KIC 8462852 and Strange Stars

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Brian H. Gill

KIC 8462852, Tabby’s Star, has been in the news recently. Scientists are pretty sure that something very large orbits the star, but haven’t worked out what it is.

A few scientists, looking at the data, say that it’s probably a really odd natural phenomenon: but that it might be something built by folks who aren’t human.

SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is still a science in search of a subject. But quite a few scientists are taking it seriously, which is why Berkeley SETI Research Center added few stars to the Automated Planet Finder’s observing queue.

  1. Tabby’s Star and Something Weird
  2. Strange Stars and the Rio Scale

What I say about SETI and science in general may take some explaining, if you’re new to this blog. Basically, I think God is large and in charge; and that part of my job is appreciating God’s work — not telling the Almighty how it should have been made.

Psalms and Ptolemy

The Bible generally reflects Mesopotamian cosmology: like pillars of the earth in 1 Samuel 2:8 and Job 9:6, and the dome of heaven in Psalms 150:1. (August 28, 2016)

On the other hand, I think that bit about the morning stars singing in Job 38:7 might reflect Pythagorean ideas applied to cosmology. The book was being written around the time Pythagoras noticed that music was mathematical.

Celestial spheres show up in Anaximander’s cosmology about two and a half centuries before Aristotle said that the universe is a set of concentric spheres with Earth at the center: or bottom, more accurately.

Ptolemy added his observations and analysis to Aristotle’s ideas, describing a universe of nested spheres in “Almagest.”

Ptolemy’s ‘nested spheres’ model matched observations pretty well for more than a millennium. It also reflects how we talk about the sun “setting” or “rising.” I like to believe that most folks realize that the sun’s apparent motion happens because Earth rotates.

On the other hand, a fervent Christian told me that the sun goes around Earth, ‘because the Bible says so.’ He had a point: given a completely figure-of-speech-free reading of Joshua 10:12–13 and Job 9:7.

Small wonder folks like this Ph.D. in marine biology/neurophysiology, make goofy assumptions about Christianity:

“Earth 2.0: Bad News for God”
Jeff Schweitzer, Huffington Post (July 23, 2015)

“…Let us be clear that the Bible is unambiguous about creation: the earth is the center of the universe, only humans were made in the image of god, and all life was created in six days. All life in all the heavens. In six days….”

I’ve talked about “Earth 2.0,” Kepler-452b, ancient Mesopotamians, and getting a grip, before. (July 29, 2016)

Folks living north of the Alps lost track of Ptolemy’s work after Theoderic took over management of the Ostrogothic Kingdom — but not all knowledge, thanks in part to centers of learning like Gaelic Ireland, and that’s another topic.

Using Our Brains

From Wiley Miller, used w/o permission.

Ptolemy wrote “Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις,” “Mathēmatikē Syntaxis,” around the year 150. Folks speaking my language call it “Almagest,” “المجسطي” — “al-majisṭī” — because a 12th-century Latin translation was particularly famous in our culture’s history.

Ptolemy’s work replaced most earlier Greek studies of mathematical astronomy, and started being translated into Arabic in the 9th century.

Ptolmaic and Aristotelian ideas about a round Earth may have shaken the faith of some folks living in the Byzantine Empire, but Christianity kept going.

I’ll grant that Theodosius I had a hand in that. I’ve talked about Charlemagne and the Thirty Year’s War before. (November 6, 2016)

Where was I? Pillars of the earth, Ptolemy, getting a grip. Right.

As I said last week, my faith doesn’t depend on ignorance, or desperately clinging to long-outdated efforts to understand the universe. (November 25, 2016)

Scientific discoveries are invitations “to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 283)

God created, and is creating, a good and ordered physical world: one that is changing, in a state of journeying toward an ultimate perfection. (Catechism, 282–308)

Honest and methodical study of this astonishing creation cannot interfere with an informed faith, because “the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.” (Catechism, 159)

God gave us brains. Using them is what we’re supposed to do. (Catechism, 35, 50, 159, 2292–2296)

Reading and understanding Sacred Scripture, the Bible, is very important. But it’s not all there is to my faith. Because I’m a Catholic, I follow our Lord, and can draw on two millennia — more, actually — of accumulated wisdom.1 (Catechism, 95, 101–133, 174)

“…The Bible is a collection of 73 books written over the course of many centuries. The books include royal history, prophecy, poetry, challenging letters to struggling new faith communities, and believers’ accounts of the preaching and passion of Jesus….

“…Know what the Bible is – and what it isn’t. The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with the people he has called to himself. It is not intended to be read as history text, a science book, or a political manifesto. In the Bible, God teaches us the truths that we need for the sake of our salvation….”
(“Understanding the Bible,” Mary Elizabeth Sperry, USCCB)

God’s God, Aristotle’s Not

From Eric Gaba, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.Aristotle noticed that we can see stars in Egypt that aren’t visible in the Aegean, and that Earth always casts a circular shadow on our moon during an eclipse. This meant, he said, that Earth is a sphere.

He was right about that, but he also said Earth was the center of the universe because earth sinks in water, but air bubbles rise. I’m oversimplifying Aristotelian physics: but that’s pretty much the idea.

Aristotle also said that there’s only one world, the one we’re standing on; and that it has always existed. That makes sense, given his assumptions, but we’re learning that it’s not how reality works.

Starting around 1100, European scholars rediscovered Aristotle. Some of them got overly-enthusiastic, insisting that Earth was the only world: because Aristotle said so.

That’s when the Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, issued the Condemnation of 1277. It was a rather lengthy list. Proposition 27/219 said, over-simplifying again, that if God decided there are other worlds, what Aristotle said won’t change the facts.

Basically: God’s God, Aristotle’s not.

The 219 Propositions of 1277 were later annulled, but not the principle that God decides what’s real.2 It’s not a new idea:

“Our God is in heaven; whatever God wills is done.”
(Psalms 115:3)

“A Mighty Soberin’ Thought”

I think Walt Kelly had it right:

“Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty soberin’ thought.”
(Porky Pine, in Walt Kelly’s Pogo; via Wikiquote)

I also think that if we learn that we have neighbors, some folks will be upset, some won’t care, and that’s a topic for another post. (September 18, 2016)

If we learn that we have neighbors in the universe, some Catholics may be surprised, even shocked. Others, not so much:

“…Why the Vatican is involved in Astrobiology?

“On the occasion of the International Year of Astronomy the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has organized a Study Week on Astrobiology.

“This is a quite appropriate topic for the Academy which has a multi-disciplinary membership, since it is a field which combines research in many disciplines, principally: astronomy, cosmology, biology, chemistry, geology and physics. This is not the first time that such a topic is subject of interest in the Vatican. In 2005 the Vatican Observatory conducted a Summer School on this topic and brought together as a faculty some of the most important researchers in this field.

“Although Astrobiology is an emerging field, and still a developing subject, the questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration. These questions offer many philosophical and theological implications, however the meeting will be focused on the scientific perspective.

“Among the objectives of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the promotion of natural sciences and stimulation of interdisciplinary approach to scientific knowledge are counted; the Study Week on Astrobiology tries to accomplish these goals….”
(Conferenza Stampa di Presentazione della Settimana di Studio su “Astrobiology” (Press Conference for the Study Week Presentation of “Astrobiology”),
Casina Pio IV, Vatican (November 6-10, 2009))

“Astrobiologists” study the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe: on Earth, and extraterrestrial life. “Exobiology” is more specific. It’s the search for life beyond Earth, and learning how extraterrestrial environments affect living things. (Wikipedia)

We don’t know of life anywhere except Earth, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to assume that life cannot exist anywhere else. The ‘jackpot’ discovery would be learning that life exists elsewhere, and that it includes people.

I don’t “believe in” extraterrestrial intelligence, but I won’t insist that we must be alone in the universe. It’s not my decision. (July 29, 2016)

1. Tabby’s Star and Something Weird


(From NRAO, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“The Green Bank Telescope is located in a rural area of West Virginia”
(BBC News))

“Dish to listen for ET around strange star”
BBC News (October 27, 2016)

“A $100m initiative to listen for signals from alien life is targeting a star with an unusual dimming pattern.

“The Breakthrough Listen project, backed by Prof Stephen Hawking, will train a US radio telescope on a target called Tabby’s Star.

“Tabby’s Star has been a subject of attention and controversy over its irregular dimming pattern.

“Some scientists have been puzzled by large dips in the star’s brightness.…”

Tabby’s Star, KIC 8462852, may or may not be “strange,” as the BBC News article put it. It’s a F-type main-sequence star about 1,480 light-years from us, in the general direction of Deneb, very roughly as far away as Sadr.

You’d pass Rukh, Delta Cygni, on your way there. Rukh will be Earth’s North Star around the 113th century, and that’s yet another topic.

Anyway, KIC 8462852 is about half again as massive as our sun, five times as bright, and unremarkable: except for one thing. It was one of the 150,000 or so stars observed by the Kepler spacecraft.

A team of scientists working with Tabetha S. Boyajian noticed something very odd about the star’s light curve. It’s flickering.

Every 750 days or so, KIC 8462852 gets up to 22% dimmer than usual. That’s a lot of dimming. Whatever’s coming between us and the star is big. A planet the size of Jupiter would only block 1% of the star’s light.

That’s assuming that the change in luminosity happens because something’s blocking the light. If the star itself is dimming like that — that’d be really weird.

Planet Hunters and Credibility


(From JohnPassos, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Light curve data from Kepler: March 5, 2011 to April 17, 2013.)

There’s no ‘extra’ infrared radiation near KIC 8462852; so whatever the stuff is, it’s not warm. That (probably) rules out a lumpy protoplanetary/accretion disk, or debris from a major collision of planets.

Maybe the whatsit is an irregular and unreasonably dense cluster of comets in a wide elliptical orbit.

Or — this is what’s getting in the news — maybe we’re looking at something artificial. Maybe. As Penn State University’s Jason Wright wrote:

“…My philosophy of SETI … is that you should reserve the alien hypothesis as a last resort. One of the reasons not stated in that link is analogous to Cochran’s Commandment to planet hunters prior to 51 Peg b’s discovery:

Thou shalt not embarrass thyself and thy colleagues by claiming false planets.

It would be such a big deal if true, it’s important that you be absolutely sure before claiming you’ve detected something, lest everybody lose credibility. Much more so for SETI….”
(Jason Wright (October 15, 2015))

Wright is an associate professor, young — by my standards — and a serious scientist. He and others don’t say that there is an alien megastructure orbiting Tabby’s Star.

They’re saying that we don’t know what’s happening there: and that something like a Dyson swarm might be a reasonable explanation.

Folks building something that big would be on their way to being a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale. I talked about that before. (September 16, 2016)

On top of everything else, it looks like KIC 8462852 is getting dimmer, even when it’s not being eclipsed. Assuming that we’re not looking at a world-class string of instrument and analysis errors, there’s something really unexpected happening out there.3

2. Strange Stars and the Rio Scale


(From Oleg Alexandrov, via Wikimedia Commons/Tech Times, used w/o permission.)
(Automated Planet Finder: a robotic 2.4-meter optical telescope at Lick Observatory, Mount Hamilton, California.)

“Evidence Of Alien Life? 2 Scientists Think Strange Signals From 234 Stars Are From ETI”
Rhodi Lee, Tech Times (October 25, 2016)

“Two scientists claim they may have found evidence of intelligent alien life and published their findings in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

“Astronomers Ermanno Borra and Eric Trottier, from the Université Laval in Quebec, examined the stars that were catalogued from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Out of more than 2 million surveyed stars, the scientists found 234 that exhibit spectral modulation.

“The stars exhibit rapid bursts of light. The spectral modulation also seems to be identical across many different stars. The scientists said that the signal from the stars is consistent with signals from an alien civilization sending extremely rapid optical pulses that was predicted in an earlier paper by Borra….”

Borra and Trottier have found something. It might be evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization, a previously-unknown natural phenomenon, or maybe a glitch in the data.

A quick read of their paper makes that last possibility unlikely. They’ve ‘done their homework,’ looking for errors either in the original observations or their math.

I think the folks at the Berkeley SETI Research Center are right. That paper doesn’t prove that we have neighbors.

“…The one in 10,000 objects with unusual spectra seen by Borra and Trottier are certainly worthy of additional study. However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence….”
(seti.berkeley.edu (October 11, 2016))

The stars listed by Borra and Trottier are interesting enough to warrant another look, though, so they’ve added a few to the Automated Planet Finder’s observing queue.4

Berkeley SETI Research Center said that the Borra-Trottier results get a 0 to 1 rating on the Rio Scale. That’s ‘none’ to ‘insignificant.’

The Rio Scale goes back to October 2000, when Ivan Almar and Jill Tarter presented it as an attempt to assign numbers to the discovery of a signal from extraterrestrial intelligence. It includes how we’re likely to react, and is — my opinion — very speculative.

It’s better than nothing, though, and helps us discuss research like Borra and Trottier’s. It’s a zero-to-10 scale, with zero being no relevance and 10 being ‘extraordinary.’

My guess is that a “10” on this scale would be a spaceship landing on Washington DC’s National Mall: with an eviction notice.

A Natural Phenomenon: Probably

Borra and Trottier say that if light from their 234 stars includes artificial signals, someone’s trying to communicate with us.

They could be right.

My guess is that as we collect more data about these odd stars, we’ll learn that their odd behavior is a natural phenomenon.

That won’t stop me from indulging in a little speculation.

If they’ve detected artificial signals, and that’s a big “if,” I’m not at all convinced that they’re the interstellar equivalent of “CQ QRV” signals. The location of these stars suggests another (also quite unlikely) explanation.

The 234 ’emitting’ stars are in the Milky Way galaxy’s halo; a nearly-spherical region, home to population II stars, globular clusters, and dark matter.

Scientists looking for life in the universe have been concentrating on our galaxy’s disk and spiral arms, where stars like ours are more common. It’s where our star is. The odds seem pretty good that it’s where we’d find life: and neighbors.

The Milky Way’s disk is also more-or-less filled with stars, dust, gas, and molecular clouds. It’s not exactly opaque, but picking out objects that aren’t “close” by galactic standards can be difficult or impossible.

Maybe — and I think this is very unlikely — those 234 stars are navigation beacons, a pan-galactic civilization’s equivalent of lighthouses; set above the galaxy’s disk, where ships can spot them easily.

More about science, sense, and SETI:

1 Definitions:

  • “BIBLE: Sacred Scripture: the books which contain the truth of God’s Revelation and were composed by human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit (105). The Bible contains both the forty-six books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament (120). See Old Testament; New Testament.”
  • “MAGISTERIUM: The living, teaching office of the Church, whose task it is to give as authentic interpretation of the word of God, whether in its written form (Sacred Scripture), or in the form of Tradition. The Magisterium ensures the Church’s fidelity to the teaching of the Apostles in matters of faith and morals (85, 890, 2033).”
  • “TRADITION: The living transmission of the message of the Gospel in the Church. The oral preaching of the Apostles, and the written message of salvation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Bible), are conserved and handed on as the deposit of faith through the apostolic succession in the Church. Both the living Tradition and the written Scriptures have their common source in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (75–82). The theological, liturgical, disciplinary, and devotional traditions of the local churches both contain and can be distinguished from this apostolic Tradition (83).”

And see Catechism, 95, 113, 126, and 174.

2 Aristotle in perspective:

“…Beginning about 1100 a.d., text after text of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle reached the West, and Christians were suddenly confronted with a unified, well- constructed account of the universe, an account written by a pagan. Aristotle denied that there could be a plurality of worlds. Of course, if there could not be a plurality of worlds, then the question of extraterrestrials was moot.

“There were three reactions to Aristotles [!] purely natural, non-Christian philosophical account: vehement rejection (the radical Augustinians), careful embrace (St. Thomas), and passionate embrace (the radical Aristotelians).

“Around 1265 a conflict between the two radical wings began to heat up, resulting in the famous (or, for Thomists, infamous) 219 Propositions in 1277, issued by the bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier. Proposition 27 condemns all who hold the Aristotelian position ‘that the first cause cannot make more than one world.’

“It should be stressed that the aim of this condemnation was not to affirm a plurality of worlds but to affirm Gods omnipotence against any account of nature that seemed to restrict Gods powers. Aristotles [!]insistence that there could only be one world accorded nicely with the Genesis account of creation, but it appeared to the radical Augustinians to make God the servant of natural necessity rather than its master. The remedy, so Bishop Tempier and his followers thought, was to assert that the first cause could indeed create a plurality of worlds (even if we know, by revelation, that He happened to make only one).

But the condemnation had an unforeseen effect. No sooner had the ink soaked into the vellum than speculation about a plurality of worlds began in earnest. By the beginning of the 15th century, that speculation had led some Christian thinkers to affirm the existence of extraterrestrial life. In his On Learned Ignorance (1440), Nicholas of Cusa argued that ‘life, as it exists here on earth in the form of men, animals and plants, is to be found, let us suppose, in a higher form in the solar and stellar region.’ Cusa then began to churn out a zoology….”
(“Alien Ideas Christianity and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life,” Benjamin D. Wiker, Crisis 20, no. 10 (November 2002))

3 That’s odd — KIC 8462852/Tabby’s Star/Boyajian’s Star; also EPIC 204278916:

4 More oddness:

Posted in Science News | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Hate, Justice, Forgiveness

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Brian H. Gill

Islamic centers in California got hate mail recently. At least one of the letters was addressed “To the Children of Satan,” and started with “You muslims [!] are a vile and filthy people….”1 Details are new, but the attitude is all too familiar.

Hating Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Catholics, or other ‘outsiders’ may be easier than coming to terms with personal issues. I don’t know why those letters were sent.

I also don’t know why a Somali refugee drove into a crowd at Ohio State University and hurt some folks with a knife this morning.2 He had been a student there, and now he’s dead. I’m not happy about that, but I think he shouldn’t have attacked those folks.

I do not think we should deport all Somalis, lock up college students, or ban knives and automobiles. I’ll talk about what I think would make sense, after explaining why I’m not upset about Americans who don’t look and act exactly like me.

About the “God Hates You” photo: those folks were getting attention on Veterans Day, 2010. They’re with Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church, a bunch of Hard Shell Baptist Calvinists from Kansas. They’re not typical American Protestants.

Nativism: Here We Go Again


(From Bishop Alma White’s “The Ku Klux Klan In Prophecy,” 1925: published by the Pillar of Fire Church, Zarephath, New Jersey.)

Folks who fear foreigners don’t, I gather, think of themselves as nativists.

They apparently think they’re patriots: defending their nation against folks like my ancestors. I think it’s a silly attitude for any American who isn’t descended from those who arrived via the Bering Straight, some 20,000 years back.

Who is seen as a foreign threat, and who isn’t, has changed over the generations.

Many if not most Americans have decided the Irish aren’t all drunkards, prone to violence and illegal voting.

That wasn’t always the case.

Asked about the family connections of an unsuitable person who was sniffing around her daughter, one of my ancestors said “he doesn’t have family, he’s Irish.”

The kids got married anyway. That eventually resulted in my father, who married a five-foot-nothing black-haired Norwegian. I married a Dutch-German-English-Swiss-whatever woman, and that’s another topic. (August 5, 2016)

Knowing my family history helps me sympathize with Muslims and other ‘un-American’ Americans.

That’s a good thing, since welcoming folks “in search of the security and the means of livelihood” they couldn’t find in the old country is what we’re supposed to do. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2241)

Treating newcomers, or ‘outsiders’ who have been around for generations, as neighbors isn’t a new idea. (Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33–34; Matthew 25:35)

I don’t expect divisions that predate Western Civilization’s current iteration to disappear overnight. But I think it’s wise to remember the Abrahamic religions’ common origin.

The current mess started with a domestic dispute described in Genesis 16:1–12 and Genesis 21:2–14. The Late Bronze Age collapse happened a few centuries later, so documentation is a trifle spotty, and that’s yet another topic.

“…the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind….”
(“Lumen Gentium,” Pope Bl. Paul VI (November 21, 1964))

I see humanity as a “unity.” (Catechism, 360–361, 839–845)

And, as I said yesterday — God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:3–5; Peter 2:3–4; Catechism, 1–3, 27–30, 52, 1825, 1996)

Hate, Hymns, Forgiveness, and Justice

Nomader, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
(“Picture I took from the crowd outside of the Charleston church shooting memorial service. As the church filled to capacity, people gathered outside, sung hymns, and listened to religious leaders talk.”
(Nomader, via Wikimedia Commons))

Someone, probably Dylann Roof, killed nine folks at a Bible study last summer. Mr. Roof apparently was part of a Lutheran congregation; but I don’t think we should register Lutherans, or keep more of them from entering America.

The Charleston church shootings are in the news again. I think we can learn from the example of folks who have forgiven Mr. Roof.3

That may need explaining.

Killing those folks was a bad thing, and should not have been done. Murder, deliberately killing an innocent person, is wrong. (Catechism, 2268–2269)

That’s because human life is sacred. Each of us is created in the image of God. The divine image is in each of us; no matter who we are, who our ancestors are, or what we’ve done. (Genesis 1:27; Catechism, 357, 361, 369–370, 1700, 1730, 1929, 2273–2274, 2276–2279)

What we do with our life, and the lives of those around us, is up to us: for good or ill. (Catechism, 1701–1709, 2258)

All human life is sacred, but taking action which results in an attacker’s death can be legitimate defense. (Catechism, 2263–2267)

I’ve talked about that before. (July 9, 2016)

“So Hate Won’t Win”


(From BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(” ‘Everyone’s plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love. So hate won’t win’, a relative of one victim told the suspect”
(BBC News))

Forgiving someone is a good idea: and not the same as pretending that an injustice never happened. That would be crazy. Respect for the “transcendent dignity” of humanity demands that we work for justice. The trick is hating the sin — not the sinner. (Catechism, 976–980, 1929–1933, 2820)

I keep saying this. I’m expected to love God, love my neighbors, see everyone as my neighbor, and treat others as I’d like to be treated. (Matthew 5:43–44, 7:12, 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789)

It’s simple: and far from easy. We call the folks with the heroic virtue it takes to live as if those principles matter “Saints,” and that’s yet again another topic. (Catechism, 828)

The sort of love that’s required can’t be safely abstract. I must act as if love matters. My concern for justice, for example, can’t stop with my family or folks who look like me. Our Lord’s story about the Samaritan makes that clear. (Luke 10:30–37)

Think!

Feeling angry about mass murder or hate mail is a natural reaction. But we’re supposed to think.

Letting anger build into a desire to harm or kill someone else is a very bad idea. (Catechism, 1762–1775, 2302–2303)

Controlling my actions isn’t easy. I think controlling what happens inside, in my heart, is harder: but that’s also required. (Matthew 5:21–22, 15:18–19)

Emotions happen. What matters is how I deal with them: how I use my will and reason. Feeling emotions is part of being human. So is using my brain, thinking before I act or speak. (Catechism, 1951, 1730, 1763–1767)

Emotions can indicate that something requires attention. After that, my job is using reason to decide what I should or should not do. (Catechism, 1763, 1765, 1767)

Now What?

As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:20, “…our citizenship is in heaven….” Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be a good citizen here in America: contributing “…to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom….” (Catechism, 2239)

If I take loving my neighbors, all my neighbors, seriously, social justice is a priority. (Catechism, 1928–1942)

That starts within each of us, within me, with an ongoing “inner conversion.” (Catechism, 1888)

“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization,”4 Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

That doesn’t mean forcing everyone into one cultural mold, or insisting one ‘correct’ form of government. We’re not supposed to be all alike. (Catechism, 1901, 1897–1917)

Building the “civilization of love” will take time, lots of time. But I think it makes sense. (November 27, 2016)

More of my take on acting like love matters:

1 The hate mail is international news:

“California mosques targeted by hate mail”
BBC News (November 27, 2016)

“A US civil rights group has called for more police protection after several mosques in California received letters calling Muslims ‘vile and filthy’.…

“…A police investigation was under under way into what was treated like a ‘hate-motivated incident,’ San Jose Police Department spokesman Sgt Enrique Garcia was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.”

2 I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing this in the news for days, at least:

3 Death at a Bible study, in the news:

“Charleston shootings: Dylann Roof ‘fit’ to stand trial”
(November 25, 2016)

“A white man accused of shooting dead nine black people at a church in Charleston is competent to stand trial, a federal judge in the US state of South Carolina has ruled.

“A psychiatric review of 22-year-old Dylann Roof was performed after a request from his defence team.

“He is accused of killing the nine parishioners during their Bible study class in June 2015….”

“Charleston relatives ‘forgive’ shooting suspect in court”
BBC News (June 19, 2015)

“Relatives of some of the nine churchgoers shot dead in South Carolina have addressed the suspected gunman in court and said they forgive him.

“Dylann Roof, 21, appeared in court in Charleston to face nine murder charges.

“He showed no emotion as relatives of the victims addressed him directly. ‘I forgive you’ said one victim’s daughter, fighting back tears….”

4 The civilization of love, background:

Posted in Being a Citizen, Being Catholic | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Advent and Being Prepared

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Brian H. Gill

Today’s the start of this year’s Advent cycle, leading up to another Christmas.

With my culture’s annual focus on flying reindeer, decorated trees, and overflow crowds in Bethlehem, this verse from today’s Gospel reading might sound odd:

“25 Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
(Matthew 24:42)

We know when Jesus came, and where. That happened about two thousand years ago, near the east end of the Mediterranean.

Advent is the season when we look back at our Lord’s first arrival. That’s important.

It’s also when we look ahead, to the day when the Son of man returns. That’s important, too. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 524, 522–524, 550)

Death

Last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Luke 23:35–43, reminded us of a conversation our Lord had while being crucified.

A few verses later, after a night of torture and humiliation, under a sign that reads “This is the King of the Jews,” the Christ, the Anointed One, the long-awaited Messiah, dies:

“Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit’; and when he had said this he breathed his last.”
(Luke 23:46)

You know the rest, from Luke 23:50–56: Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body, shrouded it, and laid it in a fresh tomb. Women who came with Jesus from Galilee made sure they know where the tomb was and how to get back to it.

Then they prepared spices and perfumed oils. That was all they had time for before resting on the Sabbath.

This is where it gets interesting.

Meetings, Doubts, and Standing Orders

The women were back at the tomb at daybreak after the Sabbath, with the spices they’d prepared. They couldn’t find our Lord’s body. It wasn’t there.

“While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.

“They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living one among the dead?

“He is not here, but he has been raised. 2 Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,

“that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.’ ”
(Luke 24:4–7)

Nobody believed them, of course.

It took a series of meetings and working lunches to convince the surviving 11 that our Lord was really, literally, physically, alive. (Luke 24:30–31; Luke 24:41–43; John 20:26–27)

Some took more convincing than others. I’ve talked about “doubting” Thomas before. (October 28, 2016)

Their last meeting was on a mountaintop, and doubts persisted:

“10 When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.

“11 Then Jesus approached and said to them, ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

“Go, therefore, 12 and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,

“teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. 13 And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.’ ”
(Matthew 28:17–20)

“All that I have commanded you” gets outlined in Matthew 5–7. It boils down to loving God, and my neighbor; and seeing everyone as my neighbor. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–27, 29–37)

Move Out!

Then our Lord left.

“While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.

“They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.’ ”
(Acts 1:10–11)

That reminds me of a now-cliche scene from old movies — the commander gives an inspiring speech, makes a dramatic exit, and the sergeant says something like ‘alright! You got your orders: Move out!’

That was two millennia back. Our Lord is still doing whatever’s mentioned1 in John 14:3, and the standing orders haven’t changed.

If Jesus was anybody else, we’d have stopped expecting his return long ago.

But the Word isn’t anybody else.2

Another Year of the Long Watch

Our Lord’s return has been “imminent” for about two millennia now. Jesus said we should “be prepared,” since we wouldn’t know when that will be; and still don’t. (Matthew 24:44; Catechism, 673, 840, 1040, 2772)

There’s more to being prepared than watching and waiting.

Part of our job is spreading the best news humanity’s ever had.

God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:3–5; Peter 1:3–4; Catechism, 1–3, 27–30, 52, 1825, 1996)

I’ve accepted the offer.

That’s why I try to live as if God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and what our Lord taught; matter. Faith, believing in God, is fine; but pointless unless my actions and words show it. (James 2:17–19; Catechism, 1814–1816)

Being part of the family includes accepting my part of a job that’s not even close to being finished. Thanks to a bad decision we made when humanity began — I’ve talked about that before3 — we’ve been treating each other badly.

That’s given us an impressive backlog of issues: troubled relationships within families and communities, and between nations. (1865–1869)

Building the Civilization of Love

From Jon Hrubesch, used w/o permission.Building a better world starts within each of us, within me, with an ongoing “inner conversion.” (Catechism, 1888)

Respecting the “transcendent dignity” of humanity and of each person isn’t easy, but it’s necessary. (Catechism, 1928–1933)

We all have “the same nature and the same origin,” but we’re not identical. We’re not supposed to be. We’re learning — slowly — that generosity, kindness, and sharing, make sense. So does planning for future generations. (Catechism, 1928–1942, 2415, 2419–2442)

The job will take time, lots of time, since it involves radical ideas like peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty.

But I think it’s worth the effort. I also think that we have no time to waste.

“…We must overcome our fear of the future. But we will not be able to overcome it completely unless we do so together. The ‘answer’ to that fear is neither coercion nor repression, nor the imposition of one social ‘model’ on the entire world. The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization,”4 Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

“God wants you to be in the world, but so different from the world that you will change it. Get cracking.”
(Mother Angelica, EWTN)

More about humanity, love, and the long view:

1 Details of Christ’s Parousia is one of a great many things we know almost nothing about. That’s fine by me. God’s God, I’m not, and I have my hands full, dealing with my own tasks. More about the Parousia and related matters:

2 Our Lord has quite a few titles. The Word is one of them. (John 1:1)

3 The Catholic view of original sin is that this world is basically good, and so are we. The first of us gave our own desires higher priority than God’s. That was a very bad decision, and we’ve been living with its consequences ever since. (Genesis 1:1–31; Catechism, 386–389, 396–401)

I’ve talked about this before:

4 The civilization of love, background:

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Olive Threat, Ginkgo Genome

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Brian H. Gill

Something’s killing Europe’s olive trees: a bacterium that’s probably spread by insects. Scientists don’t know how to stop the disease, not yet.

Other scientists analyzed the Ginkgo genome. What they found helps explain the tree’s remarkable endurance.

  1. Olive Quick Decline Syndrome
  2. Decoding the Ginkgo Genome

Truth and Tiglath-Pileser III

If this is your first time here, I may have some explaining to do.

I’m a Christian, a Catholic, and take my faith and our Lord very seriously. That’s not even close to insisting that we knew everything there was to know about the cosmos back when Tiglath-Pileser III ruled Assyria.

My faith emphatically does not depend on rejecting what we’re learning about this wonder-filled universe.

Truth is beautiful, and is important. It can be expressed in words, “the rational expression of the knowledge of created and uncreated reality;” in “the order and harmony of the cosmos;” or in other ways. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2500)

We can learn a bit about God by noticing “the world’s order and beauty,” which reflects God’s infinite beauty. (Catechism, 31–32, 341)

We’re made “in the image of God,” with a thirst for truth and God. Observing the world’s order and beauty, studying how things work, helps us learn about God. (Genesis 1:26, 2:7; Catechism, 27, 31–35, 282–289, 355–361)

Science and technology, studying the universe and using what we learn, is part of being human. (Catechism, 2292–2296)

I’ve been over that before. (October 28, 2016)

“Whatever God Wills is Done”

We’re learning that this universe is vast, ancient, and has been changing ever since it started, several billion years back. I see these scientific discoveries as invitations “to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator.” (Catechism, 283)

Even if I didn’t approve of the reality we’re in, it wouldn’t matter much:

“Our God is in heaven; whatever God wills is done.”
(Psalms 115:3)

And I’m okay with that.

1. Olive Quick Decline Syndrome


(From EPPO, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“The invasive pathogen has affected thousands of hectares of olive plantations in Puglia, southern Italy”

“Olive killer disease arrives on Mallorca”
Mark Kinver, BBC News (November 21, 2016)

“A disease that poses a ‘very serious threat’ to the EU’s olive industry has been recorded on the Spanish island of Mallorca for the first time.

“Island officials said a movement ban covering 15,000 hectares had been imposed and measures had been taken to ‘contain and eradicate its spread’.

“Experts describe Xylella fastidiosa as one of the ‘most dangerous pathogens worldwide’.

“It was first recorded in the EU in 2013, and has since spread westwards….”

The article doesn’t say who the “experts” are. My guess is that Xylella fastidiosa got labeled “most dangerous” because the bacterium can infect several important crops.

The disease is called phoney peach disease, bacterial leaf scorch, and oleander leaf scorch: depending on what plants got sick, and where they are. Also Pierce’s disease, citrus variegated chlorosis disease, and olive quick decline syndrome. (Wikipedia)

X. fastidiosa diseases here in the Americas get spread by insects like the glassy-winged sharpshooter and other leafhoppers. Sucking insects probably spread it in Europe, too, but researchers are still working on details.1

Mark Kinver’s article says the European Union makes and consumes most of the world’s olive oil. This disease probably pushed olive oil prices up by 20% in 2015.

My guess is that it’s hurting households as well as olive oil producers and distributors.

One Bacterium, Lots of Plant Diseases

Napa Valley, California, Silverado Trail area. From Stan Shebs, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.Pierce’s disease, an X. fastidiosa disease, became a problem for the California wine industry in the 1990s, when glassy-winged sharpshooters showed up in the Temecula Valley.

Scientists still haven’t found a cure or control method, but they’ve been learning a lot about how the disease spreads: and the bacterium’s genes.

At least 83 of X. fastidiosa’s genes come from bacteriophage. Some of them make the bacterium more virulent. I think that’s not entirely bad news, though.

Knowing how the bacterium works on the sub-cellular level may help scientists develop disease-resistant crops. I’ve talked about horizontal gene transfer and genetic engineering before.2 (October 7, 2016; July 22, 2016)

2. Decoding the Ginkgo Genome


(From Thinkstock, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

“Ginkgo ‘living fossil’ genome decoded”
BBC News (November 21, 2016)

“The Ginkgo tree has had its genetic code laid bare by researchers.

“The tree is famed for being a ‘living fossil’ – a term used to describe those organisms that have experienced very little change over millions of years.

“In the case of the Ginkgo, there are specimens preserved in the rock record from 270 million years ago, in the Permian Period.

“The Chinese-led research team says the new information should help to explain the tree’s evolutionary success….”

Back in the ‘good old days,’ this sort of research would be passed around a select group of professors and student assistants, plus whoever had the money and qualifications to get access to academic journals. As I keep saying, I don’t miss the ‘good old days.’

The research team’s results are available online, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, so anyone who’s interested can see what they learned:

  • “Draft genome of the living fossil Ginkgo biloba”
    Rui Guan, Yunpeng Zhao, He Zhang, Guangyi Fan, Xin Liu, Wenbin Zhou, Chengcheng Shi, Jiahao Wang, Weiqing Liu, Xinming Liang, Yuanyuan Fu, Kailong Ma, Lijun Zhao, Fumin Zhang, Zuhong Lu, Simon Ming-Yuen Lee, Xun Xu, Jian Wang, Huanming Yang, Chengxin Fu, Song Ge, Wenbin Chen; GigaScience, BioMed Central (received August 17, 2016; accepted November 1, 2016; published November 21, 2016)

Ginkgos, Ginkgoales, and a Lightly-Nibbled Leaf

The ginkgo tree's emblematic fan-shaped leaf preserved as a 49-million-year-old fossil with modern autumn leaf overlaid. CC BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons/BBC News, used w/o permission.The BBC News article’s picture of a contemporary ginkgo leaf superimposed on a fossilized one is impressive, although the fossil seems to be the lightly-nibbled 6.7 cm tall Ginkgo biloba leaf found in the Klondike Mountain Formation.

That leaf fell about 49,000,000 years back, and was in the Stonerose Interpretive Center Collection in 2008.

Ginkgo biloba is the only species of Ginkgo around these days. It’s the only survivor of the Ginkgo genus. The genus first showed up in the Early Jurassic, 180,000,000 years back; give or take ten million.

The Ginkgo genus is part of the Ginkgoales order; and that’s what goes back to the Permian, about 270,000,000 years ago.

Genus is the taxonomic rank between species and family.

We’ve fine-tuned taxonomy quite a bit since Carl Linnaeus set up the basics in 1735.

I’ve mentioned him before; also Anaximander, Aristotle, and the florid prose of Thomas Hawkins; none of which is something you need to remember. (October 28, 2016; September 23, 2016)

I’ve had a hard time finding a generally-accepted age for the Ginkgo biloba species. Part of the trouble, I suspect, is that what we do know about G. biloba is — odd.

For one thing, Ginkgo biloba is almost identical to Ginkgo adiantoides; a tree that lived in the Late Cretaceous to the Miocene. That’s about 80,000,000 to 23,000,000 years back. Some critters have been remarkably stable over the ages: but that’s a long time.3

Ginkgo Biloba: Near-Legendary Durability


(From Hitachi-Train, Urashimataro, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Tsurugaoka Hachimangū shrine’s thousand-year-old ginkgo, after a March, 2010 storm.)

Earth in the Late Jurassic, 150,000,000 years ago; by Ron Blakey, NAU Geology, Colorado Plateau Geosystems, Inc. used w/o permission.The ginkgo genus has been declining since the early Cretaceous, some 145,000,000 years back. Like I said, these days it’s down to one species, native to part of China. Oddly enough, Ginkgo biloba apparently isn’t an endangered species.

That’s probably because humans have been planting the trees across Eurasia and, more recently, the Americas. It helps that G. biloba doesn’t mind pollution or confined patches of soil, and resists many diseases.

Ginkgo biloba earned a near-legendary reputation for durability after August 6, 1945, when a half-dozen Ginikgos were among the hibakujumoku, 被爆樹木, in Hiroshima. The trees were scorched, but are still growing there.

Another ginkgo had been growing near a stairway at the Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Shrine, 鶴岡八幡宮, for about a thousand years ‐ until a pre-dawn storm in March, 2010.

An expert said the tree was done for, so folks kept the stump and replanted part of the trunk. Both were sprouting leaves in July of that year.

I can understand folks liking trees. I’ve talked about Christmas trees, Donar’s Oak, deodar and Nang Tani before, and that’s another topic. (July 24, 2016)

A Huge Genome

Phylogenetic relationships and comparative genomic analyses. Wenbin Chen, et. al. used w/o permission.The Ginkgo biloba genome is huge, with 41,840 annotated genes. The G. biloba’s genome is ‘written’ with 10,600,000,000 DNA ‘letters,’ compared to the human genome’s roughly 3,000,000,000.

Quite a bit of that’s multiple redundancy. As the research team put it:

“…Repetitive sequences account for 76.58% of the assembled sequence, and long terminal repeat retrotransposons (LTR-RTs) are particularly prevalent….”
(“Draft genome of the living fossil Ginkgo biloba,” Wenbin Chen et. al. (November 21, 2016))

The scientists say that massive accumulation of genetic code “…indicates a remarkable array of chemical and antibacterial defense

“…Its anti-insect arsenal is particularly smart. The Ginkgo will synthesise one set of chemicals to directly fight a pest, but also release another set of compounds that specifically attract the insect’s enemies….”
(BBC News)

No wonder G. biloba has been so durable. It’s got a vast instruction manual for handling assorted threats.

This month’s study shows that although G. biloba hasn’t changed much in appearance, it’s been evolving at a great rate at the genetic level. What the scientists learned, and the methods they used, will help us sort out other large genomes.

How we’ll use that knowledge — is up to us. I’ve decided to see it as another opportunity for “greater admiration.”

More posts looking at life’s long story:

1 Olives, olive oil, and a plant disease:

2 Gene-swapping and X. fastidiosa’s genes:

  • Wikipedia
  • “The genome sequence of the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa. The Xylella fastidiosa Consortium of the Organization for Nucleotide Sequencing and Analysis.”
    Simpson AJ, Reinach FC, Arruda P, Abreu FA, Acencio M, Alvarenga R, Alves LM, Araya JE, Baia GS, Baptista CS, Barros MH, Bonaccorsi ED, Bordin S, Bové JM, Briones MR, Bueno MR, Camargo AA, Camargo LE, Carraro DM, Carrer H, Colauto NB, Colombo C, Costa FF, Costa MC, Costa-Neto CM, Coutinho LL, Cristofani M, Dias-Neto E, Docena C, El-Dorry H, Facincani AP, Ferreira AJ, Ferreira VC, Ferro JA, Fraga JS, França SC, Franco MC, Frohme M, Furlan LR, Garnier M, Goldman GH, Goldman MH, Gomes SL, Gruber A, Ho PL, Hoheisel JD, Junqueira ML, Kemper EL, Kitajima JP, Krieger JE, Kuramae EE, Laigret F, Lambais MR, Leite LC, Lemos EG, Lemos MV, Lopes SA, Lopes CR, Machado JA, Machado MA, Madeira AM, Madeira HM, Marino CL, Marques MV, Martins EA, Martins EM, Matsukuma AY, Menck CF, Miracca EC, Miyaki CY, Monteriro-Vitorello CB, Moon DH, Nagai MA, Nascimento AL, Netto LE, Nhani A Jr, Nobrega FG, Nunes LR, Oliveira MA, de Oliveira MC, de Oliveira RC, Palmieri DA, Paris A, Peixoto BR, Pereira GA, Pereira HA Jr, Pesquero JB, Quaggio RB, Roberto PG, Rodrigues V, de M Rosa AJ, de Rosa VE Jr, de Sá RG, Santelli RV, Sawasaki HE, da Silva AC, da Silva AM, da Silva FR, da Silva WA Jr, da Silveira JF, Silvestri ML, Siqueira WJ, de Souza AA, de Souza AP, Terenzi MF, Truffi D, Tsai SM, Tsuhako MH, Vallada H, Van Sluys MA, Verjovski-Almeida S, Vettore AL, Zago MA, Zatz M, Meidanis J, Setubal JC.; Abstract, Nature; via PubMed, NIH (July 13, 2000)

3 Ginkgos, really old trees:

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Celebrating Mercy

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Brian H. Gill

Pilgrim Registration, Jubilee of Mercy, 2015, from im.va, used w/o permission.

Here we go again. The headlines are accurate, as far as they go.

I’m pretty sure we’ll see a replay of last year’s sound and fury over the Pope’s ‘changing stand on abortion,’ expressed in a letter dated September 1, 2015.1

The reality was nowhere near as horrific or hopeful as many folks apparently thought.

Pope Francis said sin can be forgiven. Specifically, a woman who has had an abortion may be forgiven:

“…The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented, especially when that person approaches the Sacrament of Confession with a sincere heart in order to obtain reconciliation with the Father….”
Pope Francis (September 1, 2015)1

THIS IS NOT A NEW IDEA.

Rembrandt's Jesus and the adulteress, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.Men have responsibilities, too, which also isn’t a new idea:

“19 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.”

“But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
(Matthew 5:27–28)

That brings me to yesterday’s letter from Pope Francis:

Pope Francis starts by explaining that misericordia et misera is a phrase Saint Augustine used when telling the story of Jesus’ meeting with the woman taken in adultery.

“…It would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful or apt way of expressing the mystery of God’s love when it touches the sinner: ‘the two of them alone remained: mercy with misery’….”
(Pope Francis, Apostolic letter (November 20, 2016))

John 8:3–11 ends with Jesus saying to the woman who would have been killed: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more.”

That seems reasonable to me, and it’s what the Catholic Church has been saying for two millennia. All that the Pope’s recent letter does is say that last year’s procedural change is still in effect:

“…Given this need, lest any obstacle arise between the request for reconciliation and God’s forgiveness, I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion. The provision I had made in this regard, limited to the duration of the Extraordinary Holy Year,[14] is hereby extended, notwithstanding anything to the contrary….”
(Pope Francis (November 20, 2016))

I’m pretty sure that folks who want the Catholic Church to recognize a “right” to that particular sort of murder will be as upset as others who enjoy watching sinners squirm. Maybe I’m being unfair.

Sin, Sinners, and Bingo

Gerard van Honthorst's Der verlorene, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.Treating ‘those sinners’ with a measure of dignity may seem confusing to folks who feel that “sin” is doing something they either don’t like, or can’t do — and that “sinners” are disreputable folks who are thrown into Hell by a hypersensitive God.

I see sin as an offense against reason and truth: and God. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1849–1850)

It’s deciding that I’ll do something I know is bad for myself, or others: or deciding to not do something I should. (Catechism, 1849–1864)

Some things, like playing Bingo or drinking alcohol, are okay: in moderation. Getting drunk, or making Bingo more important than my family: that would be sinful. (Catechism, 1852, 2413)

Sin isn’t a ‘one strike and you’re out’ thing. As long as I’m alive, I can find forgiveness. (Catechism, 976–983, 1442–1470, 1021, 1988)

Forgiveness goes both ways. It’s in the Lord’s prayer: “…as we forgive those who trespass against us….” (Catechism, 2840–2845)

Forgiving, and being forgiven, are important.

So is cleaning up the mess sin leaves.

Let’s say I hold up the local bank, then realize it was wrong, and say I’m sorry. Should I be forgiven?

As far as the Church is concerned, yes. I’d also be expected to give the money back, and cooperate with secular authorities in the trial and sentencing that follows. We call that sort of thing “reparation.” (Catechism, 1459–1460)

If I had killed an innocent person I couldn’t unkill the victim, of course. But forgiveness for murder and other serious sins has always been possible: what’s changed over the last two millennia has been details in the procedure. (Catechism, 1447)

Some Laws We Make Up, Some We Don’t

In a perfect society, what is legal would be right. But we don’t have a perfect society: and haven’t, since humanity began.

I’ll talk more about positive law, rules we make up; and natural law,2 ethical principles woven into reality, another day.

Briefly, natural law hasn’t changed, and won’t.

Theft was wrong when Ur-Nammu and Hammurabi wrote their laws, and it will be when Ur-Nammu’s Sumer, the Roman Republic, and ASEAN, seem roughly contemporary.

Positive law changes, and must change, as we adapt it to changing circumstances.

Circumstances have been changing a lot over the last few centuries.

“Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.”
(Catechism, 1957)

When positive law wanders away from natural law, there’s trouble: like the ‘outmoded morality’ some of my contemporaries didn’t like. We can’t go back to the ‘good old days,’ which is fine by me.

Human Life

I think human beings are people: all human beings.

Genesis 1:27 says we’re made “in the divine image.” We are rational and therefore like God, made in the image and likeness of God; created with free will, masters over our actions. (Catechism, 1730–1825)

All humans are people, with equal dignity: no matter where we are, who we are, or how we act. (Catechism, 360, 1700–1706, 1932–1933, 1935)

Murder, deliberately killing an innocent person, is wrong because human life is sacred. No matter how young, or how sick, someone is; that person’s life is precious. (Catechism, 2258, 2268–2283)

At the moment, killing innocent people is legal in my country: provided the victim is young and/or sick enough. That’s a bad idea, and we should stop doing it. (Catechism, 2270–2279)

But what about killing not-innocent people?

Death, Life, and Decisions

The rules are simple: love God, love my neighbor, see everybody as my neighbor.

Everybody: the chap who took ‘my’ parking space, whoever stole the parish Gospel book, everybody. No exceptions. “Love” isn’t “approval,” and I’ve said that before. (September 11, 2016)

Quite a few folks who believe killing babies and sick people is wrong are eager to have murderers killed.

I’m not.

The Church says that killing people who have done something very bad is allowed — if that is the only way to protect other folks. (Catechism, 2267)

I can imagine people on some remote island, for example, being forced to kill a serial murderer: because they do not have the resources to restrain and guard a killer. They would starve if everyone wasn’t out catching fish.

I do not think the United States is that poverty-stricken and desperate.

Killing a convicted murderer might satisfy an immediate desire for revenge, but would not restore the victim to life. It is also an irreversible punishment, which is embarrassing when the mistake is revealed. Not even the United States Supreme Court can unkill someone.

Sometimes a murderer will, given time, decide that killing an innocent person was wrong.

Forgiving: It’s Important

St. Maria Goretti’s killer, Alessandro Serenelli, deserved the death penalty. If he’d been killed, some folks might have congratulated themselves on their civic virtue: and Alessandro would not have had an opportunity to think about what he’d done.

Alessandro Serenelli eventually realized that he had done something very wrong.

Later, after he was released from prison, he met Maria Goretti’s mother: who forgave him. Her daughter had also done so before dying of her injuries. Allesandro later entered a monastery.

What Alessandro Sereni did was very bad.

But that was more than a hundred years ago, and happened a long way from where I live. Not hating him is, for me, fairly easy.

I can, and do, get very angry over assorted daft, destructive, and avoidable, injustices I read about or — much more infrequently — experience. Emotions, anger included, happen. What matters is how I handle them. (Catechism, 1762–1775)

Hanging on to that anger, letting it build into a desire for vengeance, is a sin. (Catechism, 2302–2303)

Maintaining justice is a responsibility. So is loving our enemies. (Matthew 5:21–22, 44; Catechism, 2302–2306)

And that’s another topic.

More about love, mercy, and getting a grip:

1 Letter from Pope Francis to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization (September 1, 2015):

2 About natural law:

“…This ordination of reason is called law. In man’s free will, therefore, or in the moral necessity of our voluntary acts being in accordance with reason, lies the very root of the necessity of law. Nothing more foolish can be uttered or conceived than the notion that, because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from law. Were this the case, it would follow that to become free we must be deprived of reason; whereas the truth is that we are bound to submit to law precisely because we are free by our very nature. For, law is the guide of man’s actions; it turns him toward good by its rewards, and deters him from evil by its punishments.

“Foremost in this office comes the natural law, which is written and engraved in the mind of every man; and this is nothing but our reason, commanding us to do right and forbidding sin. Nevertheless, all prescriptions of human reason can have force of law only inasmuch as they are the voice and the interpreters of some higher power on which our reason and liberty necessarily depend….”
(“Libertas,” Pope Leo XIII (June 20, 1888))

And see:

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