It's still a human fetus

In an insightful and provocative story in this weekend’s issue, the New York Times Magazine examines the possible existence and extent of a fetus’ ability to suffer pain while in the womb. While approaching the topic initially from the perspective of fetal surgery (a fascinating and amazing example of the advance of medical technology), the article acknowledges and later examines the impact of the ability of a fetus to feel pain on the issue of legalized abortion. While I commend the entire article to my readers, I want to focus on an anecdote offered early in the article:

Most invasive of all is open fetal surgery, in which a pregnant woman’s uterus is cut open and the fetus exposed. Ray Paschall, an anesthesiologist at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, remembers one of the first times he provided anesthesia to the mother and minimally to the fetus in an open fetal operation, more than 10 years ago. When the surgeon lowered his scalpel to the 25-week-old fetus, Paschall saw the tiny figure recoil in what looked to him like pain. A few months later, he watched another fetus, this one 23 weeks old, flinch at the touch of the instrument. That was enough for Paschall. In consultation with the hospital’s pediatric pain specialist, “I tremendously upped the dose of anesthetic to make sure that wouldn’t happen again,” he says. In the more than 200 operations he has assisted in since then, not a single fetus has drawn back from the knife. “I don’t care how primitive the reaction is, it’s still a human reaction,” Paschall says. “And I don’t believe it’s right. I don’t want them to feel pain.”

Mr. Paschall is among several medical personnel quoted in the article (the most prominent being Kanwaljeet “Sunny” Anand, who has been a tireless advocate over the last three decades for infant and fetal pain management) who also support, at least in limited terms, a woman's right to have an abortion. Yet, what I find most provocative is Mr. Paschall's statement, “I don’t care how primitive the reaction is, it’s still a human reaction. And I don’t believe it’s right. I don’t want them to feel pain.” I would echo his words to say, no matter how primitive the fetus is, it’s still a human fetus.

This brings me, however, to a point on the debate over abortion that I've been meaning to make for quite a long time (and I should make clear before we start that in the following argument, I appeal only to human reason and the natural law; my conclusions do not rely on any revealed truths peculiar to Christianity). As I've alluded to previously, this year’s election once again represents a showdown between those who would protect human life at all stages of development (represented by their presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain), and those who insist that the government not guarantee the right to life that was once so eloquently named “inalienable.”

Supporters of candidates like Sen. Hillary Clinton will tout that she believes that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Yet, what they don't realize is the logical contradiction behind such a statement. If one believes that a human fetus is an innocent human life (N.B. the adjective innocent indicates that the fetus is guilty of nothing by which it would deserve punishment, an assumption that I hold to be self-evident), then the natural law that informs us that homicide is immoral also informs us that abortion is immoral. To put it into syllogistic form: (A1) It is immoral and legally punishable to purposely kill an innocent human life. (B1) A human fetus is an innocent human life. (C1) Therefore, abortion (the killing of a human fetus) is immoral and legally punishable.

(N.B. I have included the adjective "innocent" in the major premise because, at least according to the natural law, there are certain situations where it is morally and legally permissible to kill a human life, e.g. in warfare. The revealed beliefs of religion may place additional restrictions on these situations, but as I have said, I am arguing here from the natural law.)

The corollary to this syllogism is that if one believes that abortion should be legal, then one denies either one or both of the premises. Since I've yet to meet an abortion supporter who denies the major premise (indeed, many abortion supporters offer more comprehensive versions of the major premise than some pro-lifers do, i.e. they extend the immorality of killing to capital punishment and even to warfare), then it is clear that abortion supporters must deny the minor premise, namely, that a human fetus is an innocent human life. Furthermore, since I've also never met an abortion supporter who claims that a human fetus is a guilty human life, then it is also clear that abortion supporters deny that part of the minor premise that declares a fetus to be a human life.

If, therefore, one believes that a fetus is not a human life, that is, if one believes that the fetus is simply an extension of the body of the mother, and that the mother therefore exercises the full sovereign rights over the fetus that she exercises over the rest of her body, then one's moral judgement on abortion is reduced to a judgement concerning those sovereign rights. The syllogism would then follow: (A2) Without extenuating circumstances, a human being exercises personal sovereignty over his or her body. (B2) A fetus is a part of a woman's body. (C2) Therefore, a woman exercises personal sovereignty over her fetus.

If this is really what Sen. Hillary Clinton believes, then her position in favor of abortion is logical. What is not logical, however, is her claim that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." It is this last factor that leads her into trouble. She must have some reason for wanting abortion to be rare. Yet, as far her logical position is concerned, it shouldn't matter to her whether abortion is rare or not, just as it shouldn't matter to her whether a woman dyes her hair blond or black, or pierces her navel or her ears, or gets breast implants or breast reduction surgery. Each of these decisions are made out of the woman's sovereign rights over her body, and Sen. Clinton doesn't have anything to do with those decisions.

Yet, Sen. Clinton does say that she wants abortions to be rare. In fact, one is unlikely to meet any abortion advocate who claims that they don't want abortion to be rare. And the reason for this is simple: as much as abortion advocates try to delude themselves into believing their syllogism, they do not, in fact, actually hold to it. Despite their attempts to ignore the prods of the natural law, they do, in fact, conceive, at least subconsciously, of a moral dimension to the decision to have an abortion.

Where they in fact fail is in the first part of the major premise: Without extenuating circumstances. This caveat to the premise is necessary for its logical cohesion, because both individually and as a state we acknowledge that there are circumstances under which a human being does not exercice personal sovereignty over his or her body. For example, we place age restrictions on things like drinking and smoking and getting body piercings; we also admit that convicted criminals have abdicated, at least temporarily, certain of their rights, like the right of free movement; we even go so far as to refuse certain classes of the clinically and criminally insane of almost all their rights of personal sovereignty over their bodies.

For the abortion syllogism to hold, there must, therefore, be no extenuating circumstances. Yet, it is evident that there are extenuating circumstances when a woman is pregnant. Whether you believe that a fetus is a human life or not, we all agree that, if carried to term, it will be a living, breathing, moving baby. Furthermore, the woman cannot produce the fetus by herself; the fetus is as much the product of its father as it is the mother's. Finally, especially given our modern ability with ultrasound technology to visualize the fetus, we all do feel, despite our views on abortion, that twang of amazement, wonder, and awe when the fetus we have fathered or mothered sucks its thumb or kicks its foot in the womb.

The fact is, the natural law is squeezing its way into Sen. Clinton's views whether she likes it or not. What she doesn't realize is that in calling for abortion to be "rare", she admits that there are compelling reasons to discourage the practice. For these compelling reasons to exist, the logical syllogism that allows abortion to go unopposed falls apart. Sen. Clinton's own humanity undermines her support of abortion. Although abortion advocates will tell you that there is a grey area, they are simply trying a trick of sophistry in order to have their cake and eat it too. The choice is simple: either abortion has absolutely no moral consequences and should be perfectly legal; or abortion does have moral consequences, and the first syllogism that we proposed is the proper one. As we have shone the former conclusion to be false, there remains but one logically consistent, proper conclusion: (C1) Abortion (the killing of a human fetus) is immoral and legally punishable.

Sen. John McCain for President

Many readers of this blog may know that a year ago, I was a passionate supporter of the Presidential Campaign of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), and that I remained a passionate supporter of Sen. Brownback all the way until October 18, 2007, when he was forced by a “lack of funds” to drop out of the race. It was Sen. Brownback’s unflinching integrity in leading his life, both public and private, according to his Catholic faith that drew me to him from start to finish. This could be most clearly seen in his “pro-life, whole-life” stance: not only does he oppose abortion, but he opposes capital punishment, too; he doesn’t just want to shut down the abortion factories run by Planned Parenthood, he wants to replace them with pregnancy resource centers, so that women who thought that abortion was their only option can receive the resources and support they need to actually have the baby; he doesn’t just care about the human rights of the unborn fetus, but he is an enthusiastic, compassionate fighter for the poor and oppressed, the sick and the hungry, the disenfranchised and the downtrodden both at home and around the world.

Unfortunately, Sen. Brownback’s message never seemed to click with conservative voters (who flocked rather to Gov. Huckabee; I suspect that his Catholicism may have frightened them away), and he was unable to continue to carry this banner of true humanitarianism all the way to the White House. When he dropped out the race, most of his supporters made their way to Gov. Hucakbee’s camp; I, however, remained on the fence. And after the Governor’s disastrous response to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December (instead of talking about the national security implications of terrorism-induced chaos in a country armed with nuclear weapons, he talked about limiting the flow of immigrants from Pakistan), I got off the fence and threw my support instead to Sen. McCain—just like Sen. Brownback did.

Why, then, did I choose the man who has been decried by the conservative establishment as practically a Democrat? I finally started to see again the reasons why I wanted to vote for him in 2000 (if only I’d been old enough) and in 2004 (if only we hadn’t been beholden, lemming-like, to George W. Bush). He is, in fact, not only a true conservative (despite Rush Limbaugh’s bloviating to the contrary), but an honorable man, one of the last in a Washington which has descended into the bitterest, dirtiest, foulest mire of partisan hatred not for the sake of the issues but simply for the sake of partisanship.

The conservative “establishment” is trying its hardest these days to discredit Sen. McCain. They like to say that he is “pro-tax” because he voted against the Bush tax cuts. This is nonsense—the man’s a Republican, for gosh’s sake! Of course he’s anti-tax; he knew that the Bush tax cuts were going to pass, so he used his vote to lodge a protest against the fact that they didn’t contain any concomitant cuts in spending. In point of fact, Sen. McCain is far more the fiscal conservative than all of the Republicans who voted for the tax cuts without demanding spending cuts to go along with them, to say nothing of Gov. Romney, who actually tried to raise certain taxes while Governor of Massachusetts (though to his credit, he was carrying out the will of the people, for many Massachusetts Dems would prefer the French tax code to the American one).

Indeed, while Gov. Romney was promising to lavish more of the Federal budget on “old-economy” workers in Michigan whose jobs have been sent overseas (one wonders how the Governor will pay for his “job retraining assistance”—will he raise taxes, or will he simply drive us deeper in debt? One thing is certain: he will not show fiscal restraint.), Sen. McCain told them the economic truth: their jobs aren’t coming back. And he lost Michigan because of it. The decision, therefore, is between the Governor whose words will always twist themselves to please his audience, no matter what promises he must make and what positions he must “amend” to do it; and a Senator who tells the truth, even if the truth is not palatable to his audience’s ears. As a lover of the truth, it should be clear to whom my vote goes.

And on that single issue that matters to many of us more than any other because of what it tells us of a man’s whole outlook on the human condition, namely, his view on abortion? Sen. McCain has spent three decades in public service consistently voting and tirelessly fighting for the right to life; meanwhile, Gov. Romney was elected in Massachusetts because he was pro-abortion. He says he’s pro-life now, but how do we know he won’t change his mind again when it is politically expedient to do so? I rather suspect, especially since he’s a Mormon, among which religion's many failings a pro-death stance is not to be numbered, that he’s always been, at least privately, pro-life—and if I’m right, it unfortunately means that winning the governorship of Massachusetts was more important to him than his pro-life values.

What attracted me to Sen. Brownback more than the other “social conservatives” in the early days of the race, however, was not just that he was pro-life, but that he was “whole-life”; that is to say, Sen. Brownback lived out the implications of his belief in the value of human life to their logical conclusions by supporting human life across its whole spectrum, from conception to deathbed, and from poorhouse to mansion. Sen. McCain, though not perhaps always in the same ways or to the same extent, has shown the true compassion that Our Lord asks of us—at least, far more than I have ever seen (publicly, at least, for I dare not judge what is in a man’s heart) from Gov. Romney; and we need look no further than his (much ballyhooed and criticized, at least by the “conservative” pundits) plan to fix the immigration problem in America. Rather than treating illegal immigrants as wholly unworthy of the American Dream that we all so often and wonderfully enjoy (I’m speaking here as a man who has come from a lower middle-class family which has often struggled paycheck to paycheck, who is currently able to spend a year living in Germany and studying medieval literature, all because of the generous support of the American and German governments in the form of the Fulbright program), Sen. McCain recognized their humanity and, out of compassion for all that he shares with them (for in our common humanity, all partisan differences of political opinion become mere drops in the ocean of dignity and love that we share as creatures of God and co-heirs with Christ), he proposed that they be offered a path to citizenship, albeit a long and tough road of waiting periods and steep fines.

Another facet of his plan for immigration, however, is Sen. McCain’s recognition that our economy has become dependent on these men and women. While the rest of the Republican field throws out lofty rhetoric of sending the illegal immigrants packing, he realized that to do so would cripple our economy. So, together with the President, and though it made them unpopular with their own party and in the end failed for that same reason, he offered a plan that actually made sense and faced both the humanitarian and economic reality of immigration. Empty rhetoric that denies reality and abandons at the water’s edge the compassion so wonderfully resonant in the pro-life position, or a firm stance that recognizes our economic situation and extends compassion for human dignity even to those who have broken our laws: the choice should again be clear.

Sen. McCain has also demonstrated that, far from being a partisan and divisive figure, he can also reach across the aisle, while staying true to his conservative principles,; indeed, he is far more interested in effectively governing the country than in the partisan bickering and gridlock that seems to be Washington reality these days. With the President’s job approval ratings in the low 30’s, and with those of Congress usually even lower, it is clear that what the American people want now more than anything is someone who can bring them together and effectively govern the country—not another party hack spewing the same old message of partisan half-truths (or worse, a party hack claiming to be bipartisan, though in reality his bipartisanship is simply another partisan half-truth dressed up to hide that fact). While the “conservative” pundits have been trying to turn Sen. McCain’s bipartisanship into “treason”, it actually represents the fact that more than any other candidate, Sen. McCain will unite this country, if only we let him.

Indeed, the worst thing that could happen to this country in November would be to allow Sen. Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, for there is no more divisive figure in this election cycle than she. Yet, a nominating vote for Gov. Romney is the best thing a Republican voter can do to ensure a Clinton victory—too many Americans are too fed up with the Republican Party as the party of Pres. George W. Bush to vote for Gov. Romney. Sen. McCain, on the other hand, has exactly the broad-based appeal that will bring not only independent voters but even moderate Democrats on board. In short, Sen. McCain is the only Republican candidate who has a realistic chance of winning in November.

Yet, it is not merely for this banal reason of political reality that I am supporting Sen. McCain. Behind the quality of his stances on political issues (consistently conservative) stand his honesty and honor, integrity and humanity. Sen. McCain is a man that demands respect because he has lived a respectful and virtuous life, and it is this honesty and virtue (and not, as for some candidates, the malleable paths of political expediency and polling data) that form the basis for the political decisions he makes everyday; we should expect nothing less from the President of the United States.

On the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives

Edit: It turns out that this is actually an "extension of remarks", which means that Rep. Tancredo didn't actually say this whole spiel on the floor--rather, he had the full text added later to the Congressional Record. If you look at the actual page from the Congressional Record, you will notice that, in addition to his mention of me in the far right column, he congratulates another Fulbright recipient from his district in the far left column; a glance through the other pages of Monday's "Extension of Remarks" pages of the Record indicate that he congratulated all of the Fulbright recipients from his district; most likely, he mentioned us all together in his remarks on the actual floor of the House, and then had each of us separated out in the "Extension of Remarks" section of the record.

This was passed on to me by Prof. Don Hafner, the chair of the Political Science Dept. at Boston College; it is an entry from the Congressional Record recording a statement made yesterday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by my own congressman, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado):

CONGRATULATING NATHANIEL CAMPBELL
                                _______  

                 HON. THOMAS G. TANCREDO
                         of Colorado
               in the House of Representatives
                   Monday, January 28, 2008

     Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I rise today
to pay tribute to one of my constituents, Mr. 
Nathaniel Campbell of Bailey, Colorado.
Mr. Campbell is a literature student at Boston
College and is a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright
Award. This grant is given to promising individuals
to aid them in their academic and cultural pursuits
abroad.
     The Fulbright Program was established by
Congress in 1946 and is sponsored by the U.S. State
Department. This program was designed to help
build mutual understanding between Americans
and the global community. Individuals who are
awarded this distinction have demonstrated
outstanding academic or professional achievement
and have proven themselves as leaders in their field.
     Madam Speaker, please join me in paying tribute to
Mr. Campbell and wishing him the best in his
future endeavors.

Rome: Rediscovering a Personal Humanity

Day 1: Friday, January 4

At 2:00 a.m. last Friday morning, I boarded a train from Münster to Düsseldorf in the first leg of a long, early-morning journey. While catching snippets of sleep on trains, in an airport and on an airplane, I finally returned mid-morning to the sunshine and blue skies of the urbs aeterna, Rome—just one more in the great sea across time and space of pilgrims coming to this ancient city.

Yet, from the start, it was a journey filled with propitious occurrences whose import I only later would piece together. After disembarking from the plane at Rome’s Fiumcino airport, I struck up a conversation with another American who was on the plane with me while we were walking out to catch the train into the city, and in the course of our banter, it was revealed that he was the professor-in-charge at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (known as the Centro) in 2001-2002, the same small center on the Janiculum hill where I spent the Fall Semester of my Junior Year (2005). Though he now serves as Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, Prof. Bernie Frischer maintains his work in the field of Classical Studies, and inquired after several members of the Boston College Classics Department whom he knows. This chance encounter served as a timely reminder of the personal connections that span the globe, reducing the vast, cold anonymity of thousands of miles and billions of faceless strangers to the concrete imminence of personal interaction.

After taking the train from the airport to Termini, the main train station of Rome, I made my way on foot to the Sunshine Hostel by the Porta Maggiore in the south of the city; when Pete Heinlein and I visited Rome over Pentecost two years ago, we stayed at the same hostel, and since it was inexpensive and I was familiar with it, I decided to go with it again. Whereas my last visit occurred at the end of May during the beginnings of the busy tourist summer season, it turns out that the beginning of January is the slowest time of the year for tourism in Rome. Thus, I ended being the only person staying the hostel, not just the first night, but every night thereafter. It became a welcome place of quiet and solitude to which to escape at the end of each tiring day.

After unloading my great backpack and washing my face and brushing my teeth, I set out into the city. Lindsay Wilcox and Peter Stamm, friends of mine who are currently seniors at Boston College and whose pilgrimage these first two weeks of January to Assisi and Rome provided the impetus for my own journey, were not to return from Assisi until Saturday evening, so I had two full days on my own to fill—but in Rome, that is a very easy thing to do. First, I headed up to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major), one of the four great basilicas of Rome, and the first major landmark between the hostel and the rest of the city. Though almost everything that I would visit over the course of the next six days would be something I had already seen, often several times, the fantastic beauty of Rome is that there’s always something more to be gained from visiting them again. In Santa Maria Maggiore, for example, the confessio under the high altar that holds the Nativity relics had been closed for renovation each of the previous times I had visited, but was now open again.

While kneeling for a moment in prayer before the reliquary, the entrance music for the 11:00 Mass in the Pauline Chapel began—Schubert’s Wiegenlied, played for the infant Jesus during Christmastide. Since I had no concrete plans (an excellent way, I discovered, to spend time in Rome when you’re not under the pressure of touristic expectations), I decided to attend the Mass. Although I know very little Italian, that which I did learn from attending Masses during my semester there two years ago came flooding back; of course, there is also the useful feature that the Catholic Mass, no matter the language or country, is the same the world over in structure and meaning.

After Mass, I made my way down the Forum Romanum to sit and eat the sandwich I had packed for lunch—hearkening back to my last day in Rome during my semester there, when I similarly ate my bagged lunch in the Forum. As the sky began to cloud over, I headed over the Capitoline hill and into the heart of the city to do some more church visiting, hitting mainly some old favorites—S. Maria Sopra Minerva, where the body of St. Catherine of Sienna lies entombed under the high altar; and the churches of S. Luigi dei Francesi (St. Louis IX of France) and S. Agostino (St. Augustine), both of which contain beautiful painting by Caravaggio. Unfortunately, as I was leaving S. Agostino, it started to rain; although I had brought an umbrella with me to Rome, I had left it at the hostel (remember, the skies were clear and sunny when I arrived). Since the rain was also accompanied by the afternoon siesta during which most of the churches would close, I retreated to the Piazza della Rotondo (the piazza in front of the Pantheon) to sit with some gelato and a much-needed café latte to wait out the rain. Several hours of people watching and a hundred pages of St. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei (my current reading project) later, the rain had ceased, I had spent too much money on coffee and ice cream, and was feeling rejuvenated to continue my plodding around.

I decided to make for my old stomping grounds on the Gianicolo, and found myself an hour later in the Basilica of S. Pancrazio, a beautiful but oft-neglected church by the Centro where I had often said the rosary while living there. I stumbled in during Holy Hour, so I settled in to say again a rosary in those familiar confines. By the time the Benediction was given and I returned to the streets, darkness had fallen, and I cut a leisurely path over to the great statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi and the breath-taking views from its terrace across the whole of the city.

The reminiscences of times past continued as my stomach started to growl and I made my way to the Rosticceria-Pizzeria in the Piazza Rosolino Pilo that was well-known among the Centristi for its kebaps, and I made sure to get a picture of one of the owners, just to show my friends that the kebap place is still alive and well. After the kebap (which was just as good as I remembered it), the long hours and short sleep of the night before finally began to catch up with me, and I headed back to the hostel to get a good night’s sleep.

Day 2: Saturday, January 5

Saturday morning dawned grey and wet, weather which was to stay with us for several more days. After a cappuccino and chocolate-filled croissant at my favorite café near the basilica, I entered S. Maria Maggiore to find a place to say the rosary before the eleven o’clock Mass. I stumbled, as it seemed that I so often did, upon one about to start in the adoration chapel, and so I settled in the recite the Joyful Mysteries with the little old Italian ladies. It was over the course of the next hour (for the Italians, in fine Italian form, manage to stretch five decades over a whole hour through lengthy meditations and frequent opportunities for song) that I made my first reflection on the intensely personal connections at the center of the Catholic faith, despite the global scale of a Church of more than a billion people. As I mentioned in my Christmas message, the Incarnation of Our Lord is an incredibly astounding mystery because of its personal, historical nature. Jesus Christ is an actual person, and we as Christians can have actual, personal relationships with Him. Yet, the Christian religion is not just about the personal relationship between me and Him, but it also about the personal relationship between me and you. Another consequence of the Word-Made-Flesh is that the great society of humanity is connected not just as a giant organism, a statistical unity, but also at the fundamentally personal level of one human being connected concretely to another in a relationship of mutual, Christian love. The Personhood of Christ gives the deepest and richest meaning to the personhood of every human being. It occurred to me that I have often focused so much on my personal relationship with God that I have neglected to remember that I am also in a personal relationship with other Christians. The Italians in that chapel with me were not strangers, nor was I simply the odd man out. Far more important than the fact that I couldn’t understand what the priest was saying when he was meditating upon the Nativity was the fact that, because of the Nativity, I was connected through Christ in a very real and concrete way with each and every one of the fellow Christians who were praying with me that day. To remember this personal connection and to make it a focus of my remaining time in Rome became a very important part of the rest of my journey.

The Markets and Forum of Trajan

After Mass and lunch at a pizzeria near the Piazza Venezia, I decided to spend the afternoon at the newly-opened museum in the Markets and Forum of Trajan (a museum that didn’t exist when I was last in Rome). The major museum building is housed in the two levels of the great hall (Grande Aule), where the tabernae or shops have been converted into exhibits; between these and the tabernae reaching out from the great hall into the great hemicycle, the museum has more than two dozen rooms. The exhibits contain various pieces of statuary and architectural elements from the imperial fora, much of it unearthed in excavations in just the last decade. For example, this is a section from the frieze and architrave from the Temple of Venus Genetrix, which is the temple that Julius Caesar erected in his forum to Venus, the originator of his line (he claimed descent from Iulus, the son of Aeneas, the son of Venus and Anchises). The focus is on the For a of Trajan, Augustus, and Caesar, and the graphic displays do an excellent job of tracing the stages of the fora, from original construction to the Middle Ages and through the modern excavations, including an exhibit on the rooms’ use at one time by the nuns of St. Catherine’s Monastery. Besides the exhibitions, one the most exciting features of the museum is the chance to walk all throughout the multiple levels of the great hemicycle that backstops the Forum of Trajan, as well as on the actual floor of the forum itself.

Unfortunately, the museum has extensively pursued a policy of displaying modern sculptural “art” in the midst of the ancient monuments—a practice which not only distracts the viewer from the antiquities he has come to enjoy, but utterly discredits the “artistic” concept of the modern works by placing them in direct comparison with the beauty and splendor achieved by the Romans almost two millennia ago. These modern sculptors have chosen the most spectacularly inappropriate venue to display (and augment?) the abysmally dim value of their attempts at “art”; but I suppose their egos are stroked to fancy themselves worthy to be displayed among the ancient masterworks—though in this arena, no amount of wishing can make the silk purse of the sow’s ear.

The rain continued unabated throughout the afternoon, so I simply wiled away the hours wandering the cavernous halls of the markets until it was time to return to Santa Maria Maggiore to meet Lindsay and Peter. They had not had the chance that day to attend Mass yet, and were hoping to make it to a small church nestled in a back alley near the Ponte Cavour (in the neighborhood of the Mausoleum of Augustus and the Ara Pacis) that is affiliated with a group that both of them work with back in the states and which offers a Tridentine Rite Mass under the terms of the Pope’s motu proprio each evening at 6:30 p.m. Unfortunately, several wrong turns on the way over there left us hopelessly lost and too late, so we resolved instead to find a cozy restaurant near the Piazza Navonna to enjoy dinner and catch up. After dinner, we wandered over to the Pantheon and some good gelato, and then slowly made our way back up to the neighborhood around Termini, where they were staying Saturday and Sunday night.

Day 3: Sunday, January 6: The Feast of the Epiphany

We made an early start Sunday morning, for we hoped to attend the Papal Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany in St. Peter’s Basilica—the Mass started at 10:00 a.m., so we needed to arrive about eight o’clock to hope for anything nearing a good seat. Fortunately, it being the slow season for Roman tourism, the crowd gathered more slowly than we had expected, and we snatched excellent seats more than halfway up the length of the nave and less than a dozen chairs from the central aisle. Despite the continued cloud cover and rain outside, the Basilica was brilliantly lit by the great banks of lights installed along the ceiling, allowing our eyes to feast upon the endless detail of the hulking structure. Shortly before 10 o’clock, the Sistine Chapel Choir started the entrance hymn for the seating of the great number of prelates attending the Mass, and we sang Flos de radice Iesse, the Latin original of the well-beloved English hymn I Know a Rose Tree Springing. Then, at precisely 10 o’clock, the Pope arrived at the great doors of the Basilica and made his way down the central aisle as the choir sang his entrance antiphon: Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, the same words that ring the lower part of the great dome’s drum. The Mass was said in Latin, though of the Novus Ordo and not the Tridentine Rite, and was on the whole a more subdued affair (though with richer music) than the great outdoor papal Mass that I attended nearly two years ago in St. Peter’s Square for the Pentecost. After the pontifical blessing at the end of the Mass, the whole of the congregation pressed toward the barriers at the central aisle as Pope Benedict processed out, and I was able to capture this clear photograph of him as he passed us by.

We had hoped to stay in the Basilica after Mass to look around, but we were ushered out (probably so that they could clean up the chairs), so instead we joined the masses gathered outside in St. Peter’s Square for the Pope’s noon-time Angelus message and blessing—he must have been rather rushed to exist the Basilica, change, and hurry back to his rooms in the Apostolic Palace in time to give the Angelus. After his blessing, Italian police and firemen formed a cordon through the crowd, and through the space they opened up came processing the Three Kings bearing their gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh to be placed in the life-size Nativity in St. Peter’s Square at the base of the obelisk—this picture of the Nativity was taken later, but gives you a good idea of how impressive it is.

As the crowd began to break up, the hunger that the excitement of the whole experience had kept at bay now crept up on us with full force, and we stalked the streets to the northeast of the Vatican until we found a nice (reasonably priced) restaurant to grab some lunch. This would be a good time to note that throughout our visit, lunches and dinners were almost always leisurely affairs, owing to our generally chatty nature, the often tiring nature of our activities, as well as the generally relaxed pace that both Lindsay and Peter were pursuing—more on this a little later. After lunch, we set off on a meandering journey into the heart of the city, our only general goal being the Capitoline Hill, though with many pit-stops in between, including a long and quiet break sitting in a park near the Largo Argentine when we realized just how draining the experience of a papal Mass can really be. As evening came on, I led them on a tour of the imperial fora, and, passing the Colosseum, we ascended the Esquiline Hill to visit the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains), which houses the relics of the chains the bound St. Peter in prison, as well as the tomb of Pope Julius II, adorned with Michaelangelo’s famous Moses. My fellow parishoners at St. Mary’s might also recognize the figures used in this church’s Nativity scene, set before the reliquary holding St. Peter’s chains. Descending the Esquiline, we journeyed east again to our hostels to take an few hours’ rest before meeting again for dinner, which we found at an excellent restaurant in the vicinity of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Day 4: Monday, January 7

We met again Monday mid-morning in the Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore, Lindsay and Peter with their bags in tow, for they had checked out of their first hostel and were to move that afternoon to a B&B near the Vatican (on the other side of the city) that afternoon. Although I had conceived of several possible programs of sightseeing tours through the city, since I was simply along for ride and to offer my experience in Rome to Peter and Lindsay, I let them make the decisions as to their itinerary. At first, I was a little frustrated at their leisurely pace, but eventually I realized that their intentions were to be pilgrims, not tourists, and that this was not to be a whirlwind trip to see as much of Rome as possible in one week, but rather a reflective journey through the spiritual heartland of Catholic Christianity. Accordingly, our two major visits of the day were to be the Basilicas of Santa Maria Maggiore and St. John Lateran, two of the four major basilicas of Rome (the other two being St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls). We made our way with careful attention to every detail of the two basilicas, which are separated by just a half-hour’s walk along the Via Merulana. It was indeed refreshing and insightful for me, for though I had been often in both basilicas, I had never taken the opportunity to make such a thorough and introspective visit to either of them.

After lunch at a pizzeria near St. John Lateran (the cathedral church of Rome, that is, the official seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome—the right to say Mass at the high altar is reserved to him alone), we hopped on the Metro to cross to the other side of town so that Lindsay and Peter could check in to their new lodging. While they were getting situated, I settled down on the steps of Bernini’s colonnade in St. Peter’s Square (the rain having stopped in the night, the sun that day had dried them off) to people-watch, read a bit more of St. Augustine, and observe the setting of the sun (often a beautiful experience behind the Basilica).

Shortly after six o’clock, we met again on the Ponte Cavour to attend the Tridentine Rite Mass at that small church we had tried to visit Saturday evening. This time, we did not get lost, and made it with plenty time to spare. This was, in fact, the first Tridentine Rite Mass that I had ever attended, despite my long work with the Latin language. I found it, however, neither strange nor difficult to follow, for the Tridentine Rite, especially in the Low Mass (as this was), is very, very near the Sarum Rite, from which the Anglican Rite used at St. Mary’s, my home parish in Denver, is directly taken. Hence, I was able to follow it very closely, for, other than some divergences in the prayers of the Canon of the Mass, it was an identical match to the Low Mass I have attended so many times at St. Mary’s. While Lindsay and Peter followed along in their Latin Missals, I simply followed along from memory, albeit in English rather than Latin. As the priest said most of the Mass sotto voce, and the congregation followed silently, with the server offering the responses on their behalf, there was no need for me to know the responses in Latin—though often enough, I did. Though I would not recommend the experience for everyone, I found it most contemplatively compelling, and the sight of a fiddleback chasuble and a maniple was one for sore eyes, indeed.

After Mass, we grabbed dinner at a pizzeria which Lindsay had found highly recommended in one of the guidebooks she brought, and it did not disappoint. After a jaunt around the Via del Corso to find some chocolate gelato and a brief visit to the Column of Marcus Aurelius (I wanted to show them the famous “Rain Miracle” during Marcus’ campaigns in Austria, which Dio Cassius says was popularly attributed to the intervention of “Christians”), we parted ways at the Metro stop at the Spanish Steps.

Day 5: Tuesday, January 8

We met Tuesday morning again under bright blue skies in St. Peter’s Square near the Nativity, for Peter and Lindsay wanted this day to explore every square inch (no mean task) of St. Peter’s Basilica. The “off-season” for tourists proved a blessing again as the line to go through the metal detectors to enter the Basilica was practically nonexistent. We stopped first for a length of reflection and prayer in the Adoration Chapel, and then began to make our way slowly around the massive footprint of the church that was long the largest in all Christendom (I believe it was recently eclipsed by a new, massive missionary work somewhere in Africa), and in the course of our wandering, we stumbled along things that I had never seen before—the same phenomenon as the previous day manifesting itself, as I had never properly taken the time to investigate each and every of the side chapels and altars. This being the heart of Catholic Christendom, it was no wonder that around each corner lurked a new and delightful surprise—the bones of St. Gregory the Great here, the relics of St. John Chrysostom there (and a delightful inscription noting that not twenty years ago, Pope John Paul II had donated some of them back to the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I).

After the floor of the Basilica, we made our way down into the grottoes beneath to visit the tombs of various popes housed there, including that of John Paul II and the window into the confessio holding the bones of St. Peter. Finally, we made the intrepid journey up the more than 1,000 steps to take us to the observation deck along the top of the dome’s cupola—unfortunately, we had little breath left for the views from up there to take from us. Upon our descent, we discovered we were in need of a break, for our legs were a bit wobbly after the whole ordeal, so we found another nice pizzeria off the Via della Conciliazione for lunch. After lunch, we took to people-watching in St. Peter’s Square for a while, until 4:30, when we met Msgr. Anthony McDaid for some coffee. Msgr. McDade is a delightful Irishmen currently assigned to the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome; some years ago, he served with the Archdiocese of Denver, where he became good friends with Liz O'Malley, who also happens to be a good friend of my grandmother’s. When I left to study in Rome two years ago, Msgr. McDade’s name was passed along, and we’ve now managed to go three for three in visiting each other each time I have been in Rome.

After coffee with Msgr. McDade, we met again for Mass at that little church tucked away by the Ponte Cavour, and I discovered that this second time offered me a different experience with the Tridentine Rite. The previous night, I had gotten caught up in recognizing each element of the Mass so familiar to me from the Anglican Rite; this time, I was able to focus more on the uniqueness and beauty of the Latin Rite on its own terms.

We returned to the area on the west side of the river near Lindsay and Peter’s B&B for dinner, where we found a wonderful restaurant that looked far more expensive than it really was—brocaded tablecloths and charger plates on the tables, yet still within the price range of three college students. We also had a wonderfully inquisitive waiter who was quite curious to hear about various aspects of our lives in America (I saved the fellow the confusion of trying to explain my current residence in Germany). Finally, we parted company for the night and I hopped back on the Metro to return to my side of the city for my last night in Rome.

Day 6: Wednesday, January 9

I woke a little earlier on this, my last day in Rome, for I needed to pack everything back up and make sure I didn’t leave anything behind, for once I set out, I wouldn’t be returning to the hostel, or at least not during this trip to Rome. I met up with Peter and Lindsay once again in St. Peter’s Square, for this morning’s agenda was another thing which for me would be a new experience: attending the weekly General Audience of His Holiness Benedict XVI in the expansive Paul VI Auditorium situated to the south of St. Peter’s Basilica. It was again a sign of the “off-peak” season that the auditorium filled rather slowly and not, in fact, to capacity. The tickets for the audience, which are “entirely free”, as it says on them, we acquired the previous day when visiting the Basilica—after one passes through the metal detectors and before turning right to head up to the Basilica, one passes on the right the entrance to a large set of stairs and a great hallway leading back into the Apostolic Palace and guarded by Swiss Guards in their Technicolor garb; after gathering up the nerve and explaining your purpose to the police officers standing at the base of the stairs, one member of your group ascends and asks the Swiss Guard on the left for the tickets, which he will retrieve for you. A bit of a production, but completely worth it, as we discovered on Wednesday.

While waiting for the audience to begin, we took in the cavernous hall, the Nativity and Christmas Tree set up on the right of the stage (the tree’s lighting changed every few minutes, cycling through blue, red, yellow, green, and purple), and enjoyed the boisterous music performed by what turned out to be a group of Italians in native dress with drums and mandolins and tambourines. At 10:30 sharp (while most Italians seem to shy away from starting anything on time, the Pope’s schedule runs like clockwork—he is German, after all), Pope Benedict entered the hall to thunderous applause, and after an opening prayer and reading, he offered his address. Though it was in Italian, I was able to follow the general gist of the twenty-minute lecture (I continually felt the urge to take notes—I suppose you can take the Pope out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom of this Pope, at any rate), and my suspicions were confirmed when he offered brief three to five minute recapitulations in French, English, German, Spanish, and Polish (though the last was read for him by a Polish bishop): he gave us a general overview of the life and writings of St. Augustine, promising to use the African bishop as the baseline for his addresses in the weeks to come. While he read the English version verbatim from the paper in front of him, he took several detours from the script when proffering the German version, including several lighter moments (“The metropolitan in Africa called Augustine back to the see at Hippo because he was in need of good preachers, since he himself wasn’t one”). Before he offered his remarks in each language, he was introduced by a bishop or priest in that language, who also introduced the registered groups of pilgrims from that particular language area in attendance at the audience; after the English-speaking pilgrims were introduced, a church choir from Massachusetts sang a setting of the Angelus, for which the Holy Father later thanked them. After concluding his remarks, Pope Benedict led the hall in the recitation in Latin of the Our Father (printed on the back of the tickets for those who didn’t know it Latin), and offered a blessing that he extended to the families of all in attendance, with special intention for the sick and ailing.

Afterwards, he greeted several guests on the stage, and then waded into the crowd to visit with some of the pilgrim groups; unfortunately, he didn’t make it much past the first few rows, and after about twenty minutes he exited stage right to more applause and chants of “Benedetto!”

We made our way back into the sun-drenched expanse of St. Peter’s square, and as I had only about a half-hour before I had to leave for the airport, we grabbed some panini sandwiches from a street vendor and enjoyed our last few minutes together. We made our goodbyes, I wished them all the best on the rest of their pilgrimage (they will be in Rome through Sunday), and set off again for the airport, my Epiphany journey to praise the Lord together with Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar complete.

Puer Natus Est Nobis

Let us rejoice, for the Christ Child is born to us today!

We celebrate today the birth of Jesus Christ, the Immanuel, the Son of God; on this day some 2,000 years ago a virgin named Mary gave birth to Him, and wrapped in swaddling clothes he was lain in a manger. At the opening of the Midnight Mass in the Cathedral of St. Paul here in Münster, the cantor sang the announcement of the First Mass of Christmas taken from the Martyrologium Romanum, the medieval catalogue of the calendar of the Church’s feast days:

In the 5199^th year of the creation of the world, from the time when in the beginning God created heaven and earth; from the flood, the 2957^th year; from the birth of Abraham, the 2015^th year; from Moses and the going-out of the people of Israel from Egypt, the 1510^th year; from the anointing of David as king, the 1032^nd year; in the 65^th week according tothe prophecy of Daniel; in the 194^th Olympiad; from the founding of the city of Rome, the 752^nd year; in the 42^nd year of the rule of Octavian Augustus, when the whole world was at peace, in the sixth age of the world: Jesus Christ, the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desiring to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming, having been conceived by the Holy Ghost, and nine months having passed since His conception was born in Bethlehem of Juda of the Virgin Mary, having become man. The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

As tedious as it might seem to define the day of Christ’s birth according to many historical references, the Martyrologium has a very good reason for its lengthy detail: the birth of Jesus Christ, the official revelation to the world of the Incarnation, the Word, the only-begotten Son of God before all ages of the world, now born of a virgin in a stable in Bethlehem—this birth was and is an historical event. Christ was born a man on an actual day in the actual history of the world. The Nativity of Christ is not just a story in a religious text, like so many stories in so many traditions around the world; no, He was a completely real person, like you or I, acting in the reality of history.

The incredible beauty and yet radical statement that is the mystery of the Incarnation is at the heart not only of the Christian religion but also the very existence of the world. Christ is “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made”: He is the very foundation of existence. Yet He also “for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven: and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and became man”: He was (and is) an individual human being, walking upon the earth in an actual body composed of muscles and sinews and blood. If He missed a nail and hit His finger with a hammer in His carpenter’s workshop in Nazareth, he felt the same pain that you or I feel when we do the same. Indeed, He faced even greater pains than you or I are likely ever to face when He was “crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried.”

And as radical as this idea may seem, that the immortal, invisible, omniscient and omnipresent God, Creator of all that is and was and ever shall be, was also a simple woodworker from a backwater town on the Sea of Galilee; as radical as this idea may seem, more radical yet is “what both educated and simple people [find] in Christ: he tells us who man truly is and what a man must do in order to be truly human.” (Spe Salvi 6). Not only did Christ the God become Christ the Man, the King who was made Sacrifice, but in doing so, He both renewed and further exalted the very humanity that we hold in common with Him, as we are reminded during the Preparation of the Gifts in the Mass:

Deus, qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti, et mirabilius reformasti: da nobis per huius aquae et vini mysterium, eius divinitatis esse consortes, qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps, Iesus Christus.

O God, who didst wonderfully create, and yet more wonderfully renew the dignity of the nature of man: grant unto us, that through the mystery of this water and wine, we may be sharers in His divinity who vouchsafed to be made partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ.

In the New Adam, the strength of humanity was made anew, perfected from the Fall of Adam but also excelling Adam even in his perfection; for though Adam was made in the image and likeness of God, yet God did not share with Adam yet his human nature. But now, in an act made out of His boundless love, His Son has taken up that nature, and in this mystery are opened unto us the true gates of righteousness. In Christ we may now share in the one divinity; Adam and Eve lusted after this, but it was not given them, for they knew not the mystery of the Son. But now, every one of us, every child who is born into the world just as was Christ 2,000 years ago, has received in His birth the opportunity to be co-heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven.

While this Mystery seems incomprehensible, it is yet the most accessible feature of the Christian religion, for in Christ we have been presented with a man, a simple man, a true person with whom we each can have a true, intimate, personal relationship. Christian spirituality is not an amorphous cloud; it is not some “feeling” that we have of joy or loftiness or nobility. It must not be confused with many modern ideas of spirituality that emphasize the temporal sensation or sentiment of some ill-defined “spiritual connection” to some higher being. No, Christian spirituality is concrete and is founded in the very personal, very real Person of Jesus. Without Jesus, without the Christ who was a real, historical, and finite man, and is also a real, eternal, infinite God, Christian spirituality is empty.

Furthermore, without this real encounter with the personhood of Christ, this whole life and world is left empty and dark, a mere wandering from a naked birth to a naked death. If one believes in no God, or even if one believes in a God who is but as the furthest twinkle of a star, beautiful perhaps but utterly distant and foreign, then there is left nothing in this world but the brief span of the insignificant life of a human, one of billions living but a snapshot of a world infinitely larger than any can comprehend. In the cold, materialistic worldview that knocks ever at the gates of one who despairs of the divine, life is nothing but “poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” as Hobbes noted centuries ago.

But to this dark and dreary emptiness we are not bound, for the world is neither accident nor meaninglessness, but the very essence of the love of a personal God. As Pope Benedict says in his recent encyclical, Spe Salvi:

It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs…the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love—a Person. And if we know this Person and he knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe and of its laws, we are free. In ancient times, honest enquiring minds were aware of this. Heaven is not empty. Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a personal will, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love. (Spe Salvi 5)

Finally, as we look today upon the Incarnate Christ as an example of “who man truly is and what a man must do in order to be truly human,” we must realize that we are gazing this happy day upon a child lying in a manger, the food trough of farm animals, sheltered from the elements by a barn, “because there was no room for them at the inn.” (Luke 2:7); and though the Magi brought to Him the gold of Kingship and the frankincense of Divinity, these gifts acknowledged not His human destiny but His spiritual reality. Indeed, it was Balthazar’s gift of myrrh that spoke most clearly of the role that this man of the royal house of David was to play in human history: His sacrificial death. The truth of humanity’s lot in this world is not the gold of the king but the pain and sorrow of suffering. Yet the suffering that we see all around us every day is not the meaningless horror that it would seem, for all suffering finds it true meaning in the suffering of Him who should not have had to suffer at all, but yet suffered more than all.

The key to our humanity as revealed to us by the lowly babe in a manger is His humility. He is the Son of God, and yet he slept not on silk but straw; He is the Word by which all is made, and yet spoke not of his right to rule the world but of his choice to serve it; He is of the great “I AM” who commanded Moses to remove his sandals upon holy ground, and who yet Himself removed the sandals of others to wash their feet. A man must serve and not be served in order to be fully human. A man must lay himself down in order to be stood aright not by his own will by the will of God. Above all, a man must so love God and his neighbor that even death for them is but a pittance compared to this love.

If this sounds difficult or even impossible for the lost, wandering, selfish, poor being that is man, remember but this: “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)

Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis!

Christmastime in Münster

A little over a week ago, freezing temperatures finally came to this city. Yet, it does not snow in Münster, though I’m not particularly sure why; instead, we have awoken each morning to a very heavy frost. Though the day may not end under a heavy fog, each morning almost invariably dawns beneath it, and as the air becomes colder, this mist clings to all in a crystalline coat. The sun might (or might not, as today) burn through it ere the noon bells ring, and sometimes (as I painfully discovered this morning), the blanket lies invisibly (and slickly) upon the sidewalks and pavement (a phenomenon called Glatteis, safety from which the celebrant wished us at the opening of this morning’s Mass). Drivers must scrape off their cars in the morning, while the grass (which has remained yet green, though rather the dark and toughened hue of the end of the season than the bright and vibrant color of its youth) is cloaked, and as one walks about, it shimmers dully between frosty white and dark green. The frost’s most magnificent vesture is, however, worn by the bare branches of the trees, covered in an icy film that grows ever thicker as the nights grow colder. When the skies of day are still overhung with the chilled and dreamy mists, the thin limbs of the trees slice through it with their cold filigree of silver; but when the darts of brilliant sunlight strike forth, oblique and always low on the horizon in these days, the branches glow with pale, white gold; but alas, it lasts only a short time, for soon they are reduced to the muddied browns and greys of wetted wood, the frost melted by the very rays that had illumined it.

Despite the deepening cold, however, the city’s most vibrant Christmas tradition has thronged apace: the Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christmas market. This tradition, found in towns great and small throughout Germany (the most famous is to be found in the great square of Nürnberg), came brilliantly to life in Münster at the beginning of Advent, and as the Day of Jubilee has drawn nearer, the booths have thronged ever more with jollity and merriment (and on the weekends, the whole of the markets are packed to overflowing with the Dutch, who come by the busload—it would seem that Amsterdam can’t match Münster for the holiday cheer). Because Münster’s greatest open space in the old city, the Domplatz (Cathedral Square) is reserved for the use of the great traveling market that comes every Wednesday and Friday year-round, the Weihnachtsmarkt has been shoehorned into little squares and courtyards throughout, so that one can walk from the Aegidiiplatz in the south to the Lambertikirche in the north, wending one’s way from one grouping of booths to the next.

Some of the booths offer various Christmas trinkets (from little wooden ornaments to various Santa hats—particularly popular this year seems to be the one that comes with two white braids hanging from it, in the style of Pippi Longstocking), but many are run by craftsmen offering various handcrafts in wood, ceramic, glass, or other materials. As numerous as the crafts, however, is the ubiquitous drink of the Weihnachtsmarkt: Glühwein, or spiced and mulled wine, a steaming drink to return warmth to the belly among the frigid mists of winter; and, of course, the many vittles offered to the crowds: the traditional (at least these days in northern Germany) Currywurst (sliced Bratwurst smothered in warm curry ketchup), and Pommes (French fries), with your choice of curry ketchup or Mayo (pronounced “my-oh” here) slathered on top; and for the sweet tooth, the Christmas confections of Lebkuchen (soft, spiced gingerbread) and gebrannte Mandeln (almonds “roasted” or caramelized in sugar with vanilla and cinnamon). Finally, strung throughout one will find musicians of all types (from adolescents with their flutes and clarinets trying to make some extra spending money, to the old hats who do this for a living) adding that final touch of Christmas cheer.

The street performers were not the only musical cheer that I have experienced this season in Münster. In my time over the last few years in Boston, I started to make it a tradition as a birthday present to attend a performance of Handel’s Messiah on or about my birthday (December 2), as the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston performs it several times annually on the first few weekends of December. Sometime in November, my grandmother asked me if I was going to continue the tradition, and I had to reply that alas, I would not, as I was unaware of any performances of the Messiah in Münster. But about a week before Thanksgiving, as I was glancing through a pamphlet at the Cathedral listing the various musical offerings around town for the Christmas season, lo and behold, I discovered that there would, in fact, be a performance of the aforesaid masterwork at the Apostelkirche (the main Protestant church in the city’s center, housed in a beautiful gothic structure that was once a Dominican parish before being confiscated during the secularization at the beginning of the 19^th century; when it was finally to be returned to religious hands, the Dominicans no longer had a stake for it and it, therefore, given as the first house of worship for Lutherans in this (still) predominantly Catholic town); furthermore, only two performances were to be offered, on the evenings of Saturday and Sunday, December 1 & 2 (and as I later discovered, it is by no means an annual performance; the last time it was performed was 1995!). Much to my delight, I rounded up my American friends here (Timon, who lives in my dorm complex, and David, both Americans studying at the university, and Jennifer and Jörg Burkart and Bill Hoye) and held a “birthday outing” on the evening of the second. Not only was I able to continue the nascent tradition, but I have now christened it a firm part of my birthday celebrations, for it has been followed not only in America but in Germany, too! The evening was, however, to have its own German twists: the oratorio was sung in German (not my accustomed English), and we headed to the Weihnachtsmarkt afterward for a nice round of Glühwein. The performance was overall good, though the trumpeter had a few missteps early on, but recovered well for his standout role in the latter third of the piece; and, unfortunately, they cut a few sections out for length, including “O death, where is they sting?”, a beautiful duet toward the end. But in the company of friends on the occasion of a birthday celebration, such deficiencies are easily overlooked.

Last week, on the third Sunday of Advent, I enjoyed another musical celebration of the season heralding Our Lord’s Birth, this time in the company of the Deutsch-Amerikanische Gesellshaft (the German-American Society of Münster). The afternoon began with an Advent Tea hosted by Heidi Wegmann at her beautiful home in Wolbeck, a southeastern suburb of the city. From there, as night descended (this far north, that begins at about 4:00 in the afternoon), we journeyed to the workshop of Friedrich Fleiter, Orgelbaumeister, whose family has specialized in the construction, maintenance, and repair of organs since 1872, to attend a concert benefiting a local charity, given annually on the Wurlitzer organ installed in the workshop. The organ, a “Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra, Made by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co., Cincinnati”, was originally installed in a Hollywood movie theater in 1924. When the theater was renovated to be able to show movies with sound in the 1940’s, the organ was moved to a stage theater, also in Hollywood, where it remained until that theater closed in 1994, at which time Herr Fleiter’s company saved it from the trash heap and brought it to Münster. Designed to reproduce a full orchestra pit to accompany silent films, the organ has such ranks as a xylophone, snare drums, bells, and a cymbal. Befitting the Wurlitzer’s American origins, the concert began with a series of American pop songs from the 1950s – ‘70s, including “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To” and “Downtown” (I’ll admit, it was a bit odd to hear them on an organ, but fun nonetheless). This was followed by a screening from DVD of a silent Laurel & Hardy short, which the organist accompanied most excellently. The film, called “Big Business”, tells the story of Laurel and Hardy the Hollywood Christmas tree salesmen and their over-the-top exploits selling pine trees door-to-door on the balmy back lot. After an intermission (accompanied by a nice mug of Glühwein), the concert concluded with a great series of American Christmas songs (both traditional and popular).

Of course, all of these wonderful festivities have been but in preparation for the truly miraculous feast that commences tomorrow night: the Birth of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ. As we gather at midnight in the Cathedral to celebrate the coming of the Emmanuel, the God-with-us, to dance upon the dancing day for our True Love, we shall experience the fulfillment of all our expectant watching. The lamps of the Advent wreath have been lit, and await the Bridegroom’s march, as proclaimed to us by the watchmen on the heights. Then, no matter whether the mists continue to shroud the night or the stars twinkle and the moon sets to sparkling the frost-encrusted tangles of the hedges, the True Light, God’s Son, shall shine forth the brighter in our hearts.

"Do you believe every word of this book?"

In reference to the Bible, this was one of the questions during yesterday's CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate, and of the three candidates to answer the question (Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Mitt Romney, and Gov. Mike Huckabee), two of them had excellent answers, while one (Romney) fumbled the ball. You can see the video of their answers here.

The first to answer was Giuliani:

The reality is, I believe it, but I don't believe it's necessarily literally true in every single respect. I think there are parts of the Bible that are interpretive. I think there are parts of the Bible that are allegorical. I think there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be interpreted in a modern context.

So, yes, I believe it. I think it's the great book ever written. I read it frequently. I read it very frequently when I've gone through the bigger crises in my life, and I find great wisdom in it, and it does define to a very large extent my faith. But I don't believe every single thing in the literal sense of Jonah being in the belly of the whale, or, you know, there are some things in it that I think were put there as allegorical.

The mayor gave an answer that would be similar to my own answer to the question, which would have run something like this: "Yes, I believe that every word in the Bible is true. I do not, however, believe that a literal interpretation of every word is always the best interpretation. Rather, much of the Bible is to be understood either allegorically, that is, it speaks to us in metaphor and allegory; or anagogically, that is, it speaks to us about the being of God in analogy and metaphor; or tropologically, that is, it speaks to us in metaphor concerning our own morals and way of life. Do I believe that God created the world in seven, twenty-four hour days as we understand them? No. Do I believe that there is a wealth of meaning that could fill volumes and tell us many things about God, about ourselves, and about the world around us, all to be found in the metaphor that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh? Yes." Or something to that effect.

The best answer of this question, however, was given by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister who was most eloquent while at his most sincere:

Sure. I believe the Bible is exactly what it is. It's the word of revelation to us from God himself.

And the fact is that when people ask do we believe all of it, you either believe it or you don't believe it. But in the greater sense, I think what the question tried to make us feel like was that, well, if you believe the part that says "Go and pluck out your eye," well, none of us believe that we ought to go pluck out our eye. That obviously is allegorical.

But the Bible has some messages that nobody really can confuse and really not left up to interpretation. "Love your neighbor as yourself." And, "As much as you've done it to the least of these brethren, you've done it unto me." Until we get those simple, real easy things right, I'm not sure we ought to spend a whole lot of time fighting over the other parts that are a little bit complicated.

And as the only person here probably on the stage with a theology degree, there are parts of it I don't fully comprehend and understand, because the Bible is a revelation of an infinite God, and no finite person is ever going to fully understand it. If they do, their god is too small.

'Nuff said.

Two Thanksgivings in Germany

I hope that all my friends and family back home had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend; I had the great fortune to be able to attend not one but two Thanksgiving dinners this past weekend. The first, organized by the German-American Society of Münster, was held on Thursday evening at Henry's Poltertenne, a wonderful, rustic event center on the outskirts of the city. I went with Jennifer Burkart, the former Boston College Fulbrighter, and her husband, Jörg (and had I known that the other American students walked (!) to the dinner, I would have asked Jennifer and Jörg to give them a ride!). The dinner was well-attended both by members of the society, Americans living, working, or studying in Münster, as well as many other friends of the States--including the Mayor of Münster himself, Hans Varnhagen!

All of the food except the turkey was provided potluck-style, and while--alas!--there were no mashed potatoes or gravy, there was an abundance of many different kinds of salads and casseroles and other side dishes that were just as delicious, if not quite as "traditional" to the Thanksgiving feast. Desserts also abounded, with various brownies and cookies and cakes and puddings and custards, all laid out in fine fashion. The crowning achievement was, however, the turkeys--I saw at least two, but there may have been more kept in the hotbox by the master carver beneath the table. Since I couldn't figure out how to say "dark meat" in German, I used the "grunt and point" method to indicate my choice, and when it became clear to me that I might just be able to have it, I asked "Darf ich das ganze haben?", and with a flourish, one of the great turkey legs graced my plate!

The conversation at our table was mainly focused on the goings on both past and present of the English classes taught at the Katholishe Fachhochschule (the equivalent of a community college), where Jennifer teaches, as we were joined by one of her current colleagues, as well as a former teacher there who splits his time now between Münster and his farm in upstate New York. A long focus of the discussion was his lament concerning the skills of German students in writing coherent, well-organized expository essays. It is not, he claimed, a fault of the German students that, when they arrive in his English classes, they cannot seem to write what in America would be the standard "5-paragraph essay" on which we are schooled from 6th grade on, nor that, given an essay, they seem unable to answer the question, "What is this essay about it? What is its topic sentence?" Indeed, he has found that 95% of his students, who were hopeless at the beginning, can after a few months of his instruction, construct a perfectly well-organized expository essay. The problem, he claims, is that the German teachers don't seem to think that such a skill should be (or can be) taught; indeed, his lament extended to the whole German philosophy of education, which he believes eschews the traditional rhetorical tradition, and therefore finds itself incapable of construction well-organized arguments. Though I thought that he went perhaps too far in his criticism, I have found in my experience in classes that German teachers do have tendency to wander from topic to topic in their lectures.

Though the evening came to an end far too soon (I would have liked to kibitz much longer, as is my wont), I had the opportunity for more lively discussion yesterday when I attended my second Thanksgiving dinner, this time hosted by the Fulbright Alumni Association of Nordrhein-Westfalen, in the house of Sigrid and Rainer Martin in Bochum, a city about 75 kilometers southwest of Münster. Most of the attendees were Fulbright alumni, i.e. Germans who had studied as Fulbrighters in the United States, but there was another current American Fulbrighter in attendance, Emily, a teaching assistant from Dallas, teaching English at a school about 30 kilometers south of Münster. Together, we engaged the Germans in a long evening of wonderful conversation. The evening began with snacks in the kitchen and a long and involved discussion with Roy Schuster, a delightful middle-aged German, covering the relationship between faith and reason, philosophy, science, and theology in the modern world. I tried as best I could in German (with a surprisingly large amount of success) to explain my own belief, founded in my Catholicism, in the inherent and necessary compatibility of faith and reason, and the ultimate mystery that even reason must admit exists at the end of the philosopher's search for truth. It was at this point that Emily joined the conversation, and for the rest of the evening we were engaged together in a spirited attempt to understand each other (Emily considers herself quite the skeptic when it comes to religion and quite the liberal when it comes to politics).

The discussion continued in this vein during the soup course (a wonderful pumpkin soup with the best attempt I've so far met in Germany at cornbread), now branching out into a discussion of the nature of art, music, genius, and the scientific explanations of the human genome (for the gist of my thoughts, see my post from last October). The conversation, which by now had been joined by several other Germans, passed into politics after we reseated ourselves in front of plates laden with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and, for the German touch, red cabbage, and on then to the war in Iraq and the greater war on terror as we enjoyed pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Alas, by the end of the evening however, my wits dulled by a belly full of good food and good wine, the discussion began to slacken, and when with a shock Emily and I realized it was already 9:00 (both of us with about an hour's train ride home before us and both having classes this morning), we were regrettably obliged to take our leave. It was, nevertheless, a most wonderful evening, full of excellent food, good company, and most interesting interaction, and I shall look long upon the evening in Bochum with good and pleasant memories.

Stunning new stem cell research vindicates pro-life positions

According to two new reports, scientists in both Japan and the United States have successfully morphed skin cells (from an adult women in Japan and from a newborn's circumcised foreskin in the States) into viable stem cells exhibiting the properties of embryonic stem cells. This new advance, though still in the early stages of development and with many problems still to be worked out, gives proof to the concept that skin stem cells can be just as useful as embryonic stem cells, but without the destruction of human life that is involved in harvesting the latter type of cells.

Of course, the pro-life community has for quite a while placed their hopes in skin stem cells as an alternative to the destructive embryonic process, and these hopes have finally been fulfilled. The naysayers, of course, protested that skin cells would never be as effective as embryonic cells, but, as we had hoped, they have been proven wrong. It is a great day for humanity, for the scientific community has opened up the opportunity to pursue the life-saving cures promised by stem cell research without concomitant destruction of life.

What to do with $350 million?

According to a recent report from the AP, Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has placed an order with Airbus for his very own A380 - the new super jumbo that dwarfs the old standby, Boeing's 747. Of course, the prince won't be happy with the standard configuration of ca. 500 seats, which comes in at about $330 million. No, he'll want to customize it and turn it into a flying palace with spacious bedrooms, a jacuzzi or two, lounges and bars, an exercise room, and probably a movie theater - at an additional cost of between $50 million and $150 million. Let's say he decides not to be too extravagant and charts the middle course between them: he's still looking at paying $400 million for an airplane, for himself.

I've heard of the wealthy extravagantly flaunting their riches, but really! This super rich, super pampered Saudi prince will sink $400 million into a plaything for himself, while his country's infrastructure languishes (say what you will about the film Syriana, it did make this point very well: Saudi princes have a tendency to invest in their own luxury rather than the future of their country). While nearly a billion people on this planet languish in the deepest poverty and privation, a man in Saudi Arabia, grown rich off his oil, will luxuriate in his own, private flying palace.

Does he think that the world will respect him more for his monumental waste of money? Does he really think that he can buy himself happiness upon that flying monstrosity? Is he really so blind to the abject needs of so many, both in his own country and around the world? Can any man really be so blind? While I dare not to judge the thoughts of his heart, which are known to him and God alone, I will most certainly pronounce judgment on this particular action of the Saudi prince: he mocks all of humanity with so selfish an act, and proclaims to the world that his own private luxury, which exceeds all heretofore known bounds of extravagance, is of greater priority than the charity which could well be done with his $400 million.

Thank God that there are still some in this world who do care: I refer you to the "Anonymous Friend" who has gifted Erie, Pennsylvania charities with $100 million--a fraction, to be sure, of the prince's palatial payout, but done anonymously, not to boast of the having of money, but to be kind in the giving of it.

Missa de Angelis

Notes on Today’s Pontifical Mass at the St. Paulus Dom, Münster

The Solemn High Mass at Münster’s Cathedral was a little special today, because it was celebrated by Bishop-Prelate Clemens A. Kathke, the General Secretary of the Bonifatius Werk, on the occasion of the opening of their fundraising campaign for next year. The Bonifatius Werk (named for St. Boniface) administers to “diaspora” German Catholics, that is, German Catholics living in other countries of Europe. As such, today was quite the to-do.
My first observation should be that, when the Germans mean to, they can put on a Solemn High Mass that would make the most high-church Anglican proud. First, as they process in, one realizes that they have a clean dozen torchbearers alone, in addition to a couple other dozen Ministranten (acolytes) whose function never became clear to me other than to stand in the (appropriately large, for a medieval cathedral) sanctuary. Second, unlike their American counterparts, these Roman Catholics still understand about “smells and bells”: there was a liberal dosage of incense at all the proper moments (procession and recession, Introit, Gospel (they still cense the Gospel book!), Offertory, and Consecration—where the innumerable torchbearers rather formed a ring around the high altar, being, as it is, in the center of the sanctuary), and they still ring the bells at the Consecration. Finally, the clergy of the cathedral chapter were appropriately decked out in their scarlet scapulars and—get this—berettas!
The most wonderful part for me of today’s liturgy was, however, the music, for they decided to sing the Missa de Angelis. Most American Roman Catholics are probably scratching their heads over this one, but as one raised in a high-church Anglican Catholic parish, I am very familiar with this Mass setting, for it was the standard at our church during Trinitytide (for the Roman Catholics, that’s “Ordinary Time”). I relished the ability to sing the Kyrie, for once, without having to look at the hymnal; and though, since the other parts were sung in Latin, I did have to sing from the hymnal (for, though I know them in Latin, I am not familiar with them as they mesh with the music), the graceful familiarity of the notes of this Mass were of great comfort to me. Gloria in excelsis Deo!