* Hilarious: The Evangelism Linebacker.
* Currently reading Teresa Iglesias's Conscience and Our Culture (PDF), on Newman's conception of conscience.
* Mike Liccione continues discussing the Vincentian Canon. The context in which the Vincentian Canon arises is interesting: St. Vincent, asking how we can avoid the snares of heretics, says simply that we must go to Scripture and the Church (the latter being necessary to interpret the former rightly), and that within the Church itself we must hold only to what is believed everywhere, always, and by all. This rule we can observe by having due regard for universality (confess the faith that is confessed throughout the world), antiquity (keep to the interpretations that were clearly held by our holy predecessors), and consensus (adhere to the views that are agreed upon in general). And he gives examples: if a small group try to cut themselves off from the Church as a whole, hold to the general body (because of universality); if a radically new interpretation becomes widespread, hold to the basics that have always been held (because of antiquity); if your immediate predecessors are isolated from the rest of the Church, find out the decrees of the relevant general councils, or, if that is lacking, investigate what has always been the general view across the Christian world. He then gives more specific examples -- those who stuck to the general consensus against the Donatists, those who stuck to the views that had always been held against the Arians, Pope Stephen's stance against the repeating of baptism on the basis of antiquity. As I've said before, this seems to me to make quite clear that what's at issue is how we individuals can be in conformity with the Church's interpretation of Scripture, and not be misled by heretics, and takes the Church as a presupposed reference point. He certainly doesn't have in view someone trying to decide whether this is the true Church and that is a false Church; his concern is how we handle ourselves when controversies arise. Indeed, he says this fairly explicitly in the later chapters of the Commonitory: God allows heresy in order to try us, we acquit ourselves well in the trial by being catholic, universal, we are catholic by interpreting Scripture in conformity with the traditions of the universal Church and sticking to those things in that Church that exhibit universality, antiquity, and consensus.
* This speech by Tom Hayden is interesting, but not very coherent. This passage in particular is utterly confused:
But I want to challenge the stewardship notion that we were placed here, at some distant time in the past, to suddenly become stewards of nature, as if nature was doing badly on its own. The stewardship concept extracts us from, and places us above, the realm of nature. The scriptures place us in this role to underscore our special, sacred status above the lesser world of living things and ecosystems. As stewards, we become the plant managers for the absentee owner. If this preposterous idea was true, we would have been overthrown or fired from our administrative roles for malfeasance and neglect long ago.
This is a straightforward confusion about what stewards are, or can be. A steward of a household is not 'extracted from, and placed above' the realm of nature; a shop steward is not 'extracted from, and placed above' the union. The phrase "as if nature was doing badly on its own" is straightforwardly rhetorical rather than substantive, because no one who develops a theology of environmental stewardship claims that "nature was doing badly on its own"; and if they did, they could easily be corrected by pointing out that the same scriptures explicitly say otherwise, repeatedly, in the very same chapter. The analogy to management under absentee ownership is an interesting move, but radically implausible to anyone who actually reads up on how the concept of stewardship tends to be developed. That we are guilty of malfeasance and neglect is quite right, and is one thing that people who emphasize the concept of stewardship often underline; it's one of the reasons the concept is so powerful for the purpose of ethical discussion about the environment. Most of the rest of the speech is similar gobbledy-gook, which is unfortunate, because the intended points -- that creation is intrinsically good, that this is a more basic foundation for care of the environment than stewardship, and that environmental concern must be set in the context of a more encompassing sense of justice and reform -- are good ones that deserve better treatment.
* An interesting chemistry paper (PDF) on why odontolite, also called tooth-stone or bone turquoise, is turquoise-blue. Odontolite is the gem you get when you take mastodon ivory and heat it. The reason it turns blue has been a puzzle since the first known use of it by the Cistercians in the eighteenth century. I came across this paper while looking up more information after odontolite was mentioned in a recent post at "The Lion and the Cardinal."
* From the Sisters of the Holy Cross, I've discovered that Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, will be beatified this year. I'm sure it's exciting news for the Holy Cross congregations; they are currently undergoing a year of celebration. As someone educated at a Holy Cross school, I tip my hat to their good fortune.
