Angel of Death

An emailer sent me this a few days ago, but it's still worthy of attention: Michael Schiavo receives Guardian of the Year Award.


Now I can understand that some people feel that Mr. Schiavo really did fight for what he believed his wife wanted, but Guardian of the Year? A man who cheats on his disabled wife and fathers two children with his mistress? A man who allowed his wife to die a slow death from dehydration over a period of two weeks because he didn't have the guts to smother her with a pillow? Who remembers that she'd wanted to die after he'd received the money from his malpractice lawsuit? Is it possible that there are better examples of guardianship out there who deserve to be rewarded? Just asking.

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On an entirely separate note, thank you to all who've enquired after me and Smaskig. We're doing well, and the other day Noogs and I went to the midwife and heard Smaskig's heartbeat loud and strong. In fact, I'd swear I could feel baby moving around already, though it seems way too early for that. We've been away from the computer lately because sitting for too long in front of the screen makes me feel queasy...

Ingmar Bergman's Hazardous Dukes

Ready for a little cinema nouveau? Iowahawk has the dibs on Ingmar Bergman's take on the Dukes of Hazzard. Yee Haw!

For the record, I'm mostly too young to remember the original Dukes, and I haven't seen the movie, but I can recall watching the orange car leaping over ditches. Funny what sticks in your memory. I think I prefer Bergman's "version", though.

Catholic Beer

The Independant, over in the UK, runs a story on how the monks of Saint Sixtus feel overwhelmed by the demand for their world famous Westvleteren Abt 12 beer.

I'm a little curious as to why this is portrayed as a new thing. RateBeer.com may have recently chosen Abt 12 as the world's top brew, but Westvleteren beer has been justly famous for several decades now as appreciation for traditional brews has returned with a vengence.

Of the other Trappist breweries (which make their product a little easier for consumers to get) the most widely distributed is Chimay. Their Chimay Grand Reserve is a cousin to Abt 12, strong, aged brown ale with a complex palate of flavors. It's sold in champaign-sized bottles for $8 and up. If you are a beer afficianado, find a bottle and consider all the wonderful things that monasticism has brought to the Western World.

Here's Saint Sixtus's website.

Schönborn Clarifies

Though taking the name "DarwinCatholic" for this blog, I'd never really intended to spend much time on Evolution vs. Creationism. Still, it's a topic that interests me, so...

John Allen offers some more insight into Schönborn's NYTimes essay in his Word From Rome this week. One of the really refreshing things about Allen's reporting (I guess I'll have to be a little less uncharitable about the National Catholic Reporter) is that he's not just a controversy chaser. Unlike 90% of reporters, he seems seriously interested in the topics being discussed, and so he'll run detailed follow-ups like this for weeks till he feels like he's got to the bottom of a topic.

I quoted scientists and theologians who argued that in thinking about the church and evolution, it's important to distinguish between scientific language and philosophical/theological language. Properly speaking, when a scientist refers to evolution as "random," it means that empirically, evolution's outcome is unpredictable; for a philosopher, however, "random" may mean "without purpose or design."

The church, many of these experts said, can accept the former but certainly not the latter.

In that regard, some Catholic observers pointed to a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, the main advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, titled "Communion and Stewardship." Paragraph 69 of the document treats the distinctions among different meanings of words such as "unguided" and "random."

Scientists debate, the paragraph said, whether life's development is best explained by explicit design or random mutation and natural selection. This is not an argument that theology can settle. Following Thomas Aquinas, however, the document says that divine providence is consistent with either hypothesis. God's causation can express itself through both necessity and contingency, so that even if the development of life seems random to empirical observation, it certainly doesn't to God.

I had hoped to speak to Schönborn about all this, but unfortunately he was in Poland as I wrote the piece. This week, however, I was able to reach him. My question was, what does he make of paragraph 69 of the ITC document? In the end, is his problem with evolutionary theory itself, or with its potential philosophical and theological abuse?

This is his response:
"I agree completely with what was formulated in number 69 of 'Stewardship and Communion.' And I feel confirmed in my convictions by this document. In any case I think it is necessary to cite the whole paragraph 69, when it states: 'In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science.'

"For Catholic thinking," Schönborn told me, "it was clear from Pius XII's encyclical, Humani generis, that evolutionary theory can be valid to understand certain mechanisms, but it can never be seen or accepted as a holistic model to explain the existence of life."

Schönborn's point thus seems to be that in "absolute" form, meaning as a "holistic model" that would exclude design as a metaphysical matter, "evolutionism" turns into a philosophy that parts company with Christianity.

In that light, observers say, Schönborn's view does not seem to court a new Galileo affair, putting the church at odds with scientific discoveries. He's making a philosophical point, not a scientific one. In the end, he's warning that Christianity cannot accept a universe without God, and it's fairly difficult to argue with that.

HatTip: IdleFellows, which seems to have an interesting blend of science geekdom, SciFi fandom and Catholicism.

I blame Bush!

From The Corner, here's a timewaster that allows you to create your own George Bush conspiracy theory! Why should Michael Moore have all the fun?

The $95 Fortune

If like the Darwin family you have a growing family on a single income, I'm sure this story will sound familiar.

A week ago I did a favor for a client and was given a $95 AmEx gift check as a Thank You. Now, after arguing with myself concerning what the definition of is is, I decided that this wasn't exactly income, so we could treat it as extra money to spend on 'luxury' items. The possibilities seemed endless...

I considered the pump driven espresso machine I've been wanting for lo these many months, but that would have cost more than $95.

I considered the cask strength single malt scotch that a friend had recommended, but when that was discovered to cost $66 per bottle, I couldn't quite justify it.

In the end, I picked up two new pairs of Levis (the old ones were wearing through at the pockets), a bottle of potato vodka (most vodka these days is made from grain alcohol rather than potatoes, but one must do these things right) and some Bombay Dry Gin. I sent Mrs. Darwin out to Kohls with the remaining $30 and instructions to buy something cute, but she came back with a case of glass cups (the monkeys had broken all but one of our previous set), twelve dollars in change, and the news that none of the stuff at Kohls looked good on her.

Once the excitement was over, I started to think how odd it was that $95 seemed like such a fortune. After all, nearly thirty times that amount flows through our family's bank account every month. $95 really isn't that much money in the grand scheme of things. 1.5 weeks groceries. 8% of a morgate payment. Half of a summer electric bill. (Grrrrr, but then, quite a smaller fraction of the cost of replacing our aging air conditioner.)

The trick, I suppose, is that this was $95 that wasn't currently budgeted to be spent on anything else. Still, just for a couple days we were rich, with $95 to spend on whatever we wanted. Maybe some day...

Remembering Hiroshima

Tomiko Morimoto West, who was a 13-year old living in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped, writes about her experience and her life since in the NY Daily News. Definately read.