Holding Hands

I did want to add that the nurse told Jay and Suzy that Jack is not in pain....she can tell by his facial expressions and the fact that his heartbeat and respiration are regular. He is peaceful and that is a blessing....a gift from our dear Lord. He is still responding some with his hands....he will still hold onto their hands.

It is so difficult though, to have him lose the ability to talk to them.

Newsflash: US Not Center of Vatican's World!

It is a standard complain of those who know much about science that mainstream media seldom understand what they're talking about when writing about science.

It is an even more common complaint of those who understand religion that the mainstream press is clueless when covering religion.

When these two topics meet, no wonder we find a journalistic trainwreck. Here's a particularly amusing piece on the pope's weekend of discussing evolution (so far as I can tell, this is a re-cut of a Routers story which has the Fr. Fessio quotes):

Pope Benedict and his former doctoral students spent a weekend pondering evolution without discussing controversies over intelligent design and creationism raging in the United States.
The three-day closed-door meeting at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo outside Rome ended as planned without drawing any conclusions but the group plans to publish its discussion papers, said participant Father Joseph Fessio S.J.
Media speculation had said the debate might shift Vatican policy to embrace "intelligent design," which claims to prove scientifically that life could not have simply evolved, or even the "creationist" view that God created the world in six days.
"It wasn't that at all," Fessio, who is provost of Ave Maria University in Florida, said from Rome. The Pope's session with 39 former students was "a meeting of friends with some scholars to discuss an interesting theme".
"We did not really speak much about intelligent design," said Fessio, whose Ignatius Press publishes the Pope's books in English. "In fact, that particular controversy did not arise."
Creationism -- the view that God created the world in six days as described in the Bible -- was "almost off the radar screen of the people in this group," he added. The Catholic Church does not read the Genesis account of creation literally.
Fessio said Benedict took part in the discussions but said nothing different from previous public statements, in which he has recognised evolution as a scientific fact but argued that God ultimately created the world and all life in it.

I keep waiting for the media (and some Catholics for that matter) to realize how much of a non-issue American Protestant-style creationism is for Catholics. Still, after the media feeding frenzy that followed Schonborn's NY Times editorial, I was glad to see that the message that Pope Benedict and the assembled scholars were discussing the philophical implications and assumptions surrounding ounding evolution, not trying to engage in a scientific debate.

Jack in a coma

Jack is now in a coma. His heartrate and respiration are all right, but he is no longer waking up and talking. Last night, he was still responding to them and talking before they went to bed, but this morning he didn't wake up and when the hospice nurse came this afternoon, she told them that he is in a coma. He has been sleeping a lot, so at first they were hoping he was just sleeping longer than normal. Unfortunately, not.

Please pray.

You know you're a parent when...

...Amazon starts sending you interestingly assorted "Amazon Recommends" emails such as the one I got this morning which advised me to purchase Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and Umberto Eco's On Literature.

And to the credit of the money Amazon has poured into such customer activity predictive profiling, both of these are indeed books that I have considered buying at one time or another in the last year or so. (The money that must be spent simply to mimic having an intelligent book seller who knows your tastes...)

This concludes any tendency to cutesy parent blogging for the day.

Quick update on Jack

No word on Jack yet this morning...in this case, no news means no change. Everyone who visits with him is amazed at the peaceful calm that is about him. I know that that is a gift from our dear Lord...an answer to all of our and your prayers.

I remember when Darwin was out with his father during his last days, and I was here waiting anxiously for news. It seemed that every time there was some new deterioration in his condition, the family would say their goodbyes and resign themselves, and then... nothing.

Every time I said a rosary for him, the Hail Mary took on new significance: "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." I began to notice all the references to the moment of death in the Liturgy of the Hours as well. No matter what else happens in our lives, the most important moment of all is the moment we leave it, the very last chance we have to turn toward or away from God. Waiting for news of Jack in his last days is a strong reminder that even though we can't choose how or when we die, we can choose something more important -- what happens afterwards.

Vatican Astronomer: Manufactured Controversy

I'm not sure if this was written with an active intention to distort, or simply by someone without much understanding of the topic, but I was very disappointed with the slant of this item from LifeSiteNews (via Catholic Exchange) about the new head of the Vatican Observatory:

The Vatican has appointed a Jesuit priest to head the Vatican Observatory, Argentine Fr. Jose Funes. The appointment follows the retirement of Fr. George Coyne, another Jesuit astronomer who had vehemently opposed the Catholic Church’s stand on materialist Darwinism.

Fr. Funes, speaking to Catholic News Service, the official news outlet of the US Bishops Conference, denied that Fr. Coyne had been removed by the Vatican for his opposition to Catholic teaching.... He did say however, that he would be restricting his own work to his field of expertise, which is disk galaxies and had no plans to make any statements on biology or Darwinian theory.

I suppose one of the side benefits of preistly celibacy is that the author was restrained from adding "It is unclear whether or not Fr. Coyne has stopped beating his wife" but the thought is clearly there.

Coyne has certainly kicked the creationist/intelligent design ant nest a few times, but to say that he "vehemently opposed the Catholic Church’s stand on materialist Darwinism" is patently false. The Church has a stand against materialism, which Coyne has vocally supported on a number of occasions, and the Church has no stand at all on the scientific issue of "Darwinism" or more properly: evolution. There are those who have felt that some of Coyne's philosophical/theological statements have bordered on process theology, and that would constitute a violation of Catholic teaching. But whether Fr. Coyne actually endorses such a position is far from clear, one certainly could not say that he does so vehemently.

All of which got me curious to see what the CNS had originally said in their article. The tone could hardly be more different:

ROME (CNS) -- The new director of the Vatican Observatory said it's important to distinguish between the scientific study of natural causes and the religious beliefs of faith.

At the same time, science can sometimes help people "arrive at a knowledge of God," said Argentine Jesuit Father Jose Funes....

Father Funes said he thought it would be an almost impossible mission to match the "wonderful work" of U.S. Jesuit Father George Coyne, 73, who was leaving as the observatory director after 26 years.

Father Funes dismissed speculation that Father Coyne had been forced out of the job because of his strong comments in support of evolution and criticism of the "intelligent design" movement.

"It's simply not true that this was the reason he left," Father Funes said. He said the appointment was a natural development after Father Coyne's long tenure and one of many personnel changes being made at the Vatican under the new pope.

As for his own views on evolution, Father Funes emphasized that he was an astronomer specializing in galaxies, not a biologist, and so did not plan to make statements about Darwinism and intelligent design.

He said the role of the observatory is first of all to "do good science in astronomy," and in this way favor the ongoing dialogue between faith and science.

Father Funes, who has taught an introductory course in astronomy at the University of Arizona, said he emphasizes to his students that science is about natural causes....

"I don't see any contradictions between science and religion. What I see are tensions. But it is healthy to have tensions in life. Sometimes tensions allow us to mature," he said.

Father Funes' specific field is nearby galaxies, which he described as galaxies "only" 50 million or so light years from Earth. It's part of an exciting area of astronomy, he said. Astronomers now estimate there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and some hypothesize more than one universe.

The discoveries about the universe certainly raise the possibility of life on other planets, he said.

"Even in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, we have 100 billion stars. It's possible some stars have planets similar to Earth, and that life could develop, could evolve -- it's OK with me to use the word 'evolution,'" he said.

The idea of discovering intelligent life elsewhere in the universe does not trouble Father Funes from a faith perspective.

"I don't see that this would pose a problem to theology or to our faith, because these creatures, or beings, or 'ETs' if you want, could also be creatures of God," he said.

A rather saner take on it all.

Interesting Blog: Et Tu, Jen

I ran into an interesting blog last night, by a former atheist now in the process of becoming Catholic: Et Tu, Jen. Worth a read.