down the tracks we’re due for a major derailment. We groaned, hollered whizzing past the latest red light FS.
It’s worth being attentive to scripture on the issue of final victory and having awareness of what’s occurring at the moment. We don’t know where this apparent off the tracks end may land us for better or for worse. We do know scripture attests as well as doctrine that the final victory will be achieved by Christ.
@ The Future of Religious Liberty
Constitutional law scholar Thomas C. Berg advises an incremental approach to opposing political ideologies, the two party system that developed from loose knit to entrenched views. LGBT the problematic with antidiscrimination protection. Utah a model program offering political financial incentive for opposing interests to negotiate.
Religious liberty, here the right for interest groups, the Catholic Church, Mormon, Protestant et al is really a non negotiable right because a faith group has the right to discriminate. Berg may offer a bandaid solution for a problem that comes down to government, the state decision to raise disorder sexual behavior to a universally protected class. Previous law for example the New England colonies protected the privacy of individuals following Britain’s Royal Charter which prohibited Puritan criminalization of irregular sexual unions/behavior.
Change occurred with the general abandonment of religious practice and an unprincipled concept of Liberty. The growing dilemma in America can only be resolved with a perhaps miraculous return to religious values. Liberals like fascists do not brook right reasoning.