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5 Reasons Hollywood Needs to Stop Making Prequels
#2. What's the Opposite of Suspense?
Even if film makers can avoid all of the pitfalls mentioned above, there's one problem that's almost guaranteed to sink a prequel before it even sets sail. It's called suspense, or rather the lack thereof. The vast majority of movies that get prequels are action films, a genre that's driven by the conceit that death is around every corner.
No matter HOW cool your costume looks.
A prequel crushes this tension right from the get go. In Star Wars Episodes I through III we know that Anakin, Yoda, Obi-Wan, Palpatine, R2-D2 and C-3PO all have to be alive at the end. Same thing goes for Wolverine, Cyclops, Sabertooth and Stryker in Origins.
But you don't need it to be a movie with sword fights for a prequel to suck. Once the question of "Where's this going? Is this character going to make it?" has been eliminated, the question at the back of our mind becomes "How are we going to get there? Is it going to live up to the vague versions of events I've already supplied in my mind?" Instead of getting swallowed up by the film, the audience is passively judging it. It's the same reason people who have read the book always say they liked it better. The version you had in your head was made specifically for you by your brain. Instead of getting involved in the story, you're sitting back judging how the movie version is different from the choices you made.
We would have given Hannibal a 'fro.
This is probably what tricks us into thinking that prequels are easy to make. We're seeing someone tell a story that we've already told ourselves. This leads us to believe that telling the story our way would have been better. And it would have been. For you. But the rest of the audience would hate your answers just as much as you hated George Lucas'.
#1. There Are Only Two Good Movie Prequels (And They Weren't Really Prequels)
Of course, it can't be impossible to make a good prequel. Right? Cinephiles generally point to two films for proof that the concept can work. The first one is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Wait, you didn't know it was a prequel? That's because the only signal that we've gone back in time to before the events of Raiders is the title card at the beginning that mentions that it takes place in 1935 (Raiders took place in 1936).
In fact, according to Lucas and Spielberg, the only reason it took place before Raiders was because Lucas didn't want the Nazis to be the villains again. If he set the film after Raiders, it would have to have taken place during WWII. They just made another movie with the same central character and called it a prequel so Indiana Jones would be remembered as an adventurer instead of that guy who fights Nazis with a bullwhip. It was a prequel in as much as an episode of Seinfeld from Season 4 was a prequel to an episode from Season 5.
Of course, there's no way to discredit Godfather Part II which, according to prequel defenders, invented and perfected the idea of the movie prequel at the same time by showing how Vito Corleone rose to power.
And provided fodder for this comedy classic.
Except the second Godfather was even less of a prequel than Temple of Doom. Almost exactly one hour, or way less than a third, of the movie takes place in the past. Michael Bay puts more of his movies in slow motion. The idea of setting so many scenes in the past worked brilliantly alongside the story that was unfolding in the present, just like it did in Lost when it was called a flashback.
This was back before his wine years.
Hollywood seized on the flashback part, and over thirty terrible prequels later, they still haven't learned what Coppola knew when he "invented" the convention. And unless Hollywood starts hating money, Ridley Scott's upcoming Alien prequel isn't going to slow the onslaught. We'll all probably go see it, even though we know we'll be disappointed. At least now we'll all know why.
As long as they go over Hicks' past as a college Foosball champion.
Be sure to check out The Truth About The Epic Beard Man Viral Video and The TIE Fighter Pilot Who Saved The Day in 'Star Wars'.


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Seriously. As an undergrad my thesis was on elliptic curves and modular forms, and I've done applied industrial research that invoked toric varieties, so it's not like I'm a partisan here. But this can't be a representative cross-section of mathematical questions. How can this be fixed? (I mean the word "fixed".)
closed as off topic by Ben Webster♦ Nov 20 '09 at 19:49
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I agree that the founder effect is a significant factor, but I also have another (more crackpot-ish) theory. I think some disciplines, like algebraic geometry, are harder to pick up in a traditional classroom setting, or out of a book. In practice, they are more often learned like a language, through repeated exposure and watching other people do it. Of course, to some extent this is true for most disciplines, but I think its more true for algebraic geometry than for analogously hard disciplines. If you grant my point, then there would be an over-representation of these disciplines on the internet, because they are looking for explanations and intuition unavailable in technical contexts. I think a similar statement is true for category theory, for instance.
Founder effect. The people who launched the site are mostly in Greater Algebraic Geometry, and they naturally post a lot, which in turn induces people (like me) who are inclined towards these areas to visit the site a lot. If the site becomes widely popular I'd expect to see a distribution of questions which "looks like mathematics," to paraphrase Bill Clinton.
We have been here before with the arXiv. This site is (somewhat inadvertently) a massive work of social engineering. It is a social dynamical system, and it spreads where it wants to spread. Yes it is the founder effect, but it is more general than that. It is going to spread unevenly in different areas for a long time.
To amplify Greg Muller's answer, introductory courses in algebraic geometry tend to have a lot of definitions and wave vaguely at motiviation. So students starting out in the field often want to find "native speakers" who can help them understand how everything fits together.
I'm sure that founder effect is also a big factor, as JSE suggests.
I think that in some fields people are more active in the internet. There seems to be some correlation between the most popular tags here and the number of blogs in the corresponding section in the mathematics/statistics blog wiki here:
I do not know the relative proportion of algebraic geometers to other mathematicians but it may be in some fields the internet is more useful than others and there is more activity of the people in the field.

subset: commoncrawl


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What algorithms are used in modern and good-quality random number generators?
Don't miss this wonderful post by Marsaglia. He's not a fan of the Mersenne Twister and offers some strong PRNGs with exceptionally small code footprints. One of his examples is:
My favorite is Mersenne twister. Excellent quality and very fast.
You can find lots of implements in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_twister
I would recommend looking at the paper associated with TestU01:
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~simardr/testu01/tu01.html (see the "Paper" link on this page)
This has some good info on modern PRNG algorithms, as well as a comparison using a very rigorous test suite called Big Crush. Many common PRNG's fail, but there are a few simpler examples that pass. Notably, the Mersenne twister fails some tests--though this is probably irrelevant for most work unless you are actually looking for linear relations on the output bits.
Some good GPL code is available here, implementing Mersenne twister variants and "mother-of-all" (which does pass Big Crush):
Blum-Blum-Shub was the first (and still most popular) provably-secure PRNG (assuming only QRP), despite being incredibly simple. It's very slow compared to non-secure PRNGs, though.
Many LCGs are still used simply because they are built in to main libraries and have become the de facto standard. They produce terrible output, and do not scale well with state size.
Increasingly MT19937 ("The Mersenne Twister") is replacing LCGs as the most popular RNG. Why this should be is not clear to me, as MT19937 is a mediocre algorithm distinguished by the mathematical proofs about it. It offers provable lack of short term correlation and provable very long period. It is a step up from LCGs, failing only the most stringent of statistical tests. The basic algorithm used is terrible, but the combination of large state size and output hashing ("tempering") allows it to rise to the level of kinda-decent.
I am particularly fond of ISAAC (and it's cousin IBAA) as a high quality RNG of decent speed, with the added bonus of suitability for use in cryptographic applications. They do have a large state size though, almost as large as MT19937. ISAAC is semi-popular - a lot more obscure than MT19937, but still among the better known non-LCG RNGs.
The L'Ecuyer TestU01 paper mentioned in an earlier reply is a good place to find a long list of decent RNGs. It includes a list of many semi-popular RNGs with each RNGs speed and result on the SmallCrush / Crush / BigCrush suite of statistical tests. So, if you just look through the list for every RNG that passes BigCrush and is reasonably fast, that's a list of okay RNGs right there. Some of the RNGs listed, particularly the slower ones, are of more interest to mathematicians analyzing RNGs than to developers who might need to actually use them.
Note that passing all statistical tests is not a very high bar. There are a variety of fast simple RNGs with small states that pass all statistical tests, most of which rarely get used or even mentioned.
P. L'Ecuyer at the University of Montreal is considered one of the world's experts on random generators. You can Google him and find out what he has to say.
By far the most popular PRNG in wild is the Mersenne Twister, which is the default RNG for Python, Ruby, PHP, MATLAB, the GSL, and C++11. You'd have to be looking in research papers about RNGs specifically, or in a project concerned with testing RNGs to really find anything else.
AES in CTR mode is one of the best and fastest CSPRNGs. It provides a great amount of pseudorandomness at a high bandwidth.


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Two restrooms in the Smith College Museum of Art blur the boundaries between form and function as well as personal and public space. The public restrooms, located on the lower level directly adjacent to the exhibition gallery, are permanent works of art created separately by noted artists Ellen Driscoll and Sandy Skoglund. Driscoll's women's room, titled Catching the Drift, is a serene immersion in an underwater world. Skoglund's men's restroom, Liquid Origins, Fluid Dreams, is a visual blizzard of black and white that Skoglund, a Smith alumna, hopes will intrigue startled visitors into a closer look at the images on each tile.
The Museums Concentration draws on the educational resource of the Smith College Museum of Art's collection of more than 23,000 original works of art, on the expertise of its professional staff, and on the exceptional academic programs of Smith College and the Five Colleges that support learning in this area


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hi there, i have the following pde: $$(\partial_x x^4 \partial_x - \partial_t^2)y(x,t)=0$$ and found the solution $$y=a+t^2-1/x^2$$, with a a constant. Is this solution unique? Does anyone know of any other solution, tricks to generate other solutions? Thankful for help. Regina
Since your equation is linear and homogeneous, linear combinations of solutions are solutions. Basic solutions include $1$ and $t^2 - 1/x^2$ from your solution, as well as $1/x^3$, $t$, and $(1-a/x) \exp(a/x) \exp(a t)$ and $(1-b/x) \exp(b/x) \exp(-b t)$ for any constants a and b.
PDEs look like ODEs, but only look like. The solution set of an ODE of order $n$ is usually parametrized by $n$ scalar (integration constant). On the contrary, the solution set of a PDE of order $n$ in $d$ independent variables ($d=2$ in your case) is usually parametrized by $n$ functions of $d-1$ variables. This is clear in the hyperbolic case because you just solve a Cauchy problem with initial data on a non-characteristic hypersurface. More generally, if the equation has analytic coefficients, you can apply the Cauchy-Kowalevskaia Theorem.
In conclusion, your explicit solutions are far from unique.
More generally, $F(t + 1/x) - x F'(t + 1/x)$ and $F(t - 1/x) + x F'(t - 1/x)$ for any differentiable function F.


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I know that in electron guns we see in TV's and lots of other places, we have electron emitter (cold/hot W needle in the simplest case) and electrons are accelerated using lattice with high-voltage potential.
But the question is why doesn't this lattice slow down electrons once they passes through it?
PS. Please correct if lattice is not the correct word here :-D


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Assume I have found and want to eat a to me unknown kind of mushroom. Is there some way to find out if that mushroom is poisonous by looking/smelling/soaking it?
No as per: "There are no outward characteristics that all poisonous mushrooms have in common, so picking and eating wild mushrooms requires the utmost caution. To be absolutely safe, the only mushrooms you should eat are those found at supermarkets and restaurants!
All the old wives' tales about how to tell if a mushroom is poisonous – such as whether it tarnishes silverware or turns blue when bruised – are dead wrong.
There's a saying that there's no such thing as an old, bold mushroom hunter."
There's a process in the US Army Survival manual on how to determine which plants are suitable for eating and/or hygiene purposes, but even it states:
You cannot tell, and there is no specific single method.
This is definitely one of those things that cannot just be described on a Q&A site like this.
Start studying, without eating.
Find an expert and train your eyes and other senses.
Graduate to gathering and have someone else confirm your identification prior to cooking.
Even those experts do sometimes make mistakes, there are just so many kinds of fungi.
As my Scout-master used to say "You can eat any mushroom you want. At least once..."
Good Luck - be careful
The only way to know if a mushroom is poisonous is to have a mushrooms book, or (better) to be an expert.
Feed the unknown mushroom to someone you don't like. After they die and you get put on trial for murder, the prosecutor will put some fancy biologist on the stand to recite some long string of latin sounding words that are the name of the mushroom. Ta-da! You now know the name of the mushroom and that it is poisonous.


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The 5 Most Inspiring Things Ever Accomplished (While Drunk)
#2. Selim II Conquers Cyprus/Cripples the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Sultan Selim II, aka "The Drunkard," made wine his official doctrine. No, seriously: The Selim doctrine was an actual thing, and all it consisted of was, "Keep Selim drunk."
Him? The guy wrapped in a rubber ducky shower curtain, drunk? You don't say...
Selim cared about only two things: drinking and his epic poetry ... about drinking. Cyprus wine was his favorite, so at least he had good taste: Cypriot commandaria remains one of the oldest and most celebrated wines in history. Unfortunately for Selim, even the most extravagant and kingly of bottles have a bottom to them. He eventually ran out of his preferred wine... until Joseph Nassy came along and suggested that if the Ottomans were to invade Cyprus, Selim would have all the wine he could possibly want. Which is a bit like proposing to your friends that you fire-bomb a 7-Eleven because you ran out of Heineken, but Selim rolled with it and declared war against an entire territory just to steal its wine. The Ottomans launched a massive invasion of the island with tens of thousands of men that laid siege to its cities and massacred some 20,000 of its civilians.
Beer run!
Selim's brutal conquest eventually spurred the West into action. They formed a Venetian-Genoese-Papal-Spanish coalition known as the Holy League, and with their combined forces they won a spectacular naval victory against the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto. It was one of the most crucial battles in history and the turning point of the millennium-spanning war between the Muslim East and the Christian West, in which the Ottomans lost 30,000 sailors and 90 percent of their navy.
This epic slice of military awesome is brought to you by alcoholism.
But Selim II somehow remained in control of Cyprus after the Ottoman annihilation at Lepanto, so as far as he was concerned, he had his wine, and that meant he was victorious. The Ottomans never recovered their losses, and Selim promptly ran his country into the ground until he died in 1574 when he fell on a marble floor and fractured his skull. But take heart, friends, for he died exactly as he lived: hilariously drunk.
We'll just say he drowned doing a body shot.
#1. Ulysses S. Grant Wins the American Civil War While Hammered
Union general Ulysses S. Grant suffered from perhaps the most unfair reputation of all the generals during the Civil War: He was widely regarded as a common drunk. Oh, the drunk part is true -- but he was anything but common. It is the conclusion of more than one expert on the subject, including President Abraham Lincoln himself, that Grant suffered from a unique form of alcoholism that "made him a better field commander."
Also, we're pretty sure that's a keg he's being sworn in over.
The beauty of Grant's particular breed of alcoholism was that it made him into exactly the type of leader Lincoln needed. He didn't need a gentleman to win the Civil War -- he needed the kind of don't-give-a-fuck attitude that only a dude who gets plowed on active battlefields can bring to the table. According to numerous historians and historical journals, the secret to Grant's military success was not that he was a drunk, but that he knew he was a drunk. This gave him a distinct advantage over his Confederate adversaries, because Grant "had absolutely nothing to lose," whereas the rebels, being ordinary human beings, had plenty to lose: Land, families, limbs, dignity -- you name it. Because Grant had been a complete failure at everything he had ever applied himself to throughout his entire life, he "had nowhere to go but up," and he knew it. In other words, he was exactly the loser Lincoln needed.
Aw, poor wittle guy...
Grant fought the Civil War harder than any other general of his time because, when any normal person would succumb to fear or overwhelming odds and retreat, Grant simply got himself so drunk that he could "brush aside caution" and go the extra distance. He was a self-aware alcoholic, meaning that he knew when an impossible situation simply required him to be drunk enough to do the unthinkable, and he was willing to take that Whiskey Bullet for Team America. Once Grant was promoted to commander of the Union Army, he was able to execute what no other Union general had dared: an utterly relentless war against the South, day and night.
Grant: The only man to mushroom-stamp the South.
Before Grant came along, major battles were months apart, and more often than not, they resulted in Union retreats. But thanks to his specific, self-administered prescription of alcohol, Grant was able to throw caution to the wind and force the South to fight a war of brutal attrition. Historians describe Grant's benders as providing "a release, but a controlled one, like the ignition of a gas flare above a high-pressure oil well" that he used to defeat the South and bring the bloodiest war in American history to an end.
Pictured: How Grant gets his drink on.
For more incredible acts done while under the influence, check out The 5 Greatest Things Ever Accomplished While High. Or learn about some people accomplished amazing feats post-mortem, in The 6 Greatest Things Accomplished by Dead Bodies.
And stop by Linkstorm to see what drunk geniuses await on the Internet. (Hardly any.)
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed.
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A New Zealand woman celebrating her 65th wedding anniversary said the secret to lasting love is having an active life together.
"We're always going out dancing, going to the clubs, housie, visiting family," Dorothy Inglis said. "Having an active life keeps you young. It's also important to have common interests. We both love dancing, gardening, socializing and traveling."
Inglis said her husband also supports her in her daredevil pursuits, which include speed boating and bungy jumping.
"It makes me happy and Peter always waits for me," she said.
DISCUSS AND COMMENT ON THIS STORYReality TV World now offers Facebook Comments on our stories. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then 'Add' your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the 'X' in the upper right corner of the comment box.


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|Reduced environmental impact, both at the manufacturing stage and over the life of the tyre.
It's not a slogan or a sensationalist statement but an achieved objective.
The "Green Performance" range uses new compound materials and innovative carcass structures that mean safety and driving pleasure remain unchanged, on both dry and wet surfaces, whilst having a low environmental impact.


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I was just wondering if there are any major advantages or disadvantages to using either XAML/C# or HTML5/JavaScript for Metro Apps.
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closed as not constructive by maple_shaft♦ Dec 5 '12 at 18:30
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As a little background, I built the American Airlines Windows 8 app in HTML5. I have to say it was fantastic.
First, drop all your ideas of HTML5 as it relates to mobile apps. In Windows 8, JavaScript is a first class native language. You have access to all the hardware features that a XAML app would. There are also fantastic templates built into Visual Studio 2012 for WinJs applications.
WinJs is not just some half thought webview implementation. Microsoft is finally showing JS the respect it deserves.
I would suggest getting up to speed with the latest and greatest in IE10. Honestly that is the core framework for all of the WinJs stuff. It is powerful and fast! Here's an example of what you can do with it: http://www.cuttherope.ie/.
Also, here's a great place to get started with WinJs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211385.aspx
The future looks bright for JS as a native language for Windows.
Both. Because both are being adopted by developers (though not at the same time, what I mean is while some devs are using XAML/C#, some others are using HTML/JS). For those coming from a Web app dev background, it's easier to transition to HTML/JS. And for those aleady familiar with XAML through WPF and Silverlight, it would make sense to carry over the skills to XAML+C#. And as far as results are concerned, both technologies are showing good results. So my guess is both would be equally good in the years to come.
Metro Apps built using the HTML5/JS APIs will probably be classified as "simpler", compared to their C#/XAML counterparts. While the former will certainly be capable of creating functional, well designed apps, there will undoubtedly be a limit to the capabilities of an app built in HTML5. On the flip side, while C# might be more capable, it's also more complicated. An HTML5 app will be very easy to design and maintain, comparatively.
At least, that's my best estimated guess. I don't have experience developing Win8 apps (yet).
Both are going to run on WinRT (aka trimmed down version of Windows 8 which is used on MS Surface device).
It will totally depend on developers preference . Thus, developers with HTML5/JS experience will be equally powered to develop for Window 8.
Not a MS programmer - From a programmers standpoint, it would be worth investing your time and effort in a platform agnostic, open standard like JS + HTML 5. The knowledge you gain can be re-used elsewhere.
Win 8 supports JS natively, so there wouldn't be much you cannot accomplish using it.
Yes, in most cases, JavaScript is a native language. Depending on where it's running, its compiled (JIT Style) into machine code.
For example, if you're running the Chrome browser, the V8 engine does just that which is mentioned above. It's my understanding that IE 10 is doing the same, as with the other prevalent browsers which support the ECMAScript 262 standard.
Entou, in most cases JavaScript is no longer an interpreted language. It's a full-fledged, Object-Oriented, Prototypal-based, client/ server-side, ubiquitous programming language.


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The Best Day of Someone Else's Life (Paperback)
Despite being cursed with a boy's name, Kevin "Vi" Connelly is seriously female and a committed romantic. The affliction hit at the tender age of six when she was handed a basket of flower petals and ensnared by the "marry-tale." The thrill, the attention, the big white dress—it's the Best Day of Your Life, and it's seriously addictive. But at twenty-seven, with a closetful of pricey bridesmaid dresses she'll never wear again, a trunkful of embarrassing memories, and an empty bank account from paying for it all, the illusion of matrimony as the Answer to Everything begins to fray. As her friends' choices don't provide answers, and her family confuses her more, Vi faces off against her eminently untrustworthy boyfriend and the veracity of the BDOYL.
Eleven weddings in eighteen months would send any sane woman either over the edge or scurrying for the altar. But as reality separates from illusion, Vi learns that letting go of someone else's story to write your own may be harder than buying the myth, but just might help her make the right choices for herself.
About the Author
Kerry Reichs, a graduate of Duke University School of Law and Stanford Institute of Public Policy, practiced law in Washington, D.C. She is the author of The Best Day of Someone Else's Life and Leaving Unknown.


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Origin and Etymology of premiere
alteration of 1premier
First Known Use: 1768
Rhymes with premiere
affair, aglare, airfare, Ajmer, Altair, antbear, armchair, au pair, aware, bakeware, barware, Basseterre, Baudelaire, beachwear, bergère, beware, bid fair, big hair, black bear, bricklayer, broodmare, brown bear, bugbear, caneware, carfare, Carrère, cave bear, chi-square, clayware, club chair, compare, compere, confrere, cookware, corsair, courseware, creamware, crosshair, cudbear, daymare, dead air, decare, deck chair, declare, delftware, despair, dishware, éclair, elsewhere, ensnare, eyewear, fanfare, fieldfare, firmware, flatware, Flaubert, footwear, forbear, forebear, forswear, foursquare, freeware, funfair, galère, giftware, glassware, Great Bear, groupware, Gruyère, guard hair, hardware, health care, hectare, high chair, horsehair, hot air, impair, infare, Khmer, Kildare, knitwear, life-care, light air, longhair, loungewear, Mayfair, menswear, meunière, midair, mohair, Molière, neckwear, nightmare, no fair, outstare, out-there, outwear, playwear, plein air, plowshare, Poor Clare, Port Blair, portiere, prepare, pushchair, rainwear, redware, repair, root hair, Sancerre, sea hare, shank's mare, shareware, shorthair, side chair, Sinclair, skiwear, sleepwear, slipware, sloth bear, software, somewhere, spongeware, sportswear, stemware, stoneware, sun bear, swimwear, threadbare, tinware, torchère, trouvère, tuyere, unfair, unhair, unswear, Voltaire, warfare, welfare, wheelchair, wirehair, workfare
Simple Definition of premiere
: the first time a film, play, television show, etc., is shown or performed
Examples of premiere in a sentence
The movie will have its premiere next week.
Variants of premiere
premièreplay \same as 1premiere\
Origin and Etymology of premiere
French première, from feminine of premier first
First Known Use: 1889
Other Performing Arts Terms
Simple Definition of premiere
of a movie, play, television show, etc. : to be shown or performed for the first time
: to show or perform (a movie, play, television show, etc.) for the first time
Full Definition of premiere
transitive verb
: to give a first public performance of
intransitive verb
1 : to have a first public performance
2 : to appear for the first time as a star performer
See premiere defined for English-language learners
Examples of premiere in a sentence
The movie premieres next week.
First Known Use of premiere
Other Performing Arts Terms
PREMIERE Defined for Kids
Definition of premiere for Students
: a first showing or performance
Definition of premiere for Students
: to have a first showing or performance <The movie premieres next week.>
Learn More about premiere
Spanish Central: Translation of premiere Nglish: Translation of premiere for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of premiere for Arabic speakers
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up premiere? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).


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I'm not sure what that exactly means. Why do people use the term vacuum like this? Please advise.
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Anything done "in a vacuum" means it was done with no interference, no influence, no disturbances. It is referring to the vacuum in space, where there is no air, no nothing.
For "programming in a vacuum", it would imply that a programmer is just programming by themselves. Probably need more context to know whether or not this is suppose to be a positive attribute or a negative. It could mean the programmer is doing things wrong because they aren't getting any outside help or instructions, or a good thing, because the programmer is not being disturbed and can concentrate on the job at hand.
A vacuum is empty space; a void. A vacuum is often held up as a place where conditions are perfect and ideal, unlike the real world:
The idea of doing an activity, such as programming, in a vacuum, can refer to the idea of doing it without a surrounding environment or without context and purpose. An author might use such a phrase to emphasize that this is unrealistic, as in this essay by Philip Guo:
Or, an author can make the point that working without a surrounding environment, without peers, would be like being in a vacuum, as in this IBM article about peer code review:
Programming "in a vacuum", similar to doing anything in said state, is a reference to attempting to perform that task without any outside information of any kind. It is indeed, as others have said, a reference to the vacuum of space, where there is very little if anything to influence the path of an object moving through it.
In programming, it is generally not a good thing. It means that the programmer is not receiving any feedback regarding what he is currently doing, and so, while his code may be well-designed and bug-free, It can still be wrong if it doesn't meet the client's needs. While it may be good for programmers to work in isolation, where communication between clients and programmers is controlled through intermediaries or liasons (thus removing a source of direct pressure on the programmers from clients who need it done yesterday for free), it is virtually impossible to produce a good product if there is no source of feedback into the development process whatsoever.


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This project will create and implement an online didactic SAFE curriculum, taught over a 15 week period of time through a series of web-based modules and followed by a two-day clinical skills workship. The course will be offered four times between 2011 and 2012, allowing for a maximum of 75 clinician's in each training wave. Overall, this project will train 300 SAFEs over the cours of 15 months. All modules created for the course, including the clinical skills workship, will be abailable to selected trainees at no cost. A goal of this project is to serve the needs of rural and tribal communities with limited access to training resources. Additionally, this project is being evaluated by Wayne State University, and therefore contains a significant evaluation component and committment. For this reason, providers who have already completed a SAFE/SANE training and are currently practicing as a SAFE/SANE, including thos who have already achieved SANE-A certification, will not be considered for participation in this course.
Links:[1] http://www.iafn.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=655
[2] http://www.nsvrc.org/event-type/trainings


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There are very few disciplines which mathematics has not penetrated. As a pupil finds such gem in the calculus problem of theory of rumors, he wonders if such field has application in vaudevillian arts such as tarot reading or theory of juggling. As one digs further one may finds terms as oracle, Napier's bone, Polya urn model, Witch of Agnesi, Faddeev-Popov ghost and Soul theorem which of course has nothing to do with occult in general. Although the field has been applied to understanding phenomenon which at first seemed improbable to understand gambling or betting on race horses, one is equally vexed to find there is no mathematics of vexillology. One fondly remembers the scene in A Beautiful Mind where a young John Nash was studying flight of pigeons for game theory.
Since a mathematician is prone to see patterns between seemingly disconnected fields it brings me to question what further areas can be bridged by cross-pollination?
Some fuel for thought of fields where the subject can be applied:
Mathematics of Vexillology and Heraldry
How can a formal theory be constructed that will aid to generate random, new geometrical patterns (designs) from the constraint of 63 representing symbols?
Mathematics of Choreography
Can one apply braid theory to choreograph puppetry, fencing, kali or dancing patterns from software?
Surveillance Theory
How can we generalize the concept of Panopticon or sousveillance?
Mathematics of Locksmithing
Although theory of locksmithing exist, can one apply algebraic topology to generalize the concept of locks using knot theory?
Mathematics of Smuggling or "Hustling"
In youtube one can find videos of the show Hustle which conceives elaborate means of schemes and hustle. How can the process of transporting a concealed object from an agent to agent around obstacles be modeled or formalized using graph theory?
"Theory of Plots and Sub-Plots"
Aristotle's Three Act structure is still used in screenwriting. However, can one create templates for story? Do patterns exist between story plots or heist? Can it be modeled mathematically? or even plots based on data-mining of musical scores.
Formalizing punchlines
In pursuit of Loebner prize now bots are eavesdropping on twitters; computers can even detect sarcasm. Similarly is it possible to create a program generating witty, one-liner advertising slogans from data-mining from twitters, proverbs, foreign expressions, existing ad slogans, etcetera?
Mathematics of Culinary Theory & Recipes
Can swarm intelligence be used to model NFL or NHL offense patterns?
Of course, a general question would be to ask: Can creativity be automated? But, one can, break down the notion of creativity to further sub-divisions.
What fields would you like to see applications of mathematics?
I sincerely believe this endeavor will encourage non-mathematicians chancing upon this site shed their inputs for a collaboration in a marriage of disparate fields.


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10 Awesome Ads (For Traumatizing Children)
Sometimes it's because TV ads try a little too hard to be "edgy." Sometimes it's because ad executives are fucking insane. Regardless of the reason, since the television was invented, it has brought us ads so unintentionally terrifying that they'll haunt you forever.
So hold on to your butts, because we've gone out and found 10 ads that are sure to leave a lasting impression . . . in your nightmares.
#10. Kinder Surprise
The Marketing Meeting:
Ferrero President: We need a hook for our horrible chocolate eggs filled with two cents worth of plastic. For some bizarre reason kids are not all over them.
Marketing guy: I propose a commercial with a Humpty Dumpty rip off. A beloved icon shaped as an egg.
Ferrero President: Wonderful. But what if we give him a nightmarish face and gently imply he is mentally retarded?
Marketing guy: And then when the children start weeping, their parents will comfort them with our chocolate! That is why you are president, sir.
The Result:
What the Fuck?
If insanity were a living creature, chances are this is what its nightmares would look like:
So this creature appears, and he's the love child of Humpty Dumpty and all of our darkest fears. He addresses the viewers who are now sitting in a puddle of their own piss, with an important announcement on the versatility and intrinsic details of the Ferrero Kinder Surprise: "Kinder, yebbol shakey." Well, thank you Humpty, that certainly needed to be said. "Me unscrabbly," continues the giant egg wrapped in human skin.
After that, the whole thing spirals into some sort of gibberish, which we are forced to assume are spells from the Necronomicon.
The monstrosity strategically forgets to tell you anything about the chocolate which holds the "awesome" prize, proving to us that even Ferrero knows they are behind a barrel of surplus WWII diarrhea in the taste department. But that's okay, because the lousy chocolate holds an even lousier plastic toy inside.A toy which, by the way, was apparently meant to be a chef in a red suit, but in this commercial, looks very much like a skinned torture victim:
#9. Tarako Pasta Sauce
The Marketing Meeting:
"I don't know man, cod roe pasta sauce? How will we make kids want to eat it?"
"Come on, all we need is a cute mascot. Like a toddler in a red blanket."
"Well... that sounds OK, I guess."
"And then we'll have thousands of them emerging from a spaceship, marching in formation in a terrifying mass with the obvious goal of enslaving humanity."
"Nothing... let's go film this thing."
The Result:
What the Fuck?
In what brings to mind a rendition of Village of the Damned... in Space, the invading identical army of blanket wrapped toddlers descends upon Earth from a turd-shaped spacecraft, all singing in perfect unison the immensely creepy chant of "Tarako."
Now, children are hideous monsters as it is, but when you have an apparently limbless army of them, advancing in a Roman Triangle Formation with their doll faced frozen expressions, chanting a tune which can only be described as a war song, then you are not that far away from your brain sending an evacuation order straight to your bowels.
But believe it or not, this is not even the fucked up part. No. What really drives us insane from horror and bewilderment is when the obviously tripping albino Japanese boy-girl stares emotionlessly at the hive consciousness legion of alien babies...
...after which the commercial cuts straight to the kid enjoying a plate of spaghetti. Why is that terrifying you ask? Here is what cod roe looks like, compared with an image from the commercial for your convenience:
That's right. The commercial implies that the kid ate the invading alien horde by turning them into pasta sauce. So, suddenly, what was probably devised as a cutesy commercial for a food product becomes a dramatic tale of a young albino on acid saving Earth by eating alien babies in the shape of human toddlers. We'll give you one guess as to which country this came from.
#8. PlayStation
The Marketing Meeting:
Guy#1: We need to tell our customers just how awesome and totally sweet the PlayStation is.
Guy#2: We could talk about its hardware, the assortment of games and online...
Guy#3: No! Creepy alien girls in pigtails talking gibberish with a Scottish accent!
Guy#1: ... promote this man!
The Result:
What the Fuck?
Never before has the theory of the uncanny valley been proven to such an extent. The... thing in the commercial possesses enough features to be sorta labeled a human, we guess, but there is something off here... something that makes you quiver in the deepest corners of your very soul... we don't know what though. Could be her hairstyle, lack of make-up or the fact she is an alien-human hybrid.
Our collective acid fantasy from Venus babbles nonstop for almost 40 seconds about humans, making a point to tell us she is not one them, in case you were wondering if subtlety was Sony's forte.
And just as a bonus, E.T. Girl laughs the laugh of the damned after something growls off camera, perhaps the sound of a fellow alien eating a human child. After that, the tagline, "Do Not Underestimate the Power of PlayStation," sounds very much like a threat.
#7. Norton Furniture
The Marketing Meeting:
Mark: I don't get it... we keep losing customers. What are we doing wrong?
Stuffed tiger: ...
Mark: Yes, I see, but where will we get the dancing hippo?
Stuffed bear: ...
Mark: I never actually tried cantaloupe.
Cop mannequin: ...
Mark: But isn't murder illegal?
The Result:
What the Fuck?
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to hear a furniture credit pitch from the bastard love child of Peter Lorre and Mr. Miyagi amidst a sea of stuffed animals giving away random growls? What? What do you mean "No"? You lie! Well, even if you didn't, Norton Furniture still provides an answer. A creepy, disturbing answer.
Welcome to Norton Furniture, can I paint your nipples green?
"Now, seriously, if you can't get credit in my store........ you can't get credit anywhere." The unusual emphasis on "seriously" and the long pause before finishing the sentence gives the whole thing an unintended feeling of danger. We are now afraid that if Norton declines us credit, we will not leave the store alive and end up inside one of his stuffed animals.
After you are left uneasy with this subtle threat and try to decide if Norton's voice sounds more like Igor from Frankenstein or Christopher Lambert's Rayden, you are a served a large portion of baked creepy when another of the supposedly "dead" animals growls at the furniture salesman causing him to consult his current situation with... a policeman mannequin.
#6. Nike Pro Apparel
The Marketing Meeting:
Nike.... Nike... Ni... ke.... shoes... shoes, people wear shoes on their feet, they play sports... Yes, sports, sports... ee... football, baseball... pro athletes.... arena sports... arena... big open arena... the Coliseum... Coliseum... dead Christians.... blood and gore.... Unrelenting horror strapped to the heads of pro athletes! I am a genius!
The Result:
What the Fuck?
Holy donkey balls on fire, what the hell is that in the first 0.5 seconds? Rewind. What the hell? Can barely make it out, the images move too fast. OK, in slow motion. What... in... the...
OK... so, from the very first nanoseconds of the commercial, Nike decided to thoroughly roofie up and rape our minds by planting subliminal messages of pure horror in their ad before immediately cutting to a bunch of MLB and NFL players posing for Sports Illustrated in some dark dreary basement which still looks, to us, like solitary confinement. To pass the time at their... well, prison--we guess, because we aren't seeing an exit anywhere--the guys engage in some typical sports oriented activities: throwing baseballs, footballs, swinging a bat. And then the whole thing not only goes back to Insanityville, it sets up shop there:
My sweet baseball is the only thing keeping me from going insane. That and my kickass wooden monkey mask.
In what we can only assume to have been the end result of a bet gone horribly wrong, each of the pro athletes starring in this cerebral enema of madness gets transformed into David Lynch's rendition of Power Rangers.
The last guy clearly does not understand the basic premise of a helmet.


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View the 2013 Annual Report (PDF).
For a copy of the 2013 Annual Report, send requests by email to the
Office of Public Affairs or call (414) 955-4725.
The year 2013 marked the 120th anniversary of the Medical College of Wisconsin. In this Report, we honor our anniversary by highlighting stories that connect our past and future and carry forward our legacy of creating healthier communities.
Working with partners in Green Bay and Central Wisconsin, MCW is developing an innovative community-based program designed to educate and train more physicians who will remain in Northeast and Central Wisconsin to practice.
A landmark advance more than 35 years ago has improved vision dramatically for thousands of patients with diabetic eye disease. Today, vision research at the Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Eye Institute seeks to actually prevent retinal eye disease.
Adults who were born with congenital heart disease find highly specialized, lifelong care at the Wisconsin Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program, a partnership of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and Froedtert Hospital.
The new Clinical Apprenticeship in Discovery Curriculum at the Medical College of Wisconsin is providing earlier and expanded clinical education for the next generation of physicians.
Using technology and tools that the Medical College of Wisconsin was a world leader in developing, a PhD student in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and her faculty mentor are pursuing brain research with potential to benefit cancer patients.
Medical College of Wisconsin researchers are studying intestinal bacteria as a promising new approach for the prevention of heart attacks and a range of other conditions, including pediatric liver disease and antibiotic-resistant, hospital-acquired infections.
A research collaboration is helping to eliminate obstacles to breast cancer screening among African American women in central Milwaukee. Research collaborators include members of the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center, Froedtert Hospital, and community leaders and advocates.
More city school children are getting the mental health treatment they need thanks to a collaboration led by the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Milwaukee Public Schools.
A collaborative effort by the Medical College of Wisconsin and dozens of partners in Barron County in northwestern Wisconsin is working to increase healthy eating and physical activity.
The Medical College of Wisconsin's Finance Report for fiscal year 2013-14
The Medical College of Wisconsin Board of Trustees
Advisory Boards for the Cancer Center, Cardiovascular Center, Digestive Disease Center and Neuroscience Center
Community Advisory Boards in both Green Bay and Central Wisconsin will assist MCW's Dean of the Medical School and the respective regional campus deans with the development and implementation of the local medical education programs.
The Medical College of Wisconsin/Marquette Medical Alumni Association provides services to strengthen connections among alumni and with the Medical College, and between students and alumni.
The Medical College's Office of Technology Development convenes the Technology Innovation Council to discuss the patenting, marketing, licensing and development of early stage biomedical technologies.
The consortium provides oversight for the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program and serves in an advisory capacity for conversion funds allocated to research and education at the College.
Women researchers and physicians at the Medical College of Wisconsin are making discoveries that are saving lives and improving treatments for patients with injuries and complex diseases.
The Planned Giving Council collaborates with area professional advisors to explore and develop mutual client and prospective donor relationships.
The Friends of The Medical College of Wisconsin is an organization of volunteers from the College, affiliated institutions and the community.
Medical College of Wisconsin
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(414) 955-8296
Directions & Maps
© 2016


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Please join us for a special series of online seminars for people affected by hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.
Please join us for our next online seminar for people affected by hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.
February 8, 2011
Presented by Noah Kauff, MD, FACog. Dr. Kauff discusses the latest research and expert opinions on whether most hereditary ovarian cancer begins in the fallopian tubes and approaches to ovarian cancer screening based on these findings.
View, download or subscribe to our Joining FORCEs newsletter. Access articles from past newsletters, too.
Watch the videos from a variety of presenters at our 2014 Joining FORCEs conference.


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Vatican II Continued
Catholics have been arguing about the Second Vatican Council—about what it did and didn't do, about what it meant and still means or what it never meant and could never mean—for half a century. Many reform-minded Catholics today are disappointed by what they see as a retreat, under the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, from the council's mandate for change, especially change in how the church is governed (see "Bishops or Branch Managers?"). Other Catholics, alarmed by the disarray that followed the council and mistrustful of attempts to reconcile Catholicism to a decadent, godless modern world, have applauded papal actions disciplining "dissenters" and reemphasizing traditional markers of Catholic identity. What reformers see as a rejection of the council's promise of intellectual openness and ecumenism, traditionalists view as an indispensible move to safeguard truths of faith threatened as much from within the church as from outside it. Catholics who grew up after the council, meanwhile, often dismiss the polemics of both sides. To them, the changes that so disrupted the everyday lives of pre–Vatican II Catholics—the vernacular Mass with its visible role for the laity and particularly for women, the cataclysmic decline in vocations, the virtual disappearance of confession, the tolerance for public dissent from church teachings—are unremarkable, and comprise the only church they've ever known.
The result, it seems, is that there are currently several different, sometimes contending ways of being Catholic. To some degree that has always been so. The notion of the church as a rigorously disciplined and monolithic enterprise is largely myth, and modern myth to boot (see "An Imagined Unity"). What is not myth, however, is the dramatic change in the self-understanding of Catholics brought about by the council. For at least two centuries Catholicism saw itself as a bulwark against the spread of pernicious liberal and democratic principles, and held fast to a monarchical and aristocratic worldview in which the church enjoyed a privileged civic, cultural, and political role. At Vatican II, the bishops called off this long and ultimately futile struggle against modernity. Not without ambivalence, they reconciled themselves to the separation of church and state and to the idea of religious liberty (see "Outvoted, Not Persecuted"). They then went further, extending the hand of fellowship to other Christians, to non-Christian religions, and especially to the Jewish community, while warmly endorsing human rights and aspirations for democratic self-determination. Even the pursuit of technological and material progress, long viewed with world-weary skepticism, was encouraged.
And so a church once narrowly focused on the world to come suddenly discovered much to praise in the world at hand. Most important, perhaps, the laity was now urged to bring its faith into the secular sphere, to transform a fallen world rather than retreat from it. This effort at aggiornamento, or updating, looked back to certain neglected aspects of the tradition (ressourcement) for inspiration and guidance. That project was in part an effort to find within the church's own traditions theological and philosophical sources that could more firmly ground and thus defend what was morally sound in the modern world's understanding of human dignity and individual liberty.
There is nothing intellectually, theologically, or politically tidy in this long-delayed encounter between the church and the post-Enlightenment world, as the ongoing struggles between the Vatican and theologians and the Vatican's recent criticism of women religious remind us. Nearly forty years ago, longtime Commonweal columnist John Cogley offered the following assessment of the council's aftermath: "The religious community that survived the early onslaught of bigotry, with a certain style; that built up an enormous citadel of protective institutions to protect its identity; and that valiantly fought its way out of the ghetto to achieve acceptance in American life may yet have to face its greatest challenge." As Cogley understood it, the challenge was the seemingly irresistible, yet questionable, attraction and authority of modernity itself, with its atomizing individualism, triumphant materialism, scientific hubris, and deep skepticism about the existence of any transcendent values or reality.
Can the church rise to this challenge? So far the results are mixed. What seems certain is that not everything that worked in the past will work now. The "New Evangelization" now being implemented must do more than resurrect the apologetics of an earlier era when the church had more social and moral capital at its disposal. The larger cultural situation has changed in fundamental ways, and so has the church. It is no longer possible to protect Catholic identity by encasing it in small, carefully guarded institutions; both American life and Catholic life in America are too fluid, too differentiated, too focused on a forever idealized future. Like it or not, Catholics of all theological and ecclesiological opinion have been profoundly shaped by the larger culture's deep skepticism toward hierarchical leadership and tradition itself. Cultivating more fruitful Catholic practices and associations will require experimentation and leadership (both lay and clerical).
Just before his death last month, Milan's Cardinal Carlo Martini lamented the institutional and pastoral paralysis gripping the European and American church. He cast a sorrowful eye on "pompous" liturgies, "empty" religious houses, and the church's stifling bureaucracy. "Where are our heroes today who can inspire us?" he asked, and went on to recommend that the pope and the bishops "find twelve unconventional people to take on leadership roles." What sort of unconventional people? "Those who are close to the poor," Martini specified; "who can galvanize young people by being willing to try new approaches."
One such "new" approach, as suggested by John Wilkins in this issue, would be a return to the council's embrace of collegiality, and the development of that tradition to include genuine lay participation.
It's important to keep in mind that over the centuries the church has found a way to flourish in every sort of culture, from empire to the industrializing nation-state. To be sure, today's world, where social and cultural bonds are often weak and fleeting, presents a unique challenge to an institution that thinks of itself as a cohesive community, possessing a tradition that unites believers even in their disagreements. The sometimes bitter disagreements among Catholics today are not going to end any time soon. But that should not be a cause for pessimism or despair. As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has reminded us, every institution or tradition is "partially constituted by an argument about the goods the pursuit of which gives to that tradition its particular point and purpose." In other words, robust debate about the church and its mission can be a sign of health. There will need to be more room, not less, for the "argument about the goods" of the Catholic tradition.
Modern men and women long for a unity of purpose that extends beyond mere individual striving or difference. Such unity is forged by the conviction that there is in fact meaning to suffering and death, and that the meaning and value of life itself can only be found in a good that reaches beyond this world. That was the first truth the council proclaimed, and to which it called every Catholic to give witness. The need for that witness is even greater now than it was fifty years ago.
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Without going into scandals, I have noticed that several American bishops have become shills of the political right wing (to wit Dolan and Wuerl), persecutors of nuns doing God's work, arrogant jerks like Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, NE and steered the Church away from its basic calling -- servant of the servants of God. Political capital has replaced humility in a way Bernard of Clairvaux would have hated -- he of the "Steps of Humility and Pride." By assuming that Catholic rights ought to be THE rights of free speech, trumping Jewish rights, Protestant rights, Muslim rights and even atheist rights, the Church has gone back to Vatican I and the triumphalism that made me shudder.
A study noted that over 80% of Catholic married women use safe and effective birth control to decide the size and circumstances of their families and you have hierarchical voices making them marginalized. How dare they? How many abortions would be prevented by taking the plunge and adding pastoral voices to medical voices so that women are guided rather than spat on.
Yes, I'm angry. John XXIII had a vision and it has been treated like garbage. It is going to take decades for the present prelates to go to their reward and a Church worthy of Jesus's sacrifice and John's vision created -- if it ever is to be created. I am often ashamed to admit I'm a theologian.
I am often ashamed to admit I'm a theologian
I'm sad to say you should be Karen. As a Catholic I'm ashamed for you and by you.
To the Editors: You want unity of purpose that extends beyond mere individual striving or difference?
Well then, follow and be one with Christ, cross and all. It's only because so many forget the "pick up the cross part" that 'theologians' like Karen have to insult good Bishops and rationalize against Church/Christ Teachings, being more concerned with being popular than the counter-cultural witness to Christ of which He Christ asks.
A good article, replete with truth but not perfect in prose, as Patriicia criticism of Karen's "I am often ashamed to admit I'm a theologian".
We should never be ashamed of our religious believes, both philosphically or theologically. As Catholics, we often find ourselves in disagreement with certain Church teachings. However, a disagreement should never be an reason to prevent us from a relationship with Christ or in seeking a consensus of truth.
As Catholics, theologians, clergy and laity, we are quick to criticize others who disagree for good and just reasons, even if those reasons are not recognized by "authority". To respond to Patricia, I would say many Catholics have not fogotten to "pick up the cross part". This is often an argument about "heroic virtue", as if this is the answer to those that disagree. Those on both sides of this argument should take a deep breath and respect the need for open, honest and respectful dialogue. Until the Vatican Curia opens "a closed book" to many sexual ethical teachings, so that we can try to reach a consensus of truth, there will be more of the same division and divisiveness that Christ himself would certainly be ashamed of. Unfortunately, IMO, this will take decades.
Michael are you even aware that the Catholic Church IS Jesus Christ? It's a revealed faith, period. If there is one thing we don't get to have our opinion of, in or out of season, is what Jesus Christ taught.
Vatican II has been gradually rolled back.
Rightly or wrongly, the Vatican is now seen as increasingly irrelevant - a haven that covers-up child abuse, that is dry, dusty, completely devoid of charity in any sense of the word, and explicitly authoritarian rather than self-questioning.I won't go into a long jeremiad about all that is wrong. I will pick out one thing that I believe is doing, and will do, the Church as great a harm as the Galileo fiasco.The Church is poorly informed on biological issues, and the policies it's adopting based on complete biological misconceptions are causing immense harm. Had the Spirit of Vatican II continued, this would not and could not have happened, there would have been less authoritarianism, and more listening.Examples -
The Indonesian congress of Catholic Bishops pronounced that anyone with 2X chromosomes (and only someone with at minimum 2 X chromosomes) was female - with all that entails in terms of marriage, allowable sexual behaviour, proper mode of dress, suitability for the priesthood etc.But 1 in 450 men are XXY. Many are fathers. For that matter, some women are XY, and some have given birth."Life begins at Conception" - except sometimes a fertiised egg splits, resulting in two people who are genetically identical. Rarely, they are of opposite sexes. Moreover, two fertilised eggs can fuse, resulting in a single person with two separate gene lines.Personhood therefore cannot begin at conception, but must begin sometimes afterwards - if you believe in concepts like ensoulment, concepts an essential part of Catholic belief.
As for Transsexuality - the USCCB has actively campaigned for the continued persecution in employment opportunities of both Intersex and Trans people, solely on the grounds of "freedom of association", a 180 degree turnaround from their published letters on human rights in the 60's.We now know that Transsexuals, like those born Intersex, have anatomy that is neither wholly male nor female, but something in between. Also, that such congenital conditions are far more common than once thought, they're just not obvious to cursory examination.I foresee as big a blow-up about the science of biology as there was about the science of astronomy. Bad policies, false dogma, injustice and cruelty based not just on pardonable ignorance, but obstinate refusal to admit error.
We lived in Holland/Belgium from 1962 to 1971 and lived through the economic contraction and liberalization of the Catholic Church there. Churches were closed and the property sold for office buildings or apartments. Catholic schools and Convents were closed, religious dress was discarded, the living quarters at the seminaries were closed and young seminarians lived on the local economy so they could, as the Bishop put it, learn about life, including the sexual, before taking vows. Hippy masses were conducted by priests, usually married or living with someone and ex-priests, in living rooms. By the 1980s the Catholic Church in Holland/Belgium had liberalized itself into virtual non-existence.
Could it be that the decline in the Catholic Church in Europe resulted from changes in the Church itself?
to Zoe Brain: "LIfe begins at conception"-well, it begins but we can speak about the soul(@an individual) only after 14 days- one has to emply Plato @ Arystotles philosophy to define: "human being" @ "soul".
Karen: therefore 80% ingnores Humanae Vitae: Canadian Bishops openly ingnore it (Winnipeg statement)- apply to pastoral practise at ex. confession, to give a counselling or forgiveness of sins! Mayb you do not know how DEvil worked in the case of Humanae Vitae in Vatican: Communists denied a visa to cardinal Woytyla to go there to help Paul vi to conquer a dissent amoanag theologians. As you probably most of them are very poorly educated in logic or semantic realism, the one true philosophy (Aristotle, St.Thomas Aquinas....mathematical logic: A.TArski-K.Godel). Such mentioned Winnipeg Starement are violating a (divine)logical law of non conradtiction applied to the case of [email protected] conscience (in Jesus Christ)
ps. Unfortunately, a chickennes happened at VAtican II: no mentioned of The Tyrany of Communism + the Elite of West (usually left) ingnored this in order not embarass the Soviets because they could start to sent missiles. You forgot that time?
Zoe did ever occur to you and others that maybe Vatican II was "right" and the only thing "wrong" about it was how many (mostly poorly catechized), understand/understood it? I suspect by your 2nd paragraph, you lost any serious Catholic in the discussion. Who could possibly take you seriously when you start your defense with false vicious, and quite harmful, attacks?
And this? Personhood therefore cannot begin at conception, but must begin sometimes afterwards
Personhood isn't the issue, only human life is. For someone who just went on a rant about the the church not knowing her biology, you strike out again considering the fact that even a 1 second old embryo has 100% of its FULLY HUMAN DNA, of which that exact same DNA, if said embryo lives to be 101, will be identical to second one.
The truth is Vatican II was not only needed, it was/is quite good and beautiful, if properly understood. The irony is those who accuse the chruch most of "living in the dark ages" are often the same people who beat up Vatican II, which if it did anything, it brought the church more into line with modernity.
IMO, after 50 years, it's time to probably understand that "form your own conscience" does NOT mean to one's opinion or political liking, but to the HEART OF THE CHURCH and her teachings. If and only then, we might have a shot at moving forward united as one, with Christ.
Correction: it's time to probably properly understand
When does life begin? Scientists answer.
In 1981 (April 23-24) a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee held hearings on the very question before us here: When does human life begin? Appearing to speak on behalf of the scientific community was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who had the same story to tell, namely, that human life begins at conception - and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony. --Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks -- that human life began at conception. --"Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence." --Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, added: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." --Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception." --Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, concluded, "I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty ... is not a human being." --Dr. Richard V. Jaynes: "To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous." --Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro Fertilization" notes, "Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind." And on the Supreme Court ruling _Roe v. Wade_, "To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion." --Professor Eugene Diamond: "...either the Justices were fed a backwoods biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty.
We now have catholic politicians and activists who support abortion at any time during pregancy up to and including the denial of medical attention to a child born alive after a botched abortion. Is this the idea of "subjective conscience" in action as a result of Vatican II as some believe?
Zoe Brain, your knowledge of biology is seriously wanting. Notwithstanding that, human life begins at conception. If it isn't HUMAN life, what kind of life is it? Regarding Vatican II, the problem is not that its work has been ignored or discarded; the problem is that so many have gravely misinterpreted what the council actually did and did not do and mean. A radical reading of Vatican II has polluted many of its authentic doctrines, causing confusion and misleading the people of God. Pope Benedict XVI has written extensively to correct this. Please read the wonderful books he has written. They are right on the mark!
Zoe Brain, your knowledge of biology is seriously wanting. Notwithstanding that, human life begins at conception. If it isn't HUMAN life, what kind of life is it? Regarding Vatican II, the problem is not that its work has been ignored or discarded; the problem is that so many have gravely misinterpreted what the council actually did and did not do and mean. A radical reading of Vatican II has polluted many of its authentic doctrines, causing confusion and misleading the people of God. Pope Benedict XVI has written extensively to correct this. Please read the wonderful books he has written. They are right on the mark!
Jesus Christ never said that the only licit means of birth control was natural family planning (periodic continence), nor did he say that contraception, under all circumstances and ethical contexts, is illicit. The last time I recall, God never revealed his "procreative plan" to a pope, bishop, theologian or lay person. Yet the Church believes that God revealed his plan to Karol Wojytla when he wrote Love and Responsibility as a bishop, and The Theology of the Body, as pope. No one knows God's procreative plan and philosophican anthropology and symbolism is speculation and a weak moral theory.
Catholics don't have a right to disagree with the fundamentals of our faith, but on disputed matters of morals they can disagree based on their informed conscience (emphasis added). This does not mean Catholics can pick and choose what teachings, e.g., sexual ethics, they like and dislike, believe or not. However, is does mean that for good and just reasons (philosophically, theologically, anthropologically) they can disagree with certain Church teachings based on adequate education of the subject, the guidance of their spiritual advisors, constant prayer and refection, and frequent sacrament. They must also be open to further education and reflection even if they disagree with a church teaching, e.g., contraception.
As to whether life begins at conception, consider the contradiction in prinicple that the USCCB offers in cases of rape.
After a "negative" pregnancy test, administered within 48-72 hours of a rape, it is licit to give the morning after pill to the victim. However, a pregnancy test can only detect pregnancy "after implantation" which occurs about 3 weeks after fertilization. Hence, all pregnancy tests will be ipso facto "negative" if performed within 2 weeks after a rape (unless the victim was pregnant before the rape ocurred). This practice is contradictory to the teaching that under no circumstances can someone frustrate the normal biological process of a fertilzied egg from implantation (the church's teaching). The morning after pill works the same way birth control pills work. If life begins at conception, the only way to detect it is an ovulation test, and this only determines ovulation has occurred, not whether the female egg has been fertilized. Today, most Catholic hospitals, under the guidelines of the USCCB, only have to perform a pregnancy test before administering the morning after pill to rape vicitms.
If Humanae Vitae is true, then how can anyone justifiy the Church's teaching that a married female whose life is threatened by another pregancy cannot take reasonable and secure means to safe-guard her life? According to the Church, this person must practice "risky PC" (an irrepsonsible act under the circumstances) or live a life of sexual abstinence (that will destroy her marriage). She cannot take the pill or be sterilized to safe-guard her life, she must ensure that every martial act has a procreative meaning. Absurd? Of course it is. Does it conflict with the heirarchy of values? Yes it does. Can a woman who has 2-3 children and wants no more for good reasons (Pius XII) take the pill? Why not? Because it violates God's procreative plan? Nonsense. No one knows God's procreative plan with moral certitude. This is only one of "many" issues that make Humanae Vitae a dead letter.
Read Massimo Faggioli's "Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning." He very succinctly in about 150 pages compares and contrasts the 2 schools that have emerged. For the scholars, there are extensive footnotes and a very good bibliography.
This was written for the average reader, not the scholarly. Hence it is eminently understandable.
You will not waste your time if you read this book.
Jim McCrea,
Great recommendation!
I read Massimo Faggioli's "Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning" and it is excellent. It will surprise many Catholics who will read this book how political and undermining the minority traditionalists have gone, and continue to go, to ensure that "tradition" is never reformed regardless of the overwhelming amount of good and just reasons to do so. Responsible reform does not mean the pillars of the Catholic Church will come tumbling down, as many exaggerate.
Michael I'm not going to turn a Vat II discussion thread into a contraception debate but I will leave you with this.
You are clearly misguided on the subject. Regardless of Humane Vitae, the fact tht the Magesterium has taught for centuries (from apostolic teachings), against un natural means of birth control, in and of itself makes it an infallible teaching. To contracept "artificiallly" is a great blasphmy ("interference"), against both the will of God and the marriage vows. The interference is the issue, not the intent.
It may also surprise you that until 1930, all of the protestants (who have since caved to culture), also taught strongly against it. Here's a good link to help you understand what and why the chruch teaches what it does, as well as the Scriptual roots: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/birth-control
As for the "life of the mother", I understand why in these times, any reasonable person would find it beyond appauling that a mother should risk death over her unborn child. The AZ case of the mother with pulmonary hypertension (who did have an abortion in a Catholic Hospital) was a great example. Personally, I believe the mother was being called to martydom, so "counter cultural" that few if any would even know it if they did see it. These are very very rare cases, especially with modern technology when 99% of the time, no mother is truly at the risk of death providing she has access to good medical care and modern technology, even at 5-6 months. That said, ever once in a while we do read of such a story, usually a mother who refused chemo while pregnant, althought, even in pregancy, chemo can be safely given in many cases.
I assue you and anyone else reading, that it really does all "make sense" if one truly knows not only what the chruch teaches, but why.
Again, the entire Vat II debate boils down to one or two things:
1. Not knowing/understanding what and why the Chruch teaches as it does
2. Not WANTING , for personal selfish reasons, to be obedient to Church Teachings, including the infallible ones.
FWIW, I think many DO know much of what the church teaches (albeit in most cases probably not the "why's"), but like myself for over 20 years, simply don't/didn't want to live it. Trust me, that's it in a nutshell!
I appreciate your point of view, but not your judgment.
I also do not want to turn a discussion about Vatical II into a debate about direct-indirect abortion (the Phoenix Case) or contraction. However, there are more complex philosophical and theological issues that argue against the teaching and judgment of the Church in these two matters.
I am well versed in moral theology and the issues...the what and why of Catholic teachings. For your information, most theologians and many priests and bishops disagree with Humanae Vitae for good and just reasons. They are not all misguided or invincibily ignorant. Nor are they dissenters and other degrogatory name-calling the Church likes to pin on most Catholics who disagree with certain teachings. This includes more than 90% of the laity, many of whom attend weekly Mass and recieve the Eucharist.
Everyone who is aware of this culture understands its extremes, but this is does not make everone liberals, relativists, individualists or as you say "selfish". Most are faithful and loving Catholics. This issue has been debated for the past 44 years without a resolution. This is one of the reasons we have a divided Church and a Crisis in Truth.
As for the Phoenix case, you need some education. Ditto for contraception. The moral method and analysis of Germain Grisez and Martin Rhonheimer were used by Therese Lysaught of Marguette University in her excellent report to Catholc Healthcare West on the moral analysis of this case. That procedure was indirect abortion and any Catholic with or without a theological education can wisely reason that the judgment and decision of the Bishop of Phoenix in this case was both ill advised and deplorable.
If you want to discuss this further let's take this off-line (e.g., email me). I would be happy to get into the more complex aguments. However, I doubt any argument will change your mind.
With all respect to you Michael, I have no desire to battle out or rationalize intrinsic evils and or Church infallible teachiings.
It's when we think we know more than 2000 years of Church Teachings, especially from an "intellectual" standpoint, that we are duped.
Sorry, been there done that. By the grace of God, not going back. I wish you and others the freedom and peace of heart that comes with the acceptance of the grace of obedience. Only then will you realize that what you now think sets your "free" is in actuality, enslavement.
For the record, the Church didn't survive all of these years by getting it wrong.
Michael I want to point out one more thing, which is quite relevant to the Vat II overall discussion.
Your write:
most theologians and many priests and bishops disagree with Humanae Vitae for good and just reasons. They are not all misguided or invincibily ignorant. Nor are they dissenters and other degrogatory name-calling the Church likes to pin on most Catholics who disagree with certain teachings. This includes more than 90% of the laity, many of whom attend weekly Mass and recieve the Eucharist.
Everyone who is aware of this culture understands its extremes, but this is does not make everone liberals, relativists, individualists or as you say "selfish". Most are faithful and loving Catholics. This issue has been debated for the past 44 years without a resolution. This is one of the reasons we have a divided Church and a Crisis in Truth.
Firstly, it's time to put HV to rest. Not only is the church teaching of contracepton infalliable by years of Magesterial Teaching (regardless of HV), but HV has now been proven to be right in all of its prophesy and consequences. Even the Winnepeg Bishops have admitted that they were wrong.
You seem to fail to understand that simply because the "laity disagree" the church must be wrong, when in point of fact, the laity being wrong is EXACTLY the reason we need the Chruch. There have been countless examples throughout church history where bishops, priests, and even a few popes were wrong. What has NEVER been wrong, or never changed, is the offical (dogmatic) teachings of the Catholic Church.
We do NOT have a "crisis of Truth." Truth is right there, in black and white, in offical church teaching, the immutable teachings of Jesus Christ. Either you believe that the CC is the true Chruch guided by 2000 plus years by the Holy Spirit or you don't. Jesus can't be wrong.
We are know where "division" comes from, and it's not the "Holy" Spirit.
After reading your articles on Vatican II Continued and Bishops as Managers I am reminded of Carl Barth's comment: " the church is the greatest obstacle to the kingdom of God on earth, yet the church is the only place where the redemptive love of God is preached". We live always in that tension and most especially in these post Vatican II years of revisionism.
fr. Joe Sanches
This blog about Vat II and it it is not the place to argue about Church teachings. However, your argument "from authority" is the weakest of moral arguments. Thank God we have a robust theological community who are constantly striving to understand the truth and throught their good work, assist popes and bishops in formulating doctrine and reforming it as well. We benefit from their continued scholarship, advances in the sciences, philosophy, theology, anthropology, nature and the world. The fact that most theologians disagree with HV is not to be cavelierly dismissed. Catholics are not drones, they can think for themselves and are guided by faith and the Holy Spirit. Most Catholics respect the heirarchry but their authority has been serverely harmed by their own failings and intransigence in ignoring the pain and suffering that some teachings cause. Not everyone is called to martydom or heroic virtue in order to ensure that a Church teaching is followed without remainder. There are many ethical contexts that argue for the refore of HV. Yet, the Church holds on to an intelligible and unconvincing theory in defense of HV.
It is obvious to me that you do not have a grasp of the fundamental theological arguments that have been going on for the past 44 years, regarding Humanae Vitae. You dismiss, perhaps by ignorance, that most theologians and many bishops and priests disagree with HV, because they must be misguided or invincibly ignorant. This issue of contraception, as well as other sexual ethical teachings, is not dead. If you want to learn something, contrasting a traditional point of view versus a revisionist point of view, read the two articles in Theological Studies, one of the most predigious Catholic journals in the U.S.....the December, 2011 issue (article by Bill Murphy) and the March, 2012 issue (article by Joseph Selling) regarding contraception, Aquinas et al. Based on your argument, you will likely not bother to educate yourself to what is referred to as "good and just reasons".
I can only summize that you live in some kind of bubble. Everyone knows that we have had a "silent pulpit" for the past 44 years for fear of heirarchical consequences, e.g., most bishops and priests remaining slient about preaching about contraception. A few do, but most will carefully advise Catholics in confidential guidance meetings, that their informed consciences can be used in making such birth control decisions. You don't have to have a theological education to know this.
Your dogmatic assertion that there is no crisis of truth in the Catholic Church is refuted by the late John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Anyone who studies and writes about sexual ethics knows quite well that we live in a divided church.
Lastly, my judgment about contraception is not based on the fact that since the laity disagrees with the Church, the teaching must be wrong. I base my judgment on a long history of education and studies in moral theology. You can disagree and still be a faithful Catholic.
Your claim "from authority" is all you have to offer in respones to complex philiosophical and theological arguments, much deeper than a simple "the Vatican and pope says its the truth, so it must be the truth". This does not mean I don't respect the Church's teachings, or do I pick and choose what teaching suit my lifestyle or idealogy. I am a faithful Catholic, well informed about the issues, and for good and just reaons believe that Humanae Vitae is "too great of a moral certitude". This means that there is some truth in HV, but it is not God's all-inclusive procreative plan and a moral absolute without remainder.
History is replete with many doctrines and teachings that were proclaimed by popes and bishops as truth, taught for centuries, and were later reformed: usury, slavery, freedom of religion, the torture of heritics, the ends of marriage. It took centuries for the Church to apologize for the Galaleo affair. I could give you a list of other issues, but this discussion will get us no where based on your point of view of claiming the higher moral ground.
Let's not bore the other bloggers who want to stick to the topic of Vat II. If you want to debate me further, email me.
.To Michael B: <For your information, most theologians and many priests and bishops disagree with Humanae Vitae for good and just reasons>
Wha tkind of argument it is? If na idiot bishop or theologina or a set of them claim something what is it? If you call John Paul II his Theology of Body too abstractive to comprehebd that is your [email protected] that taught you. Probably you are a fan of sth like [email protected] bunch of half educated mass media gurus; H.Kung's for example discussion on the arguments for and contra for the existence for God reveal his total ignorance of classic thinkers @ especially modern mathematical logic-it is a joke repeating all agnostic arguments conquereed already by Aristotle. Home work: apply logic to your just slogans of half-educated some theologians against Humane Vitae. I can cite by names all these chicken "experts"; I do not deny they are some fools also at VAtican; for example, the kissing of Koran by John Paul II was a ...childlish wishfull thinking to "win" Muslims- they are just human mistakes. There is a lot of "junk"(i.e., just only a traditional view on some subject ignoring the latest discoveries in ex.biblical studies or logic) even in CAthesism of Catholic Church- these msitsake are nothing comparing to "junk" of other site or enemies (ateists, agnostics, skeptics).
ps. these bunch so called theologians especially feminists are more devilish than communists I met at (St.Paul's University).For them for example J.M.Bochenski, The logic of religion, 1956 will be always a total mystery (of intellect)
Krzysztof Cluba,
My comments were not a substitute for a robust discussion about the philosophical and theological issues underpining HV. Far from it.
I don't call JP II's Theology of the Body too abstract. It is based on his philosophical anthropology, symbolism, mysticism and personalism. This theory was formulated in the mid 1950s while Karol Wojtya was a bishop and professor at the University of Lublin. He also wrote about it in his 1960 book Love and Responsibilty...and once again in his Krakow Memorandum sent to Paul VI in February, 1968. I am fully aware and versed in his thought and theology on marriage and procreation.
JP II's symbolistic argument goes sometime like this: Christ's love for the Church is also a love of total self-giving and self-donation...and by analogy, spousal love is a total self-giving love but concupiscence exchanges a self-seeking gratification for the sincere gift of self; it uses the other as an object made for my sake rather than loving the other as subject for his or her sake...therefore contraception falifies creative love and speaks to the diabolic anti-Word.
The issue here is whether it is a metaphoric leap that unless there is a total self-giving and openness to procreation under all circumstances, and in every act of coitus, spouses are expressing a false, evil and destructive love. Wojtyla had a creative moral imagination, but "imagination enables theology to resist the constant temptation towards absolutizing…. And if we are to accept the priority of symbol over intellect, then theology has an important role to play in ensuring that the image does not become the only word, or the last word…."[Dermot Lane] This means we must resist the temptation of proclaiming we know God's procreative plan with moral certainty based on symbolic speculation. We also must balance assertions with existential reality when we find no evidence whatsoever that PC couples treat each other as loving subjects, while couples that use artificial birth control have a utilitarian attitude and a diabolical love grounded in concupiscence.
HV also claims that "natural family planning-periodic continence" is God's procreative plan. No one knows God's procreative plan with moral certitude! Are to accept by faith that God took more than 2000 years to tell a pope about His procreative plan? Where in revelation can we find it? Where can we find it beyond symbolic speculation? This assertion that NFP is God's procreative plan challenges the practical reason of most Catholics...and theologians, and many bishops and priests.
More importantly, no pope, bishop, or theologian ever wrote or spoke about an "inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative dimensions of the marital act" before 1960 (when Karol Wojtyla wrote about it in Love and Responsibility). This was not tradition or a constant teaching of the Church, yet it was proclaimed as Divine law.
There is some truth in HV, but the principles are claimed as "moral absolutes". For many reasons, beyond these comments, they represent too much of a moral certitude.
If you want to discuss this further, email me.
It's not that by using birth control,every act of intercouse becomes a selfish evil act,but rather that over time-if artifical birth control is used -then the spouses who are not open to procreation-are living out a marital life that compartimentalizes procreation and sex. Because sex is the natural way to procreate-this decoupling of sex and procreation corrupts the natural God made connection between sex and procreation. Sex is now a different human act which is not in harmony with the natural wholeistic man/woman /married couple.This unnatural alteration effects the man and woman psychologically,emotionally and physically.It's one thing to intercede artificially when nature is flawed[illness and even infertilility,say].God gave us intelligence and medicine used to heal and alleviate suffering or otherwise improve life on earth is in keeping with how God made us.But to
intervene to stop what is natural and good[human life is natural and good]and to separate sexual intercourse between married couples from procreation,needlessly violates what is natural and good.To not be open to life [life made by God who is good and creates us in his image]is a greivous abandonement of a faith centered life. We're created for heaven- not to have all our ducks in order[just the right amount of children at just the right times in our lives,say].
Mr.M.B:<Where in revelation can we find it> That is your main problem! Yes, directly nonewhere; indirectly-yes! Right now I donot have with me the bibliography on it,esp.one book on the history of contraception (or sth); my anti-Devil source are few thousands kilometer from me thanks to the action such people like you at one University in North America); your arguments are ....eternal like sophists, though on different subject; you just ....repeats that of my personal enemy, Fr. Andre Guindon O.M.I (ex.Sexual Creators , and not....creatures (!); if you wish I can sent you officials letter [email protected] Vatican on my counterattack (1991/1992- you see how I foresaw it; he .....died beceasue of me.
HV just repeats again the Church on contraception from the past! What do you expect? To change it because the contaceptice pill was invented? Use your intellect - about the lack you accuse JPii @HV- and not "feeling" of [email protected]; Yes, we know the procreative plan of God though we need to adjust it to new conditions like God's plan in any natural sciences.
Jesus never said you will know that you are my disciples by your sexual behavior
In his October 10/05/12 response to Patricia, Michael J. Barberi writes: "History is replete with many doctrines and teachings that were proclaimed by popes and bishops as truth, taught for centuries, and were later reformed: usury, slavery, freedom of religion, the torture of heretics, the ends of marriage. It took centuries for the Church to apologize for the Galileo affair. I could give you a list of other issues, but this discussion will get us no where based on your point of view of claiming the higher moral ground."
Barberi, like those supporting the nuns in the Vatican's crackdown on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, has discovered the fact that conservative, pre-Vatican II-minded Catholics are quick to claim the moral high ground via an appeal to the church's questionable wisdom and authority re: teaching on sexual behavior of which they have little knowledge -- beginning with their usual quick draw of the abortion card.
Speaking of abortion, it is interesting to note the post-Vatican II abortion of the church's newborn collegiality by Pope Paul VI -- who along with the Curia panicked at this threat to their authority -- and its burial by his autocratic, monarchial-minded successors Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. (This was taken from my comment on John Wilkins' Oct. 12, 2012, piece, "Bishops or Branch Managers?")
For related insights on the governance of the institutional church and its potential pre-Vatican II future, see the following book reviews at <http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3927GE69M656Q>.
o "Back to the Future?" on Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose;
o "Father Greeley Was Prescient Re: Ratzinger Papacy" on Andrew Greeley's The Making of the Pope 2005
o "Fox's Book Relevant to the Times" on Matthew Fox's The Pope's War: Why Ratzinger's Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved.
FYI, the second run of "A Church reborn," NCR's 52-page special edition on the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, is now available for distribution. For ordering details visit the NCR website at NCRonline.org/council, or call 800-333-7373.
Notwithstanding the undermining of Vatican II reforms by the pope and his curia, the people of God must continue to build on the council's spirit of renewal and foundational documents with unblinking eyes on John 13:34-35, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Note that Jesus never said you will know that you are my disciples by your sexual behavior
To Mr Frank.G.S:Matthew 19:12 says nothing for you? St.Paul's teaching on marriage @ homosexual behviour is nothing for you?
to remind you as you as most of graduates do not know: absolute laws are in only formal sciences! Natural sciences @others are governed just by probable laws but it..works, ex. Sklodowska Marie -Curie, [email protected] bomb-by an analogy apply it to [email protected]. Devils are plenty also in Vatican not only in this world-do you believe (better, know) the Devil?- but....an example: archbp Dabrowski, also as we know now, an agent (TW-secret cooperator)of KGB/UB he delievered a warrant to Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko, a later martyr, because he (Fr.Jerzy)personally did refuse to receive such JUdge letter as a legal way to fight with Regime- what happened to Archbp Dabrowski? He died in a ...car accident.
Of course it is too much for your naive,by "feeling" understanding of the Bible.