presumably vs assumably

I've seen 'assumably' used where my ear tells me 'presumably' is meant: In fact, this is the case every time I hear 'assumably'; It always sounds like an error.

Usage guides label it an error, although it is in the dictionary--including the OED--albeit labeled as very rare.

I would like to take a stab at why, to my ear, it sounds wrong.

First let's start with the distinction between the basic meanings of the verbs 'presume' and 'assume'.

'Presume' has the connotation of a conscious decision. When one presumes, he consciously takes something as true although he knows, strictly speaking, he has insufficient reason.

When one assumes on the other hand, one takes something as true without questioning it. Assumption is largely unconscious and unexamined.

For example: If I have a paper due on Friday, I would assume the professor would accept it Monday if I just blindly take it for given that he wouldn't refuse a paper one business day late, and didn't actually give it a second thought. If on the other hand, I think through the position I will be putting him in when I hand it in on Monday, and wager that he wouldn't be harsh enough--or perhaps wouldn't care enough--to reject it, I would be presuming.

This is why--it seems to me--a certain sort of impropriety is called 'presumption'; It is assumed that it was a conscious transgression--or at least--that it ought to have been a conscious transgression: It is so far out of normal conduct that no one of any breeding would do it without first thinking about it.

For another example, I and my brother are going from our home to a party, but since I have to run errands we are driving separately. While running errands I realize I have forgotten my coat. If I assume he has already left, I don't even seriously consider the possibility that he got held up and is still at the house. If I presume he has left, I think through his schedule and how likely it is that he has been held up long enough to still be at the house, and I conclude that it is unlikely enough not to merit trying to reach him.

If I say I assumed something, I didn't seriously consider the alternative. If I presume something I did consider the alternative, and decided it was too remote a possibility.

Important in this is that 'assume' includes in itself the notion of error: Insofar as one failed to even consider the alternative, and unthinkingly accepted something that was not in fact given.

(I should note that I am well aware that this distinction is not necessarily hard-and-fast, and that there are many cases in which the two will be used interchangeably. I'm mainly trying to get at the connotation that these words have to modern speakers.)

Now let's talk about the adjectives: 'assumable' and 'presumable'.

'Assumable' implies that something is able to be assumed: Which to me at least, sounds like one is able to fail to consider that there might be alternatives. This is true of anything that is not patently false: One can blindly accept without sufficient deliberation just about anything with some plausibility.

'Presumable' on the other hand has the connotation be being able to be taken for granted with reflection, consciously. This is only true of things that are actually probable.

Thus 'presumably' says something substantial: It says something is fairly likely--likely enough that a reasonable person could consciously decide to take it for granted. 'Assumable', on the other hand is nearly vacuous, and says little more than that something is not so obviously false that no one could mistakenly take it for granted without thinking about it.

Maybe I'm reading too much into things. I'd be curious to hear whether this is just me, or whether any of you have a similar impression.

Miracles: Our Lady of Guadalupe

I was recently reading some discussion of a new book

which argues that many more professional scientists have religious belief than is commonly acknowledged. Of course the conversation devolved into the tired old argument that religion is somehow irrational, specifically that there is no evidence for religion at all.

I would like to reject this. There is evidence for a specific religion, specifically, miracles.

Miracles often get written off out of hand by skeptics. But if one wishes to be objective and rational, it seems that there is an onus on the skeptic to at least examine the strongest proported miracles to see whether there is anything to them. Thus I propose to do a short series of posts highlighting some of the more outstanding miracles associated with the Catholic Church.

My criterion is simple: I wish these examples to be current, things that can be seen today if possible, or at least things that have been recently documented by modern science. I do not wish to throw out examples that could be dismissed as legend or as unverifiable.

Exibit A: The tilma of Juan Diego.

First the backstory. Juan Diego was an indigenous Mexican (specifically an Aztec); At the age of 47 he witnessed the Spanish conquest of Mexico under Cortez. Shortly thereafter he converted to Catholicism.

On 9 December 1531, on his way to Church, he heard his name being called. He ran up a hill toward the voice and there saw Our Lady. She told him to tell the bishop she wanted a shrine to her built on the spot. She promised,

I will demonstrate, I will exhibit, I will give all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people. I am your merciful mother, the merciful mother of all of you who live united in this land, and of all mankind, of all those who love me , of those who cry to me, of those who seek me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear their weeping, their sorrow and will remedy and alleviate all their multiple sufferings, necessities and misfortunes.

He reported this to the bishop, but the bishop did not believe the message. Juan Diego returned to Our Lady and begged her to send another messenger. She told him to go to the bishop again the next day. He did so, and again the bishop was incredulous. Juan Diego returned to her, and she promised that on the next day she would give him a sign.

On the following day, Juan Diego found his uncle ill, and wished to find a priest to administer Last Rites. He tried to avoid the hill on which Our Lady had appeared to him. She came to him none the less, assured him that his uncle would not die, and took him to the top of the hill where she showed him roses. This alone was miraculous, for no flowers bloomed there in the relative cool of December.

Together they arranged them in his tilma (a cheap over-cloak). Again Juan Diego went to the Bishop, and threw open his cloak, the roses--a variety native to the Bishop's own Castille, not to Mexico--fell on the ground. Moreover, on the inside of the tilma, there was found an image of the Lady, dressed in the stars with the moon under her feet.

The bishop, now believing, feel to his knees and within two week ordered the shrine build on the hill. Within ten years, it is said, over 9 million Mexican indians converted.

Juan Diego kept the tilma with the miraculous image until his death in 1548.

Forty years later, the then-current bishop had a copy of the image sent to Spain. This image was flow on the flagship of the Christian fleet at the historically crucial victory of Lepanto.

To this day, Our Lady of Guadalupe is venerated, especially by Mexican Catholics, but generally by American Catholics, as the patroness of the Americas. The image is now on display in massive Basilica in Mexico City, erected on the hill. This place is today the second most popular place of pilgirmage in the world (second only to the Vatican).

Now, crucial bits of this story obviously are difficult to verify. But what is not so difficult to verify is the miraculous nature of the image on the tilma, for it is, as I said, preserved to this day.

First, the very fact that the image has survived for almost 500 years (at this date 479) is itself remarkable. The tilma is made of a cheap cloth, woven from cactus fibers, which typically decays in a matter of decades.

In 1789, a replica of the tilma was made, using the best techniques of the time. From the beginning this replica was displayed behind glass. But it was discarded after only 8 years because it was faded, and the threads were breaking.

On the other hand, the original tilma--by then over 250 years old--had been displayed for over 100 years with no protection at all, exposed to hundereds of burning votive candles in the immediate vicinity, as well as the humid air, and even to the pius touch and kisses of pilgrims.

Aside from simply not falling appart, the tilma has survied several potential catastrophes. In 1785 a clumsy worker, while cleaning the glass in front of the image, spilled a 50% nitric acid solution on it. The image, however, was unharmed.

In 1921 a bomb (with 29 sticks of dynamite) was placed in a flower arrangement on the altar at the foot of the image. When the bomb went off all the windows in the basilica were shattered (though some were 150 meters from the explosion), marble throughout the chruch was damaged, and a massive brass cross on the altar was severely mangled (the deformed crucifix can still be seen). The fragile image, sitting behind ordinary glass (bullet-proof glass was installed only in 1993) was untouched.

But what about the image? Is it a fraud?

More than once scientists have concluded that the image itself is inexplicable.

Already in the 18th century examiners had concluded that the work could not have been human.

In 1936, Nobel Prize winning chemist Richard Kuhn examined two colored fibers from the tilma. He found that there were no natural or mineral pigment in the fibers.

In 1979 Phillip Callahan examined the image using an infrared camera and concluded that the image was inexplicable as a human work.

Moreover, in the late 70's microscopic work on the eyes of the image showed that a scene (apparenlty consistent with the accounts of Juan Diego's displaying the roses to the Bishop) appear in the pupils of the image.

That there was an image in the right eye was first noticed in 1929. In 1951, Jose Carlos Salinas Chavez, noticed that it was also visible in the left. In 1956, the ophthalmologist Javier Torroella Bueno certified that the images displayed the distortions and effects seen in human eyes. During that year similar observations were made by Rafael Torrija Lavoignet, also an ophthalmologist. The most well-known work on the eyes was done by Jose Aste Tonsmann, who while at IBM carried out analysis of extremely high resolution images of the eyes, starting in 1979, and resulting in a book on the topic.

One would be tempted to dismiss these extremely faint images as an example of an ink-blot test, except that the images from the two eyes do seem to match (aside from differences in perspective consistent with the optics of human vision).

Various other attempts have been made to show that the image is unable to be explained as a fraud, but I leave those to the reader to examine. It seems that what has been so far advanced should be sufficient.

One could, likewise, describe the various healings that have been associated with the image. But again it seems unnecessary.

Thus ends the first installment.

Some interesting links:

• SCIENCE AND GUADALUPE VIRGIN by Ana Hernandez (unfortunately the original is a .doc).


• Our Lady of Guadalupe ‘completely beyond' scientific explanation


• The story


• Short overview of some scientific analysis

Scary new phishing attack

I love reading about exploits. I just ran across this new method of phishing, dubbed tabnapping.

Basically, the idea is that people identify their tabs by the favicon and title.

So you go to some website; it displays some legitimate content. Then you go to another tab, for some reason. Once you have been off the malicious tab for some period of time, it sneakily changes its favicon and title to match a secure-website that you use, and changes its contents to mirror that site.

So imagine you are Joe-user, with 15 tabs open. You follow a link from a google search. You leave it open in the background while you go and check your rss reader. Then you go to check your email, you scan your tabs looking for the little gmail envelope and go to that tab. When you bring it up it shows the login page, "huh, you think. I wonder why I'm not logged in", and enter your credentials. Little do you know you actually just sent your username and password to the malicious site, not google.

Don't TV writers take grammar?

As tonight's news came on, the anchor describes some unfortunate set of incident, then says,

Stay tuned for the details on whom may be responsible.

At least they are trying.

But just as a helpful note: 'who''s case does not come from following 'on'.

Here is a simple rule that everyone should remember always:

A relative pronoun takes its case from the role it plays in its own clause.

In the given example, 'who' is the subject of 'may be', thus it is nominative.

Just needed to get that out there.

When Words Collide

The donkey has long been an image of slowness and dim-wittedness. Thus Michelangelo puts donkey ears on his critic Cesena, in the Last Judgment.

Indeed 'asinus' (the adjective, whence E. 'asinine') in Latin, could be used to mean not only donkeylike, but also stupid.

Or Euclid's pons asinorum: "The bridge of the asses," the proposition at which one moved into non-trivial proofs, and thus where the dunces would start to struggle.

Thus the original English word 'ass' (and later the masculine 'jackass'), from the Latin 'asinus', just referred to the animal: When used as an insult it was literally calling a person a donkey, with the implication of stupidity and dullness.

Meanwhile we have the Germanic 'arse' meaning the buttocks. Sometime near the beginning of modern English, it seems the 'r' dropped out, and 'arse' became 'ass'.

Etymonline gives us the history:

first attested 1860 in nautical slang, in popular use from 1930; chiefly U.S.; from dial. variant pronunciation of arse (q.v.). The loss of -r- before -s- attested in several other words (e.g. burst/bust, curse/cuss, horse/hoss, barse/bass). Indirect evidence of the change from arse to ass can be traced to 1785 (in euphemistic avoidance of ass "donkey" by polite speakers) and perhaps to Shakespeare, if Nick Bottom transformed into a donkey in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1594) is the word-play some think it is.

At this point confusion ensues. As noted, already in the 18th century polite company avoided 'ass' even when used with its older meaning.

In contemporary American usage, when one calls another an ass, it seems from my observation at least, that the intended significance is to identify the subject as a bottom. In fact, calling someone a donkey is sometimes used as a euphemistic play on words to call someone a butt, without the speaker realizing that he is in fact paraphrasing the original insult (so it is actually a very direct insult, according to the old use and neither a euphemism nor a play on words).

Thus the insult has remained largely unchanged, but its reference and signification has entirely changed. It's sort of like the invasion of the body snatcher. Only with words.

An Admonition to Priests

Some Sarum Missals, used in England from the XIIIth cent. until the Reformation, offer priests this sobering and salutary thought:

Presbyter in Christi mensa quid agis bene pensa: aut tibi vita datur aut mors aeterna paratur.

Translation:

Think carefully, Priest, of what you do on Christ's table: Either life is given you or eternal death is prepared.

We can also put it in verse to match the Latin:

Think you Priest with trepidation

What you do at the Consecration

For given you is Life Eternal

Or made for you is death infernal.

Taken from this fascinating, detailed description of the Use of Sarum, courtesy of the AngloCatholic.

The SSPX and the Magisterium

Rorate has an interview with Bp. Fellay.

In reading it one Q and A stuck out to me:

Brian Mershon: Some critics say that the Society’s rejection of a canonical or practical solution is a sign of obstinacy or ill will. How do you answer that? (Emphasis mine.)

Bishop Fellay: It is very simple. The Holy See has agreed that the doctrinal talks should happen, so that should answer the questions without putting the burden on me. Besides that, it is very clear that whatever practical solution that would happen without a sound doctrinal foundation would lead directly to disaster. We don’t want that. We want and need the security of a sound solution on the level of doctrine to go ahead. So to pretend there is something definitive prior to engaging in the doctrinal talks…

We have all these previous examples in front of us—the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King and all of the others are totally blocked on the level of doctrine because they first accepted the practical agreement.

The question is one I have long wanted an answer to. Unfortunately I found the answer somewhat wanting.

First, that the Holy Father wants the talks doesn't really mean that the SSPX is in a good situation. To me, this more indicates that HH doesn't fully trust them, or has some reason to think that they have substantial doctrinal issues that need to be addressed. In other words, the argument base on the need for a solid doctrinal agreement is a good one coming from HH concerning someone whose orthodoxy is in question, but not coming from a Catholic.

Second, the whole second part of his answer speaking of a "sound solution on the level of doctrine" and of others' being "totally blocked because they first accepted the practical solution" smacks of an attitude foreign to the Catholic.

"Solution" to what? "Blocked" from what? Correcting the Magisterium?

It seems to be that a Catholic before the Magisterium has only one acceptable posture: acceptance of all that is definitively taught, and careful, respectful study of all that is taught non-definitively. A Catholic does not address the Magesterium as an equal, at least not on matters of doctrine.

It is something of an either-or. At the end of the day one either accepts and submits the Magisterium, insofar as every Catholic is required, or one rejects it. The fact that dogmatic or doctrinal talks are being put before a full reintegration of the SSPX with the Universal Church only indicates to me that the SSPX and the Holy See think that they have substantial doctrinal differences, which seems to imply that the SSPX is not ready to fully submit to the teaching authority of the Church.

The second part of this reply sounded to me like, "We don't like what the Church is teaching, and we aren't going to come back unless they satisfy us first."

Now admittedly theology is always subtle, we don't know exactly what is being said behind those doors, and things only get more complex when the care of souls is a primary concern (so perhaps the SSPX thinks that some things have been put forth in a confusing way that might cause scandal and thus are willing to postpone full union until these issues are settled). That the content of the talks is secret only more obscures the issue. So maybe I am totally off base, but Fellay's reply to this question did not inspire much confidence, at least not in me.

Inalienable v. Unalienable

So with all the tea partying that has been going on, I've heard the phrase 'unalienable rights' several times in the last few weeks. It has given me pause each time, because I always thought the word was 'inalienable; 'unalienable' sounds wrong to my ear.

Always eager to be a pedant I decided to find out what the story is. It didn't take much googling before I found out that, 1) the word that appears in the Declaration of Independence is, in fact, 'unalienable', 2) both words are perfectly synonymous, although 'inalienable' is preferred by contemporary stylists.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," I think to myself.

Then I stumble upon this blog post which starts off something like this:

[Blah blah blah]

You pronounce “unalienable” as “un-a-LEEN-able”…but the only pronunciation I’m aware of is “uhn-eyl-yuh-nuh-buh l” (www.dictionary.com), as in alien, alienate, etc., with the accent always on the “a”.
[blah blah blah]
Best regards,

Tom

Hi Tom,

[Blah blah blah]
While most of the world seems to pronounce “unalienable” as “un-A-lee-un-a-ble,” I intentionally pronounce the word “un-a-LEEN-a-ble”.

Why? Because the meanings of the words “inalienable” and “unalienable” are vastly different and I wish to make absolutely clear whenever I use the latter instead of the former.

My pulse quickens: Could there be a more to the story? Some arcane distinction between the two? Perhaps they came from entirely different roots? Or maybe we have some subtle term of the lawyer's art? What fascinating oddity of the English language have I stumbled upon. I continue:

According to Black’s Law Dictionary (8th Edition; A.D. 2004), the definition of “inalienable” is:

“Not transferable or assignable. . . . Also termed unalienable”.

Um, okay. Not seeing the difference.

But if we go back to Black’s 2nd (A.D. 1910) we’ll see that “inalienable” was defined as:

“Not subject to alienation; the characteristic of those things which cannot be bought or sold or transferred from one person to another such as rivers and public highways and certain personal rights; e.g., liberty.”

Black’s 2nd defines “unalienable” as:

“Incapable of being aliened, that is, sold and transferred.”

*Puzzled look* I read on,

At first glance the two terms seem pretty much synonymous.

To self: Well, yes they do.

However, while the word “inalienable” is “not subject to alienation,” the word “unalienable” is “incapable of being aliened”.

Clear as mud. How could I have missed that?

“Unalienable” is “incapable” of being aliened by anyone, including the man who holds something “unalienable”. Thus, it is impossible for any individual to sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of an “unalienable Right”. it is impossible for you to take one of my “unalienable rights”. It is likewise impossible for me to even voluntarily surrender, sell or transfer one of my “unalienable rights”.
. . .
That which is “inalienable,” on the other hand, is merely “not subject to alienation”. Black’s 2nd does not declare that it’s absolutely impossible for that which is “inalienable” to be sold, transferred or assigned. Instead, I believe that “inalienable” merely means that “inalienable rights” are not subject to “alienation” by others. That is, no one can compel me to sell, abandon or transfer any of my “inalienable” rights. I am not “subject” to compelled “alienation” by others.

Uhhh. Come again? The definitions you gave seem to me to say that same thing. The fact that they were written by hand, and thus are not verbatim copies of one another does not alter the substantial identity of the two definitions:

Both say that such a thing cannot be aliened/alienated (these are synonyms with respect to property). Both definitions clarify that this means such things cannot be sold or transfered.

To bolster the case our author turns to another legal dictionary.

if we look at Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (A.D. 1856) we’ll see:

“INALIENABLE. A word denoting the condition of those things the property in which cannot be lawfully transferred from one person to another. Public highways and rivers are inalienable. There are also many rights which are inalienable, as the rights of liberty or of speech.”

“UNALIENABLE. Incapable of being transferred. Things which are not in commerce, as, public roads, are in their nature unalienable. Some things are unalienable in consequence of particular provisions of the law forbidding their sale or transfer; as, pensions granted by the government. The natural rights of life and liberty are unalienable.”

Clearly, the words are not synonymous.

No that is not clear at all. Both definitions start by saying such things cannot be transfered. Both give the examples of public roads, and give as a further example basic human rights like liberty.

I conclude that while there may be some confusion between the two terms, “unalienable” offers great and absolute power while “inalienable” is far weaker, more conditional, and probably subject to at least some “alienation”.

I don't know how you can conclude that 'inalienable' means "subject to some alienation", when your favored definition of the term (from Black's 2nd ed.) starts, I quote, "not subject to alienation."

So why take a chance? Why not make it your business to ensure that every time you have a chance to use one word or the other you always choose to use “unalienable”? Why not use the exact word (“unalienable”) that was used by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence?

Actually that would mean using 'inalienable': The drafts that have been identified as being in Jefferson's hand use 'inalienable'.

While the words “inalienable” and “unalienable” have significantly different meanings, their “sounds” are almost identical and only a highly-tuned “ear” will note the distinction in sound and then meaning between them.

Wrong, and . . . wrong.

The meanings are (so far as your evidence has shown) the same.

The sounds do not require a highly-tuned ear to distinguish. That's how I got here in the first place: I heard a difference, a difference that I was not listening for.

And why are "sounds" and "ear" in quotation marks? Am I missing some innuendo?

I believe our modern gov-co fears and detests “unalienable” but doesn’t much mind that we use the word “inalienable”. The first term is lethal to gov-co powers; the second is not particularly threatening.

Right, The government knows that the people really do understand very different things by 'inalienable' and 'unalienable', and the government is really afraid to use the one because everyone knows it is so much stronger.

NEWS FLASH: Even if they once were distinguished (they do not appear to have been), no one recognizes that distinction today. NO ONE THINKS 'INALIENABLE' MEANS SOMETIMES ABLE TO BE GOTTEN RID OF! There is no motive for a conspiracy to abolish the use of one when everyone thinks they are synonymous.

Oh wait, maybe there is evidence:

I visited the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC about five years ago. I was amazed to see that the Jefferson Memorial includes an excerpt from the “Declaration of Independence” attributed to Jefferson that referred to our “inalienable Rights”. But the text of the Declaration of Independence” expressly refers to our “unalienable Rights”. Thus, the “Declaration of Independence” is misquoted in 12″ high letters that are carved in stone. I couldn’t be more surprised if the gov-co has misspelled Jefferson’s name.

I cannot believe that the designers and builders of the Jefferson Memorial misspelled “unalienable” or “accidentally” replaced “unalienable” with “inalienable”. This change was done intentionally and because the word “inalienable” is trivial while the word “unalienable” is powerful to a spiritual degree.

Again, there is no difference (so far as your tirade has shown) in the meaning of the words. The discrepancy between the words on the memorial and those on the official document may be due to the fact that Jefferson's drafts all used the word you allege is "trivial".

Therefore, I intentionally “mispronunciate” (as our former President Bush might say) the word “unalienable” to “jar” each listener’s “ear” and make absolutely clear that they’ve just heard the explosive “BOOM!” of a 50 caliber rifle every time I “pull the trigger” and not a mere bean blower’s “phfffft”.

When you invest words with made-up significance and then mispronounce them, you do not make your communication clearer. You do, however, manage to make yourself sound like a dumbass who doesn't know English.

If you will indulge me a pun:

When you speak an idiolect you sound like an idiot.

Credit due

The NYT as an institution is going to need to do a lot to recover from the smear campaign it has been waging against the Pontiff. But this op-ed by Ross Douthat is an excellent first step. I can't agree with every line, but overall it is stunningly perceptive and fair.

You should really read it, but here are a couple points that stuck out:

But there’s another story to be told about John Paul II and his besieged successor. The last pope was a great man, but he was also a weak administrator, a poor delegator, and sometimes a dreadful judge of character. . . . The church’s dilatory response to the sex abuse scandals was a testament to these weaknesses. So was John Paul’s friendship with the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ.

Wait you mean it might not be appropriate to style JP II "the Great"? \sarcasm

JPII, for all accounts, was a great Archbishop. I have no doubt that he was a very holy man. He did a wonderful job of upholding the Church teaching on life-issues. He put out many documents that said the right things.

BUT, as an administrator, as a judge of character, as a leader of an international Church he left something to be desired. His actions and inactions often left the faithful scratching their heads, and more than once outright scandalized. In a time, that frankly, was chaotic in the Church (in every respect, doctrinal, liturgical, moral) John Paul II, said many good things, but what he did and did not do did little to clarify and regularize. For anyone who is unsure of what I could mean, I refer you to Fr. Brian Harrision's excellent article on the topic.

He goes on,

Only one churchman comes out of Berry’s story [about Marciel] looking good: Joseph Ratzinger. Berry recounts how Ratzinger lectured to a group of Legionary priests, and was subsequently handed an envelope of money “for his charitable use.” The cardinal “was tough as nails in a very cordial way,” a witness said, and turned the money down.

This isn’t an isolated case. In the 1990s, it was Ratzinger who pushed for a full investigation of Hans Hermann Groer, the Vienna cardinal accused of pedophilia, only to have his efforts blocked in the Vatican.

He lists several other cases in which Ratzinger was a prime mover in taking care of the dirty business, often when it was unpopular or opposed by others in the Vatican. This is a story that desperately needs to be told. The recently unearthed allegations, as Douthat says, are "more smoke than fire." The undisputed facts, regarding Ratzinger and clerical abuse, all point overwhelmingly to one conclusion: That Ratzinger was and is deeply committed to rooting out the filth that afflicts the Church, that he has done more than perhaps any other individual to correct the lamentable situation and ensure that such problems do not arise again. There are plenty of people who through malice or negligence deserve to be blamed, but Ratzinger certainly is very near the bottom of that list.

And he makes bold to say what some have only dared to think:

So the high-flying John Paul let scandals spread beneath his feet, and the uncharismatic Ratzinger was left to clean them up. This pattern extends to other fraught issues that the last pope tended to avoid — the debasement of the Catholic liturgy, or the rise of Islam in once-Christian Europe. . . . as unlikely as it seems today, Benedict may yet deserve to be remembered as the better pope.

Wow.

It really deserves a read. So off you go.

The anti-Catholic ravings of the NYT

The most recent NYT article on Benedict XVI is stunning: It alleges that "Pope Put Off Punishing Abusive Priest." Let me give you a few snippets to demonstrate the overall picture that they seem to be attempting to paint. Here's the first line:

That decision did not come for two more years, the sort of delay that is fueling a renewed sexual abuse scandal in the church that has focused on whether the future pope moved quickly enough to remove known pedophiles from the priesthood, despite pleas from American bishops.

You see their interest?

It goes on:

The letter that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later pope, wrote in Latin in 1985, mentions Father Kiesle’s young age — 38 at the time — as one consideration in whether he should be forced from the priesthood.

So there they finally have what they have been searching for, right? The previous findings have, by their own admission failed to really place His Holiness in a conclusively incriminating position. But here they finally have a letter signed, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

In the Munich case on the other hand they had been left hanging. We have found that the priest in question was not from Ratzinger's diocese, that Ratzinger's knowledge of his misconduct was limited, and that the decision to give the priest pastoral duties was made by a delegate, without the Archbishop's direct knowledge.

Ditto the case of Fr. Murphy: Not only have we found that the letter questioning the prudence of a trial of Murphy was based on the fact that Murphy was very close to death (he died days after the letter was sent, at the time still officially under Ecclesiastical investigation), but there is no evidence that the decision was made by Ratzinger.

Of course the inconclusiveness of the evidence never stopped the media from publishing sensationalist, scandalous innuendo and making all sorts of nasty implications.

But now at last the AP/NYT media vultures have unearthed a letter signed by Ratzinger. You can imagine their sense triumph, salivating at the scent of clerical blood. The problem is that the letter, although certainly signed by Ratzinger, isn't actually incriminating at all. Let's considered the facts:

The priest had been convicted in court for his sexual indiscretions. Any disciplinary or punitive actions were the responsibility of the local bishop, (who details some of his some of his attempts to deal with the priest in a letter dated 19 June 1981).

The CDF was involved only because the priest himself had decided to leave the priesthood and wished to be released from his vow of celibacy. This is clear from the very first line of the very first letter sent to Rome: "I am writing to you concerning a petition of Stephen Kiesle for a dispensation from the obligation of the Priesthood, including that of celibacy." (Emphasis added.) Later letters are similarly clear. The request is from the priest himself, and it is primarily a request for a release from his vow of celibacy.

The bishop was not petitioning Ratzinger to take some punitive measure, he was not asking the CDF to conduct a trial, he was asking, on behalf of the priest himself, that the (no longer active) priest be allowed to marry.

Trying to construe this as Ratzinger "puting off punishing", or refusing to "force [a paedophile] from the priesthood" is simply preposterous: the request in question originated from the priest himself, and has nothing to do with punishment.

American Catholic Millennials

I just got the most recent Columbia magazine and found in it an interesting survey of Catholic Millennials. The survey makes some interesting positive finds about this demographic, especially a commitment to marriage and life issues. But, being curmudgeonly and jaded as I am, I'd like to focus on a couple of negative results.

Fornication--Almost 40% of the general American population believes fornication is wrong. Among Catholics this drops under 30%. Among Catholic Millennials it drops to around 20%. This is a very basic moral teaching of the whole Christian tradition; We find it condemned in Scripture on the very lips of Our Lord (Mk. 7:21)--It doesn't get much more authoritative than that. That fact that this teaching is rejected by ~80% of Catholic Millennials is a good indicator of where this is going.

Moral relativism--The article says that 56 percent of Americans reject universal moral norms, as compared to 64% of Millennials at large. But among Catholic Millennials, this number skyrockets to over 4/5ths. Fewer than 1 in 5 Catholics between 18 and 29 recognizes that there are any universal moral absolutes.

Practicing religion--only 1 in 4 Catholic Millennials attends Mass once a month, which is lower than their generation as a whole, of which 1 in 3 attends a religious service once a month.

Practicing multiple religions--Almost 2/3rds of Catholic Millennials "see no problem with practicing multiple religions". It isn't clear what the question was but the context suggests that this indicates practicing their own religion and another (as opposed to approving of someone practicing two completely different religions), which is to say, it seems that this is saying that they approve of a Catholic attending Lutheran services, not of a Hindu practicing Buddhism. So it seems that in addition to moral relativism, we have a healthy dose of dogmatic relativism as well. That is, this attitude seems to suggest that they do not take the doctrine of the Church terribly seriously; Rather they seem to think that all religions are really the same at heart. But it gets better.

Atheism--The article finds hope in the fact that Catholic Millennials are more likely to believe in God than their peers (85% do); I, on the other hand, find it disturbing that we are even able to measure atheism among Catholics, let alone that a full 15% reject monotheism, which is a preambulum Fidei, a prerequisite to the Catholic Faith.

A couple caveats: This age bracket is notoriously liberal and experimental. I would guarantee that in 20 years, after these people go out and actually start the families they say they want, a large number of them will swing back towards their Faith. Also, for what consolation it offers, these numbers are much better for practicing Catholic Millennials.

None the less these numbers are significant. They show that Catholicism is in absolute crisis. Catholics have done a miserable job of passing on their Faith.

Indulge me dear reader while I offer some short diagnosis of this lamentable state of the Catholicism.

How can we help but look at the liturgy? Lex orandi lex credendi. We see clearly in this survey that the Catholics raised over the last 30 years reject even fundamental parts of the Catholic Creed. Is it surprising that the generation that rejects even the most basic Catholic belief, also has given up on Mass.

We can of course go back further than liturgical innovation. "Sexual liberation" has undoubtedly contributed to this apostasy. The widespread rejection of Humanae vitae is the most obvious example of sexual liberation leading to an undermining of the Church's doctrine and authority. It is helpful to remember Our Lady warned in 1917 that more souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason, and that theologians have warned for centuries that lust does more than risk unwed mothers, it dulls, blinds, and perverts the mind. Thus Thomas teaches, in line with a long tradition, "And therefore, through these vices [sins of the flesh] man's intention is applied to the greatest extent to bodily things, and therefore man's understanding of intelligible things is consequently incapacitated . . . Therefore lust gives rise to blindness of mind, which excludes as if entirely the the knowledge of spiritual goods" (IIaIIae Q15 a3).

The roots are deeper still: Since the 19th century Popes have been warning us of modernism, but their warnings have time and again been ignored by American Catholics. American Catholics have, I would venture, been far too quick to embrace a culture that is wholly secular and modernist, which is at heart fundamentally opposed to central claims of the Church and undermines her authority, and consequently their children have, for all intents and purposes, lost the Faith on a grand scale.

Lamentabili exitu indeed.

E. Michael Jones on the SSPX and Thomas on Schism

It may be in bad form to drag up an old argument, but I was recently given a copy of a very old (1993) article:

E. Michael Jones's "How I won the Debate."

In this article Mr. Jones, editor of Culture Wars, arrogantly recounts a debate he had with Michael Davies, RIP, concerning whether the SSPX is schismatic.

One of Mr. Jones's key points is that Mr. Davies's distinction between acts of disobedience and acts of schism is false, that Mr. Davies's insistence that a particular intention is necessary for disobedience to be schismatic is heterodox.

He writes,

Mr. Davies implies more than once that only a person who denies that he is subject to the pope is guilty of schism. He contrasts this with what he terms mere disobedience, where the person refuses to do what the Pope orders.

He continues,

In a letter to the editor which appeared in Daily Telegraph of July 6, 1988 [Davies] writes that "a Catholic who for some grave reason, on a matter not involving faith or morals, feels bound in conscience to disobey the pope in a particular instance without wishing to sever himself from the Church or deny the authority of he Pope, cannot be said to be in schism."

Finally Jones concludes:

These definitions are, as they say, interesting, but they are totally the creation of Michael Davies. As before, Davies puts heavy emphasis on the subjective. In true liberal fashion he claims that the subjective state of the person committing the act is more important than the ontological status of the act itself.

To substantiate this point, that the subjectivity of Davies's subjective understanding of schism is false, he calls on the 1983 and 1917 codes of canon law. He then appeals to St. Thomas. All three use a similar definition of schism: A refusal either to submit to the Pope or to be in communion with those who do submit to the Pope.

He quotes Thomas: "Schismatics are those who refuse obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff and who refuse to communicate with the members of the Church subject to him." He goes on to conclude that this string of passages,

shows that Mr. Davies [sic] definition is unique to Mr. Davies. There are no subjectivist escape clauses in the Church's definition of schism.

This argument shows either intentional deception or utter incompetence on the part of Mr. Jones. The citation from St. Thomas is from IIaIIae, Q.39, a.1. This article could not more clearly stress that an intention of division is of the essence of schism. Indeed, the article is asking whether schism is a distinct species of sin, and the answer is that it is only because it includes the specific intention of division.

Let me quote from the body of the article whose concluding sentence Mr. Jones lifted:

Unde peccatum schismatis dicitur quod directe et per se opponitur unitati, . . . In quibus [rebus moralibus] id quod est intentum est per se, quod autem sequitur praeter intentionem est quasi per accidens. Et ideo peccatum schismatis proprie est speciale peccatum ex eo quod intendit se ab unitate separare quam caritas facit. . . . Et ideo proprie schismatici dicuntur qui propria sponte et intentione se ab unitate Ecclesiae separant, . . .

I translate:

Whence that is called the sin of schism which directly and per se opposes unity, . . . For in moral things that which is intended is per se, but that which follows unintended is as if accidental. And therefore the sin of schism is properly a specific sin because [the schismatic] intends to separate himself from the unity that charity makes . . . and therefore they are properly called schismatics who freely and intentionally separate themselves from the Church, . . .

The whole point of this article is to justify that schism names a particular species of sin, which Thomas does only by teaching that schism is constituted as such by a particular intention: namely, the intention to divide oneself from the Church.

The irony is overwhelming: This is one of the most radically subjective passages in Thomas's moral corpus (right next to IaIIae Q. 72, a 9, ad 2), and Mr. Jones uses it to prove that Mr. Davies is too subjective. As I said, deception or incompetence.

Flaunting Proper Usage

I open the Washington Times to page five and am greeted by a full-page ad boldly declaring in red capitals:

OBAMA FLAUNTS THE CONSTITUTION.

Flaunt, To show off, display ostentatiously, as in, "if you've got it, flaunt it."

Hmm, so is it his lack of taste that our authors are up in arms over?

Possibly, but I suspect they were actually looking for 'flout', To show contempt for, to disregard.

Although the Random House Webster's College Dictionary canonizes the error (as they do for any sufficiently common mistake), Dictionary.com gets it right. As does almost every contemporary usage guide I can find: Paul Brians's Common Errors in English Usage, The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing. Even About.com correctly explains the difference. I needn't multiply examples when Google will do it for me.

One thing that is interesting though is an observation made at Motivated Grammar. The author there notes, taking a cue from the OED (which dates this error to 1923), that this confusion appears to have arisen quite abruptly around 1920, which abrupt rise he demostrated with the aid of Google Books.

I had to try for myself.

The first occurrence of 'flaunt the law', index in Google Books, is from 1905, in the Pacific Medical Journal. This is as opposed to the 99 indexed occurrence of 'flout the law' that occurred up till that year. The first occurrence of 'flaunt convention' is from 1915, as opposed to 29 occurrences with 'flout'.

I decided to chart the occurrences of the two forms of these two phrases--'~ the law' and '~ convention'--in 5 year periods. Then I decided to compare the frequency of the two forms in each period and to look at the change over time.

A couple of things need to be noted. First, the sample-size is very small in the initial years (the total number of occurrences in 1905-10 was only 32, it only broke 500 in 1965-68, and 1000 in 2000-04), thus there is a tremendous level of noise in the early periods. Second, nothing was done to keep one book from being double-counted; what was counted was the number of books in which the phrases in question appeared, not the number of times the phrases themselves appeared; a book could theoretically be counted 4 times. Moreover different editions of the same book could be counted as different books, possibly in different periods. Finally, it is known that some books counted as instances of the erroneous usage, which books were in fact using it to point out that it was an error, e.g., the Dictionary of Disagreeable English, The Dimwit's Dictionary, and others. Thus it is quite likely that the ratio for recent decades is skewed high. Further, it should go without saying that the sample is of published books, and does not attempt to represent spoken usage.

The resulting charts however are fascinating, and do not show the expected roughly exponential increase one would tend to expect, in the adoption of a phrase. We see a sharp decline in the period of '45-50. Followed by a sharp increase rounding out at around 24% in the second half of the 70s. This is followed by a slight drop-off.

It would be interesting to try to account for the peaks and troughs. Did WWII result in a larger percent of publications in the 40s being authored by professors as opposed to novelist and journalists? Did some popular style-guide lambaste the error in the 70s? Who knows. I leave that to my readers, to whom I also leave the task of pointing out the deficiencies of my statistical analysis.

While there are many questions left, a couple things can be stated with some certainty: The use of 'flaunt' meaning 'flout' (in published writing) can be traced to the early 20th century. It has never been used by a majority (in writing). Finally, it is fairly obvious that it is an error insofar as it is clear that the substitution is based on similarity of sound leading to a confusion of meaning, and not on some natural extension of meaning. Neither can it be credibly interpreted as an intentional figure of speech.

Anyway, while I can't place too much fault on the poor, confused author for his inarticulate expression of outrage at the president, I can recommend that, in general, if one runs a full page ad in a national newspaper that he have someone with a decent sense of the language review the proof.