On the Shroud of Turin & The Resurrection

10 Reasons the Resurrection Really Happened

Christianity hinges on whether Jesus rose from the grave on the third day. Jeffrey Hart goes back to re-examine evidence—from the Shroud of Turin to the location of the nails at the Crucifixion.

Did the resurrection really happen? The empirical evidence is better than you may think.

This is important because Christianity requires much more in the way of belief than Islam or Judaism does.

Judaism requires belief in one God, honoring the history of the people as established in scripture (with considerable support from archaeology), and the law, beginning with the Ten Commandments set forth by Moses. Leviticus elaborates on the law at great length, and forms of Judaism differ on how much of the law elaborated there is to be observed.

Christianity asks much more. It requires belief that Jesus was crucified, died, was entombed, and rose from the dead on the third day. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me...

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith... Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than are all men.

That lays it on the line. “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

A number of things can be said about this passage. Since Paul was executed in Rome about 65 A.D., this is the earliest testimony we have regarding the alleged resurrection. The four Gospels provide much more, notably Luke 24:32. Second, Paul seems to know that the claims about the resurrection are difficult to believe. He cites 500 witnesses, “most of whom are still living.” That is, empirical evidence exists about what Paul says, and if Paul is lying, this can be established. Incidentally, Arthur Darby Nock, our foremost Paul scholar, thinks Paul (then Saul) very likely heard Jesus speak at the synagogue in Tarsus long before Saul’s famous conversion on the road to Damascus (in today’s Syria).

That Jesus rose on the third day remains very hard to believe. Not least is the fact that a body dead for that length of time would decay considerably and would have to be fully reconstituted in order to appear alive. So let us follow the scholar Ian Wilson to Turin and there walk to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and there to the circular, black Royal Chapel designed by Guarino Guarini. There behind iron grills in a locked chamber is a linen cloth known as the Shroud of Turin.

Ian Wilson is a well-informed scholar on regarding the facts regarding the Shroud of Turin, and in his 1979 book, The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ (Doubleday), he brought together the evidence and the conclusions reached by many other experts in this field (“Sindonologists”). It seems to me, difficult to believe though it may be, that this ancient linen cloth is in fact the shroud Jesus was wrapped in before he was placed in the tomb. Here I will summarize the argument of Mr. Wilson’s book:

1. Pollen does not decay. And ancient pollen in the linen cloth indicates the origin of this linen cloth in Jerusalem and also traces its journey from Jerusalem from the Middle East through Europe. It is almost impossible that forgery could accomplish this. (David Hume: Call your office.)

2. The body was laid on the cloth and the remainder of the cloth folded over the body to produce front and back images of the man.

3. A startling fact: The image of the man on the Shroud turns out to be a photographic negative. When photographed it became a positive. Again, this seems to rule out an ancient forgery, that is, long before the invention of photography.

4. In most modern representations of the Crucifixion, the nails are shown as going through the palms. But as this image shows, the nails actually went through an aperture in the wrists. Had the nails gone through the palms, they would not have sustained body weight and would have torn through the flesh, the body falling from the cross. Execution required that the man die on the cross from lack of oxygen as he repeatedly tried to raise his body on the nails in order to breathe. Execution was slow.

5. Wounds on the back of the body indicate flogging by the Roman flagrum—metal weights attached to leather cords wielded by a wooden handle.

6. Had the image been painted on the cloth by a forger, the paint traces of the pigment would have remained on the surface. The color here penetrates the cloth evenly from one side to another. Note: In this, it is more like a scorch.

7. An objection: The Romans executed many men this way. Indeed, two criminals were executed that day along with Jesus. Could this shroud be that of another similarly executed man? It’s very unlikely. Crucifixion was disgraceful and an expression of contempt for the criminal. It is unlikely that the family or friends of a man of that sort would have wrapped his body in an expensive linen cloth—or that such a cloth would have been saved later on and made its way from the Middle East across Europe. Representations of Jesus in art reflect a knowledge of the Shroud by European artists.

8. Ian Wilson concludes that the image on the cloth is a “paranormal” phenomenon. That is, not made by hands. But how?

9. Speculation: The scorch might have been made by radioactivity attendant upon the resurrection. Whether or not it is pertinent, the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe produced measurable radiation that determines that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. If the scorch on the Shroud is the result of radiation, it could have been radiation that reconstituted the dead body. But that is merely speculation.

10. Ian Wilson’s book appeared in 1978. In 1988, carbon 14 tests were conducted indicating a medieval date for the Shroud. But that result is controversial and almost certainly wrong, for reasons cited above. In fact, along its journey to Turin, the Shroud was in a church that was the scene of a fire, and that could have corrupted the carbon dating.

Jeffrey Hart is professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College. He wrote for the National Review for more than three decades, where he was senior editor. He wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan while he was governor of California, and for Richard Nixon.

The pitfalls of pre-natal testing...

This is a pretty interesting editorial from a Zenit.org reader...

False Judge and Jury
A comment on: Prenatal Testing: Worthwhile or Wrong?

A little over eight years ago, my niece heard these words from a woman, "I will not bring this child into the world." The woman was not an expectant mother, she was my niece's OB/GYN. At five months into her pregnancy, an ultrasound revealed my niece's child had no apparent brain matter. A subsequent ultrasound revealed that her son had an encephelocele and that the build up of spinal fluid had squished his brain to the top of his head making the brain itself undetectable on a regular ultrasound. Many experts advised termination of the pregnancy.

My niece and her husband decided to bring their little boy into the world even if it meant just a few precious moments with their little son or if it meant a lifetime of constant care. They had to find a neonatologist, a new delivery doctor and even a new pediatrician who would agree to care for their son with his special needs. Three months later, my niece gave birth to her second child. He was taken that week into surgery where they implanted a VP shunt to drain the excess spinal fluid to allow room for his brain. They were told their son probably would not see, hear, talk or walk.

Today, this young boy attends second grade, is preparing to make his first communion, sees and comments on the beauty that surrounds him, asks his grandma to play the piano for him, is surprisingly articulate and is able to walk. While he has occasional seizures, he is a thriving little person deserving of care. Ultimately, he is a child of God, deserving of the special place in this world that God intended for him.

I guess my point is, prenatal testing is very worthwhile when it helps to prepare doctors and parents to help the child in need of help, but it can be very harmful and seductive when "experts" become the judge and jury of such a child and use it as a means to determine which children should live and which children they refuse to bring into the world.

Thanks and God bless you!

Catherine Lemek

In my email box today....

The Seventh Ecumenical Council Approves the Veneration of Icons

The Seventh Ecumenical Council which opened in Nicea, Bithynia, on September 24, 787, was attended by 350 bishops, and soon joined by 17 other hierarchs, who abjured the Iconoclast heresy. Next to the papal delegates and those sent by the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem, the monks, who had been relentlessly persecuted under the Iconoclast emperors Leo III the Isaurian (717-741) and Constantine V Copronymus (741-775), were well-represented with a count of 136.

In this last great council recognized by all the Apostolic Churches, the holy fathers proclaimed the eternal memory of the defenders of Orthodoxy: Patriarch Germanus (715-730), Saint John Damascene, George of Cyprus, and all who had been subjected to exile and torture in their defense of Holy Icons.

The council fathers decreed:

"We define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God, and on the sacred vessels and on the vestments and on hangings and in pictures both in houses and by the wayside, to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of the honorable Angels, and of all Saints and pious people."

All are children of God

The following is a Zenit.org analysis of the abortion of down syndrome children; there is increased interest in the topic since the news of Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy, and her taking to full term her down syndrome child, Trig.

Unlikely to Survive
Few Down Syndrome Babies Making It to Birth

By Father John Flynn, LC

ROME, SEPT. 21, 2008, (Zenit.org).- One of the consequences of the nomination of Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican party's vice-presidential candidate is renewed attention to Down syndrome.

On April 18, Palin gave birth to Trig Paxon Van Palin, having been told by doctors the previous December that he suffered from Down syndrome, reported the Associated Press on May 3.

An article in the Washington Post on Sept. 10 by opinion columnist Michael Gerson noted that when tests reveal Down syndrome in an unborn child, around 90% are aborted.

The numbers of Down syndrome children being aborted could well rise if last year's recommendation by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is heeded, he added. The college urged universal, early testing for Down syndrome for all expectant mothers, not just those who are older and therefore have a higher chance of a child affected by the condition.

Gerson argued, however, that children born with Down syndrome "are generally not experienced by their parents as a curse but as a complex blessing." Many doctors and counselors, nevertheless, urge mothers to have an abortion instead of going ahead with a Down syndrome pregnancy, he noted.

This practice of ending "imperfect" lives, Gerson continued, cannot be separated from how we regard and treat all people who have disabilities. "And this feeds a social Darwinism in which the stronger are regarded as better, the dependent are viewed as less valuable, and the weak must occasionally be culled," he concluded.

Revealing truths

In spite of the difficulties in raising a child with Down syndrome, a number of newspapers have published stories highlighting the positive experiences of parents with such children.

Raising a child with Down syndrome can reveal many profound truths about parents and their children, reported the Washington Post on Sept 14.

The article described the situation of Adrianne Pedlikin, a mother of three, including a 10-year-old son with Down syndrome. The article acknowledged the difficulties and trials of looking after a boy with Down syndrome, but it described how at the same time, both Adrianne and her husband Philip declared their love for their son and said his birth has changed their worldviews in a positive way.

The article also referred to the experiences of other families, who frequently run into opposition from educational institutions in seeking to have their children with Down syndrome allowed into schools. They also often find that other parents tend to shut them out and that their children don't receive invitations to play with other kids.

Another personal testimony on the positive experience of being a parent of a Down syndrome child was published June 2 in the U.K. newspaper, the Guardian. Annie Rey described how when she was growing up she was terrified by people with disabilities. Then in her early 40s she became pregnant and discovered her child had Down syndrome.

"During the pregnancy I lurched from optimism to despair: optimism that the child, who at 20 weeks we discovered to be a boy, wouldn't have Down's, and despair that he would," she wrote.

Her son Paddy is now 2 years old, and she has now accepted the idea of having a child with Down. She said she realizes that "he is not a diagnosis" but a child with many qualities.

"I truly believe that if my precious boy did not exist, our world, and probably the world at large, would be a poorer place," she concluded.

Joyous

From Canada, the Shaw family recounted their experience of a Down syndrome child in an article published March 2 in the Ottawa Citizen. Michael and Lesley Shaw would have aborted if they had known their daughter, Sydney, had Down syndrome, they told the newspaper.

Now that Sydney is 9 years old, her father declared that they have changed their minds and now consider their daughter as "a wonderful, joyous child."

"She has enriched my life to a degree I didn't think was possible," said Michael Shaw. "She changed my whole focus on life, on what has value and what doesn't have value, and what we consider valuable."

Michael Shaw is also on the board of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society, an advocacy group concerned about the coming of broader prenatal testing in Canada and what it will mean for Down syndrome children.

In February 2007, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada issued new guidelines recommending that every woman, regardless of age, be offered noninvasive prenatal genetic screening.

According to the Ottawa Citizen about 80%-90% of Canadian women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis choose to have an abortion.

Read the rest here.

Padre Pio incorrupt

Here is the great saint... 40 years after his death. Absolutely amazing. No tricks here. God never intended us to decay and rot, and there certainly is a correlation between decay and holiness.

The Pope & The Jews

On CBS's website... my emphasis & [my commentary].

NEW YORK (AP) ― Pope Benedict XVI will visit a synagogue led by a rabbi who survived the Holocaust during his first papal trip to the United States, the nation's bishops said Thursday.

The pontiff, 80, is a native of Germany whose father was anti-Nazi. Benedict was enrolled in the Hitler Youth program as a teenager against his will and then was drafted into the German army in the last months of the war. [Oh my gosh! They actually reported this correctly.] He wrote in his memoirs that he deserted in the war's last days.

It is the pope's second visit to a synagogue as pontiff. On his first papal trip abroad in 2005, Benedict visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany.

"By this personal and informal visit, which is not part of his official program, His Holiness wishes to express his good will toward the local Jewish community as they prepare for Passover," said Monsignor David Malloy, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Passover begins at sundown on April 19.

Separately, the pope has scheduled a meeting with Jewish leaders and representatives of other faiths for April 17 in Washington.

The pope has been reaching out to Jews, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Some tensions arose recently over a Good Friday prayer the pope revived from the old Latin rite that had historically been used as an excuse for violence and discrimination against Jews. Benedict revised the prayer to address Jewish fears, but some Jewish leaders worried that the changes did not go far enough. [Those Jewish leaders who are angry are totally unreasonable; do we not have the freedom to remain faithful to our Truth claims? Do we or do we not believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah? If we do, it is unreasonable to stop praying that the Jews recognize Him as Messiah. It's just that simple. If the Jews pray that Christians cease from their erroneous doctrine during Passover, I quite frankly wouldn't care. That's what they believe; of course they would do that!]

Read the whole thing here.

Liberal Protestantism: Taking the 'Christ' out of Christian

There she is... Rev. Gretta Vosper, here to preach that "Glorious Hope" has risen... what the #&%%*@?!

This is where Canada's largest Protestant denomination is headed [United Church]. Read it and weep.
Why bother going to this 'church' when you can stay at home and read a self-help book, or purchase a carbon-offset? Why not simply become more involved in politics? Why bother going to church to proclaim that you don't believe in God? Oh well.

It's really too bad that Rev. Vosper won't wake up and smell the coffee; liberal Protestantism is dying out in drones. She should read Philip Jenkins' article "The Next Christendom", but I'm sure the title would sicken her. Jenkins' article talks about how the future of Christianity is in the Global South (Africa & Latin America) and Asia. He discusses how liberal Christianity, a phenom of the dying west, is sinking the faith in America and Europe; we are hardly replacing ourselves in birth rates, and Europe is practically dead. Yet in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the faith is booming. In fact, the Christianity that's booming and beating out Islam, is precisely the faith that Rev. Vosper doesn't teach: Orthodox Christianity... the worship and praise and thanksgiving of the One, True God- The Holy Trinity. But to Rev. Vosper, that old doctrine stuff about the Incarnation is sooo passe.

Pray for West United Hill Church..... that's all we can do.

Taking Christ out of Christianity
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

March 22, 2008 at 12:38 AM EDT

That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto's West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country.

But at West Hill on the faith's holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words “Jesus Christ” will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with “Glorious hope.”

Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity's central tenet about the return to life on Easter morning of the crucified divine son of God.

Generally speaking, no divine anybody makes an appearance in West Hill's Sunday service liturgy.

There is no authoritative Big-Godism, as Rev. Gretta Vosper, West Hill's minister for the past 10 years, puts it. No petitionary prayers (“Dear God, step into the world and do good things about global warming and the poor”). No miracles-performing magic Jesus given birth by a virgin and coming back to life. No references to salvation, Christianity's teaching of the final victory over death through belief in Jesus's death as an atonement for sin and the omnipotent love of God. For that matter, no omnipotent God, or god.

Ms. Vosper has written a book, published this week – With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe – in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability and either it sheds its no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas, or it's toast.

She is considered one of the bright, if unconventional, minds within the United Church, Canada's largest Protestant Christian denomination. She holds a master of divinity degree from Queen's University and was ordained in 1992. She founded and chairs the Toronto-based Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.

SNIP...

She says now that the work of biblical scholars has become publicly accessible, the churches and their clergy are caught living a lie that few people will buy much longer. “I just don't think we can placate those in the pews long enough to transition into a kind of new community that doesn't keep people away.”

She wants salvation redefined to mean new life through removing the causes of suffering in the world. [Liberation theology, or Jeremiah Wright theology for pasty white protestants.] She wants the church to define resurrection as “starting over,” “new chances.” She wants an end to the image of God as an intervening all-powerful authority who must be appeased to avoid divine wrath; rather she would have congregations work together as communities to define God – or god – according to their own worked-out definitions of what is holy and sacred. She wants the eucharist – the symbolic eating and drinking of Jesus's body and blood to make the congregation part of Jesus's body – to be instead a symbolic experience of community love. [Just convert to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, and you can have the Grace and become part of Christ's Body!]

SNIP...

[Rev Gretta Vosper pontificates:] “I can find myself in there [the statements of faith] but there's whole parts of it where I go, ‘Oh my goodness, this is terrible.' If someone says to me, ‘Do you believe in God?' I can come up with an answer that would satisfy the courts of the United Church. But would it reflect what's stated in their statement of faith? I don't think so. But it wouldn't be very far from what my colleague down the street, and what his colleague down the street from him, would say. That's the problem.” [Did she just refer to a fellow Christian as a colleague? Wierd.]

Read the whole idiotic/tragic story here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080322.
wchurch22/EmailBNStory/National/home

Here's what Rod Dreher and Mark Shea had to say:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/03/church-of-jesus-without-jesus.html

Reception of the Eucharist

The auxiliary bishop of Karaganda in Kazakhstan has spoken with Gloria.TV about his new book "Dominus est" in which he sharply criticises the practice of communion in the hand. This is a really interesting interview about reception of Communion in the hand. The bishop has some neat things to say about the early Church's reception and the organic development of the real liturgical norm: Communion on the tongue.

New York pro-life video

New interview on the Shroud of Turin

A New Era for the Shroud of Turin
Interview With Expert Father Gianfranco Berbenni

By Paolo Centofanti

ROME, FEB. 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Leaked information about a BBC interview to air on Holy Saturday reports that Christopher Bronk Ramsey, director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, thinks the 1998 tests on the Shroud of Turin should be re-evaluated.

The 1988 carbon-14 tests -- done in the Oxford laboratories -- dated the shroud in the Middle Ages, thereby negating that it could be Christ's burial cloth.

ZENIT spoke with Capuchin Father Gianfranco Berbenni, professor of "Science and Theology Regarding the Holy Shroud" at Rome's Regina Apostolorum university. In this interview, he comments on the long history of research on the shroud, as well as photographic reproduction made for display at this summer's World Youth Day.

Q: How do you see these possible new elements related to the Holy Shroud and to a possible disproving of the 1988 carbon-14 analyses?

Father Berbenni: Going beyond the leaked information, I think that a new era of investigations about the Shroud is opening; 20 years have passed since those scientific studies.

Q: Did Ramsey form part of the 1988 analysis team?

Father Berbenni: He worked in the laboratory in which the analyses were done. We could say that this is a new generation of scientists who are joining the research on the Shroud. Many of the older generation have left us, even physically, and this new generation rightly is taking up again the investigations, also because of a refining of the methods and instruments for archaeological dating over these years.

Some have even spoken about a kind of conspiracy, as if the $1 million offered for verifying the non-authenticity of the Shroud could have motivated the scientists, let's not say to falsify, but at least to direct the final results.

Perhaps this could be considered a bit of "scientific gossip." Little credit should be given to rumors when they do not have serious proof. The problem perhaps is that both sides, the one favorable to the Holy Shroud and the other against it were very much in conflict. Perhaps both sides brought to the surface their best arguments in that period. Both probably need to historically review those events.

Q: Regarding your statement about "scientific gossip," how do you evaluate the communication and information generally published about the Holy Shroud and up to what point do you think that at times it is used to make a circus of the information?

Father Berbenni: One of the weak points, recently examined as well in the International Center of Turin, is indeed ensuring the quality of information related to the Holy Shroud. Because of this a good press office is fundamental in order to give journalists trustworthy materials. It is, therefore, more than anything, a task of organizing communication. Information, if incomplete, becomes more easily manipulated.

Q: Therefore the manipulation of information can even be involuntary?

Father Berbenni: About the willfulness of it, there are many hints, but beyond the hints, there are no proofs.

Q: What do you think about the photographic enlargement being made of the Holy Shroud to be displayed in Novara, Italy, and then for World Youth Day in Sydney? Do you think that it can run the risk of trivializing the Holy Shroud?

Father Berbenni: The essential thing is that this initiative of the enlargement maintains that elegance of communication that the Holy Shroud has always brought to its surroundings. Thus this is a very good initiative; the essential thing is that a non-superficial tone is protected.

Q: Is there anything new in the studies about the Holy Shroud?

Father Berbenni: Beyond the intervention regarding protecting the preservation of the Holy Shroud, in these days, I think the Church does not intend to accelerate, at least at the moment, new investigations. The essential thing is its optimal conservation, something that has been verified for almost 10 years with its placement in the new, and splendid chest.

Q: Are there misunderstandings about the theological meaning of the Holy Shroud?

Father Berbenni: Sadly this is one of the weakest areas right now, in the popular and social perception of this cloth. In part because of the conflict that has sometimes marked it.

It is a splendid cloth, but is always at the center of aggravated discussions with a cultural character, and at times even about theological positions.

Q: Can you speak to us about the scientific or chemical theories about the way in which the image of the Holy Shroud could have formed?

Father Berbenni: Substantially there are two major schools. Our center in Rome, which is inclined toward accepting a normal physical-chemical formation, and the majority, at least presently, of the scientific positions, in which there are groups with hypotheses going from the mysterious, because they do not yet have demonstrated bases, to the esoteric.

Investigations about the formation of the image are very linked to the characteristics of the investigations of the STURP [Project of Investigation of the Shroud of Turn] from 1976 to 1988, but with some presuppositions.

The important thing is that they continue investigations without exaggerated positions of "scientific fantasy" but with freedom of investigation.

Regarding ourselves, we would suggest returning to much simpler, "normal" hypothesis, given that we always have available the high resolution photo of the negative of the Holy Shroud, which until 2002 was not analyzable except in small parts. It helps in that which refers to the technical aspects of formation of the image.

Mother refuses to abort twin babies... babies save her life!

Michelle Stepney with her girls Alice and Harriet / Photo Credit: The Daily Mail

Mother refuses to abort twin girls who knocked loose tumor

London, Feb 7, 2008 / 04:41 am (CNA).- A British woman’s twin girls saved her life when, while still in the womb, they kicked free a tumor growing in their mother’s uterus, the Daily Mail reports.

Though advised she needed to abort the twins so she could be treated for cancer, the mother avoided harsh cancer treatment so her babies could be born.

Michelle Stepney, 35, was expecting twins when she went to a hospital with a suspected miscarriage. The doctors realized that she had cervical cancer, saying that the kicking of the twins had dislodged a tumor.

Had the tumor not been dislodged, the cancer may not have been discovered in time for successful treatment.

After the discovery of the cancer, Stepney’s doctors told her that she would need to undergo chemotherapy and a hysterectomy. To do this, she would need to abort the twins.

Stepney refused. "I couldn't believe it when the doctors told me that the babies had dislodged the tumor," she said, according to the Daily Mail.

"I'd felt them kicking, but I didn't realize just how important their kicking would turn out to be.

"I owe my life to my girls, and that's why I could have never agreed with a termination."

"I knew I could have an operation straight away and it would cure me of the cancer, but that would mean getting rid of my babies and I couldn't do that.

"I had two lives inside me and I just couldn't give up on them - especially after they had saved me like this," Stepney said.

The twins are now one year old and thriving. She and her husband, Scott, also have a five-year-old son.

"I feel so lucky. And one day I will tell my daughters how they saved their mummy's life."

Read the full story here:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11713

What the $%$#?????

You won't believe this until you read it:

Hardwired for love: Are robots the sex partners of the future?

from Briebart.com- Read the whole absurdity here:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080212144453
.spddtsz8&show_article=1

In the mood for a little skin-to-skin?" coos a lover slipping between the sheets.

"Not tonight," mumbles the partner, turning around. "Just make it with the robot, if you want."

A kinky sci-fi fantasy? Love and lust in the 23rd century?

Not at all, says David Levy, a PhD in gender studies and artificial intelligence and author of "Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relations".

By mid-century, predicts the 62-year-old expert, getting it on with an electronic femme-fatale or a superstud sexbot will become an accepted part of the human landscape.

"Think of it: great sex on tap, 24/7," he said. People may even fall in love with their hard-wired sex slaves, he adds.

[WHAT THE HELL????? -Old Books Club]

Not everyone embraces Levy's vision of a future where humanoids guarantee satisfaction in bed along with pre-programmed post-coital conversation.

But many agree it is on the cards, given exponential leaps in computer power, progress in mimicking human muscles and movements, and headway in artificial intelligence (AI) software to replicate emotions and personality.

"Already today, the best quality synthetic voices cannot be distinguished from human voices," Levy told AFP, adding that some artificial skins now rival the smoothest of baby bottoms.

Last November, researchers at Waseda University in Japan unveiled a robot, named Twendy-One, that can cook, talk, obey verbal commands, and use its soft silicon-wrapped hands -- each equipped with 241 pressure sensors -- to interact with humans.

Even so, it will be a long time, Levy acknowledges, before we cannot tell the difference between human and humanoid.

The sexbot Gigolo Joe played by Jude Law in Steven Spielberg's 2001 film "Artificial Intelligence: A.I.," providing chat and emotional support as well as sex, is at least 40 decades away, he thinks.

Not all AI experts agree. "I don't think we will have convincing 'human-like' robots" within that time frame," said Frederic Kaplan, a researcher at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Kaplan, who pushed the envelope of robot intelligence in programming the brain of Sony's eerily adorable robot dog Aibo, also wonders whether we even want robots made in our own image.

"Human-machine interactions will be interesting in their own right, not as 'simulation' of human relations," he said.

But Levy is convinced the demand is there, and that market forces will provide the financial drive to overcome any technical -- or psychological -- obstacles.

"It is only a matter of time before someone in the adult entertainment industry, which is awash in money, thinks, 'Gee, I could make a pile of money'," he said.

A company in Japan, Axis, has already produced the world's first, rudimentary, sexbot -- for men.

Called Honeydolls, the lifesize figures are made from surgical-grade silicone and resin, and are equipped with voice-emitting sensors in each breast. Pinch the nipples, and Cindy (or Soari or Maria, depending on the model) will react with a squeal and whisper pre-programmed sweet nothings in one's ear.

Customised MP3 audio files can be substituted for a more personal touch. Price tag: 7,000 dollars (4,800 euros).

Women, too, are bound to be lured to sexbots, contended Levy.

Jim Sleeper: Pornification of the public square

In this YouTube video, conservative political commentator and radio host Laura Ingraham speaks the painful truth.

Sleeper's article:
Sex sells. And until liberals challenge the free speech that permits it, and conservatives protest the free market that pushes it, our kids will pay the price

02:14 PM CST on Sunday, February 19, 2006

My friend Dave wrote me awhile back: "Channel-surfing with Jessica, who's 9, we stopped at an early evening rerun of Jon Stewart's Daily Show – irreverent, we figured, but not wrong for her.

"Came the bit about the gay male escort/model who'd mysteriously gotten White House press clearance to represent a Republican-funded online 'news' service and lob the president softball questions. The show flashed a photo from the escort service's Web site showing the man naked, spread-eagle, his genitals blurred. "Jessie gasped. Her face clouded over and she looked our way but didn't ask anything, and sometimes you just let things roll. We clutched hands silently, knowing damage had been done. I don't want to beat up on Stewart; I'm a liberal. Maybe I should have used better judgment, but, man, my parents never had to think about jumping up and shielding my eyes when we watched Walter Cronkite."

Why was the photo flashed? Was it news? Social commentary? Ratings lust? All of that, surely – even news of conservative sexual hypocrisy, of which there is no end. But "sex" itself is what sells: "People want it, so we are trying to provide it; the more X's, the more popular," an Adelphia Communications spokeswoman told The Boston Globe after the company, among its other dubious distinctions, became the first U.S. cable provider to offer triple-X rated pornography.

What Dave's family got wasn't porn, exactly, but it forced him to think about how he'd explain to his 9-year-old that people sell their bodies – and that TV "sells" their doing it. That Dave faults his own judgment doesn't quite make him fair game. It certainly doesn't explain what's coming to us unbidden in roadside "Erotic Empire" billboards, bus-shelter underwear posters, fashion-cum-kiddie porn ads, commercials for erectile dysfunction cures and the fetid currents wafting suddenly through our homes at prime time.

Get the rest here:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/
DN-sleeper_19edi.ART1.State.Edition1.3f35dbc.html

On modern art...

An interesting reflection on the banality of modern art and architecture.

In a 2003 interview with Steve Sailer to promote his book Human Accomplishment, Charles Murray said the following:

I think that the number of novels, songs, and paintings done since 1950 that anyone will still care about 200 years from now is somewhere in the vicinity of zero. Not exactly zero, but close. I find a good way to make this point is to ask anyone who disagrees with me to name a work that will survive -- and then ask, "Seriously?" Very few works indeed can defend themselves against the "Seriously?" question.

To which, Steve challenged his readers to come up with works that would meet that criteria. (Steve’s review of the book is here.) Well, I have belatedly taken up the challenge.

Hat tip to "The Man Who Was Thursday" blog; below is the entire post:
http://manwhoisthursday.blogspot.com/2007/12/charles-
murray-challenge-belated.html

A Rich Market for Russian Icons

An icon is restored at a Moscow gallery opened by tycoon Mikhail Abramov to display his extensive collection. (By Peter Finn -- The Washington Post)

As Tycoons Reclaim National Treasures, Counterfeiters Also Emerge
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 5, 2008; Page A15

MOSCOW -- Last May, Maria Paphiti, an icons specialist at Christie's auction house in London, was invited to inspect some religious paintings on wood that were among the contents of a building recently bought by an English family. The artworks had been found wrapped in plastic, and the building's new owners wondered what, if anything, they were worth.

The answer: a lot, particularly if they drew the attention of Russian buyers who have embarked on a massive spending spree to recover the country's exiled treasures.

Paphiti quickly singled out one piece as quite valuable. The 1894 icon "St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker of Myra" had a rare signature by the acclaimed Russian icon painter Mikhail Dikarev. It had also been framed in gilt and enamel by Jakov Mischukov, a well-known Moscow craftsman.

Adding to the icon's value was a dedication on the back saying it had been presented to the last czar, Nicholas II, by the Old Believers community, which broke with the established Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century over changes to the church's rites.

How the icon got to London, only to be discarded in an obscure building, remains a mystery, Paphiti said.

The icon was put on the block last June 11. Bidding started slowly at 20,000 pounds, or almost $40,000 -- Christie's pre-sale estimate. An impatient Russian bidder quickly stepped in with an offer of $200,000 and then two bidders, both unidentified Russians, faced off in bids made by intermediaries over the phone until the icon was sold to one of them for $854,000, a world record for an icon at auction.

For the happily bewildered English family, who told Christie's they wished to remain anonymous, it was an astonishing windfall. "They couldn't believe it," Paphiti said in a telephone interview from London.

Read the rest here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2008/02/04/AR2008020403089.html?referrer=emailarticle

"Icons will save the world" (from First Things)

By Susan Cushman
Thursday, December 20, 2007, 6:36 AM

Standing before the icon of Christ in the front of St. John Orthodox Church, I prepare to offer my confession at the Sacrament of Forgiveness. The Holy image of the One Who Forgives comes forth to meet me, as the father comes forth to welcome home the prodigal son in the familiar gospel passage (Luke 15:11–32). The love of Jesus pours forth from his prototype (the icon), sees the offering of my broken heart, and raises it to the heavenly realm.

After receiving the priest’s counsel and absolution, I remain in the nave (the large part of the temple, called the sanctuary in Protestant churches) to give thanks and to let God’s grace and peace fill my heart. Surrounded by icons of Christ, his Mother, the angels, saints, biblical scenes and church feasts, I think about how Prince Vladimir’s envoys must have felt when they walked into Hagia Sophia Orthodox Cathedral in Constantinople near the end of the tenth century. Their mission was to find a religion that Prince Vladimir could embrace and offer to the people of Russia. In their report they said, “We didn’t know whether we were in Heaven or on earth.” Shortly thereafter, Orthodoxy became the official religion of Kievan Russia, infusing the lives of peasants and princes, artists and writers, with the Orthodox vision of beauty. Nine hundred years later, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky penned the famous words, “Beauty will save the world.”

I don’t think Prince Vladimir or Dostoevsky had in mind the kind of worldly beauty that today’s fashion and entertainment industries worship, or even the beauty of secular art and architecture. I think they were both swept off their feet by true spiritual beauty—in Vladimir’s case, the beauty of the Orthodox temple (church), adorned with icons.

SPIRITUAL BEAUTY
In his book Icons: Theology in Color, Eugene Trubetskoi said that the beauty of the icon is spiritual. “Our icon painters,” Trubetskoi said, “had seen the beauty that would save the world and immortalized it in colors.”

Here's a link to the full story:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=928

"The God In The Cave" | From The Everlasting Man

This sketch of the human story began in a cave; the cave which popular science associates with the cave-man and in which practical discovery has really found archaic drawings of animals. The second half of human history, which was like a new creation of the world, also begins in a cave. There is even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals were again present; for it was a cave used as a stable by the mountaineers of the uplands about Bethlehem; who still drive their cattle into such holes and caverns at night. It was here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors of the crowded caravanserai had been shut in their faces; and it was here beneath the very feet of the passersby, in a cellar under the very floor of the world, that Jesus Christ was born But in that second creation there was indeed something symbolical in the roots of the primeval rock or the horns of the prehistoric herd. God also was a CaveMan, and, had also traced strange shapes of creatures, curiously colored upon the wall of the world ; but the pictures that he made had come to life.

A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded. It is at least like a jest in this; that it is something which the scientific critic cannot see. He laboriously explains the difficulty which we have always defiantly and almost derisively exaggerated; and mildly condemns as improbable something that we have almost madly exalted as incredible; as something that would be much too good to be true, except that it is true. When that contrast between the cosmic creation and the little local infancy has been repeated, reiterated, underlined, emphasized, exulted in, sung, shouted, roared, not to say howled, in a hundred thousand hymns, carols, rhymes, rituals pictures, poems, and popular sermons, it may be suggested that we hardly need a higher critic to draw our attention to something a little odd about it; especially one of the sort that seems to take a long time to see a joke, even his own joke. But about this contrast and combination of ideas one thing may be said here, because it is relevant to the whole thesis of this book. The sort of modern critic of whom I speak is generally much impressed with the importance of education in life and the importance of psychology in education. That sort of man is never tired of telling us that first impressions fix character by the law of causation; and he will become quite nervous if a child's visual sense is poisoned by the wrong colors on a golliwog or his nervous system prematurely shaken by a cacophonous rattle. Yet he will think us very narrow-minded, if we say that this is exactly why there really is a difference between being brought up as a Christian and being brought up as a Jew or a Moslem or an atheist. T he difference is that every Catholic child has learned from pictures, and even every Protestant child from stones, this incredible combination of contrasted ideas as one of the very first impressions on his mind. It is not merely a theological difference. It is a psychological difference which can outlast any theologies It really is, as that sort of scientist loves to say about anything, incurable. Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether be likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savor of religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God. But the two ideas are not naturally or necessarily combined. They would not be necessarily combined for an ancient Greek or a Chinaman, even for Aristotle or Confucius. It is no more inevitable to connect God with an infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten. It has been created in our minds by Christmas because we are Christians; because we are psychological Christians even when we are not theological ones. In other words, this combination of ideas has emphatically, in the much disputed phrase, altered human nature. There is really a difference between the man who knows it and the man who does not. It may not be a difference of moral worth, for the Moslem or the Jew might be worthier according to his lights; but it is a plain fact about the crossing of two particular lights, the conjunction of two stars in our particular horoscope. Omnipotence and impotence, or divinity and infancy, do definitely make a sort of epigram which a million repetitions cannot turn into a platitude. It is not unreasonable to call it unique.

Bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet. Here begins, it is needless to say, another mighty influence for the humanization of Christendom. If the world wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of Christianity, it would probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect (I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was a boy a more Puritan generation objected to a statue upon my parish church representing the Virgin and Child. After much controversy, they compromised by taking away the Child. One would think that this was even more corrupted with Mariolatry, unless the mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a sort of weapon. But the practical difficulty is also a parable. You cannot chip away the statue of a mother from all round that of a newborn child. You cannot suspend the new-born child in mid-air; indeed you cannot really have a statue of a newborn child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea of a newborn child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother. You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother, you cannot in common human life approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all, the other idea follows I as it is followed in history. We must either leave Christ out of Christmas, or Christmas out of Christ, or we must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, that those holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross.

It might be suggested, in a somewhat violent image, that nothing had happened in that fold or crack in the great gray hills except that the whole universe had been turned inside out. I mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing were now. turned inward to the smallest. The very image will suggest all that multitudinous marvel of converging eyes that makes so much of the colored Catholic imagery like a peacock's tail., But it is true in a sense that God who had been only a circumference was seen as a centre; and a centre is infinitely small. It is true that the spiritual spiral henceforward works inwards instead of outwards, and in that sense is centripetal and not centrifugal. The faith becomes, in more ways than one, a religion of little things. But its traditions in art and' literature and popular fable have quite sufficiently attested, as has been said, this particular paradox of the divine being in the cradle Perhaps they have not so clearly emphasized the significance o f the divine being in the cave. Curiously enough, indeed, tradition has not very clearly emphasized the cave. It is a familiar fact that the Bethlehem scene has been represented in every possible setting of time and country, of landscape and architecture; and it is a wholly happy and admirable fact that men have conceived it as quite different according to their different individual traditions and tastes. But while all have realized that it was a stable, not so many have realized that it was a cave. Some critics have even been so silly as to suppose that there was some contradiction between the stable and the cave; in which case they cannot know much about caves or stables in Palestine. As they see differences that are not there, it is needless to add that they do not see differences that are there. When a well-known critic says, for instance, that Christ being born in a rocky cavern is like Mithras having sprung alive out of a rock, it sounds like a parody upon comparative religion. There is such a thing as the point of a story, even if it is a story in the sense of a lie. And the notion of a hero appearing, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus, mature and without a mother, is obviously the very opposite of the idea of a god being born like an ordinary baby and entirely dependent on a mother. Whichever ideal we might prefer, we should surely see that they are contrary ideals. It is as stupid to connect them because they both contain a substance called stone as to identify the punishment of the Deluge with the baptism in the Jordan because they both contain a substance called water. Whether as a myth or a mystery, Christ was obviously conceived as born in a hole in the rocks primarily because it marked the position of one outcast and homeless. Nevertheless it is true, as I have said, that the cave has not been so commonly or so clearly used as a symbol as the other realities that surrounded the first Christmas.

And the reason for this also refers to the very nature of that new world. It was in a sense the difficulty of a new dimension. Christ was not only born on the level of the world, but even lower than the world. The first act of the divine drama was enacted, not only on no stage set up above the sightseer, but on a dark and curtained stage sunken out of sight; and that is an idea very difficult to express in most modes of artistic expression. It is the idea of simultaneous happenings on different levels of life. Something like it might have been attempted in the more archaic and decorative medieval art. But the more the artists learned of realism and perspective, the less they could depict at once the angels in the heavens and the shepherds on the hills, and the glory in the darkness that was under the hills. Perhaps it could have been best conveyed by the characteristic expedient of some of the medieval guilds, when they wheeled about the streets a theater with three stages one above the other, with heaven above the earth and hell under the earth. But in the riddle of Bethlehem it was heaven that was under the earth.

There is in that alone the touch of a revolution, as of the world turned upside down. It would be vain to attempt to say anything adequate, or anything new, about the change which this conception of a deity born like an outcast or even an outlaw had upon the whole conception of law and its duties to the poor and outcast. It is profoundly true to say that after that moment there could be no slaves. There could be and were people bearing that legal title, until the Church was strong enough to weed them out, but there could be no more of the pagan repose in the mere advantage to the state of keeping it a servile state. Individuals became important, in a sense in which no instruments can be important. A man could not be a means to an end, at any rate to any other man's end. All this popular and fraternal element in the story has been rightly attached by tradition to the episode of the Shepherds; the hinds who found themselves talking face to face with the princes of heaven. But there is another aspect of the popular element as represented by the shepherds which has not perhaps been so fully developed; and which is more directly relevant here.

Men of the people, like the shepherds, men of the popular tradition, had everywhere been the makers of the mythologies. It was they who had felt most directly, with least check or chill from philosophy or the corrupt cults of civilization, the need we have already considered; the images that were adventures of the imagination; the mythology that was a sort of search the tempting and tantalizing hints of something half human in nature; the dumb significance of seasons and special places. They had best understood that the soul of a landscape is a story and the soul of a story is a personality. But rationalism had already begun to rot away these really irrational though imaginative treasures of the peasant; even as systematic slavery had eaten the peasant out of house and home. Upon all such peasantries everywhere there was descending a dusk and twilight of disappointment, in the hour when these few men discovered what they sought. Everywhere else Arcadia was fading from the forest. Pan was dead and the shepherds were scattered like sheep. And though no man knew it, the hour was near which was to end and to fulfill all things; and though no man heard it, there was one far-off cry in an unknown tongue upon the heaving wilderness of the mountains. The shepherds had found their Shepherd.

And the thing they found was of a kind with the things they sought. The populace had been wrong in many things; but they had not been wrong in believing that holy things could have a habitation and that divinity need not disdain the limits of time and space. And the barbarian who conceived the crudest fancy about the sun being stolen and hidden in a box, or the wildest myth about the god being rescued and his enemy deceived with a stone, was nearer to the secret of the cave and knew more about the crisis of the world, than all those in the circle of cities round the Mediterranean who had become content with cold abstractions or cosmopolitan generalizations; than all those who were spinning thinner and thinner threads of thought out of the transcendentalism of Plato or the orientalism of Pythagoras. The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic; it was not a place of myths allegorized or dissected or explained or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true. Since that hour no mythologies have been made in the world. Mythology is a search.

Read part II of The God in the Cave:
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/chesterton_godinthecave2.asp

Merry Christmas from Pope Benedict...

Benedict XVI's Midnight Mass Homily
"God Finds a Space, Even If It Means Entering Through the Stable"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 24, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's homily today at Christmas Midnight Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

"The time came for Mary to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn" (Lk 2:6f.). These words touch our hearts every time we hear them. This was the moment that the angel had foretold at Nazareth: "you will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High" (Lk 1:31). This was the moment that Israel had been awaiting for centuries, through many dark hours - the moment that all mankind was somehow awaiting, in terms as yet ill-defined: when God would take care of us, when he would step outside his concealment, when the world would be saved and God would renew all things. We can imagine the kind of interior preparation, the kind of love with which Mary approached that hour. The brief phrase: "She wrapped him in swaddling clothes" allows us to glimpse something of the holy joy and the silent zeal of that preparation. The swaddling clothes were ready, so that the child could be given a fitting welcome. Yet there is no room at the inn. In some way, mankind is awaiting God, waiting for him to draw near. But when the moment comes, there is no room for him. Man is so preoccupied with himself, he has such urgent need of all the space and all the time for his own things, that nothing remains for others - for his neighbour, for the poor, for God. And the richer men become, the more they fill up all the space by themselves. And the less room there is for others.

Saint John, in his Gospel, went to the heart of the matter, giving added depth to Saint Luke's brief account of the situation in Bethlehem: "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not" (Jn 1:11). This refers first and foremost to Bethlehem: the Son of David comes to his own city, but has to be born in a stable, because there is no room for him at the inn. Then it refers to Israel: the one who is sent comes among his own, but they do not want him. And truly, it refers to all mankind: he through whom the world was made, the primordial Creator-Word, enters into the world, but he is not listened to, he is not received.

These words refer ultimately to us, to each individual and to society as a whole. Do we have time for our neighbour who is in need of a word from us, from me, or in need of my affection? For the sufferer who is in need of help? For the fugitive or the refugee who is seeking asylum? Do we have time and space for God? Can he enter into our lives? Does he find room in us, or have we occupied all the available space in our thoughts, our actions, our lives for ourselves?

Thank God, this negative detail is not the only one, nor the last one that we find in the Gospel. Just as in Luke we encounter the maternal love of Mary and the fidelity of Saint Joseph, the vigilance of the shepherds and their great joy, just as in Matthew we encounter the visit of the wise men, come from afar, so too John says to us: "To all who received him, he gave power to become children of God" (Jn 1:12). There are those who receive him, and thus, beginning with the stable, with the outside, there grows silently the new house, the new city, the new world. The message of Christmas makes us recognize the darkness of a closed world, and thereby no doubt illustrates a reality that we see daily. Yet it also tells us that God does not allow himself to be shut out. He finds a space, even if it means entering through the stable; there are people who see his light and pass it on. Through the word of the Gospel, the angel also speaks to us, and in the sacred liturgy the light of the Redeemer enters our lives. Whether we are shepherds or "wise men" - the light and its message call us to set out, to leave the narrow circle of our desires and interests, to go out to meet the Lord and worship him. We worship him by opening the world to truth, to good, to Christ, to the service of those who are marginalized and in whom he awaits us.

In some Christmas scenes from the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, the stable is depicted as a crumbling palace. It is still possible to recognize its former splendour, but now it has become a ruin, the walls are falling down - in fact, it has become a stable. Although it lacks any historical basis, this metaphorical interpretation nevertheless expresses something of the truth that is hidden in the mystery of Christmas. David's throne, which had been promised to last for ever, stands empty. Others rule over the Holy Land. Joseph, the descendant of David, is a simple artisan; the palace, in fact, has become a hovel. David himself had begun life as a shepherd. When Samuel sought him out in order to anoint him, it seemed impossible and absurd that a shepherd-boy such as he could become the bearer of the promise of Israel. In the stable of Bethlehem, the very town where it had all begun, the Davidic kingship started again in a new way - in that child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. The new throne from which this David will draw the world to himself is the Cross. The new throne - the Cross - corresponds to the new beginning in the stable. Yet this is exactly how the true Davidic palace, the true kingship is being built. This new palace is so different from what people imagine a palace and royal power ought to be like. It is the community of those who allow themselves to be drawn by Christ's love and so become one body with him, a new humanity. The power that comes from the Cross, the power of self-giving goodness - this is the true kingship. The stable becomes a palace - and setting out from this starting-point, Jesus builds the great new community, whose key-word the angels sing at the hour of his birth: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to those whom he loves" - those who place their will in his, in this way becoming men of God, new men, a new world.

Gregory of Nyssa, in his Christmas homilies, developed the same vision setting out from the Christmas message in the Gospel of John: "He pitched his tent among us" (Jn 1:14). Gregory applies this passage about the tent to the tent of our body, which has become worn out and weak, exposed everywhere to pain and suffering. And he applies it to the whole universe, torn and disfigured by sin. What would he say if he could see the state of the world today, through the abuse of energy and its selfish and reckless exploitation? Anselm of Canterbury, in an almost prophetic way, once described a vision of what we witness today in a polluted world whose future is at risk: "Everything was as if dead, and had lost its dignity, having been made for the service of those who praise God. The elements of the world were oppressed, they had lost their splendour because of the abuse of those who enslaved them for their idols, for whom they had not been created" (PL 158, 955f.). Thus, according to Gregory's vision, the stable in the Christmas message represents the ill-treated world. What Christ rebuilds is no ordinary palace. He came to restore beauty and dignity to creation, to the universe: this is what began at Christmas and makes the angels rejoice. The Earth is restored to good order by virtue of the fact that it is opened up to God, it obtains its true light anew, and in the harmony between human will and divine will, in the unification of height and depth, it regains its beauty and dignity. Thus Christmas is a feast of restored creation. It is in this context that the Fathers interpret the song of the angels on that holy night: it is an expression of joy over the fact that the height and the depth, Heaven and Earth, are once more united; that man is again united to God. According to the Fathers, part of the angels' Christmas song is the fact that now angels and men can sing together and in this way the beauty of the universe is expressed in the beauty of the song of praise. Liturgical song - still according to the Fathers - possesses its own peculiar dignity through the fact that it is sung together with the celestial choirs. It is the encounter with Jesus Christ that makes us capable of hearing the song of the angels, thus creating the real music that fades away when we lose this singing-with and hearing-with.

In the stable at Bethlehem, Heaven and Earth meet. Heaven has come down to Earth. For this reason, a light shines from the stable for all times; for this reason joy is enkindled there; for this reason song is born there. At the end of our Christmas meditation I should like to quote a remarkable passage from Saint Augustine. Interpreting the invocation in the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father who art in Heaven", he asks: what is this - Heaven? And where is Heaven? Then comes a surprising response: "... who art in Heaven - that means: in the saints and in the just. Yes, the heavens are the highest bodies in the universe, but they are still bodies, which cannot exist except in a given location. Yet if we believe that God is located in the heavens, meaning in the highest parts of the world, then the birds would be more fortunate than we, since they would live closer to God. Yet it is not written: 'The Lord is close to those who dwell on the heights or on the mountains', but rather: 'the Lord is close to the brokenhearted' (Ps 34:18[33:19]), an expression which refers to humility. Just as the sinner is called 'Earth', so by contrast the just man can be called 'Heaven'" (Sermo in monte II 5, 17). Heaven does not belong to the geography of space, but to the geography of the heart. And the heart of God, during the Holy Night, stooped down to the stable: the humility of God is Heaven. And if we approach this humility, then we touch Heaven. Then the Earth too is made new. With the humility of the shepherds, let us set out, during this Holy Night, towards the Child in the stable! Let us touch God's humility, God's heart! Then his joy will touch us and will make the world more radiant. Amen.

[Original text: Italian]

© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

AGNUS DEI, MISERERE NOBIS (Lamb of God, have mercy on us)

Read this absolutely ridiculous article by a female Episcopalian 'priest'. First, endure my introductory rant...
Case in point about why the priesthood is only for men; as soon as being a priest turns into being innovative or clever, is about gender or sexuality, or that one's personality is important - then the whole thing turns into a disaster for the office and the faithful. Priests (male or female) begin treating their office as if it had something to do with what 'they' can contribute, but the simple fact is that they simply need to be faithful to the office and to Tradition, not imposing their views onto the faith. Priesthood is about fidelity and obedience, just like marriage. It is difficult for us humans to bear- that God did not ordain the priesthood for women, but neither did God ordain the primordial 'sacrament' of motherhood, bearing a child in the womb for 9th months, to man. We, man and woman, are complimentary and have different roles in the mystical Body of Christ. It is little noted that the only perfect human being to have lived (besides the God-man Christ, of course) was Mary, the Blessed Mother of God; but then again, Catholicism represses women... right.

The Earthly Father: What if Mary wasn't a virgin?
By Chloe Breyer
Posted Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005, at 7:07 AM ET

At Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of God's only son. Some believers, however, wonder if Jesus Christ is God's son only. The ancient "illegitimacy tradition" and its modern proponents propose that Jesus may have had a human father. That idea upsets one of the central mysteries of the Christian faith—the virgin conception. But it's entirely in keeping with more essential tenets: Jesus' role as the Messiah, and God's love for the poor and downtrodden. What's more, the illegitimacy tradition responds to many strange utterances about Jesus' birth in the Scriptures themselves.

Christians agree that Jesus was not conceived by Mary and Joseph while they were married. He was born so soon after Joseph took Mary into his home that it was clear she had conceived during her betrothal to Joseph. Beginning in the second century, most Christians explained the scandalously timed birth as evidence of the virgin conception. Christian leaders were still figuring out Jesus' identity at the time, and the virgin conception offered evidence of the Messiah's exceptionalism. It also made sense that if Jesus was both fully human and fully God, he should have one human parent and one divine one.

The illegitimacy tradition, by contrast, holds that the Holy Spirit supplemented, rather than replaced, Jesus' human paternity. Justin Martyr, a second-century Christian theologian, wrote of early Christians born as Jews who believed that Jesus was the natural son of Mary and Joseph. Origen, another early church father, referred to two branches of first-century Jewish Christians, collectively called the Ebionites, "the one confessing as we do that Jesus was born of a virgin, the other holding that he was not born in this way but like other men." The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas includes an enigmatic saying that may well refer to Jesus: "He who knows the father and the mother will be called the son of a harlot."

But by the fourth century, the author of Thomas and the other doubters of the virgin conception had been labeled heretics. The illegitimacy tradition was particularly unpopular with church leaders because non-Christians took the lead in articulating it—not just early rabbis, but pagan philosophers as well. (Click here for an example from True Doctrine, a pagan anti-Christian polemic written in 178.)

For centuries, the illegitimacy tradition was forgotten. But recently it has been resurrected, and not only by miracle-bashers. Its proponents include establishment theologians like Raymond Brown, author of the massive Birth of the Messiah and the commentary on John's Gospel in the Anchor Bible Series, and feminist theologians like Rosemary Radford Ruether and Jane Schaberg. To be sure, the idea isn't mainstream. In 1987, Schaberg, a biblical studies professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, published The Illegitimacy of Jesus. Her central argument was that Matthew and Luke's Gospels originally told of an illegitimate conception rather than a miraculous virgin one. University of Detroit Mercy, which is Catholic, publicly distanced itself from Schaberg's positions. She got hundreds of angry letters and a few death threats and one night awoke to discover that her car was in flames on the street outside her apartment.

Should Schaberg and other scholars who question the virgin birth be hurled into the outer darkness? The problem with dismissing them, as the fourth-century church authorities dismissed their forerunners, begins with Scripture. The biblical sources for the virgin conception are a few short passages in two of the four Gospels. In Matthew, an angel appears to Joseph, who is perplexed about his fiancee's pregnancy. Should he divorce Mary or have her stoned her to death, as the law of Deuteronomy requires? "Joseph, Son of David," says the angel, "Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus." The angel then goes on to quote the Hebrew prophet Isaiah. "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel." (In fact, "virgin" comes from Matthew's use of a Greek mistranslation; the Hebrew in Isaiah reads "young girl.") The version in Luke is similar.

So far, the Scripture sounds pretty clear. But the infancy narratives from Matthew and Luke must be squared with some startling silences, alternative Greek translations, and a couple of snide comments from Jesus' hometown critics. Paul never mentions the virgin conception and in Galatians describes Christ as "born of a woman." John's Gospel says nothing on the subject of Jesus' conception. And Mark describes the shocked response of the synagogue-goers of Jesus' hometown of Nazareth when Jesus as an adult returns to preach and teach as God's chosen one. The Nazareth Jews presumably would have known better than anyone about the irregular timing of Jesus' birth. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" his parents' neighbors ask one another. Since Jewish men of the time were identified in relationship to their father, Schaberg and other scholars take this remark as an insinuation about Jesus' parentage—one that was so offensive that the later Evangelists Luke, Matthew, and John changed it.

And there's more. When Mary responds to the angel's good tidings in Luke, one translation of her speech is, "How can this be, I do not know a man?" But in the Greek, the word for man is anthropos, which also means "husband." Schaberg suggests that if this is the meaning Luke intended, the text could imply that Jesus had a human father who was not Joseph. Finally, in the Magnificat, Mary's song of praise and thanksgiving to God, she says, "God has lifted up his humble maidservant." The Greek word for "humble" is the same one that the Septuagint (the old Greek version of the Hebrew Bible) uses to describe the rape of Dinah in Genesis and other incidents of sexual violation. From this, Schaberg discerns the possibility that Mary's "humility" could be "humiliation" from a sexual assault.

Admittedly, Schaberg's conjecture that the Gospel writers were obliquely conveying an illegitimacy tradition—one in which Mary was the victim of rape or seduction—is just that: conjecture. It lacks positive corroboration within the Gospels or other Christian writings. Schaberg acknowledges that she cannot prove that early Christians read the infancy narratives in the way she proposes. Still, if the Gospel writers did assume that their readers knew of an illegitimacy tradition, their words could support a figurative, rather than literal, reading of the angel's annunciation. It seems rash to rule out that historical possibility when theologically it works so well.

Can a loyal Christian believe that Christ was not born of a biological virgin? Perhaps it's worth posing a different question: Why is church authority so intent upon Mary's virginity as a historical fact? Would Jesus be any less God's son if he had an earthly father? The central message of the Gospel is that God raised up and redeemed his servant from death by crucifixion—the Roman style of execution reserved for the lowest of the low. Why couldn't God have sent the same message of divine solidarity with the world's outcasts by making a Messiah out of a man whose conception was also taboo?

Some church leaders feel the pull of the illegitimacy tradition but fear its impact. "Undoubtedly, some sophisticated Christians could live with the alternative … [but] for many less sophisticated believers, illegitimacy would be an offense that would challenge the plausibility of the Christian Mystery," Brown writes. However well-intended, that fear may be misdirected. When she published her book, Schaberg got seven grateful or supportive letters for every angry one she received. More than a century ago, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, "If a heavenly father, why not a heavenly mother? And if an earthly mother, why not an earthly father?" She continued, "I think the doctrine of the Virgin Birth as something sweeter, higher, nobler than ordinary motherhood, is a slur on all the natural motherhood of the world." An unveiled illegitimacy tradition offers this Christmas gift: the restoration of natural motherhood to its rightful place in the miraculous.