Tag: theology

Where is Christ? – Repost

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Happy Easter!

This is a repost of an old article… but it is timely! Enjoy the Octave… -Eamonn

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This blog was originally started with the goal of exploring the arts and sciences in relation to the Catholic Faith. This post is a return to that original mission. Below is a talk I gave today at the Angelicum Thomistic Institute’s currently ongoing conference – New Heavens and a New Earth: Scientific and Theological Eschatology. Enjoy!

-Eamonn Clark, STL

We are sometimes confronted by potential converts, by catechumens, and even by curious believers about the whereabouts of the Lord. He is in Heaven, of course, but where is that? Is it somewhere out among the stars? Is it in some “parallel universe”? Or is there some other option? It is an uncomfortable experience for the apologist, the catechist, the evangelist, and the theologian not to have a simple answer for this rather reasonable question.

Today I will posit that there is a third option, though close to the “parallel universe” theory, and that its existence and mode of access, if true, reveals something profound about the gifts of the resurrection and about Christ as the Incarnate Logos in relation to modern physics. I depart a bit from St. Thomas in his treatment of the gifts of the resurrection, precisely on account of our enhanced understanding of the physical world, which presents us with new options to consider.

St. Thomas assumes that Christ is in a place – a real body demands physical space – and Christ’s Ascension is caused efficiently in a twofold manner: first, by His glorified soul, and secondly, by His unique Divine Power. (ST III-57-3)

The gifts of the resurrection are similarly explained by St. Thomas in the Commentary on the Sentences, as powers flowing from the soul on account of its glorification. I will not contest this so much as I will attempt to give some possible articulations of the effect and mode of the gifts’ interaction with the world.

St. Thomas does not seem to like the idea of multiple universes – he tells us this in Question 47, Article 3 of the Prima Pars. So, we abandon that idea.

As a scientific springboard, I want to consider two possible or even probable physical remnants we have of the Resurrection of Christ.

The first remnant is the Shroud of Turin. Here I take it for granted, of course, that the Shroud is in fact the linen cloth which laid over the dead Christ, and which has received the image of his Body. A very long description would be required to explain adequately exactly what we find on the Shroud, but we are more concerned with how the image was produced. Of course, we do not possess any technology today which is capable of giving anything close to a plausible imitation of what we find in the image. The best estimation is that the image was produced by a sort of radiation of light from the body of the dead Christ. We will return to this momentarily.

The second remnant is an electromagnetic field – or something like a field – which was discovered by scientists during the 2016 excavations in the Holy Sepulcher. The electromagnetic field underneath the Edicule, in the cave in which Christ was buried, is a much lesser-known reality but is just as puzzling if not more so than the Shroud. As Aleteia reported, “As soon as [the measuring instruments] were placed vertically on the stone in which Christ’s body rested, the devices either malfunctioned or ceased to work at all.” This electromagnetic field apparently also had ruined previous attempts at measuring the depth of the shaft which leads from the Edicule down to the cave. There is no known natural explanation for why there would be such an electromagnetic field in that location.

The musing of there being a possible connection between the electromagnetic field and the Shroud has been made before. Here is my own elaboration, synthesizing my own take on the Shroud itself, coupled with the fact of the electromagnetic field. I propose, with many others, that the Shroud is the result of a hyper-energetic burst of radiation from the Body of the Lord at the moment of His Resurrection. I propose uniquely that this burst was a mixture of various types of radiation – everything from alpha particles to gamma rays – which were controlled by a kind of infused habit of an electromagnetism emanating from the Lord which was under His control, or something very similar. It is because of this unique situation that the Shroud is not replicable by natural means, nor is there even a plausible explanation given the natural forces which we know of unless they are warped somehow and brought together in a way not seen in nature – which is precisely what I am proposing. It is experimentally verified that electromagnetic fields can warp radiation, and if this could somehow be done with a sort of immediate voluntary power over the character of the field itself in every part of the field, one could control the radiation at a whim, thus explaining the image. This even explains the lack of slight warping we would expect from a sheet laid over a face – the Shroud is a flat image, like a photograph or a mirror, without stretching, which we would expect from vertically collimated burst of information on a slightly curved surface. Instead, it is designed to be fitting for devotion. The alternative would be that the linen cloth itself was elevated above the dead or resurrecting Christ and stretched out flat, which seems strange and unnecessary.

In the case of a habit of this sort of elemental control, one might not only be able to warp radiation emanating from one’s own body, but could warp other things around oneself as well, such as folding linen cloths without touching them, or creating electromagnetic fields in one’s surroundings. The linen cloths being folded can be explained several other ways, but it seems certain that this latter phenomenon really happened. The Lord left a trace of Himself in the place He rose from, just as He did in the Shroud. I propose, then, very cautiously, that anywhere that the Risen Lord appeared or disappeared during the 50 days before the Ascension, we would find electromagnetic aberrations similar to those found in the Holy Sepulcher. To drive it home: empirical tests could actually be carried out in what is most commonly thought to be the Upper Room, despite its having been rebuilt, and along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. These would be the obvious contenders for such tests, and perhaps also the site of the Ascension itself on the Mount of Olives and the probable route to Emmaus.

Next, I note two abnormal manipulations of spacetime as relevant for our consideration – the normal sort of manipulations being gravity, electromagnetism, and, in a way, mere motion.

The first is wormholes, specifically electromagnetically induced wormholes – a wormhole being a kind of bending of spacetime to take a “short cut.” There has been some experimental verification of creating miniature wormholes for electromagnetic fields themselves, such as by Prat-Camps, Navau, and Sanchez (2015), and there is increasing clarity that electromagnetic fields, taking for granted Penrose’s Weyl curvature hypothesis, as proposed by Lindgren and Liukkonen in 2021, are a feature of spacetime itself. Just as gravity manipulates spacetime within a vacuum, so too does electromagnetism, implying that the field is somehow already “there,” which perhaps makes the proposal of harnessing electromagnetism itself to create wormholes more plausible. Would a sufficient control over these forces allow one to open a wormhole and be “carried through it” by electromagnetism? Maybe.  

The next element of abnormal manipulation is less about manipulation itself but more about its mode. I speak now of the apparent relationship between superpositions of particles and knowledge of those same particles. In brief, wave functions, of light for example, seem to collapse into particles – if we measure them. We should be bewildered by such a finding, “And yet it turns,” to quote Galileo. Erwin Schrodinger, who pioneered the mathematics of wave functions, famously pointed out the seemingly absurd conclusions of superpositions and by extension quantum mechanics in general with his famous thought experiment. There is a cat in a box which has a mechanism triggered by a particle emitting radiation, with a likelihood of 50% of the radiation occurring, and the mechanism will then release a deadly poison, thus leaving us with the ridiculous conclusion that the cat is “just as alive as it is dead” until we know it is in the one state or the other by opening the box. Dr. Wolfgang Smith offers an elegant way out of the conundrum. He draws a distinction between “physical” and “corporeal.” This means, in short, that he advises us to see substances (the corporeal) as being more than a collection of matter (the physical) – the atomic and subatomic world is real but is not of itself substantial, being rather a bundle of potentialities. This possibly gives us a very fine Thomistic solution to the problem of entanglement with substances. Nevertheless, we are left not only with the fact that wave functions do indeed collapse when observed, as with photons in the double-slit experiment – and they must be observed by a mind to collapse fully, or else the non-conscious measuring instrument simply becomes entangled with the cat-poison-radiation – we are also left with the oddity of the gift of agility, which St. Thomas discusses at abnormal length in the Commentary on the Sentences trying to deal with the problem of “instant motion.” And here we must ask if “spooky action at a distance,” as Einstein derisively referred to it, between entangled particles at large distances from each other wherein these particles somehow control each other seemingly instantaneously is a clue to how agility qua instantaneous does not violate classical Aristotelian physics the way St. Thomas assumes. Clearly, instant or at least faster-than-light motion or control, of a kind exists between entangled particles. The question occurs to us then whether in the resurrection we are somehow able to entangle ourselves with the entire universe.

And how would the motion work? Could it be the case that Christ, the Logos, the One begotten by the interior procession of Divine Self-knowledge, knows into being the manipulations of the world which we see in the Resurrection narratives, by doing something like resolving a wave function – namely, “resolving” His own self, thus causing near-immediate motion through an electromagnetic wormhole? This would be in line with, and an elevation of, the very controversial but in my view promising Von Neumann-Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics, which posits the demarcation line of wave function collapse to be the mind, not instruments which the mind can make use of, as noted already, which would, it seems, be even more bizarre. This theory is unacceptable to most who work on quantum mechanics because it is at odds with a rather central dogmatic assumption: materialism.

Perhaps there is also an analogy for agile motion, even if dim, with angelic movement and manipulation. St. Thomas explicitly rejects this in his discussion of agility in the Commentary on the Sentences, but we know about entangled particles and wormholes, whereas St. Thomas did not. In his famous text, The Intellectualism of St. Thomas, Fr. Pierre Rousselot, SJ posited that human nature has “the drive to become an angel.” He means this in regard to our inclination to know things through their essence, which the angels do naturally. But here I mean to apply this same principle to motion. Perhaps we approximate the angelic nature in the resurrection in the way that we move and manipulate the physical world, by somehow containing space in our intellect and then applying the power of the will to it directly, thus having a movement somewhat like the angels (see ST I-53; 54-2). Afterall, we already know, “In the resurrection they do not marry and are not given in marriage, for they are like the angels in Heaven.” (Matthew 22:30) I simply note the possibility. Could it further be the case that the gifts of the resurrection elevate a natural power which we already seem to possess, namely, observing-into-being certain facts – such as seen by observing the photons in the double-slit experiment, causing them to behave differently than if they were unobserved, or unknown? Again, perhaps. But perhaps also, in 100 years, that generation of scientists will speak about photons as we speak about flogiston or the ether.

Just as the heart and mind are freed in the Beatific Vision, so too is the body freed in the resurrection on account of the gifts, and the mode of those gifts does in fact seem to be in a curious relationship with the four fundamental forces of the universe, which are: gravity, the weak nuclear force (radiation), the strong nuclear force (which binds the components of an atom together), and electromagnetism.

The gifts of the resurrection are agility (the ability to move rapidly from one place to another, for example, after the breaking of the bread on the way to Emmaus), subtlety (the ability to penetrate through solid substances, as the Lord did in the Upper Room), clarity (a kind of luminosity), and immortality or impassibility.

By His actions during the Resurrection appearances, the Lord shows Himself to be master over the fundamental forces. In the Ascension, we see control over gravity. In the moment of His Resurrection, as indicated by the electromagnetic and radiative leftovers, we see the control over the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force, and we perhaps can posit the same of all the appearances and disappearances. The luminosity of His body, not experienced directly in His Resurrection appearances but experienced elsewhere, viz., in the Transfiguration and in the visions in Revelation, is also indicative of a kind of mastery over the weak nuclear force. In walking through the walls, we see control over the strong nuclear force – we do not need to say with St. Thomas that the Lord was strictly in the same physical place as the wall, we can say that His control over the sub-atomic world allowed Him to pass through without contact. Could the Lord be harnessing the fact that even macroscopic objects like human bodies are in fact, like the light which emanates from glorified bodies, both particle and wave? In other words, is the Lord somehow causing a diffraction with Himself to “scatter” and then reassemble? Or is He swinging from particle to wave and back again? Or some combination of all this, with “wave collapse” occurring through an act of the understanding caused by the will? Perhaps.

The four fundamental forces do not seem to track the gifts one-to-one. But there is certainly an intricate connection between the forces and the gifts of the resurrection, not entirely unlike the complex relationship between the virtues, the spiritual gifts, the fruits, and the beatitudes. Immortality, or impassibility, seems to be the trickier one to nail down, as it does not easily lend itself to a four-force analysis, despite some promising recent leads in medicine involving the use of electromagnetism and obviously radiation – and yet we know that whatever biological process causes one’s death, it is caused by the four forces, so controlling them within oneself obviously allows one to resist bodily corruption.

The conclusion is that a miraculous habit imposed by God in the resurrection bestows the power to control the four forces by a kind of immediate power, which includes the ability to manipulate space-time by the special harnessing of the same forces. This is the natural medium by which we live the life we are most meant to live. By the gifts, seemingly especially agility and perhaps also subtlety, we access Heaven by the manipulation of natural space-time. We are empowered by these gifts to enter into a physical but hidden world, which could be, in a word, right next to us, but which is “guarded,” like Eden.

I posit that the increasingly deep study of the four fundamental forces, and the spaces in between, like dark matter and energy, virtual particles, and so on, will only serve to show how elegant the mastery is over those same forces by Christ in the Resurrection.

Before offering my final and concluding hypothesis, I pause to note two objections, one Scriptural and one based on parsimony.

The first objection is a statement of the Lord Himself. The Lord says to Mary Magdalene in John 20:17, “I have not yet ascended…” Doesn’t this counter the claim that the appearances and disappearances of Christ do not make sense on my account, because of the time in between appearances? If Christ were “hiding” in Heaven in the time in between His resurrection appearances, He would have ascended, thus making His statement to Mary Magdalene untrue.

There are a few ways to reply. First, we could say that the action of the Ascension itself contains some special significance or power that is unlike merely going back and forth – each time only for a short while, when in the Ascension the departure is definitive until the Parousia. This is a weak argument, but it is plausible. It would be better to suppose that Christ was merely walking upon the Earth in a far away place, or, most likely, that He was neither in Heaven nor in the normal places of the universe but was instead in a third place which is also only accessible through the gifts of the resurrection and which is now obsolete.

The second objection is based on parsimony, and it has probably been arising in some of your minds: “Why not just give a purely miraculous explanation? Why all the need for these intermediary natural forces?”

In response, I say that we could just as easily ask why we will have bodies in the eschaton in the first place. As embodied creatures, we live in the physical world, which has its own rules and forces and logic. There is a fittingness to retaining the use of the natural forces by which we interact with the world around us as the means for the very same thing; but it is, of course, also appropriate that our relationship to those forces changes to be more immediate, with more direct control over them. And I recall your attention to the empirical starting point for this investigation, namely, the Shroud and the electromagnetic field under the Edicule. Those are there for a reason. They mean something. The imposition of the gifts is undoubtedly miraculous, but why should their mode of operation be miraculous? Why would it not be the case that they have simply become fully empowered to use the natural world for all it is capable of?

The limitations of this brief study are obvious. I have shown some possible steppingstones to interesting conclusions, but there is much in between. To borrow an image from Von Balthasar in the Prolegomena to his Theo-Drama, I have constructed a gymnasium, which athletes can now use.

In the end, I conclude and propose the following. Christ is the Master of the four fundamental forces, and we shall be masters with Him in the resurrection – the ultimate anti-entropic event. Given that Christ is not merely resurrected but is the Resurrection, we can rightly suppose that He, the Logos, the One through Whom all things were made, visible and invisible, is in fact the final frontier for theoretical physics. Any attempt to “get fully underneath” the four forces has been and inevitably will be frustrated so long as one limits oneself to considerations of the created world; in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. There is no getting “behind” the Word. The Logos, God the Son, incarnate in Christ, is the unified theory of physics.

The “Ius Gentium Dei” – Towards contextualizing some current crises in ecclesiology and law

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Below is the text of a paper I delivered today at this year’s “Student Theology Conference” at the Angelicum in Rome. It is just the start of the articulation… More work (especially research in older legal commentaries/authors) needs to be done.

I neglected to mention as an example in this talk that the Pope “qua” Bishop of Rome is something which would also arguably fit in my “novel” category of law.

-Eamonn Clark, STL

On September 21 of 687, Pope Conon died after a reign of several weeks – not enough time for rivalries to cool and dissipate. Conon had been a compromise candidate between the Roman clerical faction and the Roman military faction. Paschal, a former contender and now Archpriest at the Lateran Basilica, vied for the throne of St. Peter once again. His supporters, however, were less numerous than those of the Archdeacon, Theodore. After sending a bribe to the Exarch of Ravenna John II Platyn, the Emperor’s main legate in Italy, to have his papacy affirmed by Constantinople, Paschal attempted to take up residence in the Lateran with his supporters – as did Theodore with his. What followed was a nearly three month long armed conflict between the two parties inside the Lateran complex. By mid-December, the Romans had had enough, as had the Exarch. When John II Platyn was arriving in Rome, Paschal sent another bribe, which the Exarch happily took, but then he confirmed a separate candidate who had been acclaimed by politicians, soldiers, clergy, and normal civilians who were gathered on the Palatine Hill. Pope St. Sergius I was elected. Theodore relaxed his grip, and Paschal was eventually thrown into monastic prison on suspicion of witchcraft.

So goes one of several wild stories of the early medieval papacy. Of particular further note is the accession of the infamous Pope Vigilius to the Throne – who not only flirted with Monophysitism and was effectively excommunicated by the Second Council of Constantinople, but also seemingly colluded with the Emperor’s General, Belisarius, to force his predecessor Pope St. Sylverius into exile and took up the papal office while his predecessor was still alive. At least when Sylverius died, all of the Roman clergy began to treat Vigilius as pope…

Such irregularities could no doubt be multiplied – similar skirmishes surrounding the pontificates of Benedict IX immediately come to mind. This raises an important question – where does accession to the papacy fit into the broader world of law? Is it merely a matter of ecclesiastical law? This seems impossible, as there are certain qualities which one must possess to be pope, such as being baptized. Or is it a matter purely of Divine positive law? This too seems untenable, as we clearly have a manmade process today which has produced valid popes for centuries, namely, the conclave process. How do we deal with the fact that the papacy has often been treated much like the Roman imperial throne – where “might makes right” – that is, if you get enough power that is somehow related to the office – like by dominating the Lateran Palace with your army, or by forcing your predecessor into exile – you can somehow enter the office by that very fact? To drive it home, had Paschal the Archpriest successfully crowded out Theodore the Archdeacon, and the Exarch had not arrived, we would almost certainly have had Paschal as Bishop of Rome. This is, in fact, how Benedict IX regained office at least once, with respect to Clement II, seizing the Lateran in November of 1047, and perhaps also previously when expelling Sylvester III in April of 1045. Pope Damasus II ended Benedict’s third papacy when he invaded Rome with his army from Germany and forced Benedict into pious retirement in Grottaferrata.

In this paper I will present a hypothesis that there sits in between Divine positive law and ecclesiastical law a third kind of law which is analogous to the category of law which fills the gap between the natural law and civil law, namely, the “ius gentium,” the law of nations. This kind of law, which I will refer to as the “ius Gentium Dei,” the “law of the People of God,” is relevant not only for solving difficult problems related to papal succession – which topic is not simply historically interesting but increases in pastoral importance in direct proportion to the growing crisis of sedevacantism – but also to topics like rights over the use of liturgies, unjust episcopal depositions, and lay governance… perhaps even doubts about the role or importance of subjective intentionality in the dispensation of the sacraments. All of these are topics on the minds of many. I will argue that collapsing these issues into Divine positive law or ecclesiastical law is a mistake, which is part of why the discussions related to these topics have proven somewhat fruitless. The task, then, is to contextualize these controversies and others like them.

The natural law is man’s participation in the Eternal Law. From the natural law, man devises artifices which provide the structure of distributive justice in civic life – ordinances of reason for the common good promulgated by one with the authoritative care for the community. This is the civil law, which can positively create moral duties, insofar as it squares with the nature of law and has within itself a legitimate presumption of morally preceptive force.

Divine positive law is, one might say, the Church’s participation in Eternal Law, which is preceptive data known through faith. Revealed precepts are given either directly or indirectly – baptize with water, confess your sins, love your enemy, pray the Our Father, and so on – and the practical life of the Church is built around these preceptive pillars. Ecclesiastical law, which essentially tracks the definition of civil law, with the qualification that faith informs the ordinance of reason, must be in accordance with Divine positive law (while also, of course, not violating natural law).

Ecclesiastical law moderates all manner of property and offices which are “possessed,” as does Divine positive law. As already mentioned, the papacy is a good example of these two kinds of law working together. This is unlike natural law, which only indicates a social order based on some kind of common life and the pursuit of truth. Civil law moderates myriad aspects of property ownership, yet we can perceive rather intuitively that it must respect the logic of the ius gentium or else become unjust. One does not acquire possession of a house merely by writing his name on the wall, for example, regardless of whether this is legislated.

Ecclesiastical laws regarding the possession of some spiritual good or authority obviously must accord with Divine positive law, but it seems they must also be in accord with something which “interprets” Divine positive law by extending it to the whole Church as a society, yet without being properly contained therein.

What I am calling the “ius Gentium Dei,” the “law of the People of God,” is the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such. It is, as the ius gentium, as conclusions drawn from premises, rather than particular determinations of higher law (cf. ST I-II q. 95).

Perfect societies, for example, have a visible head, at least habitually. The papacy is important enough that, even were there to be some crisis, such as with Sergius I or Sylverius and Vigilius or other similar cases, the fact will always remain that the Church needs a pope – the need for a successor of St. Peter is indicated by Divine positive law and by lived experience – one need only think of the extended periods during which deadlocked papal elections dragged on for months or even years, such as in the late 1200’s. Yet given that ecclesiastical law, which typically moderates this office, cannot provide for all cases, just as civil law cannot provide for all cases, sometimes appeal must be made to a higher law. Further, given that God, despite being a perfect Legislator, for whatever reason did not actually provide procedural law of any kind for the accession to the papacy, as is evidenced by the vast diversity with which real accession has occurred, no appeal can be made to Divine positive law to settle the matter. The answer lies with the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such, the ius Gentium Dei. We can accept that Sergius I was Roman Pontiff just as much as Vigilius, just as much as Benedict IX three times along with Sylvester III, Gregory VI, and Clement II, and so on. As Fr. Taparelli, grandfather of Catholic social teaching, would likely point out, the fact itself is what makes the society and allows for its contracts, not the other way around. Not to put too fine a point on it, we have a Church of popes, not a Church of the 1983 or 1917 Code of Canon Law.

In his book treating of political economy, the ghostwriter of Rerum Novarum Fr. Liberatore presents the ius gentium as a spectrum, with some items, like the very institution of private property, being closer to the natural law than other items. The papacy and its acquisition seem closer to the Divine positive law than something like rights over the use of particular liturgical customs, which is another item that very much seems not merely part of ecclesiastical law while nonetheless obviously largely subject to ecclesiastical law. The Church can legislate rather arbitrarily a lectionary, a calendar, various kinds of vestments and their colors, the kind, number, position, and use of candles, and so on. We can perceive that, beyond the proper minister and matter and form, there are in fact items which seem so fundamental to the right liturgical order that they are very likely indirectly indicated by Divine positive law; for example, that the readings precede the confection of the Eucharist – the way that Christ’s public teaching preceded His death on the Cross, the way that the prophets preceded the Incarnation, and the way that the Eternal Word of the Father precedes creation through that same Word. However, something like the attempt to introduce extra-Scriptural readings into the Mass would be less offensive but still, I think most would agree, would be illegitimate. The question is, offensive against what? It cannot be Divine positive law, as God gives no direct commandment about readings at Mass – it cannot be only against ecclesiastical law, if that law were actually to be changed. It is instead against the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such, in this case about how that society conducts acts of religion – how God is worshipped by outward, official, public acts of the Church.

No doubt, there is something which lawful authority possesses in the Church that matches the civil reality of eminent domain. One might think of Pope St. Pius V doing away with long-standing local liturgies after Trent, those of almost but not quite 200 years of age. But nobody thinks that the Roman Pontiff could, for example, legitimately (with morally preceptive force) do away with all the liturgies of the Eastern Churches simply at will, or even of a single Church. The Armenian Catholic Church, for example, has an acquired right to use their own liturgical books and rituals, within reason; the ratio for any meaningful intervention in the Armenian liturgy is and can only be what is fair with respect to the ownership of the same liturgy on the part of the entire Armenian Church. The analogy which comes to mind is that of children living under their father’s care in a common house – surely, the father owns the house in the absolute sense and exercises the fullness of authority – immediately, supremely, etc., as to domestic life and the governance of his family – but he cannot arbitrarily and indefinitely forbid the children to use the central rooms of the house, for it is their house too in a real way, albeit in a limited and participatory sense. While the supreme and immediate power of the Roman Pontiff over the whole Church is part of Divine positive law at least indirectly or even directly, the character of ownership over something like the use of particular liturgical customs, especially on the part of the faithful, is not part of Divine positive law. Rather, the articulation of that ownership, along with how it is suspended, modified, or removed, is in large part a matter of the ius Gentium Dei.

I leave aside other possible inhabitants of this category, including those already mentioned – the deposition of bishops, lay governance, and even the character of sacramental intentionality, for lack of time. Rather, I will address the problem which by now should be obvious: Who decides what is contained in the ius Gentium Dei, and, even more importantly, who decides what it demands?

My suggestion is that the answer lies with the whole Church, especially with clergy and the maiores, those who are educated. To reiterate my definition of the ius Gentium Dei, it is the wise application of reason working through faith of the Divine positive law towards the ordering of the whole Church as a perfect society as such. The key is wisdom, the knowledge of the causes of things, in this case knowledge of the causes of the flourishing of the whole Church. This principally belongs to local bishops and most of all to the Roman Pontiff. Yet the head cannot do without the foot. The various roles played by lower clergy and by educated and deputed laity to assist in the governance of the Church are critical, as is the movement of the Holy Spirit among the pious minores, the uneducated, who may by the Gift of counsel know that somehow, something is wrong about a decision about governance without fully or even significantly being able to explain why. When moving all together, problems or conflicts which are over things inside the scope of the ius Gentium Dei are normally figured out less by reasoning or acts of juridic power than by flesh and blood – over time, the solution simply appears because of the fact of the matter at hand. Such was the case with the abnormal papal accessions previously considered – so too it may be the case for various ecclesiological crises in our own day. God wants us to know that we have a pope – other than knowing someone is actually a baptized male, what else do we really need to say other than, “Well, he controls the Lateran and everyone calls him ‘Pope’”? Something similar could be said about lay governance, episcopal depositions, and even sacramental intentionality, if time allowed. The key question is something to the effect of – “Is this paradigm or set of expectations and practices workable for the whole Church with respect to Her good as a perfect society, in line with clearly revealed precepts?” This kind of argument is what needs to be taken up in the apostolate to the sedevacantists – we ought mostly to leave alone particular arguments about the 1917 CIC and the precise definition of “heresy,” let alone any particular historical questions, which, by the way, are seemingly never extended into the murky depths of the First Millennium; as if we really know anything about what men in the 700’s were teaching and preaching before their pontificates. The fact is that “they controlled the Lateran and they were called ‘Pope,’” and this is more or less everything we need to know. This is somewhat of a simplification, but it is not a very large one.

What remains to be said in this brief presentation is to insist that the ius Gentium Dei is not a “trump card” which can or should be “played” by anyone seeking some particular solution in a given conflict. Such an attitude would be the practical equivalent of the speculative error found in illegitimate appeals to the “sensus fidelium.” Just because a decision of a lawful superior seems unfair or ill-considered does not thereby render it invalid or even illicit, even though it may truly be immoral to have legislated on account of his own poor judgment, which because of his office he is specially bound to avoid. If anything, rather than simplifying particular courses of action which smack of disobedience and flippant impiety, this juridic resetting of major ecclesiological crises and questions, and the conflicts which unfortunately accompany them, is an invitation to more serious dialogue and discourse. Children should not simply disobey their father and harshly rebuke him, even when it is really the case that he is unfairly restricting their usage of the house, to return to my analogy – rather, the children must appeal to their father respectfully and plead with him (1 Timothy 5:1). Sometimes, the father lacks wisdom and thinks too much of his rights; however, this is more frequently true of the children who are bound to him in obedience.

In this presentation, which is only a sketch of an at least superficially plausible idea which requires more research and reflection, I have proposed that there is an analogous category of law in the order of revelation to the ius gentium in the order of nature, which category I have called the “ius Gentium Dei,” and I have shown how such a category could help to contextualize several pressing concerns which confront the Church today. Real solutions to these problems may yet be a long way off. However, it is no doubt extremely important both to avoid erroneously claiming one’s rights to be sanctioned directly by God and to avoid erroneously claiming that whatever such rights exist are subject entirely to the whims of the lawful superior. Instead, the via media ought to be more frequently considered, in the form of the ius Gentium Dei – in this case it is not the ”both/and” we are so accustomed to in Catholic theology but rather a rare “neither/nor.”

Roman Sunrise – Podcast Launch

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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am launching a podcast. It will be the flagship production of my little company’s fledgling “Media Group.” There will be other shows coming down the line… hopefully sooner rather than later.

After years of waffling and delay, I am happy to announce the show and its title: Roman Sunrise.

I don’t normally talk much about my personal life on these pages, for various reasons. The truth is, I’ve been in a bizarre hurricane of professional and existential twists and turns in the past year or so especially.

In 2016 I wanted to come to Rome for two years, just to finish the STB. Well, it’s been almost eight years at this point. I finished the STB. I finished the STL. I’m almost done now with the STD. And I am now presuming to be in Rome for the long-haul – until something obviously better induces me to leave. I have tried to leave Rome 5 times now – to return to the USA, to go elsewhere in Italy, to go teach in a seminary in Nigeria, to move to France, and to move to Ireland. It has not worked. I am resigned to staying here, in this strange city, with its barely functioning bureaucracy, its gaggles of tourists, its absurd lunch hours… I am HERE.

I don’t mean to complain. There are obviously many consolations too, both natural and supernatural, and there are far worse places to be than Rome! In the end, I actually do love it here. It’s where I’ve really grown up. It’s where most of my important friendships have been made. It’s where I’ve learned the most about God and my own journey towards Him. It is home. But it is not the paradise that people might think.

Nor is it the cartoon-villainy that others think. All the keyboard warriors sitting nice and cozy in the USA (or wherever) who think that everything bad that happens in Rome is the outcome of some concerted plot by scheming cardinals playing 5-dimensional chess have an outsized presence in social media and pseudo-journalism, and they often get huge followings because the narrative is so simple and satisfying: “FRANCIS IS TRYING TO DESTROY THE CHURCH! ACT NOW!” And then, in the next breath, they will mock “NPC’s” for saying “Orange Man Bad!” Hot tip – don’t do that.

It’s true… Roman shenanigans are sometimes very wicked, and they are sometimes very calculated. Other times – most times? – failures are due to systemic mediocrity or cultural dispositions which allow bad things to go unchecked or be magnified. “Monsignor doesn’t want to make his best friend of 40 years look bad. He’ll try to make this go away, or pass it off to someone else.” “His Eminence has a lunch reservation in 15 minutes. Then he will not be back in the office today, and he’ll just want to start the weekend early after a hard couple of days and a busy travel schedule next week. So we’re just not going to have time to deal with this right now.” “The Archbishop is not in Rome at the moment, because it’s August. It will have to wait until September, but there are other files he needs to deal with first, because there is a bit of a backlog. So maybe October or November…” “Father is afraid that the Pope won’t like that decision, so he’s just going to let this sit and hope it kind of goes away or that someone else can deal with it.”

Not exactly inspiring stuff. But not jaw-dropping scandal either. It’s the epiphenomenon that is really bad – the stuff that comes as a grand result of all the little problems. Sure, there ARE very bad actors here, other than the Devil… who is really the Enemy we need to worry about… But until you understand that most guys are really just trying to go along to get along, or were literally asked out of the blue by chance to serve as some undersecretary in a dicastery whose mission they have essentially no special competence in, or can’t get a meeting with the Cardinal Vicar because they annoyed the wrong person in the Lateran 5 years ago… you don’t really understand Rome.

I’ve had it in mind to do this podcast for years. I’m glad I waited. I’m in a position to do this show precisely because of all the years I’ve been here, living in different communities, trying different things, getting to know different “layers” of the city. Now I’m a bit seasoned. I actually know some stuff… I have a bit of a feel for what things are really like. What I want to do with the podcast is bring out some more of the complexity of stories in the headlines. There are enough doomers and gloomers out there, telling you that everything is awful, the sky is falling, etc. If that’s what you’re into, then Roman Sunrise is not for you. This podcast will do the hard thing of being fair, even to people I personally find to be very annoying, stupid, and toxic. I want to respect the truth – which sometimes means not drawing conclusions but just laying out the story, giving some context and theological insight, and letting you decide. You can be a journalist or an activist, but you can not be both at the same time in the same way.

Can you be a journalist and a theologian? I think so. But one has to be careful not to cross the wires of objective orthodoxy and individual intentions, which happens all the time. The theological aspect of the show is going to be accessible but also deep. I am repeatedly told I have the gift of breaking down complicated topics into digestible pieces. Well, I’ll do a lot of that then and go light on the nerding out. We will cover many, most, or almost all stories from a theological angle (and sometimes a canonical one, when necessary). To be very clear, I am a pretty hardline Thomist, and in other things mostly what would be called “conservative.” I am not, however, in the “everything is MODERNIST!” camp, nor am I all that impressed with the attempts at promoting or theologically demonstrating something like the implausibility of evolutionary theory. No thanks.

We will normally have a 30-45 minute show covering three or four major news stories or other things which I personally find interesting that are going on in the world of theology and pastoral practice, in the broadest sense. Occasionally, we will do a human interest piece, or some kind of historical or cultural exposition. I’ll stash away a few episodes recorded way in advance to pull out when I can’t get around to recording a fresh one for whatever reason.

Almost every week I will have a co-host – regulars whom you will get to know a bit. Guests will be on every month or so. Part of the advantage of the approach the show will take is that a lot of different characters will possibly be open to talking to us… Not just the same handful of people, every time, with the same predictable opinions on the controversy du jour. At least, this is my hope.

My dream for Roman Sunrise is that it becomes the talk show where people go for serious, nuanced discussions about Church news from a deeply theologically informed perspective.

Mid-March will be the right time for this to launch. Your Friday morning commute on Tax Day (March 15 – YIKES, IT IS COMING!) will hopefully be accompanied by the inaugural episode of Roman Sunrise…

Why that title? Well, it evokes “morning talk show” vibes, which is nice. It has a hopeful feel to it, which is great. And anyone who has actually seen a sunrise in Rome knows that it’s something you wouldn’t mind seeing again. So, there you have it. And come on, do we need a show with a Latin title telling you that THIS is the show that will “save the Church” or whatever? Again, if that kind of thing is what you’re into, take a hard pass. Or, give it a chance, and maybe see that the clickbait stuff is the journalistic equivalent of junk food. Maybe my content won’t always taste the best, but deep down you will know that it’s healthier for you…

We will be the only English-language podcast in Rome covering both news and theology in any depth. I’m glad you can be part of this! I will post about how to find and follow us on various platforms in the days before the launch. (I might put up an “Episode 0” just to establish our active existence.)

If you would like to help with financing this project, or other upcoming projects in Pro Fide Media Group (which will be creating an independent “ground-up” Catholic communications empire, beginning in Africa), please contact me.

The only poster on Amazon…

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…that has the Books of the Bible.

My company is selling it. All the other posters you can find that are marketed as “Books of the Bible” are Protestant canons – so they are missing some books.

Click HERE

Buy a copy for yourself, your parish, your school, your friend…

I’ve been silent on these pages lately – I needed a break. It might be time to come back to more regular posting.

Some thoughts on “Fiducia Supplicans”

Christian Renaissance Movement

We could have done without it.

There are a few questions I have – “doubts,” one might say…

  1. What exactly was the need for addressing this issue in the first place, as opposed to any number of issues which seem much more pressing and much more serious to the vast majority of informed observers, especially given the very recent (and largely opposite) treatment by the DDF?
  2. Is it Roman opinion that there were clergy “on the fence” about this practice who will now fundamentally change how they minister?
  3. Did not occur to the DDF that, in fact, all kinds of “irregular couples” have been blessed for ages – even “liturgically” in the strictest sense – ever since such people have showed up at Mass and stayed to the end, when everyone present gets a blessing?
  4. Why is it presumed to be appropriate or advantageous to give “one” blessing to two people whose “couplehood” in and of itself clearly presents seriously problematic moral data, rather than two individual blessings to the two individuals of the “couple” (or however many members of a polyamorous relationship)? (This is the most important question.) Is it because some priests have very tired arms and can only muster one motion of the hand? Or are drive-by blessings a thing in some places? Yes, no? What is it?
  5. If the confusion and blowback were foreseen, what is the need for all the explanation, especially since the document said not to expect clarification? If the confusion and blowback were not foreseen, why? What is the plan to keep this from happening again? Is there one?
  6. If “irregular couples” can be blessed “non-liturgically” or “pastorally,” does this extend to other groups or associations which of themselves or in their proper context are morally problematic, such as terrorist camps, conventions of abortionists, and other such entities, especially given that these seem to need grace even more than “irregular couples”? If not, why not? Is it merely a prudential consideration, or is it something intrinsic to the act itself?
  7. Why was it not recommended instead merely to pray for “irregular couples,” rather than to “bless” them, especially given that much of the world is unable to distinguish “blessing a couple” from “blessing a union” or even from “witnessing a marriage”?

So, those are some questions. The argument that some have made about cohabiting heterosexual couples receiving blessings (i.e. in the context of a marriage preparation session) fails; the reason is that such a relationship does not present a problem in and of itself the way that adulterous, homosexual, or polygamous relationships do. There is a legitimate “telos” or “end” of the relationship as such with a single man and a single woman. Not so with the “irregular.”

I really do think that ignorance is a better explanation than malice. I also think that Fiducia Supplicans, for all its issues, has called attention to a serious problem which has until now not been so evident – we have a very weak understanding all around of what exactly “blessings” are and how they work. I hope to do a follow-up post in some weeks to go through some points which could be helpful (i.e. the distinction between invocative blessings and constitutive blessings).

We need to pray. Don’t get angry, get pious.

The Cave of Revelation

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On the little island of Patmos in Greece, where it is said that the apostle St. John lived out his last days (dying around the year 100), there is a revered cave where it is believed he lived and wrote the Book of Revelation (and presumably his 3 other letters as well – but perhaps not the Gospel bearing his name). The part that is fenced off is where John rested his head to sleep at night.

It is always helpful to remember the flesh and blood history of our Faith. Sites like this are so important to know about and to see – even if only on a screen.

Happy Feast of St. John!

Herod the Great – Even less great than you thought

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Pharaoh is the archetypal bad guy. All the other bad guys in Scripture are to be measured against him. (Even poor King Solomon becomes like Pharaoh… A post for another time.)

Herod the Great is very much like Pharaoh… A great builder of monuments, a paranoid egomaniac desperate to cling to power, and a panick-stricken child-killer. He exceeds Pharaoh in that he doesn’t even have scruples about destroying his own bloodline, and deliberately so… Oddly, given his tribal background, in a twisted desire to prove just how much of a real Jew he is. It’s some kind of neurosis that is driving him…

It is important to be aware that the situation of things in ancient Israel was alive and real. The way we talk about current political, theological, and social controversies is not so different from the way people spoke in Jerusalem and its environs. Cartoonish ideas about a bunch of illiterate goat-herders with a few kings in castles need to be left behind… This was a complex world full of clever and tough people.

Here’s an excellent breakdown of what we know about the Herodian dynasty. It turns out we know quite a bit. Happy reading.

Wisdom from Lateran IV

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I am doing an on-and-off study of the Ecumenical Councils. We ARE the Councils. We are MORE than the Councils, but they are somewhat of the backbone for our history as a Church.

I just thought I would share the following paragraphs, without commentary. Lateran IV is probably one of the most important Councils we have ever had. Notably, St. Dominic was there.

23. Churches are to be without a prelate for no more than 3 months

Lest a rapacious wolf attack the Lord’s flock for want of a shepherd, or lest a widowed church suffer grave injury to its good, we decree, desiring to counteract the danger to souls in this matter and to provide protection for the churches, that a cathedral church or a church of the regular clergy is not to remain without a prelate for more than three months. If the election has not been held within this time, provided there is no just impediment, then those who ought to have made the election are to lose the power to elect for that time and it is to devolve upon the person who is recognized as the immediate superior. The person upon whom the power has devolved, mindful of the Lord, shall not delay beyond three months in canonically providing the widowed church, with the advice of his chapter and of other prudent men, with a suitable person from the same church, or from another if a worthy candidate cannot be found in the former, if he wishes to avoid canonical penalty.

24. Democratic election of pastors

On account of the various forms of elections which some try to invent, there arise many difficulties and great dangers for the bereaved churches. We therefore decree that at the holding of an election, when all are present who ought to, want to and conveniently can take part, three trustworthy persons shall be chosen from the college who will diligently find out, in confidence and individually, the opinions of everybody. After they have committed the result to writing, they shall together quickly announce it. There shall be no further appeal, so that after a scrutiny that person shall be elected upon whom all or the greater or sounder part of the chapter agree. Or else the power of electing shall be committed to some suitable persons who, acting on behalf of everybody, shall provide the bereaved church with a pastor. Otherwise the election made shall not be valid, unless perchance it was made by all together as if by divine inspiration and without flaw. Those who attempt to make an election contrary to the aforesaid forms shall be deprived of the power of electing on that occasion. We absolutely forbid anyone to appoint a proxy in the matter of an election, unless he is absent from the place where he ought to receive the summons and is detained from coming by a lawful impediment. He shall take an oath about this, if necessary, and then he may commit his representation to one of the college, if he so wishes. We also condemn clandestine elections and order that as soon as an election has taken place it should be solemnly published.

25. Invalid elections

Whoever presumes to consent to his being elected through abuse of the secular power, against canonical freedom, both forfeits the benefit of being elected and becomes ineligible, and he cannot be elected to any dignity without a dispensation. Those who venture to take part in elections of this kind, which we declare to be invalid by the law itself, shall be suspended from their offices and benefices for three years and during that time shall be deprived of the power to elect.

26. Nominees for prelatures to be carefully screened

There is nothing more harmful to God’s church than for unworthy prelates to be entrusted with the government of souls. Wishing therefore to provide the necessary remedy for this disease, we decree by this irrevocable constitution that when anyone has been entrusted with the government of souls, then he who holds the right to confirm him should diligently examine both the process of the election and the character of the person elected, so that when everything is in order he may confirm him. For, if confirmation was granted in advance when everything was not in order, then not only would the person improperly promoted have to be rejected but also the author of the improper promotion would have to be punished. We decree that the latter shall be punished in the following way: if his negligence has been proved, especially if he has approved a man of insufficient learning or dishonest life or unlawful age, he shall not only lose the power of confirming the person’s first successor but shall also, lest by any chance he escapes punishment, be suspended from receiving the fruits of his own benefice until it is right for him to be granted a pardon. If he is convicted of having erred intentionally in the matter, then he is to be subject to graver punishment. Bishops too, if they wish to avoid canonical punishment, should take care to promote to holy orders and to ecclesiastical dignities men who will be able to discharge worthily the office entrusted to them. Those who are immediately subject to the Roman pontiff shall, to obtain confirmation of their office, present themselves personally to him, if this can conveniently be done, or send suitable persons through whom a careful inquiry can be made about the process of the election and the persons elected. In this way, on the strength of the pontiff’s informed judgment, they may finally enter into the fullness of their office, when there is no impediment in canon law. For a time, however, those who are in very distant parts, namely outside Italy, if they were elected peaceably, may by dispensation, on account of the needs and benefit of the churches, administer in things spiritual and temporal, but in such a way that they alienate nothing whatever of the church’s goods. They may receive the customary consecration or blessing.

27. Candidates for the priesthood to be carefully trained and scrutinized

To guide souls is a supreme art. We therefore strictly order bishops carefully to prepare those who are to be promoted to the priesthood and to instruct them, either by themselves or through other suitable persons, in the divine services and the sacraments of the church, so that they may be able to celebrate them correctly. But if they presume henceforth to ordain the ignorant and unformed, which can indeed easily be detected, we decree that both the ordainers and those ordained are to be subject to severe punishment. For it is preferable, especially in the ordination of priests, to have a few good ministers than many bad ones, for if a blind man leads another blind man, both will fall into the pit.

28. Who asks to resign must resign

Certain persons insistently ask for permission to resign and obtain it, but then do not resign. Since in such a request to resign they would seem to have in mind either the good of the churches over which they preside or their own well-being, neither of which do we wish to be impeded either by the arguments of any people seeking their own interests or even by a certain fickleness, we therefore decree that such persons are to be compelled to resign.