In his General Audience of 2 December 1981, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on Theology of the Body, by addressing the teaching of Christ on the relationship between male and female after the general resurrection.
The Resurrection and Theological Anthropology
In the course of the General Audience of 2 December the Holy Father took up again the general theme of the resurrection of the body in the context of his catechesis on theological anthropology.
1. "When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Mk 12:25). These words have a key meaning for the theology of the body. Christ uttered them after having affirmed, in the conversation with the Sadducees, that the resurrection is in conformity with the power of the living God. All three synoptic Gospels report the same statement, except that Luke's version is different in some details from that of Matthew and Mark. Essential for them all is the fact that, in the future resurrection, human beings, after having reacquired their bodies in the fullness of the perfection characteristic of the image and likeness of God—after having reacquired them in their masculinity and femininity—"neither marry nor are given in marriage." Luke expresses the same idea in chapter 20:34-35, in the following words: "The children of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage."
Definitive fulfilment of mankind
2. As can be seen from these words, marriage, that union in which, according to Genesis, "A man cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh" (2:24)—the union characteristic of man right from the beginning—belongs exclusively to this age. Marriage and procreation do not constitute, on the other hand, the eschatological future of man. In the resurrection they lose, so to speak, their raison d'être. "That age," of which Luke spoke (20:35), means the definitive fulfillment of mankind. It is the quantitative closing of that circle of beings, who were created in the image and likeness of God, in order that, multiplying through the conjugal "unity in the body" of men and women, they might subdue the earth. "That age" is not the world of the earth, but the world of God, who, as we know from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, will fill it entirely, becoming "everything to everyone" (1 Cor 15:28).
3. At the same time "that age," which according to revelation is "the kingdom of God," is also the definitive and eternal "homeland" of man (cf. Phil 3:20). It is the "Father's house" (Jn 14:2). As man's new homeland, that age emerges definitively from the present world, which is temporal—subjected to death, that is, to the destruction of the body (cf. Gen 3:19, "to dust you shall return")—through the resurrection. According to Christ's words reported by the synoptic Gospels, the resurrection means not only the recovery of corporeity and the re-establishment of human life in its integrity by means of the union of the body with the soul, but also a completely new state of human life itself.
We find the confirmation of this new state of the body in the resurrection of Christ (cf. Rom 6:5-11). The words reported by the synoptic Gospels (Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25; Lk 20:34-35) will ring out then (that is, after Christ's resurrection) to those who had heard them. I would say almost with a new probative force, and at the same time they will acquire the character of a convincing promise. For the present, however, we will dwell on these words in their pre-paschal phase, referring only to the situation in which they were spoken. There is no doubt that already in the answer given to the Sadducees, Christ revealed the new condition of the human body in the resurrection. He did so precisely by proposing a reference and a comparison with the condition in which man had participated since the "beginning."
Renewed in resurrection
4. The words, "They neither marry nor are given in marriage" seem to affirm at the same time that human bodies, recovered and at the same time renewed in the resurrection, will keep their masculine or feminine peculiarity. The sense of being a male or a female in the body will be constituted and understood in that age in a different way from what it had been from the beginning, and then in the whole dimension of earthly existence. The words of Genesis: "A man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh" (2:24), constituted right from the beginning that condition and relationship of masculinity and femininity, extended also to the body, which must rightly be defined as conjugal and at the same time as procreative and generative. It is connected with the blessing of fertility, pronounced by God (Elohim) when he created man "male and female" (Gn 1:27). The words Christ spoke about the resurrection enable us to deduce that the dimension of masculinity and femininity—that is, being male and female in the body—will again be constituted together with the resurrection of the body in "that age."
Like the angels
5. Is it possible to say something more detailed on this subject? Beyond all doubt, Christ's words reported by the synoptic Gospels (especially in the version of Luke 20:27-40) authorize us to do so. We read there that "Those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead...cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God" (Matthew and Mark report only that "They are like angels in heaven"). This statement makes it possible above all to deduce a spiritualization of man according to a different dimension from that of earthly life (and even different from that of the beginning itself). It is obvious that it is not a question here of transforming man's nature into that of the angels, that is, a purely spiritual one. The context indicates clearly that in that age man will keep his own human psychosomatic nature. If it were otherwise, it would be meaningless to speak of the resurrection.
The resurrection means the restoring to the real life of human corporeity, which was subjected to death in its temporal phase. In the expression of Luke (20:36) just quoted (and in that of Mt 22:30 and Mk 12:25), it is certainly a question of human, that is, psychosomatic nature. The comparison with heavenly beings, used in the context, is no novelty in the Bible. Among others, it is said in a psalm, exalting man as the work of the Creator, "You have made him little less than the angels" (Ps 8:5). It must be supposed that in the resurrection this similarity will become greater. It will not be through a disincarnation of man, but by means of another kind (we could also say another degree) of spiritualization of his somatic nature—that is, by means of another "system of forces" within man. The resurrection means a new submission of the body to the spirit.
Plato and St. Thomas
5. Before beginning to develop this subject, it should be recalled that the truth about the resurrection had a key meaning for the formation of all theological anthropology, which could be considered simply as an anthropology of the resurrection. As a result of reflection on the resurrection, Thomas Aquinas neglected in his metaphysical (and at the same time theological) anthropology Plato's philosophical conception on the relationship between the soul and the body and drew closer to the conception of Aristotle.(1) The resurrection bears witness, at least indirectly, that the body, in the composite being of man as a whole, is not only connected temporarily with the soul (as its earthly "prison," as Plato believed).(2) But together with the soul it constitutes the unity and integrity of the human being. Aristotle taught precisely that,(3) unlike Plato. If St. Thomas accepted Aristotle's conception in his anthropology, he did so considering the truth about the resurrection. The truth about the resurrection clearly affirmed, in fact, that the eschatological perfection and happiness of man cannot be understood as a state of the soul alone, separated (according to Plato: liberated) from the body. But it must be understood as the state of man definitively and perfectly "integrated" through such a union of the soul and the body, which qualifies and definitively ensures this perfect integrity.
Let us interrupt at this point our reflection on the words spoken by Christ about the resurrection. The great wealth of content enclosed in these words induces us to take them up again in further considerations.
Notes
1. Cf., e.g.: Habet autem anima alium modum essendi cum unitur corpori, et cum furerit a corpore separata, manente tamen eadem animae natura; non ita quod uniri corpori sit ei accidentale, sed per rationem suae naturae corpori unitur... ["Now the soul has one mode of being when in the body, and another when apart from it, its nature remaining always the same; but this does not mean that its union with the body is an accidental thing, for, on the contrary, such union belongs to its very nature..."] (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. 1a, q. 89, a. 1 [New York: Benziger, 1947]).
Anima, quandiu est corpori coniuncta, non potest aliquid intelligere non convertendo se ad phantasmata, ut per experimentum patet. Si autem hoc non est ex natura animae, sed per accidens hoc convenit ei ex eo quod corpori alligatur, sicut Platonici posuereunt, de facili quaestio solvi posset. Nam remoto impedimento corporis, rediret anima ad suam naturam, ut intelligeret intelligibilia simpliciter, non convertendo se ad phantasmata, sicut est de aliis substantiis separatis. Sed secundum hoc non esset anima corpori unita propter melius animae, si peius intelligeret corpori unita quam separata; sed hoc esset solum propter melius corporis, quod est irrationabile, cum materia sit propter formam, et non e converso. [The soul united to the body can understand only by turning to the phantasms, as experience shows. Did this not proceed from the soul's very nature, but accidentally through its being bound up with the body, as the Platonists said, the difficulty would vanish; for in that case when the body was once removed, the soul would at once return to its own nature, and would understand intelligible things simply, without turning to the phantasms, as is exemplified in the case of other separate substances. In that case, however, the union of soul and body would not be for the soul's good, for evidently it would understand worse in the body than out of it; but for the good of the body, which would be unreasonable, since matter exists on account of the form, and not the form for the sake of matter] (Ibidem).
Secundum se convenit animae corpori uniri, sicut secundum se convenit corpori levi esse sursum....ita anima humana manet in suo esse cum fuerit a corpore separata, habens aptitudinem et inclinationem naturalem ad corporis unionem. [To be united to the body belongs to the soul by reason of itself, as it belongs to a light body by reason of itself to be raised up.... So the human soul retains its proper existence when separated from the body, having an aptitude and a natural inclination to be united to the body] (Ibidem Ia, q. 76, a. 1, ad 6).
86. To men soma estin hemin sema (Platone, Gorgias 493 A; cf. also Phaedo 66B; Cratylus 400C).
87. Aristotle, De anima, II, 412a, 19-22; cf. also Metaph. 1029, b 11; 1030, b 14.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Theology of the Body: 66. The Resurrection and Theological Anthropology
The rebellious enemies of Holy Mother Church refuse to let Pope John Paul the Great rest in peace.
Colleen Carol Campbell discusses the late pontiff's last days and the culture of death's attempts to co-opt them.
Let Me Go, the new book co-written by Pope John Paul II’s personal physician, reveals few details about the pope’s death that were not already divulged in the official Vatican report last fall. But news writers have done their best to incite interest, by highlighting Dr. Renato Buzzonetti’s testimony that John Paul tried to delay the tracheotomy he underwent in his last hospital visit, refused to return to the hospital when death was imminent, and received care from physicians who rejected “any new aggressive therapeutic measure” on the day he died. Headlines trumpet these nuggets suggestively: “Pope John Paul Shunned Medical Treatment,” shouts one; “John Paul a Tough Patient,” proclaims another.
Given the headlines and the tone of the reports, casual readers might assume that the decisions made by the pope and his physicians fell short of the Catholic Church’s standard for sustaining life. It is a high standard, after all. The Church has always taught that both passive and active euthanasia are grave evils and the late pope regularly criticized the “culture of death” in which physicians give up too soon on the lives of the frail and elderly. In 2004, as Catholic hospitals were increasingly sanctioning the removal of food and water from patients in a persistent vegetative state and Michael Schiavo was winning his battle to starve his wife, Pope John Paul II declared that food and water are always part of the basic care due to all patients, even those in a persistent vegetative state. He allowed only two exceptions to this principle: Food and water may be taken away when the patient’s body is no longer able to absorb them or when they no longer alleviate the patient’s suffering. An example of the latter case is a patient who is on the brink of death from another underlying cause and food and water are of no benefit, use, or comfort to him anymore.
The Church’s teachings on end-of-life issues, and the late pope’s articulation and clarification of those teachings, had long infuriated euthanasia advocates. They also riled many Catholic ethicists and health-care professionals, who criticized the pope’s position on end-of-life issues as severe, unrealistic, and inconsistent with the Church’s longstanding distinction between ordinary and extraordinary means of sustaining life. If John Paul’s own deathbed decisions contradicted Church teachings as he had proclaimed them, that would be news.
The key to interpreting the circumstances of John Paul’s death can be found in the very distinction that his critics accused him of ignoring. The Catholic Church has long held that ordinary or proportionate care — which is beneficial, useful, and not unreasonably burdensome to the patient — is morally obligatory. Extraordinary or disproportionate care — which may include exotic, experimental, or excessively burdensome treatments that are unlikely to benefit a patient or that include unreasonable costs relative to benefits — is not morally obligatory, though a patient may choose to accept it. The categories of ordinary and extraordinary care allow us to navigate between two dangerous extremes: the vitalism that would have us preserve life at all costs by any means necessary without regard for the burdens imposed on the patient, and the fatalism that would tempt us to give up on gravely ill patients before their time and violate their rights to life and basic care.
When it comes to discerning the difference between ordinary and extraordinary care, Catholic teaching maintains a strong bias for life. Decisions on end-of-life issues must be consistent with the core Catholic principle that requires us to do what we can within reason to preserve life and never do anything directly intended to end life.
The details published in Let Me Go suggest that in his final days, John Paul upheld this principle and avoided both the fatalism of his critics and the vitalism of which they accused him. He patiently endured years of suffering from Parkinson’s disease and accepted feeding and breathing tubes in his final weeks to sustain his life. On March 31, when faced with what his doctors recognized as imminent death, the pope decided to stay home, surrounded by his loved ones, and spend his waning hours praying and preparing to meet God. John Paul uttered his final words on April 2: “Let me go to the house of the Father.” Then he lapsed into a brief coma. After running an electrocardiogram for more than 20 minutes that night, Buzzonetti declared him dead.
The new details of the pope’s death reaffirm what we already knew. John Paul loved this life and accepted its joys and sorrows in equal measure. He did not seek an easy exit from suffering. Nor did he ignore the reality of his own death. He faced it with courage, trusting in the promise of eternal life that he had proclaimed to the whole world, the promise upon which he had staked his entire life.
— Colleen Carroll Campbell, an NRO contributor, is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a former speechwriter to President George W. Bush, and author of The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy.
Better dead than moslem.
Pressure Builds Over Plight of Afghan Christian (CNSNews.com) - What does the Council on American-Islamic Relations have to say about the trial of an Afghan Muslim who may get the death penalty for converting to Christianity? Nothing so far, noted a conservative, pro-family group. Full Story
(CNSNews.com) - The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, accustomed to warm receptions in Western capitals, is coming under growing outside pressure over the trial of a Christian facing a possible death sentence for converting from Islam. Full Story
Islamic Advocacy Group Silent on Afghan Apostasy Trial
From the Editors of National Review:
An Affront to Civilization
We should have no illusions that Afghanistan — in many ways the backwater of the Islamic world — will soon embrace Western-style religious pluralism. But the trial of Abdul Rahman, who faces a potential death sentence for converting to Christianity some 15 years ago, is an affront to civilization. If there is always a balancing act between accommodating the religious beliefs of a traditional society like Afghanistan and coaxing it toward reform, the Rahman case is not a close call — killing or jailing someone for his religious beliefs is always wrong, and is especially galling in a country so dependent on American military forces and aid.
The Afghan constitution is a work of studied ambiguity when it comes to religious liberty. Article 2 says Islam is Afghanistan's religion, but it also stipulates that other religions are free to perform their ceremonies “within the limits of the law” (whatever that means). Article 7 says the state shall abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — which includes the right of conversion — but Article 130 says, where there is no guidance for the constitution or other laws, Islamic laws apply. This is the kind of “living constitution” Ruth Bader Ginsburg can only dream about in the U.S. The Afghan document was deliberately written vaguely to bridge the divide between the country's modernizers and its Islamists. The latter surely want to use the Rahman case to embarrass our ally President Karzai and to advance their interpretation of the constitution.
Yesterday, the State Department's Nicholas Burns adopted the right tone and substantive position when asked about the case by reporters. He said that, as far as the U.S. is concerned, the Afghan constitution guarantees religious liberty, and therefore Rahman shouldn't be punished for his conversion. But he also emphasized our respect for Afghan sovereignty. It is important that, while we push for justice in the case, we don’t play into the hands of Karzai's enemies, who are eager to capitalize on the fears of a very traditional society. We should make it clear privately, but very firmly to Karzai — who would have to sign Rahman's death warrant — that we expect him to find some Afghan way to short-circuit the case before it ever gets to that point.
Conservatives in this country have been admirably willing to accept the compromises and frustrations that come with President Bush's attempts to reform recalcitrant parts of the world. The judicial murder of a Christian convert by a government that exists only on the basis of American power and good will, however, would be intolerable.
William F. Buckley rouses himself in order to expose a particularly stupid bit of nonsense from LA's cardinal.
If I may be so bold, Cardinal Mahony, to suggest your time would be better spent keeping as many of these immigrants Catholic as is possible. I believe that is in your job description. If you haven't noticed, the schismatics are making inroads south of the border.
The situation has come to a boil. Immigration policy is the top concern of candidates running for office in the border states. In December, the House of Representatives passed a tough bill designed to tighten the border. It calls for criminal penalties for those Americans who collude with the illegal enterprise. A response came from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This body assails aspects of the House bill as excessively punitive and lobbies for a tenderer bill from the Senate, but it is not yet clear just what sort of provisions the Conference would endorse.
Meanwhile the nation has heard from Roger Mahony, who is the cardinal of Los Angeles. Cardinal Mahony has taken the extraordinary step of enjoining his flock simply to defy any congressional act that incorporates the features of the House bill — on the grounds that to comply would be to collaborate with injustice.
Now the good cardinal, whose motives we must as a matter of Christian forbearance accept as humanitarian, has got to be sharply rebuked by the Conference of Bishops. Begin with the basic question: The writing of the law is a democratic exercise. To call for disobedience to the law is acceptable behavior when such law transgresses upon the city of God. The laws that called for the annihilation of the Jewish race violated the city of God. Proposed laws that would punish citizens who deliberately help to defeat or to circumvent immigration laws aren't inherently defiant of the prerogatives of a democratic community. Cardinal Mahony's contumacy has to be rejected for what it is, never mind what the Senate ends up doing in the matter of formulating fresh rules to enforce policies which have not been enforced.
President Bush endorsed the House bill and asks the Senate to act on it. He hardly understands himself to be rejecting the canon of Christian behavior towards our fellow men by making the point that free and independent societies have the right to prescribe immigration codes, and need especially to reject such distortions of Christian dogma and practice as invite the wrong kind of attention to appropriate divisions between church and state. (Thanks to NRO for the heads up.)
Jonah Goldberg has more on spotting conservative toddlers using modern phrenology.
Did you ever wonder if your kid had a play date with the next Hitler? Or the next Condi Rice?
Remember the cocky, arrogant kid in nursery school, the one who always thought that he had all the answers and that he could do whatever he wanted, and was always ignoring what the teacher had to say? Chances are this bully grew up to be a conservative.
Right now, I have no doubt that some liberal readers are nodding their heads and saying, "Yes! That makes total sense. Conservatives are such bullies!"
Well, according to the latest "scientific" study this is nonsense. In fact, it's the other way around.
Here's the lead from a story in the Toronto Star about a new study in The Journal of Research Into Personality: "Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative."
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley — of course — found that of the roughly 100 kids they tracked for 20 years, starting in nursery school, the whiny kids were more likely to become conservatives.
UC Berkeley professor Jack Block's theory, according to the Star, is that insecure kids look for "reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial."
I wonder if Silent Bob has a theory as well...You know, Jack Black and Jack Block? Silent Bob...get it? Oh, never mind.
Ah yes, in Berkeley, Calif., nothing is more rebellious to the status quo than being a liberal. Why, they must be pariahs at the local organic food co-op. I mean, it's just plain heroic to embrace liberal politics in a town where residents cast 90 percent of their votes for John Kerry and only 6.6 percent of their votes for Bush.
Heehee.
But don't nominate these mavericks for a Profiles in Courage award just yet. If you read down to the 15th paragraph in the story, you'll discover that there was "a .27 correlation between being self-reliant in nursery school and being a liberal as an adult." In other words, self-reliance explains seven percent of the variance between kids who bravely became liberal and tykes who supinely embraced conservative politics.
Oopsie. Someone's been screwing with science again.
One obvious problem with this sort of analysis is that the single best predictor of partisan affiliation is the political orientation of your parents. In Berkeley, the most liberal majority-white city in America, most kids are going to be liberal because their parents are liberal. If one or two of the whinier kids turn out to be conservative, it might have more to do with the fact that their parents are whiny conservatives. Heck, if I lived in Berkeley, I might be whiny too.
To call these sorts of studies entirely useless is probably unfair. No doubt Block has more or less accurately charted the path of his subjects. And even he concedes that the study tells us little about the rest of the country. But it's also pretty clear that Block wants to find psychologically satisfying explanations for what makes people conservatives. (Emphasis mine.) It's not hard to imagine that if the whiny, sniveling brats turned out to be liberals, he would explain this as proof that liberals are born more emotionally sensitive and with a greater acuity for spotting injustice.
One reason this isn't hard to imagine is that this is a very, very old game. Ever since Theodor Adorno came out with his scandalously flawed Authoritarian Personality in 1950, liberal and leftist social scientists have been trying to diagnose conservatism as a psychological defect or sickness. (That's not science. That's trying to bully others into agreeing with your fantasies. - F. G.) Adorno and his colleagues argued that conservatism was little more than a "pre-fascist" "personality type." According to this school, sympathy for communism was an indication of openness and healthy idealism. (Heehee! - F.G.) Opposition to communism was a symptom of your more deep-seated pathologies and fascist tendencies. According to Adorno, subjects who saw Nazism and Stalinism as similar phenomena were demonstrating their "idiocy" and "irrationality." Psychological counseling, many argued, could cure these maladies. But for some it was too late. In 1964, an ad in the New York Times reported that 1,189 psychiatrists determined that Barry Goldwater was not "psychologically fit" to be president.
Ahhh, the good old days...before all this partisanship.
In 2003, another Berkeley study, led by John T. Jost, reviewed four decades of research of conservatism and found that conservatives tended to be fear-driven dogmatists, terrified by ambiguity. The study linked Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The findings were hardly surprising since they basically recapped the branch of "scholarship" launched by Adorno.
Yet another Berkeley professor, George Lakoff, has convinced leading Democrats that psychology is the best way to tackle politics. People see things through "frames," according to Lakoff, and if Democrats could simply recast those frames in their favor, conservatives would see the light. Howard Dean calls Lakoff "one of the most influential political thinkers of the progressive movement."
There's a credible endorsement.
Perhaps the more revealing psychological insight can be found in the fact that so many liberals think disagreeing with them is a form of psychosis.
(Thanks to National Review Online for the heads up.)
Whatever happened to...
...Roxanne Pulitzer?
Who cares? Beats me.
I don't really care. Sometimes one is simply curious.
Roxanne Pulitzer was a Cinderella tale gone horribly wrong who came out on the losing end of a sensational divorce trial in 1983 with Herbert "Peter" Pulitzer, a wealthy real estate mogul and grandson of the famed publisher.
In the media-circus trial she was accused of being an "incorrigible coke slut" and an unfit mother who "humped almost everything she could get her hands on". The most outrageous accusation was that she had "slept with a trumpet" leading to the moniker "the strumpet with the trumpet".
She parlayed her notoriety into an appearance in Playboy in June 1985.
After that, Roxanne wrote a few books. And there was that made-for-tv-movie written from her point of view.
Here's an update from kathleenbush.com:
For many years, Roxanne lived in high society, but that was not where she came from—quite the contrary. She grew up in a small town outside Buffalo , New York . Her father abandoned her when she was four, leaving behind a wife and four children. "It was tough growing up, but I have a great family who grounded me and instilled morals and values in me," she said. Roxanne started working at 10-years-old; she ironed clothes, picked apples and grapes and said she did just about "everything." She also put herself through college in Florida , where she majored in anatomy and physiology. To pay for school, Roxanne sold life insurance. Her mentor's client was Peter Pulitzer, who she became acquainted with in '74 and later married in '76. "I married someone who had quite a bit of wealth," she said. "I didn't get any settlement or alimony when we divorced, so I went back to where I had been, a working girl living in an apartment, teaching aerobics for four or five years. In June of '85, I posed for Playboy Magazine in order to pay lawyer fees for the landmark Pulitzer versus Pulitzer case, which made it to the Supreme Court. Life has been a roller-coaster ride, but I never forget what I did, where I came from, and how I got there. So there is nothing that makes me afraid of losing the materialistic things—as I am sure I can get them back on my own." In '88, Villard, a division of Random House, contacted Roxanne to write a book titled Prize Pulitzer . Making it onto the New York Times bestseller's list, this book was later turned into a made for- TV movie. After that, Random House contracted Roxanne to write several more books.
It wasn't until '99, that Tim Boberg and Roxanne Pulitzer encountered each other. They met in Palm Beach , Florida , where Roxanne had spent most of her adult life. A mutual friend threw a party for Boberg. The two were instantly attracted to each other; most likely because their lives seemed to have paralleled each other's—both criss-crossed the economic vortex. Like Pulitzer, Boberg was born into a poor family in Chicago , near a wealthy suburb. Boberb saw himself as the kid from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks because he grew up in a modest, one-bathroom home, while many of his friends had Rolls Royces and Bentleys parked in their driveways. "It never really bothered me or my parents," said Boberg. "It gave me an idea of what the good life could be and what you could achieve if you worked hard. That is what I did; I worked hard and I was very lucky. It also taught me that those people [the rich] are really no smarter or better than anyone; the only difference are the possessions they have."
Similarly, Boberg worked his way through college. He attended a small liberal arts school, where he jokingly claims he majored in beer with a double minor in business and economics. After spending 35 years in Chicago , Boberg moved to Brazil for two years. During the two years, he adapted to the weather and found Chicago winters unbearable upon his return. He didn't last more than six weeks in the city before heading to Hilton Head for 10 years and then off to Miami for another 10 years, where he founded a highly successful productivity consulting firm. This is the time frame he met and fell in love with Roxanne.
When the two knew they wanted to share a life together, they started exploring options in ski resort towns. Aspen had too much attitude. Jackson Hole was too cold. It ultimately came down to Telluride; they found the climate as pleasant as the people. In January '01, they ventured into a new life—a mountain life, followed shortly thereafter by retirement. "We've both retired since moving here. We are into a different stage of our lives," said Pulitzer. "I have never put this much time and effort into decorating and building a home. I was really worried about Tim being home seven days a week. I thought he was going to hate retirement, but I totally pegged him wrong."
Pulitzer and Boberg embrace this lifestyle change. She has taken up gardening; while his passion for art has evolved into architecture. She spends her days caring for 92-plus plants and looks forward to raising orchids this summer. He, on the other hand, supervises a 13,600-square-foot addition to their home, equipped with a bowling alley—a birthday gift to Pulitzer. Most days you'll find them dressed in casual jeans, t-shirts and slippers looking like young love birds. He calls her Rox. He is her baby. They find mountain living refreshing, particularly on the days they are on the slopes skiing or taking a hikes into Telluride's splendid countryside. The laid-back atmosphere of Telluride is an easy transition from their high-society days. They admit they are finally black-tied out. They relish the peace and serenity of the mountains.
The Michael and Cathryn Borden Memorial Book of the Day.*
From a review of Peter Brock's
Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting, Journalism and Tragedy in Yugoslavia
by Professor Edward Herman in Z Magazine (12/29/2005):
The huge irony that Brock reveals so clearly is that the media co-belligerents, pushing relentlessly for more aggressive action, supposedly in the interests of stopping ethnic cleansing and killing, played into the hands of parties with a political agenda that assured and produced far more ethnic cleansing and killing than might have taken place without their bellicosity and war propaganda service. The same irony is clear in Johnstone’s and Mandel’s volumes that deal with the ends and means of the indigenous and external participants. The focus on “justice” as opposed to peace, and the demonizing of the Serbs and making them the unique group needing punishment, was the vehicle used by Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic and his close associates, and Clinton/Albright and Kohl-Genscher and their associates, to prevent a peaceful settlement--most importantly in backing out of the 1992 Lisbon Agreement--and to work incessantly to get NATO to intervene militarily on behalf, first, of Izetbegovic and the Bosnian Muslims and then the Kosovo Liberation Army and Kosovo Albanians. Brock shows that the media served these pro-violence and anti-peace ends relentlessly and effectively.
He argues convincingly that this was a model case of “pack journalism,” and also of what has been called “advocacy journalism” or “the journalism of attachment.” The journalists were quickly convinced that good was fighting evil, or that it was obligatory and less risky to take this as a given, and so they joined the pack and became advocates attached to the supposed good side and their victims. This was aided in the Balkans by the fact that most of the journalists didn’t know the language or history of the area, and that, because of the threat of bodily harm in trying to do real journalism, they tended to congregate in protected areas—many of them, as one cynical observer noted, only reported what they saw “150 meters on either side of the Holiday Inn” (General Lewis MacKenzie).
This made them dependent for “news” on one another and on the official sources happy to service their needs. As they stayed in the part of Sarajevo controlled by the Bosnian Muslims, they, along with U.S. officials, were the main sources of news, and as Brock notes they were hardly aware of the existence of a large Serb population in Sarajevo, some 50,000 of whose members left or were driven out of the city. The pack were even unaware of the exodus of the Jewish population of Sarajevo (pp. 131-3), quietly threatened by the dominant Muslims and recalling well (like the Serbs) the murderous behavior of the Muslims and Croats in the era of Nazi rule during World War II.
The pack journalists in Sarajevo (and elsewhere in the Balkans) were thus highly manageable, knowing the broader truth in advance, dispensing with notions of substantive objectivity and balance, and on the hunt for stories that would both confirm the institutionalized bias--and therefore please their editors at home--and advance the cause that they advocated and for which they campaigned. Journalists like David Rieff, Roy Gutman and Ed Vulliamy openly acknowledged that they were campaigners for more aggressive NATO intervention (i.e., war), and they were by no means alone.
* Who? Look here.
The NYT is consistent, all right. You gotta give 'em that...
...or, maybe I should call it Goober II's Dirty War Legacy and His Media Whores Who Made It Possible.
Former NY Times Reporter: '93 Pulitzer Should be Revoked
(CNSNews.com) - Castigating the press for "journalistic crimes" committed during its reporting on the Balkans wars of the 1990s, retired New York Times reporter David Binder claims the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting awarded to both the Times and New York's Newsday "should, in all fairness and honesty, be revoked."
Binder was speaking at a press conference for the release of a new book criticizing the war reporting. Binder wrote the foreword to the book by Peter Brock, titled "Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting, Journalism and Tragedy in Yugoslavia."
That looks like today's Michael and Cathryn Borden Memorial Book of the Day.
"What we're looking at here is a series catalogued by Peter Brock of journalistic crimes," said Binder. Before mentioning the reporting of the Times' John F. Burns and Newsday's Roy Gutman, Binder evoked the memory of what he called Walter Duranty's "phony reporting" for the New York Times in the 1930s as an example of an undeserved Pulitzer. Duranty was criticized for having been too deferential to Joseph Stalin and his plan to industrialize the Soviet Union.
Walter who? Look here .
"What Peter [Brock] has unraveled and disclosed in this book involves at least a couple of Pulitzer prizes that should in all fairness and honesty be revoked." Binder confirmed to Cybercast News Service that he was referring to the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, awarded to Burns of the New York Times and Gutman of Newsday for their reporting in the Balkans. Brock devotes considerable space in his book to criticizing the reporting of Burns and Gutman.
Binder noted that the Times has gone through "agony" in recent years over the "terrible professional behavior of its staff members" and with "what has gone on under its masthead."
"[E]xposure is the best remedy," said Binder.
It hasn't forced them to clean up their act yet. Neither has declining readership.
"I think Peter Brock's book helps a great deal to confront these egregious crimes of journalism. I think it should be shoved under the noses of editors all across the press, at least the editors who are dealing with foreign news ..." said Binder.
The Pulitzer Board at first voted to award the prize solely to Gutman, according to Binder. "The New York Times got so agitated that John Burns was passed over that they started lobbying the board. The Pulitzer is an extremely political award in many if not all cases. There are all kinds of backstage manipulations that go on."
Could that be the problem, kiddies? Could it really?
Sorry, but I can't take the Pulitzer Prize seriously. For example: Whatever happened to Roxanne Pulitzer?
The centerpiece of Burns' Pulitzer entry was a seven-hour interview with a captured Bosnian Serb -- Borislav Herak -- who in graphic statements to Burns, confessed to dozens of murders, including eight involving rape. Burns' Nov. 27, 1992, article was described by the New York Times as offering "insight into the way thousands of others have died in Bosnia."
However, more than three years after the publication of Burns' story, the Times on Jan. 31, 1996, described Herak as "slightly retarded" and reported that Herak had retracted his confession and claimed it had been beaten out of him by guards.
"I was tortured, forced to confess," said Herak. By that time his testimony already had been used to convict Sretko Damjanovic for the killing of two Muslim brothers who were later found alive. Both Herak and Damjanovic, who also said he had been "tortured" into providing a false confession, were sentenced to death by firing squad.
Author Peter Brock described Burns' interview with Herak as "a manipulated confession and interrogation in which Burns was the key participant." Brock faults Burns for failing to tell readers that the interview took place with a Sarajevo video production crew present and that "interrogations were conducted by [government] investigators and by Sarajevo film director Ademir Kenovic."
He also argues that "vital pieces" of Herak's story were missing. "[T]here was no evidence, corpses or victims, or eyewitnesses to implicate Herak, except for hearsay from Bosnian government 'investigators,'" Brock writes.
Brock also faults Newsday's Roy Gutman for being unduly influenced by government propagandists including one source who operated under four different aliases. Gutman was criticized for not exercising enough scrutiny before repeating allegations of atrocities and statistics of the dead and tortured.
Gutman won his Pulitzer partly for "electrifying stories about 'concentration camps'," notes Brock, who criticizes the reporter for the prominence of "hearsay" and "double hearsay" in his stories, as well as gratuitous use of the language of the Nazi Holocaust.
Gutman's first five stories about the alleged Omarska concentration camp in Bosnia were actually filed from Zagreb, in Croatia, Brock complains. It was Gutman's sixth story on the subject that finally carried an Omarska dateline, Brock wrote, and that was after the prison had been shut down.
Both Binder and Brock accuse the press of falling into "pack journalism" and playing the role of "co-belligerent." The reliance on Croat and Bosnian Muslim propaganda resulted in distorted reporting that exaggerated the Serb role in the three-sided conflict and ignored ethnic cleansing of Serbs, according to Binder and Brock.
Brock went so far as to say the $3,000 Pulitzer Prize money awarded to Burns and Gutman was "blood money."
"What we're talking about in terms of what I call crimes of journalism was only ten years ago," said Binder. "It wasn't so long ago that these, I think revolting things, were happening -- revolting bias, revolting suppression of other sides of the story."
During his recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Binder said it would take "at least a decade" before historians "clear out that wretched underbrush of lies and concoctions" from "despicable" politicians "like Richard Holbrooke," an international negotiator during the administration of former President Bill Clinton and "certainly the journalists" criticized in Brock's book. The rise of blogs and media watchdog groups offers a "corrective" for the public now, Binder contended.
In his call for the revocation of the Pulitzer Prize Peter Brock said that "in all fairness, if [the Pulitzer board] is not going to revoke the prize, they ought to give Janet Cooke's Pulitzer back." Cooke was a Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer for a fabricated 1980 story about an eight-year old heroin addict.
Janet Cooke, an oldie but baddie. It is hard to believe it has been twenty-five years...
Bonus Fyodor's Headlinks.
Bayinsider: Teacher Debra Lafave Won't Face Student Sex Charges
State prosecutors are dropping the charges against former Tampa teacher Debra Lafave, who was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student.
Forgot Debbie's 15 minutes? Part 19: SEX IS DEATH. (Hot for teacher) is here. (More on Debbie here.)
Daily Mail: Underage sex 'link' to media
Children exposed to sex in TV programmes, films, magazines and music are more likely to engage in sexual activity than those who are not, according to research out today.
There is a direct relationship between the amount of sexual content a child sees and their level of sexual activity or their intentions to have sex in the future, the study found.
Such media also has at least an equal influence on sexual behaviour as religion or a child's relationship with their parents and peers, the study said.
It concluded that the media is an "important source" of information about sex for teenagers who might not get advice elsewhere.
More than 1,000 American children aged between 12 and 15 were asked to identify from a huge list the kinds of media they were exposed to regularly.
They also answered questions about their health and levels of sexual activity, including whether they went on dates, kissed, had oral sex or full sex.
Researchers then examined the sexual content of 264 items on the list, which included teen magazines, teen movies and TV programmes.
In Pyongyang, no one can hear you scream...
Drudge: SHOCK: N.Korean defector says disabled newborns are killed...
North Korea has no people with physical disabilities because they are killed almost as soon as they are born, a physician who defected from the communist state said on Wednesday.
Shock? Who is still shocked by the depravity of those in rebellion against God and His good order?
Remember Fyodor's Rule #4: Always believe the worst about commies. (It helps prepare you to face the horror.)
Religion of Peace and Love AND My Genius Italian Cousins Combined Update.
Do you think they notice it's us infidels who actually seem to care about them?
Italian Co. Designs Jeans -- for Muslims...
They're high around the waist, wide around the leg and have lots of pockets for holding watches, bracelets, glasses and other knickknacks.
A new line of jeans designed by a small company in northern Italy caters to Muslims seeking to stay comfortable while they pray.
"As far as we know we're the first, at least in Italy," said Luca Corradi, who designed Al Quds jeans.
The bagginess is to ensure the wearer avoids stiffness while bending down repeatedly during prayers. The pockets are for holding all the accessories Muslims have to take off while they worship. And the jeans have green seams — because green is the sacred color of Islam.
Al Quds representatives said a year of research and testing went into the product, with models being asked to try different versions of the jeans while they prayed.
Abdel Hamid Shaari, president of the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, said low-priced jeans specifically designed to keep Muslims comfortable could open up a big market in Islamic countries and countries with large Muslim populations.
"This could be a good idea, thinking of the comfort," said Shaari, who used to be a production manager for Italy's Carrera jeans. (Thanks to Drudge for the heads up.)
Fyodor's Headlinks.
Stories that have nothing in common...OR DO THEY?
STUDY CLAIMS: Confident, resilient, self-reliant kids grow up to be liberals; Whiny children: conservatives...
...which is really ironic, because nobody whines like an "adult" left-fascist.
And behold the totalitarian impulse:
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: 'FUN IS MAKING DECISIONS THAT HAVE EFFECT ON AMERICANS'...
Thanks to Drudge for these links.
Super Bowl XL Champion Steelers Update.
From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
Carter's brother gets 5 years for SB XL delay
The brother of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Tyrone Carter had his sentence for driving with a revoked license increased from six months to five years because he failed to report to jail on time.
Tank Carter was scheduled to report to a Broward County prison on Jan. 6, but decided against it when his brother told him the Steelers had a good chance of going to the Super Bowl. On Tuesday, Broward Circuit Judge Stanton S. Kaplan increased the sentence.
"Even knowing what I know now, I would do it again," Carter said. "It was the greatest game in my life."
Carter watched the Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks from the 50-yard line in Detroit and partied with rapper Snoop Dogg after the game.
The brothers have been close since growing up in a rough section of Pompano Beach.
"I would have done the same thing," Tyrone Carter said of his brother's decision. Winning the Super Bowl meant "we finally made it together."
Report: Dwight shuns Steelers, signs with Jets
Although the New York Jets would not confirm it late Tuesday night, the team reportedly signed veteran New England Patriots wide receiver/kick returner Tim Dwight yesterday.
Dwight, who visited the Steelers yesterday afternoon, is an eight-year veteran out of Iowa. He was viewed by the Steelers as a partial replacement for Antwaan Randle El, who signed with the Washington Redskins 10 days ago.
Jets sign Kimo von Oelhoffen
The New York Jets agreed on a three-year, $9.2 million deal with defensive end Kimo von Oelhoffen on Tuesday night, his agent said. (2006-03-15)
Steelers retain Brett Keisel
Brett Keisel entered unrestricted free agency convinced he was the Steelers' top priority and desperately wanting to return to the team that gave him his shot in the NFL. (2006-03-15)
Steelers sign free safety Ryan Clark
The Pittsburgh Steelers not only anointed Brett Keisel their defensive end of the future Tuesday, they also locked in former Washington Redskins free safety Ryan Clark. (2006-03-15)
NFL roundup: Steelers new seats UPDATED
Good news if you're near the bottom of the Steelers season ticket waiting list: You're about to move up 700 places. (2006-03-16)
Steelers stay busy in free agency
The Steelers continued their whirlwind run through free agency Wednesday by making several maneuvers. (2006-03-16)
Taylor drawing interest
Steelers notebook: Restricted free agent cornerback Ike Taylor, who received a $1.55 million tender from the Steelers, has attracted interest from other teams. (2006-03-16)
Prisuta: So far, so good
Morgan's return would complete free-agent tweaking of Steelers. (2006-03-16)
Titans sign safety Chris Hope
The Tennessee Titans agreed to a six-year contract with free-agent safety Chris Hope on Wednesday. (2006-03-16)
Steelers sign Rodney Bailey
As expected, veteran defensive end Rodney Bailey, formerly of the Seattle Seahawks, signed a one-year deal with the Steelers on Thursday. (2006-03-17)
Steelers re-sign Deshea Townsend
The Pittsburgh Steelers on Friday re-signed cornerback Deshea Townsend, giving him a four-year contract. (2006-03-17)
Steelers re-sign Deshea Townsend
Deshea Townsend followed his heart -- and a pretty decent paycheck -- back to the Steelers. (2006-03-18)
Cowher to spend more time in N.C.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher said Friday that while he definitely will return to coach the Steelers next year, he and his wife also plan to spend more time in Raleigh. (2006-03-18)
Steelers stone stolen from fan's grave
Jason Raab was such a Pittsburgh Steelers fan that when the 24-year-old Wellington man died nine years ago, his family had the Steelers logo engraved on his headstone. (2006-03-19)
Police investigate theft of Steelers golf cart
State police at Greensburg are investigating the theft of a Pittsburgh Steelers edition golf cart. (2006-03-20)
NFL roundup: Steelers sign Mays
Wide receiver Lee Mays, a sixth-round draft pick in 2002, re-signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday after finishing up the season with the Super Bowl champions. (2006-03-20)
Dan Rooney praises Tagliabue
Dan Rooney became the answer to a trivia question Monday. (2006-03-21)
Supremes spike Steelers suit
The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear the case of a Steelers fan who claimed taxpayers in National Football League cities have been fleeced by building expensive new stadiums to help rich team owners get richer. (2006-03-21)
...which brings me to another Fox product, "The Shield".
In case you have never seen The Shield during its four seasons on FX, you are not missing anything. It stinks out loud. But I cannot stop watching it.
It is worse than the traffic accident at which you feel compelled to slow down and gape. The Shield is more like a mass escape at your friendly neighborhood asylum after which all the patients take over the town.
I mean everyone on this show is psychotic. And not your cute and endearing harmless little psychoses, either. Everyone from the City Council to the cops to the hookers to the street vendors to the crooks to the victims...EVERYONE on this show is a violent, deranged pervert of one sort or another.
It doesn't say much about Your Humble Servant that he can't stop watching this cesspool.
24's Body Count Update.
From Right Wing Nuthouse:
BODY COUNT
The Grim Reaper took the night off.
UPDATE
Long time House reader Hector informs me that Grandma Hayes mentioned that 56 CTU employees bit the dust in the nerve gas attack. Since I only used the figure 55 (given by Bill) we will add one more to the show’s blood total.
JACK: 15
SHOW: 143
Minneapolis Region - Third and Fourth Rounds
At Minneapolis, MN on Friday 3/24
1 Villanova vs. 4 Boston College
Old Big East foes rematch. I gotta go with Villanova here.
FINAL: Villanova 60 BC 59 (OT) - Fyodor wins!
3 Florida vs. 7 Georgetown
I'm going with my heart here. Hoyas continue their run and take out the Gators.
FINAL: Florida 57 Georgetown 53 - Fyodor loses! (Billy Donovan must have found an assistant who can coach defense. Great season for the Hoyas.)
At Minneapolis, MN on Sunday 3/26
1 Villanova vs. 3 Florida
Wildcats need to shoot much better to beat the Gators. I think they will. 'Nova goes to the Final Four.
FINAL: Florida 75 Villanova 62 - Fyodor loses! (WRONG!WRONG! WRONG! No shootee, no winee!)
Washington, D.C. Region - Third and Fourth Rounds
At Washington, DC on Friday 3/24
1 Connecticut vs. 5 Washington
Connecticut hasn't played a complete game in the tourney yet. If they think they can coast past Washington, they will lose. Somehow, Coach Calhoun will make sure that does not happen.
FINAL: Connecticut 98 Washington 92 (OT) - Fyodor wins! (Connecticut wins another while not playing their best. Can it continue?)
7 Wichita State vs. 11 George Mason
At least one Cinderella will get to the Round of Eight. I'll take Mason here because they beat Wichita at Wichita in the regular season.
FINAL: George Mason 63 Wichita State 55 - Fyodor wins! (Cinderella lives to dance another day.)
At Washington, D.C. on Sunday 3/26
1 Connecticut vs. 11 George Mason
Your Humble Servant goes nuts here and picks the Patriots to go to the Final Four!
FINAL: George Mason 86 Connecticut 84 (OT) - Fyodor wins! (Wowee wow wow wow! A great game! This is why we watch, kiddies.)
Oakland Region - Third and Fourth Rounds
At Oakland, CA on Thursday 3/23
1 Memphis vs. 13 Bradley
Memphis looks better than they have all year. Bradley's big man has NBA potential. I'll have to take the deeper Tigers.
FINAL: Memphis 80 Bradley 64 - Fyodor wins! (Memphis hasn't had the toughest draw, but they do look good.)
2 UCLA vs. 3 Gonzaga
For the sake of bracket integrity, I'll take the Bulldogs, but the Bruins can now play defense and have an excellent chance to win.
FINAL: UCLA 73 Gonzaga 71 - Fyodor loses! (Congrats to the Bruins, but when each team plays only half a game, the one that plays the second half usually wins. That being said, Mr. Batista pulled three boneheaded plays in the last two minutes to cost his team the game.)
At Oakland, CA on Saturday 3/25
1 Memphis vs. 2 UCLA
I will go with Memphis here even though I think UCLA is hotter.
FINAL: UCLA 50 Memphis 45 - Fyodor loses! (Another ugly game. Bruins' D is for real.
Atlanta Region - Third and Fourth Rounds
At Atlanta, GA on Thursday 3/23
1 Duke vs. 4 LSU
I think this is a good place to go against Duke, but I'm going to wait another round. Devils win.
FINAL: LSU 62 Duke 54 - Fyodor loses! (Easily the ugliest game of the year. Congrats to LSU for holding Duke to 30% shooting. The Tigers better do the same to their next opponent or else start shooting better themselves.)
2 Texas vs. 6 WVU
My heart says Mountaineers (especially since Texas can't stop the "3") but my bracket says Longhorns. Texas will win.
FINAL: Texas 74 WVU 71 - Fyodor wins! (Congrats to Mr. Paulino - paisan! - on the game winning shot. WVU just had to play some defense down the stretch and grab a couple of rebounds and they would have won it. Anyway, nice comeback by the Mountaineers.)
At Atlanta, GA on Saturday 3/25
2 Texas vs. 4 LSU
My brackets being long since destroyed, I'll take Texas here. I don't think they'll lose their composure against the Tigers like Duke (!!!!) did.
FINAL: LSU 70 Texas 60 - Fyodor loses! (Once again, I under-estimated LSU's big men.)
Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.
Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay brother and one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.
Today's reading is Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20.
Today's Gospel reading is Matthew 5:17-19.
[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]
Everyday links:
The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTN
National Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today
Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is
The Apostles Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.
Memorare
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.
Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire
Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)
Prayer To Saint Michael The Archangel
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
They should have gone with a jury of their cowardly peers.
ABOVE: In case you wanted to see what Faheem looked like...
...and in case you were wondering what happened to the bad guys...
Guilty Verdicts In Faheem Thomas-Childs Case
From CBS 3 in Philadelphia:
Two men were found guilty Thursday of fatally shooting a 10-year-old boy outside his elementary school, a case that bedeviled authorities for months because witnesses were reluctant to come forward.
Kennell Spady, 21, and Kareem Johnson, 22, were charged with first-degree murder for their roles in a wild gunfight that caught Faheem Thomas-Childs in the crossfire, killing him as he walked to school on Feb. 11, 2004.
The non-jury trial over the past several weeks had been a nightmare for prosecutors, with at least eight witnesses recanting their statements to police. One woman allegedly was coached by her father as she took the stand to say, “I don’t remember.”
The case was seen as a textbook example of the code of silence that permeates many violent neighborhoods, with residents fearful of being seen as “snitches” and suffering retaliation.
Dozens of people saw more than 90 bullets fly outside Thomas-Childs’ elementary school in North Philadelphia, but few came forward despite authorities offering a $100,000 reward and witness protection.
Those that did changed their stories once they got to court.
The Theology of the Body: 65. The Living God Continually Renews the Very Reality of Life
In his General Audience of 18 November 1981, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on theology of the body, by returning to the words of Christ to the Sadducees on the general resurrection. They deny the resurrection because they doubt the power of God.
The Living God Continually Renews the Very Reality of Life
At the General Audience on Wednesday, 18 November, in the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father continued his catechetical series on the theology of the body, delivering the following address.
1. "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God" (Mt 22:29), Christ said to the Sadducees, who—rejecting faith in the future resurrection of the body—had proposed to him the following case: "Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother" (according to the Mosaic law of the "levirate"). "So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife?" (Mt 22:25-28)
Christ answers the Sadducees by stating, at the beginning and at the end of his reply, that they were greatly mistaken, not knowing either the Scriptures or the power of God (cf. Mk 12:24; Mt 22:29). Since the conversation with the Sadducees is reported by all three synoptic Gospels, let us briefly compare the texts in question.
2. Matthew's version (22:24-30), although it does not refer to the burning bush, agrees almost completely with that of Mark (12:18-25). Both versions contain two essential elements: 1) the enunciation about the future resurrection of the body; 2) the enunciation about the state of the body of risen man.(1) These two elements are also found in Luke (20:27-36).(2) Especially in Matthew and Mark, the first element, concerning the future resurrection of the body, is combined with the words addressed to the Sadducees, according to which they "know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God." This statement deserves particular attention, because in it Christ defined the foundations of faith in the resurrection, to which he had referred in answering the question posed by the Sadducees with the concrete example of the Mosaic levirate law.
Admitting the reality of life after death
3. Unquestionably, the Sadducees treated the question of resurrection as a type of theory or hypothesis which can be disproved.(3) Jesus first shows them an error of method, that they do not know the Scriptures. Then he showed them an error of substance, that they do not accept what is revealed by the Scriptures—they do not know the power of God—they do not believe in him who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush. It is a significant and very precise answer. Here Christ encounters men who consider themselves experts and competent interpreters of the Scriptures. To these men—that is, to the Sadducees—Jesus replies that mere literal knowledge of Scripture is not sufficient. The Scriptures are above all a means to know the power of the living God who reveals himself in them, just as he revealed himself to Moses in the bush. In this revelation he called himself "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob"(4) of those, therefore, who had been Moses' ancestors in the faith that springs from the revelation of the living God. They had all been dead for a long time. However, Christ completed the reference to them with the statement that God "is not God of the dead, but of the living." This statement, in which Christ interprets the words addressed to Moses from the burning bush, can be understood only if one admits the reality of a life which death did not end. Moses' fathers in faith, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are living persons for God (cf. Lk 20:38, "for all live for him"), although according to human criteria, they must be numbered among the dead. To reread the Scriptures correctly, and in particular the aforementioned words of God, means to know and accept with faith the power of the Giver of life, who is not bound by the law of death which rules man's earthly history.
Christ's answer
4. It seems that Christ's answer to the Sadducees about the possibility of resurrection,(5) according to the version of all three synoptics, is to be interpreted in this way. The moment would come in which Christ would give the answer on this matter with his own resurrection. However, for now he referred to the testimony of the Old Testament, showing how to discover there the truth about immortality and resurrection. It is necessary to do so not by dwelling only on the sound of the words, but by going back to the power of God which is revealed by those words. The reference to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in that theophany granted to Moses, of which we read in the Book of Exodus (3:2-6), constitutes a testimony that the living God gives to those who live "for him"—to those who, thanks to his power, have life, even if according to the dimensions of history, it would be necessary to include them among those who have been dead for a long time.
5. The full significance of this testimony, which Jesus referred to in his conversation with the Sadducees, could be grasped (still only in the light of the Old Testament) in the following way: He who is—he who lives and is Life—is the inexhaustible source of existence and of life, as is revealed at the "beginning," in Genesis (cf. Gn 1:3). Due to sin, physical death has become man's lot (cf. Gn 3:19),(83) and he has been forbidden (cf. Gn 3:22) access to the Tree of Life (the great symbol of the book of Genesis). Yet the living God, making his covenant with man (Abraham, the patriarchs, Moses, Israel), continually renews, in this covenant, the reality of life. He reveals its perspective again and in a certain sense opens access again to the Tree of Life. Along with the covenant, this life, whose source is God himself, is communicated to those men who, as a result of breaking the first covenant, had lost access to the Tree of Life, and, in the dimensions of their earthly history, had been subject to death.
Power and testimony of the living God
6. Christ is God's ultimate word on this subject. The covenant, which with him and for him is established between God and mankind, opens an infinite perspective of life. Access to the Tree of Life—according to the original plan of the God of the covenant—is revealed to every man in its definitive fullness. This will be the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ. This will be the testimony of the paschal mystery. However, the conversation with the Sadducees took place in the pre-paschal phase of Christ's messianic mission. The course of the conversation according to Matthew (22:24-30), Mark (12:18-27), and Luke (20:27-36) manifests that Christ—who had spoken several times, especially in talks with his disciples, of the future resurrection of the Son of Man (cf., e.g., Mt 17:9, 23; 20:19 and parallels)—did not refer to this matter in the conversation with the Sadducees. The reasons are obvious and clear. The discussion was with the Sadducees, "who say that there is no resurrection" (as the evangelist stresses). That is, they questioned its very possibility. At the same time they considered themselves experts on the Old Testament Scriptures, and qualified interpreters of them. That is why Jesus referred to the Old Testament and showed, on its basis, that they did "not know the power of God."(7)
7. Regarding the possibility of resurrection, Christ referred precisely to that power which goes hand in hand with the testimony of the living God, who is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob—and the God of Moses. God, whom the Sadducees "deprived" of this power, was no longer the true God of their fathers, but the God of their hypotheses and interpretations. Christ, on the contrary, had come to bear witness to the God of life in the whole truth of his power which is unfolded upon human life.
NOTES
1. Although the expression "the resurrection of the body" is not known in the New Testament. (It will appear for the first time in St. Clement: 2 Clem 9:1; and in Justin: Dial 80:5.) which uses the expression "resurrection of the dead," intending thereby man in his integrity, it is possible, however, to find in many New Testament texts faith in the immortality of the soul and its existence also outside the body (cf., for example, Lk 23:43; Phil 1:23-24; 2 Cor 5:6-8).
2. Luke's text contains some new elements which are an object of discussion among exegetes.
3. As is known, in the Judaism of that period there was no clearly formulated doctrine concerning the resurrection; there existed only the various theories launched by the individual schools.
The Pharisees, who cultivated theological speculation, greatly developed the doctrine on the resurrection, seeing allusions to it in all the Old Testament books. They understood the future resurrection, however, in an earthly and primitive way, announcing, for example, an enormous increase of crops and of fertility in life after the resurrection.
The Sadducees, on the other hand, polemicized with such a conception, starting from the premise that the Pentateuch does not speak of eschatology. It must also be kept in mind that in the first century the canon of the Old Testament books had not yet been established.
The case presented by the Sadducees directly attacks the Pharisaic concept of the resurrection. In fact, the Sadducees were of the opinion that Christ was one of their followers.
Christ's answer equally corrects the conceptions of the Pharisees and those of the Sadducees.
4. This expression does not mean: "God who was honored by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," but: "God who took care of the patriarchs and liberated them."
This formula returns in Ex 3:6; 3:15, 16; 4:5, always in the context of the promised liberation of Israel. The name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a token and guarantee of this liberation.
The God of X is synonymous with help, support and shelter for Israel. A similar sense is found in Gn 49:24: "God of Jacob—the Shepherd and Rock of Israel, the God of your Fathers who will help you" (cf. Gn 49:24-25; cf. also Gn 24:27; 26:24; 28:13; 32:10; 46:3).
Cf. F. Dreyfus, O.P., "L'argument scripturaire de Jesus en faveur de la résurrection des morts (Mk 12:26-27)," Revue Biblique, Vol. 66 (1959), p. 218.
In Judaic exegesis in Jesus' time, the formula: "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," in which all three names of the patriarchs are mentioned, indicated God's relationship with the people of the covenant as a community.
Cf. E. Ellis, "Jesus, the Sadducees and Qumran," New Testament Studies, Vol. 10 (1963-64), p. 275.
5. In our modern way of understanding this Gospel text, the reasoning of Jesus concerns only immortality; if in fact the patriarchs still now live after their death, before the eschatological resurrection of the body, then the statement of Jesus concerns the immortality of the soul and does not speak of the resurrection of the body.
But the reasoning of Jesus was addressed to the Sadducees who did not know the dualism of body and soul, accepting only the biblical psycho-physical unity of man who is "the body and the breath of life." Therefore, according to them the soul dies with the body. The affirmation of Jesus, according to which the patriarchs are alive, could mean for the Sadducees only resurrection with the body.
6. We will not dwell here on the concept of death in the purely Old Testament sense, but consider theological anthropology as a whole.
7. This is the determinant argument that proves the authenticity of the discussion with the Sadducees.
If the passage were "a post-paschal addition of the Christian community" (as R. Bultmann thought, for example), faith in the resurrection of the body would be supported by the fact of the resurrection of Christ, which imposed itself as an irresistible force, as St. Paul, for example, has us understand (cf. 1 Cor 15:12).Cf. J. Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie, I Teil (Gutersloh: Mohn, 1971); cf. besides I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1978), p. 738.
The reference to the Pentateuch—while in the Old Testament there were texts which dealt directly with resurrection (as, for example, Is 26:19 or Dt 12:2)—bears witness that the conversation really took place with the Sadducees, who considered the Pentateuch the only decisive authority.
The structure of the controversy shows that this was a rabbinic discussion, according to the classical models in use in the academies of that time.
Cf. J. Le Moyne, OSB, Les Sadducéens (Paris: Gabalda, 1972), pp. 124f.; E. Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus (Göttingen: 1959), p. 257; D. Daube, New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London: 1956), pp. 158-163; J. Radamakers, SJ, La bonne nouvelle de Jésus selon St. Marc (Bruxelles: Institut d'Etudes Théologiques, 1974), p. 313.
Religion of Peace and Love Update.
Americans Rally Around Afghan Christian
(CNSNews.com) - The plight of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan man who faces execution for converting to Christianity, has energized American Christians. In News This Hour
Apostasy Case Raises Questions About 'Islamic' Constitutions(CNSNews.com) - The plight of an Afghan Christian facing death for converting from Islam is refocusing attention on the new, post-transition constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which give primacy to Islamic law but also include apparent contradictions. Full Story
With friends like these...
Hamas-Led Government 'Last Hope' for Gaza Christians
(CNSNews.com) - After the international community largely ignored their plight, the last hope for Gaza Christians to continue their work would be the establishment of a sympathetic Hamas-led government, a source here said. Hamas earlier offered to protect the Christians. Full Story
Giant Dragnet Thwarts Terror Attack in Israel
(CNSNews.com) - Israeli police thwarted a terrorist attack on Tuesday following a massive search operation in and around Jerusalem. In News This Hour
Pakistani Women Victims of Islamic Ordinances
(CNSNews.com) - Women in Pakistan face worsening discrimination, according to a new report that said "honor" killings are still a serious problem and that most of the thousands of women in jail are being held under controversial Islamic ordinances. Full Story
Boston Globe: Jordan's Islamists see a path to political power
Hamas's victory buoys movement
Washington Times: Jews wary of becoming fall guy for Iran's woes
It Takes A Village To Staff A Gestapo Unit And Keep Your Genius Husband Out Of The Papers Update.
I'm boss, Hit tells Goober
Senator's word is now 'final,' says the ex-King
After being surprised by her husband's role in the Dubai ports deal, Sen. Hillary Clinton has insisted that Bill Clinton give her "final say" over what he says and does, well-placed sources said.
That's news?
The former President agreed to give his wife a veto to avoid his habit of making controversial headlines that could hurt her chances of returning to the White House, multiple sources told the Daily News.
"He knows it's Hillary's time now," said an adviser close to both Clintons who expects to play a key role in her likely 2008 presidential campaign.
Hillary Clinton's handlers are keeping a close rein on the former President's schedule to try to prevent another embarrassing screwup like their competing roles in the Dubai ports deal.
While she was blasting the Bush administration for allowing Dubai to run six of the country's ports, he was advising Dubai on how to sell the deal.
"Hillary has final say," said the adviser, and the ex-President's staff has been warned not to do or say anything without running it by the senator's handlers.
"That was true in the White House during the [2000] Senate campaign," recalled another longtime aide who stayed close to the ex-President after he left office. "If he said the sky was blue and she said the sky was purple, then the sky was purple."
Actually, he said the dress was blue and Hitlery's face went purple. Just for the hysterical record, kiddies.
About Me
- TheChurchMilitant
- First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct. "My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up. What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.