We too often forget, in our lives in this most comfortable country for Christians, that many places in the world still witness the blood of the martyrs, and one such is Pakistan, as this story from Chiesa reports.
An excerpt.
“ROME, August 5, 2009 – They threw stones, burned homes, and pursued those fleeing, firing wildly. In the end, nine people were dead. Seven of them have the same last name, Hamid, and belong to the same family clan as Fr. Hussein Younis, a Franciscan. They include two children (in the photo by Saqib Khadim, the coffins). Their only fault is that they were Christian.
“It took place in Pakistan, in Gojra, in the province of Faisalabad in eastern Punjab. There are 1.3 million Catholics in all of Pakistan, and the same number of Christians of other denominations, out of a population of 160 million, almost entirely Muslim. But the intolerance against this small, poor, peaceful minority has become a fact of life, exploding at times into bloody aggression.
“The latest episode was sparked by an innocent marriage celebration among Christians in Koriyan, a little village near Gojra. It was July 30. Interviewed by Lorenzo Cremonesi for "Corriere della Sera" on August 3, Fr. Younis recounts:
"As is customary, at the end of the ceremony in the church the guests tossed flowers, rice, a few coins as tokens of prosperity, and slips of paper with greetings or prayers written on them. The problem is that some Muslims started to claim that the slips of paper were pages torn out of the Qur'an, an extremely serious offense for Islam and even more serious in these times of fanaticism. Very soon insults and accusations were flying, and then stones. A few homes were set on fire in the afternoon. But the more serious violence exploded on the morning of Saturday, August 1, in Gojra, around the Christian neighborhood.
"Our people counted eight buses full of extremists who had come from outside the area. Unfamiliar faces, people armed to the teeth. Their slogan was that we Christians have the same religion as the American soldiers, and therefore we are enemies, we deserve death. First they threw stones, then they sprayed gasoline, and finally came machine gun fire and bombs. Here around me everything is burned, charred. The death toll could have been much worse if the Christians had not fled immediately. My relatives were not fast enough, and they were burned alive, trapped in the flames."
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The Social Teaching & Interpretations
After each encyclical from the Holy Father, or other teaching from the Vatican, there are the attempts to shape the reception of it one way or another, rather than referring back to the actual words in the context of the whole.
As the social teaching of the Church played a large role in my conversion to Catholicism, I studied it—and continue to do so—religiously, including the primary documents and analytic and historic material.
The first few books about the teaching that I studied were very biased and rarely quoted the actual teaching extensively, but primarily interpreted it.
I finally found a source that does the opposite, rarely interprets, and uses extensive quote from the material to allow you to actually see the intent of the teaching.
And for those of you following this blog, you will know I speak of the work of Fr. Rodger Charles, S.J., whose two-volume work was published in Great Britain in 1998, Christian Social Witness and Teaching: The Catholic Tradition from Genesis to Centesimus Annus: Volume 1—From Biblical Times to the Late Nineteenth Century & Volume 2— The Modern Social Teaching Contexts: Summaries: Analysis.
An excellent review of the work is at the Acton Institute’s Journal of Markets & Morality.
The best place to find both volumes is either through Abe Books or through the publisher, Gracewing Publishing.
Now, Fr. Charles had a lot to say about the various interpretations of the teaching and here is just a sampling:
“In summary, the presenter of the modern teaching must deal with the whole of it, and must do so in a balanced way so that the left, right and centre can see where their responsibilities lie. This means expounding the texts in such a way that their overall message is clear. The defects of the literature in the field, including my own previous contributions, were apparent to me as I grappled with the problems of teaching the subject in the late 1980s and I decided that I would make a study of the whole Catholic tradition with the hope of providing an exhaustive and balanced treatment of it and providing a coherent analysis which the reader could see was tied to the texts, allowing that teaching to speak for itself so that the reader could make up his or her own mind as to whether I had interpreted it correctly or not.” (p. xv)
As the social teaching of the Church played a large role in my conversion to Catholicism, I studied it—and continue to do so—religiously, including the primary documents and analytic and historic material.
The first few books about the teaching that I studied were very biased and rarely quoted the actual teaching extensively, but primarily interpreted it.
I finally found a source that does the opposite, rarely interprets, and uses extensive quote from the material to allow you to actually see the intent of the teaching.
And for those of you following this blog, you will know I speak of the work of Fr. Rodger Charles, S.J., whose two-volume work was published in Great Britain in 1998, Christian Social Witness and Teaching: The Catholic Tradition from Genesis to Centesimus Annus: Volume 1—From Biblical Times to the Late Nineteenth Century & Volume 2— The Modern Social Teaching Contexts: Summaries: Analysis.
An excellent review of the work is at the Acton Institute’s Journal of Markets & Morality.
The best place to find both volumes is either through Abe Books or through the publisher, Gracewing Publishing.
Now, Fr. Charles had a lot to say about the various interpretations of the teaching and here is just a sampling:
“In summary, the presenter of the modern teaching must deal with the whole of it, and must do so in a balanced way so that the left, right and centre can see where their responsibilities lie. This means expounding the texts in such a way that their overall message is clear. The defects of the literature in the field, including my own previous contributions, were apparent to me as I grappled with the problems of teaching the subject in the late 1980s and I decided that I would make a study of the whole Catholic tradition with the hope of providing an exhaustive and balanced treatment of it and providing a coherent analysis which the reader could see was tied to the texts, allowing that teaching to speak for itself so that the reader could make up his or her own mind as to whether I had interpreted it correctly or not.” (p. xv)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Crime, Remorse & Forgiveness
In this article in the Weekly Standard about the situation involving Michael Vick, the NFL quarterback who was just released from a sentence for running a dog-fighting club, the question is posed, “When is a crime paid for?”, which is an excellent question in the arena of criminal reformation.
The best answer, I believe, in this era of total access to criminal records, is that for reentering penitential criminals with extensive criminal involvement (which doesn't apply in Mr. Vick's case)—regardless of the crimes—is probably never; and for the penitential criminal the best response is to assume the rest of your life should be committed to helping the society you harmed during your criminal life, and you should expect nothing in return for that help.
It is very reasonable for most people to always remain suspicious and wary of someone with an extensive criminal past, and for the reformed criminal to not accept this is not really on point with what his internal and external work should be about, coming closer to God.
An excerpt from the article.
“It was Vick's lack of "remorse" that led the judge in his case to slap him with a longer sentence than his fellow defendants. But one cannot measure remorse. (One can measure servility, which is perhaps what those who call for remorse are generally seeking to procure.) And why should we care about remorse? We don't need Vick to love dogs. We just need him not to repeat his crime.
“One of the great things about incarceration is that it relieves us of the need to look into our fellow citizens' hearts. "He's done the time," said Terrell Owens of the Buffalo Bills. He is right. We need to revive the idea of "paying one's debt to society."
“Other-wise we blacklist people forever, which is to say, we establish "debts to society" incapable of being paid back.”
The best answer, I believe, in this era of total access to criminal records, is that for reentering penitential criminals with extensive criminal involvement (which doesn't apply in Mr. Vick's case)—regardless of the crimes—is probably never; and for the penitential criminal the best response is to assume the rest of your life should be committed to helping the society you harmed during your criminal life, and you should expect nothing in return for that help.
It is very reasonable for most people to always remain suspicious and wary of someone with an extensive criminal past, and for the reformed criminal to not accept this is not really on point with what his internal and external work should be about, coming closer to God.
An excerpt from the article.
“It was Vick's lack of "remorse" that led the judge in his case to slap him with a longer sentence than his fellow defendants. But one cannot measure remorse. (One can measure servility, which is perhaps what those who call for remorse are generally seeking to procure.) And why should we care about remorse? We don't need Vick to love dogs. We just need him not to repeat his crime.
“One of the great things about incarceration is that it relieves us of the need to look into our fellow citizens' hearts. "He's done the time," said Terrell Owens of the Buffalo Bills. He is right. We need to revive the idea of "paying one's debt to society."
“Other-wise we blacklist people forever, which is to say, we establish "debts to society" incapable of being paid back.”
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Book Announcement
The Lampstand Foundation’s imprint, Chulu Press, has published its fourth book, Capital Punishment & Catholic Social Teaching: A Tradition of Support, by David H. Lukenbill, and it is now available, (free to members of the LampStand Foundation) or for sale at Amazon.com.
An excerpt from the Foreword.
“This book is a defense of the scriptural and traditional Catholic position of support for capital punishment as expressed in the two universal catechisms, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, published by Pope Pius V in 1566, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published by Pope John Paul II in 1992 & 1997 (First & Second Edition), in response to calls for its abolition.
“Based on scripture and tradition, calls for abolition are premature, though the call has generated a renewed focus on not only the magisterial history of this most ancient of teachings, but also its theological resonance within the expression of that teaching by the Fathers of the Church—ancient and modern—who most deeply reflected on it.
“While Catholic social teaching has always supported capital punishment, it has been opposed by some in the Catholic hierarchy as an unnecessary criminal justice tool, with current criminal justice technology being presented as providing adequate protection of the innocent against the aggressor, meeting the criteria established by the Holy See (1997):
“2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
“If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
“Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.” (Holy See. (1997) Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed.) Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, # 2267. Retrieved July 16, 2009)
“Regarding the new restriction embedded in the traditional support, Flannery (2007) responds:
“It is true, of course, that traditional Catholic teaching does not exclude recourse to the death penalty; however, among traditional authors, it would be hard to find expressed the restriction, “when this is the only practicable way to defend lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.” (Flannery, K. L. (2007). Capital punishment and the law, Ave Maria Law Review, 5, 399-428, p. 414) (Lukenbill, 2009, pp. 9-10)
An excerpt from the Foreword.
“This book is a defense of the scriptural and traditional Catholic position of support for capital punishment as expressed in the two universal catechisms, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, published by Pope Pius V in 1566, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published by Pope John Paul II in 1992 & 1997 (First & Second Edition), in response to calls for its abolition.
“Based on scripture and tradition, calls for abolition are premature, though the call has generated a renewed focus on not only the magisterial history of this most ancient of teachings, but also its theological resonance within the expression of that teaching by the Fathers of the Church—ancient and modern—who most deeply reflected on it.
“While Catholic social teaching has always supported capital punishment, it has been opposed by some in the Catholic hierarchy as an unnecessary criminal justice tool, with current criminal justice technology being presented as providing adequate protection of the innocent against the aggressor, meeting the criteria established by the Holy See (1997):
“2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
“If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
“Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.” (Holy See. (1997) Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed.) Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, # 2267. Retrieved July 16, 2009)
“Regarding the new restriction embedded in the traditional support, Flannery (2007) responds:
“It is true, of course, that traditional Catholic teaching does not exclude recourse to the death penalty; however, among traditional authors, it would be hard to find expressed the restriction, “when this is the only practicable way to defend lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.” (Flannery, K. L. (2007). Capital punishment and the law, Ave Maria Law Review, 5, 399-428, p. 414) (Lukenbill, 2009, pp. 9-10)
Monday, August 3, 2009
Social Justice & Life
Social justice is embedded in the guiding principles of our apostolate, and very early in my study of it as I was becoming Catholic, it was clear that the primary social justice issue was respect for life, for all other issues of social justice rest on that.
George Weigel notes the importance placed on the respect for life in the newest encyclical from Pope Benedict XVI.
An excerpt.
“In any event, there is an important theme in Caritas in Veritate that, were all Catholics to take it seriously, might have a measurable impact on the American culture wars and on the U.S. Church's internal struggle to define Catholic identity -- and that is the encyclical's insistence, repeated several times, that the life issues are social justice issues, so that Catholic social doctrine includes the Church's defense of life from conception until natural death.
“This teaching began with John Paul II's 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), in which John Paul warned that democracies risk becoming "tyrant states" if moral wrongs are legally declared "rights." Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger went a step further in his homily at the Mass for the Election of a Pope, on April 18, 2005.
“There, Ratzinger warned against a "dictatorship of relativism" in which coercive state power would be used to enforce the by-products of a culture skeptical about the human capacity to know the moral truth of anything: by-products such as abortion-on-demand, euthanasia, and "gay marriage." Now, as Benedict XVI, Ratzinger has moved the discussion further still, teaching that the defense of life is crucial to building the "human ecology" necessary to sustain just economic practices and protect the natural environment.”
George Weigel notes the importance placed on the respect for life in the newest encyclical from Pope Benedict XVI.
An excerpt.
“In any event, there is an important theme in Caritas in Veritate that, were all Catholics to take it seriously, might have a measurable impact on the American culture wars and on the U.S. Church's internal struggle to define Catholic identity -- and that is the encyclical's insistence, repeated several times, that the life issues are social justice issues, so that Catholic social doctrine includes the Church's defense of life from conception until natural death.
“This teaching began with John Paul II's 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), in which John Paul warned that democracies risk becoming "tyrant states" if moral wrongs are legally declared "rights." Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger went a step further in his homily at the Mass for the Election of a Pope, on April 18, 2005.
“There, Ratzinger warned against a "dictatorship of relativism" in which coercive state power would be used to enforce the by-products of a culture skeptical about the human capacity to know the moral truth of anything: by-products such as abortion-on-demand, euthanasia, and "gay marriage." Now, as Benedict XVI, Ratzinger has moved the discussion further still, teaching that the defense of life is crucial to building the "human ecology" necessary to sustain just economic practices and protect the natural environment.”
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Space, the Next Frontier
God’s gifts to us include the capability to explore space and in a previous post, George Weigel noted the importance of further exploration.
This recent news release notes some possibilities.
An excerpt.
“July 31, 2009 - At a press conference on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, surviving astronauts from NASA’s Apollo missions made a public statement indicating that they’d like the agency to work on taking humans to Mars, instead of focusing on a return to the moon. This return, and an eventual lunar base that would serve as a jumping-off point for further ventures into our solar system, are objectives of a space-exploration initiative established by George W. Bush.
“In its 51 years, NASA has recorded a long history of achievements in space exploration. Since its inception in 1958, there have been more than 150 successful U.S. human space flights, including the Apollo moon landings, the launch of the United States' first space station, Skylab, and more than 120 flights of the space shuttle. The International Space Station was recently completed through the joint efforts of NASA and the space agencies of 14 other countries including Russia, Japan, Canada, and several European nations.”
This recent news release notes some possibilities.
An excerpt.
“July 31, 2009 - At a press conference on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, surviving astronauts from NASA’s Apollo missions made a public statement indicating that they’d like the agency to work on taking humans to Mars, instead of focusing on a return to the moon. This return, and an eventual lunar base that would serve as a jumping-off point for further ventures into our solar system, are objectives of a space-exploration initiative established by George W. Bush.
“In its 51 years, NASA has recorded a long history of achievements in space exploration. Since its inception in 1958, there have been more than 150 successful U.S. human space flights, including the Apollo moon landings, the launch of the United States' first space station, Skylab, and more than 120 flights of the space shuttle. The International Space Station was recently completed through the joint efforts of NASA and the space agencies of 14 other countries including Russia, Japan, Canada, and several European nations.”
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Reentry Program Evaluation
Though, as posted yesterday, there are many instances in the media of programs that appear to be successful—and many are for singular reasons—the evidence as determined by rigorous evaluation has still not identified large scale and replicable programs that reduce recidivism at a statistical level high enough to be able to effectively challenge the current 60-70% national recidivism rate.
Rigorous evaluation is the key, and James Q. Wilson describes the four things needed (the fifth, an independent third party evaluator, though not mentioned, is understood as necessary within the evaluation profession) in the text he edited with Joan Petersilia, Crime: Public Policies for Crime Control.
An excerpt.
“There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of crime-prevention programs under way. Many may work (and, of course, all their leaders think they work). But which actually work can only be determined by a rigorous evaluation. Not many have been evaluated in this way. A rigorous evaluation requires four things to be done: First, people must be assigned randomly to either the prevention program or a control group. Random assignment virtually eliminates the chance that those in the program will differ in some unknown way from those not in it. Random assignment is better than trying to match people in the two because we probably will not know (or even be able to observe) all the ways by which they should be matched. Second, the prevention must actually be applied. Sometimes people are enrolled in a program but do not in fact get the planned treatment. Third, the positive benefit, if any, of the program must last for at least one year after the program ends. It is not hard to change people while they are in a program; what is difficult is to make the change last afterward. Fourth, if the program produces a positive effect (that is, people in it are less likely to commit crimes that similar ones not in it), that program should be evaluated again in a different location. Some programs will work once because they are run by exceptional people or in a community that facilitates its success; the critical test is to see if they will run when tried elsewhere using different people. (p. 553)
Rigorous evaluation is the key, and James Q. Wilson describes the four things needed (the fifth, an independent third party evaluator, though not mentioned, is understood as necessary within the evaluation profession) in the text he edited with Joan Petersilia, Crime: Public Policies for Crime Control.
An excerpt.
“There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of crime-prevention programs under way. Many may work (and, of course, all their leaders think they work). But which actually work can only be determined by a rigorous evaluation. Not many have been evaluated in this way. A rigorous evaluation requires four things to be done: First, people must be assigned randomly to either the prevention program or a control group. Random assignment virtually eliminates the chance that those in the program will differ in some unknown way from those not in it. Random assignment is better than trying to match people in the two because we probably will not know (or even be able to observe) all the ways by which they should be matched. Second, the prevention must actually be applied. Sometimes people are enrolled in a program but do not in fact get the planned treatment. Third, the positive benefit, if any, of the program must last for at least one year after the program ends. It is not hard to change people while they are in a program; what is difficult is to make the change last afterward. Fourth, if the program produces a positive effect (that is, people in it are less likely to commit crimes that similar ones not in it), that program should be evaluated again in a different location. Some programs will work once because they are run by exceptional people or in a community that facilitates its success; the critical test is to see if they will run when tried elsewhere using different people. (p. 553)
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