Human Live and Moral Consequences

This

is



how



a human



being




looks like

during



the different stages

of their development.




Now, you can think about the moral consequences of the continuity of the human person.

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With thanks to The Crescat blog
credits: next to last picture courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Cannon Law vs Common Law

Sometimes layers trained in Common Law do not gasp the differences between Common Law and Cannon Law. The main difference between the two systems is well explained by Edward Peters in his essay "Least Amateurs Argue about Cannon Law: a reply to Patric Gordon brief agains Bp Thomas Daily"

I have encountered this attitude among common lawyers [ "cannon law is riddled with exceptions"] before but, being trained in the common law system myself, I think I understand what leads some of them so wrongly to his conclusion. Canonical legislation does not read like common law legislation for some very important reasons and common lawyers who would venture into canonical waters need to understand this before setting out. It is certainly not my intention to defend the felicity of every expression used in the Code of Canon Law but, if one aspect of the difference between canon law and common law needs {128} to be clearly understood, it is this: Common law is a system of judicial supremacy; canon law is a system of legislative supremacy.Grasp that, and one has the essence of the thing. [Emphasis in the original]

The key point is thus the following

Common law is a system of judicial supremacy; canon law is a system of legislative supremacy

This answers the following question: who has the authority to interpret what is the meaning of a given law? 

In the Common Law this power of interpreting the meaning of the written law resides in the courts. As a consequence a) the legislator, when writing the law, tries to put as much details as possible, to prevent and interpretation contrary to its goals; and b) the lawyers, when preparing for a case, would consult a vast literature of pervious court ruling in that matter. 

In the Cannon Law the power of interpreting the meaning of the written law resides with the legislative power. This is stated as follows in the 1983 CIC 16 § 1 “The legislator authentically interprets laws as does the one to whom the same legislator has entrusted the power of authentically interpreting.” And the proof that the courts have not the power to generically interpret the law is also states in the 1983 CIC 16 § 3 as follows: “An interpretation [of law] in the form of a judicial sentence or of an administrative act in a particular matter, however, does not have the force of law and only binds the persons whom and affects the matters for which it was given.” As a consequence of the supremacy of the legislator in interpreting matters of law, the cannon law articles tend to be shorter than the common law as they don't seek to deal extensively with all imaginable cases, and the few cases that may not be clear can be left to be decided by the ordinary Bishop or other authority. Another consequence of the supremacy of the legislative power is that cannon lawyers, when dealing with a disputable issue of which they want to assess the outcome,  they turn on to cannon law commentaries, and more recently also to the study of development of the cannons. For cannon lawyers therefore Cannon Law commentaries and the study of its development play a similar role than the books of court rulings plays for a common law lawyer. 

You can go to Peters' essay if you need more clarifications.

A beautiful present for my birthday: St John's Bible fine print

As a present for my birthday I bought a small reproduction of the St John's Bible. Well, my budget didn't go all the way to buy the whole Bible, not even if in small format. I managed however to get the New Testament in two books. I have been waiting for it for a few months and I am quite happy that the day had come and I have the actual books home. Reading the gospels or the letters in my bed it became now a more complicated experienced, specially due to the size and weight, but still a rather enjoyable one. :-) See below for an explanation of St John's Bible.

7 Quick Takes on Friday (not on theology) 3 / May / 2013

                        Today 7 quick takes not on theology

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Online color challenge:
Do you know how to distinguish different hues? Have a test here


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Diagrams! Diagrams! Here the Amazing 

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From Unequally yoked, quoting a Koninsburg book for children. Interesting discussion on Language. 

“Why did you bother bringing [a compass]? You’re carrying enough weight around already.”
“You need a compass to find your way in the woods. Out of the woods, too. Everyone uses a compass for that.”
“What woods?” Claudia asked.
“The woods we’ll be hiding out in,” Jaime answered.
“Hiding out in? What kind of language is that?”
“English language. That’s what kind.”
“Who ever told you that we were going to hide out in the woods?” Claudia demanded.
“There! You said it. You said it!” Jaime shrieked.
“Said what?
“Said what? I never said we’re going to hide out in the woods.” Now Claudia was yelling, too.
“No! You said hide out in.”
“I did not!”
Jamie exploded. “You did, too. You said, ‘Who ever told you that we’re going to hide out in the woods?’ You said that.”
“O.K. O.K.” Claudia replied. She was trying hard to remain calm, for she knew that a group leader must never lose control of herself, even if the group she leads consists of only herself and one brother brat. “O.K.,” she repeated. “I may have said hide out in, but I didn’t say the woods.”
“Yes sir. You said, “Who ever told you that…”
Claudia didn’t give him a chance to finish. “I know. I know. Now, let’s begin by my saying that we are going to hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.”
Jamie said, “See! See! You said it again.”
“I did not! I said, ‘The Metropolitan Museum of Art.’”
“You said hide out in again.”
“All right. Let’s forget the English language lessons. We are going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.”
For the first time, the meaning instead of the grammar of what Claudia had said penetrated.
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art! Boloney!” he exclaimed. “What kind of crazy idea is that?”
[...]
“Of all the sissy ways to run away and of all the sissy places to run away to…” Jaime mumbled.
He didn’t mumble quite softly enough. Claudia turned on him. ”Run away to? How can you run away and to? What kind of language is that?” Claudia asked.
“The American language,” Jamie answered. “American James Kincaidian language.”

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Oh My God. This is a generic solution to any maze. It should be compulsory reading. Translated from “Le jeu des labyrinthes”,E. Lucas, Récréations mathématiques, vol. I (2nd edn, Paris, 1882), ch. 3, pp. 41–55.

M. TRÉMAUX’S SOLUTION.

Among the various solutions to this curious problem in the geometry of situation, the statement of which we have just given, we will choose, as the simplest and most elegant, the one that was kindly communicated to us by M. Trémaux, a former student of the École Polytechnique, now a telegraph engineer; but we have slightly modified the proof.

FIRST RULE. – On leaving the initial junction, follow any path, until you arrive at a dead end or a new junction: (1) if the path you have followed leads to a dead end, retrace your steps, after which you may consider the path just taken as removed, since it has been traversed twice; (2) if the path leads to a junction, take {48} any path,* at random, being careful to mark a cross-stroke on the entrance path in the direction of the arrow f, and on the exit path in the direction of the arrow g (fig. 9). In this figure and the three following, we have distinguished old marks from the new ones by adding to the latter a small cross.

Keep applying the first rule, each time you arrive at an unexplored junction; after a time you will necessarily arrive at a junction that has already been explored; but this situation can arise in two different ways, according as the path into that junction has been followed once before or is still unmarked. Then you apply one of the following two rules:

SECOND RULE. – On arriving at an already explored junction by a new path, you must turn back, adding two cross-strokes to mark your arrival at the junction and your departure, as shown in fig. 10.

THIRD RULE. – When you arrive at an already explored junction by a path that has already been followed, take as your first choice {49} a path that has not already been traversed, if there is one; failing that, a path which has been traversed only once; these two cases are shown in fig. 11 and 12.

PROOF. – By a strict application of the above rules, you will necessarily traverse twice all the lines of the network. First let us make the following remarks:

I. On leaving the junction A, only one initial mark is introduced there.

II. Passing through a junction, by using one of the three rules, adds two marks to the lines which end at that junction.

III. At any time during the exploration of the labyrinth, before arrival at a junction or after departure from a junction, the initial junction contains an odd number of marks, and any other junction contains an even number.

IV. At any time during the exploration, before or after passing through a junction, the initial junction can have {50} only one path with a single mark; any other explored junction can have only two paths with a single mark.

V. When the exploration is finished, all the junctions must be covered with two marks on each path; this is the condition imposed by the statement of the problem.

After these remarks, it is easy to see that, when the traveller arrives at a junction M different from the initial junction A, he cannot be stopped in his tracks by the difficulties of the problem. For this junction M can be reached only by a new path, or a path that has been traversed only once before. In the first case, one applies the first or the second rule; in the second case, arrival at the junction produces an oddnumber of marks; thus, in view of Remark III, there remains, in the absence of a new path, a line which has been traversed only once.

Thus, the only place where you can be stopped is on return to the initial junction A. Let ZA be the path that leads to a forced halt, coming from junction Z; this path has necessarily been traversed once already, since otherwise one could continue the journey. Since the path ZA has already been traversed, there is no path in the junction Z that has never been traversed at all, since otherwise you would have forgotten to apply the first case of the third rule; moreover, there was apart from ZA one path, and only one, YZ, traversed only once, in view of Remark IV. Consequently, at the time of the halt at A, all the paths of junction Z have been traversed twice; it can be shown, in the same way, that all paths of the preceding junction Y have been traversed twice, and so on for the other junctions. This is what had to be proved.

{51} REMARK. – One can replace the second rule by the following, when it is not a question of a closed junction. If you arrive, by a new path, at an already explored junction, you can take a new path, provided you label the two cross-strokes, that mark your passage through the junction, with matching indices a and a′; then, if you return to the junction by one of these two paths, one you must take the other. This amounts, so to speak, to placing a bridge aa′ over the junction. This rule was pointed out to us by M. Maurice, former student of the École Polytechnique.

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The New Yorker Talks about the Piraha tribe and their language. 


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Catalan Music

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Four Versions? Have som fun. 


For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

What working for peace looks like today

MBlessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Here is a letter from Martin Newell, reproduced with permission.

Dear Sir / Madam 

I received your letter dated as above [2nd October 2012], which was in reference to the £445.00 fine that you have been instructed by the courts to try to enforce payment of. Your letter says that you will add £215 to my 'balance if I don't pay within 7 days'.  

Today is an appropriate day for me to write to you, as it is one year to the day since I went to Downing Street with some friends and poured out red paint in the street outside the gates there, to symbolise the blood of the innocent people of Afghanistan, which has been poured out on the streets of their country, at the behest of our UK government, along with the USA and others.  

That day was the 10th Anniversary of the war on Afghanistan, today is the 11th. Today I heard one of the women whose sons went to Afghanistan  with the British army, and came home in a body bag, call for the troops to come home immediately.  

It was for witnessing to my faith in the God of Jesus Christ who refused to be defended by the sword, a God of peace not war, that I was fined, and I will not co-operate with our war making state by paying this fine. I want to try to remain human and faithful, and do penance for my complicity in this war which continues to be waged 'in my name', whether I like it or not, which I don't.  

Although I am a Catholic priest and a member of the Passionist Religious Order, I work as a live-in volunteer, and I live in a shared house with other single people, provided by the London Catholic Worker, which is a voluntary group. Nearly all the property in the house - certainly all the furniture, all the household goods and nearly all the electronic equipment, are the property of the project or the landlord, and not mine. Anyway, leaving that aside, it is all old donated stuff anyway. My own personal property is all in my room, which comprises clothes that are generally old and often second hand and / or donated, or very cheap to start with. I have a few cassette tapes and a 20 year old radio cassette player and an old donated stereo. I have a few books, which are also old and I would think of very little value. The furniture in the room belongs to the project I work for.  

My personal possessions are very limited since I have been committed for many years to a life of voluntary poverty. So is my income. 

I'm willing to go to prison for my beliefs. Since there is nothing here for you to take that has any resale value, you would be waisting your time sending anyone here, and it would be worth your while to return this to the courts. I've been to prison before for similar reasons, so I'm not afraid of it. I am a conscientious objector - I encourage you to make moves in the same direction.  

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Yours
Martin Newell 

 
Martin, I believe you are an example for many of what it means today to follow Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Lord. Lots of thanks to you for letting me publish it.

Edward Feser Lectures: Faith and Reason I

Edward Feser is a writer and philosopher living in Los Angeles and teaching philosophy at Pasadena University College, USA. He is an expert on Thomas Aquinas. Below you can find two lectures

Here is a lecture of Feser against new atheism.



Here is a lecture on the prof of God's existence from the Aquinas first way.



Here is a lecture on he defends that natural theology should be gounded on phylosophy of nature, not on natural science. See whether you agree.




Edward Feser blogs here. He has also a post on the Euthyphro dilemma that is very worth reading if you have some knowledge on Aristotelian-Thomstic philosophy of nature.

The role of the Spirit in the election of the Pope: B16 stated his opinion.

Joe Allen, at the National Catholic Reporter:

Before we begin, let me say a word about the traditional Catholic conviction that a conclave unfolds under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In 2005, this idea was summed up by Cardinal Ennio Antonelli of Florence, who said God already knew who the new pope was, so it was simply up to the cardinals to figure out what God had already decided. 

Some pious souls take that to mean that it's inappropriate, even borderline heretical, to suggest that politics are involved. Yet Catholic theology also holds that "grace builds on nature," meaning that the spiritual dimension of a papal election doesn't make it any less political. 

Anyway, one shouldn't exaggerate the role of divine inspiration. As one cardinal put it to me after the election of Benedict XVI, "I was never whapped on the head by the Holy Spirit. I had to make the best choice I could based on the information available." 

Perhaps the classic expression of this idea belongs to none other than the outgoing pope, Benedict XVI, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was asked on Bavarian television in 1997 if the Holy Spirit is responsible for who gets elected. This was his response:  

I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope. ... I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit's role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined. 

Then the clincher: 

There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked

Read everything here.