Apt. 11D

New Pope, New Direction?

Catholism is very divided right now between those who want to emphasize Catholic teachings about service to the poor and critiques about economic distribution and those who want to emphasize its teachings on social behavior. I'm in the economic distribution camp and am hopeful that the new pope will move the church in that direction.

But the proof is in the pudding. Let's see what happens. 

Battening Down the Hatches

Autism has been much on minds today.

We had another grumpy priest experience at church today. The priest was annoyed that Ian didn't hold his hands in the correct way to receive the host. This time, I went back to the church to talk about their intolerance, and I was told that they think other parishioners aren't treating the host with correct reverance, so they have had to become more militant.

These slights against autistic people is part of a larger problem as the Catholic church reacts to criticism by becoming more conservative and less inclusive. They are battening down the hatches and giving up being catholic with the small "c." 

Despite my many misgivings about the growing conservatism Church politics, marginalization of nuns, and obsession with sex, we've kept attending services, because it's good to escape our materialistic world for an hour per week. We went every week even when Ian was three, and it was major work to keep him quiet for an hour. He learned to tolerate the smell of incense and glare of light through the stained glass. We kept going, even after the Catholic pre-school tossed him out for not talking.

But the dirty looks might be the last straw. 

Other recent articles about autism were discussed today. We've been talking about this opinion piece that autism might be caused by a defective auto-immune system in the mother. (I don't have allergies, but everyone else in my family does.) These articles about the causes of autism always make me feel guilty. I shouldn't read them. 

I liked Tyler Cowen's article at the Chronicle, which railed against the dehumanizing languaged used by scientists who study autism. 

After all this, I feel like battening down our own hatches. 

The Rapture Is Coming

I assume that you all know that the Rapture is coming and that you've adequately prepared for the big day. 

According to Harold Camping, Saturday is the big day. 

The Rapture is at 6 p.m. on May 21, 2011, where ever it's 6 p.m. first, with the "fantastically big" world-ending event taking place on a time zone by time zone basis.

That means we can expect the Rapture to start when it hits 6 p.m. at the International Dateline at 180 Longitude -- roughly the between Pago Pago, American Samoa, and Nuku'alofa, Tonga. We'll know it's Judgment Day because there will be an earthquake of previously unprecedented magnitude, Camping predicts.

So, according to these calculations, the Rapture will actually begin like a rolling brown out across the globe at 11 p.m. PST on Friday, May 20th. "Everyone will be weeping and wailing because they'll know in a few hours it'll come to their city," said Camping.

How one man has prepared. 

How I'm preparing: Not doing laundry. Gin and tonic time! 

 

Autism in History

My dad called last night to say that he was reading a biography of Thomas Aquinas and he was convinced that my theory was correct - Aquinas had Asperger's Syndrome.

A few years ago, when I preparing to teach political theory for the first time, I did a little reading about Aquinas. I was using his discussion on natural law in class, and I needed to provide some context for the students. Aquinas was nicknamed the Dumb Ox, because he was a slow lumbering man who was slow to talk. He had incredible powers of concentration and memory. He was socially awkward. He would go into trances of thought and completely forget that other people were in the room. He was so unusual that there are actually lots of accounts of his social deficits and his superior concentration and memory.

From time to time, I wonder what happened to autistic people in the past, before there was Silicon Valley to provide them with gainful employment. Truly exceptional autistic people like Aquinas probably always found work, like they do today, at universities or academies. They designed cathedrals and pyramids.

Severely affected autistics died. They starved to death or were consigned to bleak institutions where they died of consumption or something.

The mid-level autistic could have found shelter in monasteries where they would have the patience to carefully transcribe bibles and produce illuminated manuscripts. Who else but an autistic person would have the concentration for such a repetitive, boring task? Who else but a person with poor verbal and social skills would willingly take on vows of silence and abstinence?

In recent years, there's been a lot of discussions about the Catholic church as a haven for men repressing their homosexuality. Monastic life must have certain be a haven for autistics, as well.

The Church

There was a rather large elephant in the room at church on Sunday. Sullivan believes that child abusers are repressed gay men. I don't buy it and was rather surprised that a gay man wrote that. Child abusers are broken individuals, who were often abused themselves as children. But I have been following Sullivan's other posts on the church and largely agree with them.

The church made the mistake of mixing up sin and crime. Child abuse is a crime, not a sin. Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. And perverts should be given up to Caesar. Crime is not an internal matter. The mistakes are piling up as the church hierarchy gets defensive and tries to rationalize past decisions. 

Church Abuse

I've been following with sadness the stories about the abuse of children by priests in Ireland and Germany. Religion is not usually one of my topics on this blog, but we've been talking about it at home, so I thought I would put it out on the blog.

Terrible stories of sexual abuses of children by their trusted parish priests have been a mainstay in the news in the US for a while. American bishops have been chastised, benefits have been paid out to past victims, and a few of the worst offenders have been sent to prison. It was seen as an American problem. Now, victims in Ireland and Germany have come forward to tell their stories. The Pope himself may have been involved in hushing up past crimes.  

Catholics are horrified by the number of perverts at the pulpit and by the seemingly lack of concern by church hierarchy for the victims of this abuse. (See Maria Farrell's response.) The congregation at our local church has dwindled noticeably in the past five years. It's easy to get a good parking space now. 

The only way that the church will survive this disaster is through major reforms. We need to enlarge the ranks of quality priests by allowing women to become priests and by allowing priests to marry. The church must bend, rather than remain rigid. If it doesn't bend, then the church will end up toppling over in the storm like the many trees in our town.

Identify The Civil Rights Activist

by Jeremy

My local NPR affiliate is doing some sort of thing this evening on Malcolm X and his relevance for the 21st century. I just so happened to be thinking about his "Ballot or the Bullet" speech from 1964 this week because I assigned it as reading alongside King's more famous letter. To kick off the conversation in class, I planned to throw both texts into the always-fun Wordle machine and visually demonstrate the different emphases. Expecting contrast, I was surprised at how little there was. It may take you more than a moment to distinguish the two than you think.

This similarity got me thinking that two speeches from different camps on the same subject probably would make about the same word usage patterns, with some rhetorically loaded differences of jargon few in number. 

What other political contrasts might engender similar word usage patterns? Democratic and Republican nomination speeches from the same year? Debate transcripts? Party platforms?  Try Wordling and find out.

Click on the image to enlarge. PS- I removed the word "Birmingham" for obvious reasons.

 

Father Neuhaus

Father Neuhaus passed away a couple of days ago. While I never met him, my parents knew him fairly well. My dad is a regular contributor to First Things. Some commentary on his passing from Russell Arben Fox, Ross Douthat, and John Podhoretz.

The Mormom Church and Prop 8

The kids are home; the chaos begins. I will be soon bumped off my computer so that one of the savages can get on the Cartoon Network website. But first I must pass on a few links to a massive and interesting and disturbing discussion about the Mormon role in the passage of Prop 8 in CA.

Peace, Yo

I finally ordered Christmas cards through Shutterfly. It took all morning to figure out which kiddie picture to  paste on the front. Jonah's two front teeth are going through an awkward stage, so it was tricky to find a good picture of him.

After I set up the front of the card, then came the message decision. I couldn't use "Happy Holidays" after reading Maria Farrell's post last week. In these strange times,"Merry Christmas" has become too daring, like you're spoiling for a fight. "Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah" was leaving out the atheists and the two people who celebrate Kwanzaa.

We decided that a message of "peace and good will to men" was religious themed, but not politically loaded. Still there was the "men" problem. Do we write "peace and good will to men and wimyn and transgendered individuals"? Finally settled on "peace and good will to all."

My brother said that he has a recipe for George Washington's egg nog, which is loaded with rum and brandy. Bring it on, bro.