August 2008 Archives

This news is even older but maybe someone hasn't heard of it. The Vatican has ruled that the divine name is no longer to be heard in the liturgy, effectively nixing at least one popular song that (at least in its original form) uses the Y-word. Citing Jewish and first-century Christian practice, the Vatican said that the name is unpronounceable. "Avoiding pronouncing the tetragrammaton of the name of God on the part of the Church has therefore its own grounds. Apart from a motive of a purely philogical order, there is also that of remaining faithful to the Church's tradition, from the beginning, that the sacred tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context, nor translated into any of the languages into which the Bible was translated."

This is pretty funny because just the other day we were discussing the Tetragrammaton in bible study (we're in Exodus) and I was reflecting on my tendency to agree with the Jews that it should not be pronounced. I was thinking of asking the priest leading it what he thought but first I asked if a certain word in the text was the Tetragrammaton, not wishing to pronounce it. He said it was, and asked me to explain to the group what the Tetragrammaton was. I hesitated since I thought he was asking me to pronounce it, but he only wanted the letters. He then went on into uncomfortable detail about how to pronounce it, which answered my unasked question.

There is a danger in violating the commandment not to take the name of the Lord in vain when we bandy about the Divine Name, even if it is for ostensibly legitimate purposes. It should be treated with the utmost respect, just as the Ark of the Covenant was. So the easiest way to do this is simple to not pronounce it.

This news is a little old but a priest in Naples is organizing a contest designed to raise awareness of the religious sisterhood. The goal is to fight the stereotype that sisters are all old and dour. Visitors to his blog will be allowed to "vote for the nun they consider a model." "External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn't hide it," he said. Profiles will feature information about the sister's life and vocation, as well as a photograph.

Scholars are planning to put the Dead Sea Scrolls online (NYTimes registration required) so that anyone can view them. The scrolls are already starting to deteriorate and photographs of them have been taken only once before. It's slated to take one to two yeas. The scrolls were only published in their entirety in 2001 so this is a big deal. Now anyone so inclined will be able to view them.

Yeah, yeah, long time, no post. It's been kinda slow in the news department.

Today I have an entry in the Catholic Answers Live Monday morning quarterbacking edition. I keep meaning to do more posts on this but I don't think I've ever gotten around to it. In this feature I pontificate on a question asked on Catholic Answers Live. This one pertains to this show with Jim Blackburn aired August 19th. The question came from a very zealous union man that was upset that the attention formerly paid to unions was no longer being paid in the Catholic Church. He wanted "union priests" to return to extol the virtues of unions. Blackburn's answer was basically that different people have different views and are free to express them. My take on this is that labor unions have largely (though not completely) outlived their usefulness. (Hopefully my cousin Robert won't read this.) Used to be that unions worked to eliminate 12-hour days six days a week, dangerous conditions, abysmal safety, and all sorts of fundamentally unjust conditions. Labor unions were necessary to accomplish this. Today labor unions are about ensuring that no one is allowed to move anything in the office without getting a union laborer to do it and spending labor union dues on gay rights and abortion. Corruption is rampant and laborers are shafted more by their union leaders than they are by employers. The bottom line is the injustices that existed before have been largely reduced or eliminated altogether and labor unions are often about ensuring entitlements and extorting money out of employers.

That being said, let me re-emphasize that there are still remaining injustices (lack of health care is one example that comes to mind) and businesses still try to take their employees for a ride. But no one gets passionate about defending the rights of a worker to move all of the office furniture, or supporting a corrupt and self-serving organization. That is why I think ardor for unions has waned.