Stains and Seers

Most of my readers will be familiar with the kind of visionary appearance found in Chicago this week. Indeed, I remember seeing an account a few years back of a wall-stain which was recognized as the figure of the Virgin Mary by a set of Catholic school children, after an earlier group of Korean or Japanese origin had recognized in it the face of the goddess Kwannon.

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It's my suggestion that the mechanism is one of projection, and goes back before Rorschach and his blots to Leonardo at least, Botticelli very likely )Da Vinci mentions him in a similar passage), and possibly earlier.

Having said that, it's worth remembering that if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it is no less beautiful on that account.

Future Sports

They say there's nothing new under the sun -- but here are two ethical issues cropping up at the intersection of new technologies and sports. It's hard to know exactly what cross-cuttings of this kind will arise, and therefore hard for ethicists to be sure they're covering all the bases.

It's also hard to know what parallels and ana;logies will be drawn, as one considers issues of this kind. Will the ethics of hunting at a distance, for instance, carry over into the realm of warfare, and impact our ethical understanding of the kind of "distanced" warfighting that remotely-controlled drones, for instance, permit?

Urbi et Orbi

With prayers for the reign of Pope Benedict XVI

GodCams

The hope of the second coming of Christ is nothing short of perennial -- and in a fit of what TS Eliot would call misplaced concreteness, there's even a webcam pointing at the (currently bricked in) Golden Gate in Jerusalem where it is assumed he will appear...

It is not every day, however, that the activities of two persons of the godhead can be sought on camera: but today, being a day on which the cardinals meet in Conclave to seek the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in electing a new pope, is one of them. CNN's camera focusing on the chimney on the Sistine Chapel roof therefore joins the "MessiahCam" as the world awaits the arrival of a new pope -- with the cardinal's hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" echoing the "maranatha!" of those hoping for Christ's "soon coming".

Alchemies

Megiddo and Polygamy

It is not often that law enforcement issues documents which make overtly theological points. The FBI published their Megiddo Report during the lead up to the millennial rollover, and now the Attorneys General of Utah and Arizona have issued The Primer on "Mormon Fundamentalist" polygamy and child absure. Both of them make fascinating reading for those interested in issues of church and state...

Asceticism

I have written elsewhere of the cross-cultural sweep of ascetic practices involving piercing or nailing -- examples would include the live crucifixions performed by Penitentes on Good Friday, but also the Lakota Sun Dance in the US and the Kataragama processions in Sri Lanka -- but this is the first time I have come across a description of a secular equivalent.

Interestingly enough, the Jesuit Avery Dulles, writing one of the more insightful pieces to come out at the time of Pope John Paul II's death, gives what is essentially a secular explanation for asceticism -- that it strengthens the will to endure, and thus grants a wider scope of freedom to its practitioners.

An important point, and one not often remembered in these days of comfort spirituality.

Bidding War on Terrorism

We now seem to be on our way to offering a $50 million bounty for Osama bin Laden -- a man George Bush said he was no longer concerned about in March 2002 -- and who was apparently successful in escaping the US dragnet in Tora Bora by bribery (involving a large but undisclosed sum) some while back.

All of which has the air of a bidding war, as predicted by Anthoy Cordesman of CSIS...

...an idea whose irony is brought out nicely by James Dunnigan in his comment about debt-restructuring.

Gregory and John Paul

It was Massmino Introvigne who alerted me to the fact that two popes had died in recent weeks: the Vatican's Pope John Paul II, but also Gregory XVII, pope of the "Palmar of Troya" Catholic splinter group, headquartered in Spain.

The little umbrella / folded panoply in the JP II bead is from the Vatican's own website -- where since the death of John Paul II it has replaced the Pope's own coat of arms with triple tiara -- and accompanied by the words "sede vacante" meaning that the "see" or seat of St Peter is presently vacant.

Interestingly enough, sedevacantism is the name given to the doctrine held by many "Traditionalist" Catholic breakaway sects during Pope John Paul's reign (and no doubt into the reign of the pope elected by the Conclave now gathering in Rome) claiming that the post Vatican II popes have been invalidly enthroned, and the Holy See therefore empty for some time now... a view nicely expressed in this image:

http://www.wandea.org.pl//sedewakantyzm.htm

Gregorio's group was not technically sedevacantist, in that it claimed that Gregory XVII was a validly chosen successor to St Peter...

Two quotes for JP II

Two quotes for John Paul II, poet and actor, priest and pontiff, who himself wrote:

The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly -- and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being -- he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must "appropriate" and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. ... In reality, the name for that deep amazement at man's worth and dignity is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News. It is also called Christianity.

Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, 10

Pope John Paul II, thrice

Continuing from the previous...

Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem for the eternal capital of their respective kingdoms. If eternity has any meaning, however, it lies outside time -- and if Jerusalem is to be an eternal capital, it can only be so for those whose "kingdom is not of this world".

Pope John Paul II, again

Continuing from the preceding DoubleQuotes...

The late Pope's gestures towards both Jews and Muslims, however, were conducted against a background of resistance on the part of his fellow churchmen, including many members of the Curia.

I have chosen the two extreme responses here, one from the website of a papal claimant who viewed John Paul II as a heretic and his presence in a synagogue as proof of that, the other from the site of Fr Trosch, a sedevacantist priest (which is to say a priest who considers the papal "seat" or throne to have been vacant for some time), who views JPII's kissing of the Quran as proof of his apostasy... specifically to illustrate the severity of these contrary currents, which pulled against whatever moves he made to open the Church to the wider world around it...

View Pope John Paul II against a background of liberal expectations, and he may seem an extraordinarily conservative Pope. View his acts and pronouncements against the background of some of the more conservative currents within and close to his own church, on the other hand, and some of them -- such as his visits to mosque and synagogue, and his remarks quoted in the previous DoubleQuotes -- may seem startling in their courage and forcefulness.

May he rest in peace.

Pope John Paul II, RIP

Two stories about the late Pope John Paul II. In the first, he shows a quality of love even as a young priest that allows him to discriminate between the "obviously" and the "profoundly" right thing to do. In the second, his charisma is harnessed by others to their own cause...

The Pope was markedly sensitive to both Judaism and Islam, and was indeed the first pope to visit a mosque, and the first (since St Peter) to enter a synagogue. He spoke of Jews as the "our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham" and said of the Muslims that "many of them may serve as a model for us in their devout worship of the one God." [Jonathan Kwitny, Man of the Century, p. 672.]

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The first in a continuing series...

April is the... month

April is National Poetry Month.

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Given my own interest in both poetry and intelligence, I'd like to echo David Brooks' challenge to the Intelligence Community in yesterday's New York Times. Brooks spoke in favor of the "generalist/humanist approach" of scholars using "their knowledge of history, literature, philosophy and theology to recognize social patterns and grasp emerging trends" -- and concluded:

I'll believe the intelligence community has really changed when I see analysts being sent to training academies where they study Thucydides, Tolstoy and Churchill to get a broad understanding of the full range of human behavior.

Exactly. That, indeed, is why the HipBone analytic method uses quotes and anecdotes rather than quantities and statistics to model the complexities which beset us.

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For those who would be interested in further pursuit of these matters, I'd recommend Anthony Judge of the UIA's extraordinary paper, Poetry-making and Policy-making: Arranging a Marriage between Beauty and the Beast.

Jewish Identity

Two wrinkles on the already contested topic of the varieties of Jewish identity -- some "Jews" who aren't, but seem to be, and a missing tribe of Jews who are, but might not appear so at first glance.

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The case of the Bnei Menasche is fascinating, not least because according to this article, evangelical Christians appear to be fundraising to support conversion of a group that was Christian not so long ago to Orthodox Judaism. I suspect this goes along with the idea that supporting the Jews in this way and at this time will hasten the building of the Temple and the Second Coming of Christ, in a timeline that also includes the "conversion of the Jews" -- at which point those who fail to become Christians will be put to the sword in the battle of Armageddon. Or as Richard Landes puts it:

During apocalyptic times, Christians have a tendency to be philo-Semitic. ... They believe that if they love Jews, they will convert. That's the equivalent of a high school crush. ... When the disillusionment comes, you end up with apocalyptic scapegoating, 'We weren't wrong -- the Jews have betrayed us again.'

Very different from the generous spirit of Karol Wojtyla described in another DoubleQuotes today.

From another angle, this is interesting in light of the ongoing "courtship" between India and Israel in matters military, political and economic.

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The Jewishness of the Ajax supporters (another soccer connection here!) isn't "real" -- but it nonetheless has its own traditions and thus momentum, and won't necessarily be easy to turn off now that it's becoming clear that what began as a philosemitic reference is having antisemitic consequences.

Games of peace

See also:

Muslims go the whole hog to root for Team India
Express News Service
Posted online: Saturday, March 13, 2004

Ahmedabad, March 12: It's Friday and the eve of the first one-dayer between rivals — cricketing and otherwise. India and Pakistan. In normal times, a rally and mass prayers in Muslim areas would have pushed the city to the brink and kept police on their toes.

But, obviously, these are different times. There is a thaw in the relations between the two nations, who have revived cricketing ties after 14 years. And the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is reaching out to Muslims.

In Ahmedabad — where rumours and just one firecracker let off after an India loss have been enough to spark off riots — Friday saw Muslims go the extra mile to prove that they are not pro-Pakistan and rooted for India’s victory. More than anyone else.

In fact, Friday capped a week-long show of solidarity the Muslims have been playing out on the streets of Ahmedabad to "remove the impression that we are anti-nationals because we pray for Pakistan's victory and that we were responsible for Godhra and post-Godhra riots."

While the community has taken the initiative in most cases, the police too have played their role in ensuring that the community is out on the streets, when in the past they would ensure both the communities stuck to their respective localities.

The day began with a gathering of 7,000 Muslims in Jama Masjid, where they prayed for India's success. Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Siddiqui called upon the gathering to cheer for the Indian team.

"Hindustan is our land and it's the duty of each Muslim to be faithful to it," he said, and added that "the impression that Muslims are not loyal to India has to change. We will have to prove this by supporting the team openly."

Buzkashi and more

Games played with or without the heads of animals and humans... Afghans are a famously fierce people, but not the fiercest in this pair of quotes -- offered as an oblique reminder that the "rules of engagement" to which we in the western world are accustomed are far from universally observed.