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The Floating Sacrament
Not a Reset Button
Thomas L. Kuhlman
I am a practicing psychologist and a practicing Catholic. Recently a Catholic client expressed serious concern about his increasing use of internet pornography. When I asked what he had done to try to control the problem himself, he mentioned having gone to confession. I asked if it had helped. His reply: "Oh, come on! He told me to say seven Our Fathers and seven Hail Marys!"
For the spiritually mature, the penitential recitation of such prayers may be an embrace of the faith that sustains them. But for many of us these assigned recitations have become little more than an easy reset button: Say the right words and it's as if the bad deeds had never been done. When assigned as penances, memorized prayers often seem to minimize the gravity of the sins to which they correspond. They are a small, quick chore that puts the seal on large redemptive gains.
In the secular world, any punishment that's too light or too severe to fit the crime generates strong disapproval among most who hear of it. There is a lot of research that suggests that it's natural for people to believe in some kind of justice. We want to see efforts rewarded, wrongs redressed, crimes punished. Obvious imbalances between actions and their consequences create cognitive dissonance that we strive to reduce. We may rise in angry protest, spread word of the injustice, collectively confront the powers that be to raise or lower the consequence to fit the crime. Or we may gradually learn to think differently about the crime itself. If people usually get away with it, lightly punished, if punished at all, how bad can it be?
A penance is not exactly a punishment. (If it were, then Catholics who died in a state of grace wouldn't have to worry about purgatory.) Nor is absolution contingent on penance. If it were, we would do our penance before, not after, we went to confession. All the sacrament requires is contrition, an acknowledgment that one needs the mercy God freely offers and a willingness to accept it. Acts of penance express both sorrow for our sins and gratitude for the forgiveness we've already received.
Still, the sorrow we feel for our sins should be commensurate with the sins, and the expression of sorrow commensurate with the sorrow. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, "The penance...must correspond as far as possible with the gravity and nature of the sins committed" (1460). Over time and many confessions, the sense of dissonance from having received incommensurately light penances for serious sin accumulates. There are two ways penitents can reduce that sense. One way is to uphold the grievousness of sin by doing more penance than the priest instructs us to do. So we might decide on our own to do more fasting or more almsgiving, and this isn't a bad thing. Lenten practices are a collective version of this: acts of penance above and beyond those assigned in the sacrament of reconciliation.
But the other way to reduce the sense of dissonance—the easier and, I suspect, more common way—is unconsciously to adjust our sense of how serious the sin is to fit the penances assigned for it. This incremental adjustment of conscience can be reinforced by the isolation and anonymity of the penitent. Outside the confessional, there may be no reality check. Small penances seem to imply small sins, especially when there is no mention of making amends. And once we begin to think of our sins as small, it is harder for us to resist temptation.
The way the sacrament of reconciliation is often practiced may be reinforcing bad habits rather than curbing them. It may be encouraging people to treat confession as a device for the easy relief of guilt feelings, rather than as an occasion for true reconciliation with God. When penances are mechanical and easy, going to confession can easily become what psychologists call a "neutralization technique"—that is, a way to defuse the negative emotions one experiences as a result of one's actions. Confession offers the advantage of a spiritual authority performing the neutralizing work for the sinner.
In behavioral terms, the act of going to confession is rewarded in two ways. First, guilt and shame are neutralized. Once you've confessed something, it's behind you. Not only are you allowed to stop thinking about it, you may even be encouraged not to dwell on it. Second, after the penitent has performed his assigned penance, a euphoric sense of innocence is restored: the slate has been wiped clean. I still recall the mood swings this created on the Saturday afternoons of my youth. These began with terror as I walked to church for confession, believing I would go straight to hell if I were hit by a car on the way there. Twenty minutes later I'd walk home in bliss, confident that if anything happened to me now, I'd go straight to heaven.
In this way, one may begin to associate thinking and talking about one's sins (which the act of confession requires) with the sense of relief that immediately follows confession. The next time one struggles with temptation, the next time one thinks or talks oneself through the choice to resist or yield to temptation, the consequence of sin that will come to mind may be less the damage it causes to oneself and others than the good feelings the act of going to confession occasions. And, paradoxically, the more often one goes to confession the stronger this association may become. Resistance to temptation is thus weakened by the practice of a sacrament that is supposed to strengthen it.
This "iatrogenic" aspect of confessional psychology can be reduced without threat to Catholic sacramental theology by putting more emphasis on the relationship between penance on the one hand and both a purpose of amendment and the making of amends on the other. A confessional practice that took both justice and psychology more seriously would be more concerned with redressing the real effects of sin, the habits it forms, and the suffering it causes its victims. How few confessors insist that we apologize to those our sins have hurt if we haven't already, and try to make amends insofar as that's possible. Too often, reconciliation becomes something between the sinner, God, and the church's appointed intermediary. The persons sinned against are left out of the picture. I think of my own sins and the people they have hurt: the people I bullied as a child, for example. Why did no confessor ever instruct me to make amends to my victims? Nothing that happens at confession seems designed to reduce the likelihood that one will hurt the same person again—or a different person the same way.
This, incidentally, is an aspect of the clergy sexual-abuse crisis that most Catholics found appalling: the seeming lack of concern on the part of the priests for the victims of sins committed by priests. Inasmuch as it was a sin, the appropriate remedy was confession, and this had nothing to do with the victim. It does not appear that anything is about to change in this regard. In March 2010, a regent of the Vatican court that handles issues related to the sacrament of penance told the Catholic News Service that a priest who confesses sexual abuse in the sacrament of penance should generally not be encouraged by the confessor to disclose his acts publicly or (even) to his superiors. The bishop was also quoted as saying that when a priest confesses such acts, "the confession can only have absolution as a consequence" and "one cannot provoke mistrust in the penitent."
This is discouraging. If the sacrament of reconciliation is really about reconciliation as well as absolution, then confessors will have to do better, and the church must train them to do better. I am not suggesting that confession be turned into an ecclesial version of psychotherapy. But I do think the practice of the sacrament ought to be reformed so that it reinforces resistance to temptation rather than undermining it. Until such a reform, the church may continue to ask penitents to check their consciences against the Ten Commandments, but it will only be paying lip service to the Golden Rule: Love thy neighbor as thyself.
The Challenge of Truthfulness
John F. Desmond
Writers of confessional narratives in the Christian tradition have never lacked for exemplary models. St. Augustine's Confessions is the classic prototype. Augustine's purpose in writing this great work was to understand and deepen his relationship with God, to whom his words are directly addressed. The uniqueness of the Confessions lies in the fact that it is both a profound work of spirituality and a great work of literature, brilliant both in its description of Augustine's journey toward God and in its analysis of the paradoxes involved in trying to write a genuinely honest confession.
The South African novelist and critic J. M. Coetzee sees in St. Augustine's Confessions the central problem for all writers of confessions, religious or secular—that the truth about the self remains "inaccessible to introspection." The theft of pears described in book 2 of the Confessions brought shame to the young Augustine. But, as he came to understand much later, his desire was not for the pears themselves, which were thrown away, but for the experience of shame—for the young Augustine was ashamed to be shameless. As Coetzee notes, Augustine's
heart is not shamed (chastened) by the knowledge that it seeks to know shame: on the contrary, the knowledge of its own desire as a shameful one both satisfies the desire for the experience of shame and fuels a sense of shame. And this sense of shame is both experienced with satisfaction and recognized, if it is recognized, by self-conscious searching, as a further source of shame; and so on endlessly.
Caught in the tangle of sin and guilt, Augustine laments: "Who can unravel such a twisted and tangled knottiness?" Coetzee concludes that "until the source from which the shameful act sprang is confronted, the self can have no rest."
If the difficulty St. Augustine faced in scrutinizing himself is typical, it would appear that fully honest confession is almost impossible. The process of self-examination and disclosure seems endless, as layer after layer of insight proves illusory, provisional, distorted by self-serving motives. As the very process of rational introspection becomes subject to skepticism, the thoughtful person may constantly doubt his own competence or authority to make an honest confession. As Coetzee remarks, "Confession is helpless to construct its own truth."
Confessional writing has proliferated since St. Augustine's day, especially in the modern age. Novelists have been particularly attracted to the confessional form. Dostoevsky, for example, was obsessed with confession, so much so that it is possible to think of all his novels as one long struggle with the problem of how to make an honest confession. Think of the narrator of Notes from Underground, of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, of Stavrogin in Demons, or of Ivan Karamazov and Fr. Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov. In all these characters we find Dostoevsky's lifelong wrestling with the challenge of truthfulness about oneself. Coetzee sees in Dostoevsky's fiction a "sequence of texts" that confront "the impasses of secular confession, pointing finally to the sacrament of confession as the only road to self-truth."
Prophetic as he was, Dostoevsky could not have foreseen some of the new difficulties for truth-telling that confessional writers have faced in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Mea culpas seem to have multiplied exponentially in the age of modern media at the same time that the practice of private sacramental confession has declined. And as confession has become more common and more public, it also seems to have become more trivial. Goethe blamed the rise of Protestantism for the decline of sacramental confession; the historian Oswald Spengler agreed, and thought it was inevitable that after the Reformation the confessional impulse should find an outlet in the arts. He predicted that, in the absence of a confessor, confessions would tend to become "unbounded." And so they have. Exit Fr. Finn from the confessional; enter Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil, the world.
Along with the decline of sacramental confession and the rise of its secular substitute, there has occurred an erosion of the language with which we formulate acknowledgments of wrongdoing. Pop psychology has furnished us with a new vocabulary of quasi-clinical terms that make it easier than ever for us to excuse ourselves for our sins even as we are confessing them. This new linguistic currency seems to offer self-knowledge on the cheap—and thereby makes true self-knowledge even harder than it always was.
The novelist Walker Percy, a Catholic convert, recognized the same difficulties of honest confession and confessional writing that interested Dostoevsky a century earlier. Using the language of semiotics in his satiric parable Lost in the Cosmos, Percy stressed the problem of isolated self-consciousness: "From the moment the signifying self turned inward and became conscious of itself, trouble began as the sparks flew up. The exile from Eden is, semiotically, the banishment of the self-conscious self from its world of signs." Percy believed it is impossible for one to know and say the truth about oneself by means of self-reflection alone. He arrived at the same "impasse" of secular confession that Dostoevsky had run into. And so Percy came to affirm Kierkegaard's belief that the self "can only become itself transparently under God." To become oneself "transparently under God" is to stand before God in humble recognition of oneself as a sinner, as one does in sacramental confession. Near the end of Percy's third novel, Love in the Ruins, the wayward protagonist Dr. Tom More goes to confession, receives absolution, dons sackcloth, and receives the Eucharist, so beginning a new life in grace. Another of Percy's novels, Lancelot, takes the form of a long confessional story addressed to a character who turns out to be a priest. And in Percy's last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome, Fr. Rinaldo Smith confesses a life of dissolution and misanthropy, and an early infatuation with Nazism, shortly before celebrating Mass at St. Margaret's Hospice, where he serves the disabled and the dying.
All confessions are made to someone—an implied or actual listener. And all attempts at honest confession, sacramental or secular, autobiographical or fictional, are valuable if undertaken in the spirit of humility and truth. Honest confession is a harrowing journey, full of traps and pitfalls, a trial in which true victories in self-understanding are won painfully, and never quite conclusively. But as we learn in reading the confessional stories of St. Augustine, Dostoevsky, and Percy—and as they discovered in writing them—the deepest truths of the self can be fathomed only if there is a transcendent listener: a divine other who is the ultimate confessor, the dispenser of the grace of true self-knowledge, and the one person who, impervious to our self-deceptions, is able to free us from them. Many are familiar with Augustine's famous prayer: "Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in Thee." It is the natural counterpart of another prayer in the Confessions, which deserves no less attention: "Lord, I pray you to let me know myself."
What I Hear
Kevin Tortorelli
At St. Francis of Assisi Church in midtown Manhattan, the friars hear confessions for six and a half hours a day, Monday through Friday, and during that time there are usually two friars hearing confession. For a few hours on Tuesdays a third friar is hearing confessions in Spanish. On Saturdays confessions are heard for nine hours straight, on Sundays for two and a half. When I mention this to people, they look mildly shocked. And if I add that there are usually enough penitents to keep the confessors busy the whole time, people look at me as if I were a visitor from deep space.
In October 1973, I walked into the church with an elderly friar to hear my first confession. We had been assigned the same confessional shift. I took a deep breath and tugged at his elbow. "What do you do?" He looked me up and down and said, "Just forgive them." That was it. The next moment I was fumbling with the gates that slid open and closed on either side of the confessional. In time, one got the hang of sliding them open smoothly and tugging them along gently when they got stuck in their runners.
Today matters are very different. The confessionals have been redesigned so that the penitent can kneel or sit face-to-face with the confessor. The lighting can even be adjusted to a soft, welcoming setting. I sometimes wonder if piped-in music is next.
These changes mark large differences in the practice of the sacrament itself. The new design of the confessional, with its face-to-face option, tends to encourage conversation. This conversation contributes uniquely to reconciliation—the word many people now use for the sacrament. I prefer this face-to-face conversation to the disembodied voice wafting through the screen, but many penitents still prefer the older arrangement. I sit next to the screen much as my father used to sit by the radio listening to the big bands. Talking through the screen, I listen attentively to silences, to the space between words. An unforeseen advantage of the new design is the way it can accommodate young mothers with a little one in tow. Young children can't really be left unattended in a midtown church, so they have the little space of the confessional to explore while mom takes advantage of their momentary distraction to speak to the Lord. The little ones regard me in my habit with mild curiosity. I try not to coo.
Nowadays a lot of people are angry. Often for good reason. My grandfather used to say, "What good is a man without a temper?" But the anger I hear in the confessional has often lasted too long and is now hurting. I try to point out that fear underlies anger. I say, "Ask the Lord to help you name the fear." Naming the fear is a step toward banishing it. "Do not be afraid—it is I." Stress also puts in a frequent appearance in the confessional—stress about work (or the lack of it), the mortgage, bills. Anxiety tells a man he is vulnerable, and this does not sit well with him. It tends to feed his anger and he often turns this anger on his spouse and children.
Another difference between then and now is the mention of abuse. I don't recall such disclosures years ago. And anyway, after the sex-abuse scandal of the last ten years, it hits rather close to home. I feel a small discomfort. The victim is usually female, and the abuse usually took place within the home. Sometimes the victim asks whether he or she should confront the abuser, who may now be elderly or even near death. If the victim does decide to confront the abuser, I suggest that there be at least one more person present. It will go better with someone else at your side. I do not envy the victim this task, but I admire the courage it takes to right a destructive wrong.
Still another difference from many years ago has to do with contraception. As a young priest, I used to hear married people confess that they were using contraception, but not anymore. Perhaps it has become a decision undertaken in good conscience and there it has remained. Young people tend to consider sexual morality within the context of a relationship rather than as a matter of discrete acts. As a result, I find it helpful to speak to them about friendship. I emphasize that friendship is a spiritual bond, one that sometimes requires sacrifices. Friends display the affection appropriate to friends, sometimes a delicate point to make. Of course, the categories of mortal and venial sin compete with the language of relationships in talking about sexual matters. But I worry these categories do not really illumine justice, mercy, and faith—the "weightier matters" our Lord speaks of (Matthew 23:23). Does an emphasis on sorting our wrongdoing into mortal and venial sin blind us to serious, often nonsexual moral questions?
The humanity of the sacrament occasions a good measure of humor. Some time ago I slid open the gate and there kneeling before me was a very drunk man. He thought he was in the subway: "What station is this?" I said 34th Street and Seventh Avenue. "Thank you, sir," he said as he got to his feet, with the slightly elaborate courtesy drink can induce. Then there was the lady who came to my one side and asked me to be kind to her sister, who was nervous over confession. "You see, it's been a while, Father." I assured her all would be well. With that, the same lady simply moved to the other side of the confessional and began her confession. I had a hard time suppressing a smile and remaining suitably grave. At the end of her confession, I told her she had a very kind sister. "She is that, Father. Thank you."
These experiences lead me to speak of the sacrament as "floating." In the days after Vatican II, confession slipped its old juridical moorings, with its distinctive laws, regulations, judgment, and penance. At the moment it is searching for new moorings. What will confession look like once it finds them?
In the future, even more perhaps than in the past, humility will be the confessor's most important virtue. He will not wish to control the conversation, preferring instead to welcome the penitent and listen with his heart. He will listen to the Spirit of God already speaking in the confession of sin. It is humbling to hear members of the church confess their unworthiness to the Lord, confident of his forgiveness. As for the confessor's authority to bind and loose, it must always be distinguished from the priest's fundamental identity as a fellow sinner in need of God's grace.
This sacrament is full of that grace. The people whose confessions I hear teach me again and again that the Lord is greater than our hearts. The sacrament is not really about you and your sins, much less me and my power to forgive them. It is about the Lord and his love. That is why he has the last word. I remember a young man who would kneel during the absolution and begin to speak in tongues. It was a kind of chattering (I don't know how else to describe it), and it roughly coincided with the prayer of absolution: we both spoke at the same time. At the end, there was a brief silence. The air felt charged. He would smile and stand and go his way. I mention this as an example of what the confessor receives from penitents. It is the constant and repeated witness of a holy people who come to this "floating" sacrament and who, in their great kindness, allow me a share in their love of Jesus the Lord. Witnessing their faith, I ask the Lord to keep me out of his way.
Related: Empty Confessionals, by James O'Toole
The Empty Box, by Raymond C. Mann
The Sacrament of Reconciliation, by Patricia Hampl
About the Author
Thomas L. Kuhlman is a clinical psychologist in independent practice in Minneapolis–St. Paul. He is the author of Humor and Psychotherapy and Psychology on the Streets: Mental Health Practice with Homeless Persons.
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Wonderful, thoughtful, reflections. If only my parish chuurch homilies could be as thoughtful.
I am a convert from the Church of England, or perhaps a 'returning Catholic'. I came to understand the Sacrament of Confession in the Roman Catholic Church not through RCIA but through reading Dorothy Sayers' commentary in the Penguin edition of Dante's "Purgatorio"! Contrition - Confession - Satisfaction. I simply didn't understand that contrition, a feeling of shame and responsibility came BEFORE Confession and making Satisfaction was the last step before I was 'clear'. Let Dante be my guide. Thank you for this article. I'm happy to see the subject is being aired.
I find these men's articles on reconciliation interesting and important. Many Catholics I know have just stopped going to Confession/Reconciliation in part because of the routine penances they'd been given. I remember a priest in Santa Monica who mentioned that he gives penances that fit. For the example of a child who swears, he'll tell the penitant to read poetry, to the one who fights with his brother, he must go tell his brother loves him. I have once gotten a personalized penance in decades of going to confession. This sacrament can be so life changing. What a shame it isn't.
This fine article which raises real questions about the efficacy of Reconciliation. I've been researching the sacrament via the accounts Catholics themselves give of their own Penance experiences, (in published letters, memoirs, and biographies and increasingly via first-hand accounts). Some of these are in a body of work written by Catholics who return to the church after a long time away (the shortest one I've found is after ten years away; more typical are absences in the 20- and 30-year span). Invariably, the subjects report that a significant aspect of their reconnection to God and faith after that long-dreaded confession is that a stiff penance was NOT the point of the exchange. Instead, their confessors' welcoming tone led to discussions of absence from God and the qualities the penitent wished to cultivate. In one case, the penitent was asked to take six months to read the Gospel of Luke. Another penitent was asked to do a good deed, and now she has found herself perpetually doing them (after initially questioning such a "light" penance for over two decades away). She keeps feeling that the last good deed she did she'd have done anyway (minus that confession), and wonders if her next good deed will satisfy her own sense of adequate atonement, even as she marvels that that was one ingenious penance!
While many priests no doubt are stuck in a pre-Vatican II mode of issuing a typical "3 our fathers and 3 hail Marys," I find it significant that the penitent of Kuhlman's anecdote actually got seven of each. Rather than being a light "sentence" it was more than typical from what I hear in this category, no doubt because of the sexual nature of his sin. Interestingly, Jesus lashed out more at the religious hypocrites of his day, and was compassionate for sexual transgressors such as the woman caught in adultery, (while her partner got away—probably to pick up a stone to join those who would judge her!).
But I'm often echoed Kuhlman's point when it comes to the pedophile priests. Did any of the pedophie penitents ever have a confessor suggest they report their abuse to the police? Confessors can't make reporting one's crime a condition of absolution, but it certainly should have been stated as the legal, moral, and just thing to do. If that point was not made, just how many our-fathers and hail-Marys do you suppose those guys got as "penance"?
Perhaps determining the proper or realistic atonement is the rub. In many cases it's no longer possible to atone to the person harmed. Our culture is weak in knowing what a proper apology even sounds like, since we hear public "apologies" crafted by press secretaries. campaign managers, or legal counsel. Still, to anyone who has ever been significantly harmed, a sincere apology can be a life-changing experience. The subject of atonement is important, and too seldom discussed. This article is an excellent way to get that conversation going.
This excellent article should be presented to men studying for the priesthood to make them aware of matching the penance to the sin. But, I also believe that when bishops meet with their priests---these topics should be discussed---rather than how the parishioners are to be giving to another Diocesan collection. This is of a pastoral concern and it should have a major priority.
lets us not forget the impact sin has upon us, especially the phenomenon of the belief : I can't be forgiven" and the despair such a belief has had upon so many of us.
An excellent thought-provoking article. Some thoughts.
This past Monday was a special Lenten service that included a 3 day series of talks by a converted Baptist and evangelical protestan. On Monday, he only gave a 20 minute talk followed by confession. It as a full church and about 8-10 priests from other parishes participated.
What struct me the most, was "that if one goes to confession during the 30 days (did he mean 40 days) before Divine Mercy Sunday (I assume he meant Easter Sunday), and remained in the state of grace and received the Euharist on Divine Mercy Sunday...that not only was your sins forgiven, but all temporal punishment due to sin was abolished. Wow, as a Catholic I never heard any priest ever talk about the temporal punishment due to sin!. Nor how one could avoid it...other than some indulgences...in the Book of Indulgences. If the temporal punishment due to sin is so important, why do we have a silent pulpit?
I grew up in the 1950s, was an alter boy and felt the guilt and fear of sin from high school through college. I remember one priest who always ended the confessional session with the same remark given to all. After he gave you absolution he said "and keep up the good work son". One priest told me he would not give me absolution because I was always going to confession every week and confession simple sexual sins with my girlfriend (not sexual intercoure). He told me to stop seeing her. Well, I was shocked and said "father, all I can promise you is that I will try to stop sinning, but I am not going to stop seeing this girl." He then gave me absolution and 3 our fathers and 3 hail marys.
I agree that what is missing in the sacrament of reconciliation is how to live a moral life; how to form habits of virture without slipping into the pit called stoic insensibility. How do we resolve a conflict of values or moral dilemma? How do we reason with teachings that are in tension with human experience and reason? We often pray as though we are not worthy, so our prayers are often petititionary prayer. Not much of thanksgiving and praise. While we often ask for help so that our thoughts, words and deeds are pleasing to God, we lack any real theology of how to improve our spiritual relationship with Christ....other than go to Mass and confession, read hte Bible and receive the Eucharist as frequently as possible.
Confession was a requirement after the Council of Trent and the moral manuals were written to help the priest determine the sin and an appropriate penance. In early times, and depending on the sin, sinners were banished from the community for a long period of time. Thank God things changed. Nevertheless, confession is based on an act-centered morality, a legalistic series of do's and don'ts. Today, we have "moral absolutes" that are voluntary human acts (mostly involving sexual ethics) that are intrinsically evil under "all" circumstances, intentions and ends. Many of these so-called moral absolutes have driven people from confession and the church, such as: contraception or sterilization (considered immoral) in the case of a mother of 3 children whose life is threatened by another pregnancy...the prudent decision to safe-guard her life by using the pill or sterilization is morally irrelevant to the decision to ensure that every marital act have a procreative meaning; and abortion to save the life of the mother when the fetus cannot survive under any circumstances...is intrinsically evil.
It is good to recall the ancient practice that lies behind "giving a penance" in the sacrament of reconciliation. Originally, mostly for public sins, there was admission of guilt (confession), the imposition of a penance (punishment or making up for sin), and giving absolution at the conclusion of doing the penance. It was all very concrete and behavioral. When the process was condensed into giving the absolution right away, the purpose of the penance was abstracted into eschatology: dealing with the constructs of the "temporal remains of sin" and purgatory, common Church teaching unable to be verified in any way. That is why I call them "constructs".
On a behavioral level, what this points to is the fact of human nature that, even though we confess and receive absolution, we still have within us the tendency to wrong resulting from human nature, human weakness, habits, tendencies, drives, etc. That is why I believe that, if there is any meaning to "giving a penance," it ought to be in the direction of building habits of virtue rather than making up for sin (not that these are necessarily exclusive of one another). Moral theology guides us in determining wrong and its gravity. Spiritual theology guides us in forming habits of virtue. This approach anchors us firmly in behavior, without the need for an abstraction of eschatology.
Fr. Ken Smits, Capuchin
What is the appropriate penance for murder? For stealing massive sums? For beating up on people? Contrast this with the average Catholic's behaviors which are mostly sins of omission and disinterest. No wonder the church focuses so much on sexual matters, that is one area we all seem to have in common. The best confessions are in the context of spiritual direction appointments or even a retreat, which typically take an hour or more. The Saturday afternoon 'laundry list' resolves very little and can numb us the the overall effects of our unexamined life. What is it that we want to repent about, how are we seeking to do that, and what do we expect from ourselves and our confessor in the process? Unfortunately, we have an extremely limited number of priests and an even more limited supply of those really trained in spiritual direction. As a result, our people see less and less need for a ritualistic absolution that leads to no life improvement. Ask most priests, and they will tell you that Saturday confessions are mostly by the very scrupulous, signifying little in spiritual growth.
Is it worse to make no confession or a bad confession?
I honestly disagree with some Church teachings regarding what is a sin on both minor (venial) and major (mortal) issues. If I go to confession and omit confessing acts which the Church considers a sin, am I making a bad confession? My recollection from years of Catholic schooling is that if you consciously omit some sins while making a confession, you are committing a mortal sin. Put that mortal sin alongside Church rules which require Confession at least once a year during the Easter season, I find myself between the proverbial rock and hard place. I could go to Confession and confess to things which the Church says is wrong but I disagree with. But as a matter of conscience and integrity, I can't do that. I base my decision on the Church's teaching regarding the primacy of individual conscience in making moral decisions.
So, I don't go to Confession. And I miss it dearly. I have always thought of the Sacrament of Penance in terms of pardon, reconciliation, and peace. I recognize very clearly that I am not perfect (If you don't believe me, ask my wonderful wife of 46 years). I would like to participate in the outward sign of inward grace which is part of every Sacrament. Just as receiving the Eucharist is more than just eating the bread and drinking the wine, so confessing one's sins is also an outward act which signifies being open to and accepting of a deeper grace which can help us change for the better. I need all the help I can get to be a better person. I miss the help the grace of the Sacrament of Penance would give me to be more Christ-like in everything I do.
I would appreciate it if the three authors of the articles on the "Floating Sacrament" would respond to my question/dilemma. I don't think I am the only Catholic trying to figure out what is the right thing to do.
Recently I had long private conversation with a parish priest about "teachings of the Church that I disagree with", and "whether such disagreement would prevent me from receiving absolution during the sacrament of reconciliation, and reception of the Eurcharist".
The pastor of the parish told me that "disagreement with certain teachings, especially involving some controversy, should not prevent you from your relationship with God". He said Catholics are expected to follow the Church's teachings, but in some cases that may not be possible if the the issue is in tension with an informed conscious. After the discussion, he heard my confession and gave me absolution.
There is a significant disconnect, inconsistency and even contradiction, between the moral teachings of the Church (the word) and pastoral practices and theology (the deed). We live with these inconsistencies and contradications but most of us are profoundly disappointed with the lack of any remedy on the part of the magisterium and hierarchy. For example, most young Catholic couples practice contraception even those who attend weekly Mass. Yet, you never hear from the pulpit or even in weekly bulletins anything about confessing such sins before receiving the Eucharist, least you commit the grave sin of sacrilige. Every priest knows this but remains "silent" and never withholds the Eucharist from parishioners that are likely contraceptors. Are these not sins of omission and comission?
As for Fr. Smit's comments, I would challange the assertion that spiritual theology guides the person in forming habits of virtue. Frankly, that is the problem. Virtues are most abstract guides. One can, and frequently does, err in misjudging the mean of any virtue. The definition of virtues do not give us sufficient guidelines to resolve conflict and moral dilemma that are characterisitic of the problems we face in our modern world today. Many of these moral dilemma's are caused by the Church teachings themselves. They are in tension with an informed conscience, human experience and values.
The example I gave in my earlier blog, the women threatened by another pregnancy, is a prime example where the hierarchy of values is turned upside down. What is more important to God, to safe-guard one's life based on a prudent decision to use reasonable and effective means, or the decision to ensure that every marital act has a procreative meaning?
We all miss a time, not very long ago, when "communal Penance services" were typical and made it possible for scores of people to receive absolution either general or individual. We all confessed our sinfulness aloud in response to readings and Examen promptings, seeking forgivenenss in the context of the community as well as from the official church. Many times people who had such an uplifting experience would approach a parish staff person later and seek additional spiritual counsel and direction. As staff we often had the time to offer these souls and were privileged to hear many stories of grief, abuse, frustration, guilt and forgiveness. They were grieviously sorry for their sins and wished to make life changing, healing adjustments and even reparations, but just didn't know where to start. Many, many are back to faithful practice because they were welcomed and supported. The church needs to consider ways to reach out as Jesus did, offering forgiveness and absolution even before the sinner realizes he/she needs or wants it. Grace is really free and no one should be a gate-keeper for it. Jesus sought out those in need of healing, he didn't require them to find him first. We might consider doing likewise.
Thanks Mike for your thoughtful and ensightful remarks.
It is worth repeating that Jesus always reached out to the sinner, never to condemn, always to heal and offer understanding and forgiveness. The prostitute he forgave and never condemned is a good example, as well as many others who were despised and repudiated and in many cases thought to be evil. Jesus most profound teaching, at least in my opinion, was that if you knock you will find him and the door will be open. Yet, many Catholics are standing outside the Church doors of His house today waiting to be asked to enter and be welcomed into his loving forgiveness and receive the his salvific Eucharist...like the divorced and remarried, our brothers who are infected with HID/AIDS and use a condom to protest their spouse from this deadly disease, contraceptive couples who have several children and want no more for good reasons, young married women who are threatened by another pregnancy and are sterilzed or take the pill to safe-guard their life, and pregnant women whose life is endangered by a fetus who cannot survive under any circumstances and whose life is saved by the termination of the pregnancy, rather than to sit back and allow two of God's children to die. Such are the sufferings and moral dilemmas of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
When those of us in conflict and suffering reach out, as you suggest, they are only offered stoic insensible answers by the magisterium. The priest tries to offer more compassion and forgiveness, and there lies more dilemma.
This is why all teachings that were once proclaimed as the absolute moral truth, but were not received, were eventually reformed. We are living in a divided Church and in a criis of truth. Our only answer is Christ himself and our informed conscious, daily prayer and frequent receipt of the sacraments. However, for many Catholics they do not have access to the Eucharist or absolution in the sacrament of reconciliation.
The most insigtful and practical reflections on the current state of the Sacrament of Reconciliation I have read anywhere. Thank you Commonweal for publishing them.


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I have a Christmas Cake recipe which instructs me to "wrap the outside of the [cake] tin with a few sheets of newspaper, securing with staples or string". What is the reason for doing this, and is it really necessary?
A Christmas cake is a large cake and you're cooking it for a long time. Insulating and padding the tin helps prevent the outside of the cake from scorching before the inside is properly cooked.
You can also just use brown paper and string if newspaper appears to be 'dirty'. My mother would always wrap the tin with brown paper to twice the height of the tin (partly because that was her mother did).
Worked too - never burned or too crispy on the top. She'd do the same with certain other fruitcake recipes as well.
Bluebelle When I was a child my mother made a Xmas cake. This was a recipe unknown to her at the time. The inside of the tin was lined with the accepted brown paper stuck to the tin with fat. The outside of the tin was covered with 4 layers of newspaper and the cooking time was over an hour longer (about four and a half hours). I also remember her saying that the oven temperature would not be cool enough and doing both linings would allow a longer time in the oven at the higher temperature. The outside paper acted in the same way that we now use aluminium foil while cooking in the microwave. It was also known the brown paper was least 3 time the cost of a newspaper in the early 1960s.
As an alternate, depending on your recipe, is to use an angel food cake tin; i.e. one with a central hole.
It allows for heat to better hit the batter as the cake is not so thick at any one place.
My recipe, from my grandmother, from an old Toronto newspaper "The Telegraph", actually calls for such a pan.
No padding required, just foil over the top to stop it from browning too quickly. But remember to poke a hole in the foil to match the hole in the pan, or you will defeat the natural convection created through such a pan.

subset: commoncrawl


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Knudsen Minimum
Application ID: 11775
When a constant pressure difference drives flow through a narrow constriction between parallel plates (or through a cylindrical tube), the flow rate exhibits a characteristic minimum as the absolute pressure at the inlet is reduced. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as Knudsen's minimum, and occurs as a result of the rarefaction of the gas. The observation of a minimum in flow rate for this type of flow is a common benchmark employed in the simulation of rarefied gas flows.
In this model, the pressure driven flow of gas through a channel between parallel plates is modeled using the Laminar Flow, Slip Flow, Transitional Flow, and Free Molecular Flow interfaces. The flow rate is computed as a function of the Knudsen number (Kn), which is the ratio of the mean free path of the gas to the characteristic dimension of the geometry (in this case the separation of the plates), for each interface. The Transitional Flow interface is shown to agree well with the Free Molecular Flow and Slip Flow/Laminar Flow interfaces within their respective ranges of validity. In the transition region, the absence of an appropriate pressure boundary condition limits the validity of the solution. Nonetheless, solutions obtained with the Navier-Stokes limit and molecular-flow limit boundary conditions provide interesting insights when compared with experimental data.


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Darron Cummings/Associated Press file photo
Darron Cummings/Associated Press file photo
WIMBLEDON, England � As a reporter began to formulate a question about the first time Kim Clijsters retired, only to return to tennis, the four-time major champion cut off the query with a smile and a quick response.
�No, this is it,� she said Sunday. �If that�s where you�re going, this is it.�
No doubt at all?
�No, no, no,� Clijsters said.
The Belgian, who turned 29 on June 8, is back at Wimbledon for only the second time in the past six years � and, yes, the absolutely, positively last time. Clijsters already has announced that she�ll be leaving the sport for good after the U.S. Open in September.
�Too old. Too old to play the game that I want to play physically. I�ve put my body through enough strain and everything. The whole lifestyle, that�s what I�m dealing with now, the lifestyle I�ve had for the last 15, 20 years. It�s been great. I wouldn�t change it for a thing,� said Clijsters, one of only three mothers to have won a Grand Slam title. �But I�m not going to be the type of player that�s going to change the way I play or the way that I move.�
The daughter of a professional soccer player, Clijsters derived much of her success on a court from pure athleticism that helped her produce punishing groundstrokes and stretching-into-the-splits court coverage.
Those abilities allowed her to win the U.S. Open in 2005, 2009 and 2010, and the Australian Open in 2011.
�I naturally have that strong movement, powerful shots, and that�s been able to have me on top of women�s tennis and be, you know, I think on the highest part of women�s tennis, with Venus (Williams), Serena (Williams), Justine (Henin), to be part of that,� Clijsters said. �So physically, I need to be thankful for that, but, yeah, it�s normal that that�s not going to last 20 years.�
Clijsters pulled out of the semifinals at a grass-court warmup tournament in the Netherlands on Friday because of what she called a flaring up of an abdominal muscle tear from last season.
As it is, that was her first action in nearly three months because of hip and ankle problems. She�s 13-3 in 2012; only five women in the 128-player Wimbledon draw have played fewer matches on tour this season. That�s a big reason Clijsters is ranked 47th and wasn�t seeded for the penultimate Grand Slam tournament of her career.
Clijsters is scheduled to face 18th-seeded Jelena Jankovic on Court 1 at the All England Club in the first round today. It�s a matchup between two women who have been ranked No. 1 and have met eight times previously, with Clijsters holding a 7-1 edge.
The pounding Clijsters� body takes when she plays has led to a variety of injuries over the years, including a bad wrist that preceded her original sabbatical. She first stepped away from the tour in May 2007, got married later that year and gave birth to daughter Jada in February 2008.
She wound up back on tour in August 2009, a return that was prompted, at least in part, by being asked to participate a few months earlier in exhibition matches under the then-new roof on Wimbledon�s Centre Court. Not only unseeded, but even unranked because she�d only played in two previous tournaments during her comeback, Clijsters won the 2009 U.S. Open.
Two more Grand Slam titles would follow, but Wimbledon is the only major tournament where she�s never so much as reached the final.
That doesn�t mean she can�t appreciate the place.
�I love the atmosphere that hangs around the courts here � the history, the tradition,� Clijsters said. �You don�t feel that vibe in any other Grand Slam. I think that�s what makes this so unique.�
She�s not sure what sort of emotion she�ll feel when her Wimbledon career is all said and done, something that could happen as soon as today.
And she hasn�t decided exactly what she plans to do when her playing days are over, less than three months from now.
What Clijsters does know for sure is that she and her husband � Brian Lynch, an American who used to play professional basketball in Belgium � want to have more children.
�For that, I�m still young,� Clijsters said. �Maybe not for tennis � but for that, I�m still young.�


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Does there exist such a map $\phi: [0, 1] \rightarrow S^2$ which determines some sort of a Banach-Tarski decomposition for the unit interval $[0, 1]$? I did read through Stan Wagon's The Banach-Tarski Paradox but the language is somewhat terse. I did read somewhere that Felix Hausdorff proved that one can chop up the unit interval into countably many pieces, slide the pieces around, and fit them together into the interval $[0, 2]$. Not sure of any journals that describe the exact proof. Is it possible to find $\phi$ explicitly perhaps in terms of the middle-third Cantor set?
To get such a paradox using finitely many pieces, as in the Banach-Tarski case, one must move beyond isometries. But if one uses measure-preserving transformations, such a paradox does exist on the line. Reviewing my book on the BTP I find Theorem 7.9 which shows that there is a paradoxical decomposition of the interval using transformations preserve Lebesgue measure. The main point is that there is a Lebesgue-measure preserving function from the interval to the sphere, and that can be used to move the Banach-Tarski Paradox down to the line.
And there is von Neumann's paradox (Thm 7.12) which provides a finitary paradoxical decomposition of the line using epsilon contractions, for any positive epsilon. Since such a contraction is a linear fractional transformation it shrinks Lebesgue measure, so this can be considered paradoxical. Both of these use the Axiom of Choice.
Stan Wagon
One cannot expect an explicitly constructible example. By an old result of Solovay, if ZF (Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory without Choice) plus "there exists an inaccessible cardinal" is consistent (which is generally believed to be the case), then so is ZF plus "every set of reals is Lebesgue measurable."
The sets involved in the paradoxical decomposition cannot all be Lebesgue measurable. Indeed thinking of them as measurable is what makes the decomposition seem paradoxical. Thus some version of the Axiom of Choice is needed, and an explicit set-theoretic construction from just ZF is not possible.
As for "one dimensional" paradoxical decompositions into a finite number of sets, these are not possible. For it can be shown that there is a finitely additive translation-invariant "measure" that extends Lebesgue measure and is defined on all sets of reals. Using such a "measure" we can translate the intuitive notion of paradoxicalness into a proof that there is no paradoxical decomposition. The Banach-Tarski Paradox can be thought of as a proof that there is no translation invariant finitely additive "measure" defined on all subsets of $\mathbb{R}^3$.
Actually, let's work with the circle ${\mathbb T} = {\mathbb R}/{\mathbb Z}$, and $\mathbb Q_T = {\mathbb Q}/{\mathbb Z}$. A Vitali set $V$ is a subset of $\mathbb T$ such that $\mathbb T$ is the disjoint union of the translates $V + r$ for $r \in \mathbb Q_T$. Of course this can't be constructed explicitly, you need the Axiom of Choice. Now for $r \in [0,1/2)/\mathbb Z$ translate $V + r$ to $V + 2r$, and the disjoint union of these is $\mathbb T$; for $r \in [1/2, 1)/\mathbb Z$ translate $V + r$ to $V + 2r - 1$, and the disjoint union of these is also $\mathbb T$. So we've decomposed $\mathbb T$ into countably many pieces, translated some of them to make $\mathbb T$, and translated the rest to make another copy of $\mathbb T$.
If you take $[0,1)$ instead of $\mathbb T$, you can make this work with a slight adjustment: instead of translating all of $V + r$ by $r$ to get $V+2r$, you have to break $V+r$ into two pieces, translate $(V + r) \cap [0,1-r)$ by $r$ but translate $(V + r) \cap [1-r, 1)$ by $r-1$.
If you want to use $[0,1]$ instead of $[0,1)$ there's a further complication: what do you do with $1$?. But that's not hard: noting that all the translations above were by rational numbers, you just do what I described to the irrationals in $[0,1]$, and separately map the rationals in $[0,1]$ to two copies of itself.


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Last night we went as a family to check out "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" at our local drive-in. The movie itself did not disappoint, as our friendly quartet of zoo animals head to Monte Carlo this time around. An abundance of non-stop action and bright, colorful circus acts absolutely delighted my children. But even more fun than seeing an entertaining, animated film was the fact that we were in our car and the kids were in their pajamas. We brought our own popcorn and drinks from home and made ourselves comfortable while enjoying the cool, fresh air. Listening to the sound coming through the car's stereo system I was reminded of the drive-in experience of my youth when my parents would bring me to this very same drive-in theater.
By the time I was born, drive-in theaters were on the decline due to rising real estate costs and the invention of VCRs and video rentals. In the height of their popularity in the 1950s and '60s, rural areas with acres of wide open spaces were the ideal places for large movie screens and hundreds of cars to gather watch the latest films. In the beginning, the sound was broadcast in various ways, from speakers on the screen itself, then from a row of speakers in front of the cars. Later, the sound was pumped out through small, tinny-sounding speakers that each car could utilize complete with their own volume controls. This is what I remember from my childhood: the scratchy, monophonic sound coming from the (1!) speaker hanging from the car window.
Today the sound is transmitted through an FM station and is piped in right through our car speakers. Gone are the days of worrying about parking close enough to the pole so the speaker can reach…no more messy wires to deal with. The drive-in experience is really quite fun in the summer time. It's a very convenient option for kids who may not want to sit still for an entire feature film or can't remain quiet.
Truth be told, I am positive I would have a better quality movie-watching experience in the comfort of my own home. My home theater system, complete with a large flat-screen TV, surround sound and earth-moving subwoofer – not to mention easy access to the restroom and kitchen – is hard to beat. It's the novelty and nostalgic fun that brings my family back to the drive-in every summer. The things we do for kids.


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Viva La Taranta comprises a selection of songs played in front of a record-breaking audience of 200,000 fans, at La Notte della Taranta 2015 on 22nd August 2015.
A reimagining of the traditional music of the Salento region by Phil Manzanera, special guests and the Orchestra Popolare.
Artists performing include Luciano Ligabue, Paul Simonon, Tony Allen, Anna Phoebe and others.
All copies are signed by Phil Manzanera.


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Keep Your Chimney Clean
In This Article:
There are a couple of different ways to clean a chimney. We'll give you the preferred method, which is from the top of the chimney down. If possible, do it when the chimney is still warm from a fire. Creosote is easier to remove from warm surfaces. But make sure the fire is completely out:
In the Nick of Time
If you're going to be serious about cleaning your own chimney, and do a good job of it, be sure to buy the right size of brush for the job. To determine this, you'll need your chimney's interior measurements, which are taken from the top of the chimney. To do it, climb on the roof. If you have a metal or prefab chimney, remove the chimney cap and measure across the diameter. If it's a masonry chimney, measure the length and width of the flue liner and compute the dimension from these measurements. Be sure to buy a brush that comfortably fills the chimney without being too tight. A too-large brush will be harder to maneuver, but it will work unless it's really huge.
Tape or otherwise attach the drop cloth or sheet around the fireplace opening. This will keep ashes and other debris in the firebox and off your furniture and floors. Drape other drop cloths or sheets around the area as necessary.
Open the fireplace damper.
Don your protective apparel, grab your chimney rod, brushes, and flashlight,and climb onto the roof.
Remove the chimney cap. While it's off, clean it with the stiff-bristled brush. Check for damage.
Assemble the chimney brush and rods. Make sure all fittings are securely fastened. Just attach a few rods at first. You'll put more on later.
Lower the brush into the top of the chimney. Attach more rods as necessary for the brush to reach the bottom of the flue. You'll know you're there when you hit the damper assembly.
Work the brush up and down in a scrubbing motion. Check your work with the flashlight. Typically, you'll see the largest concentration of creosote in the upper one third of the chimney, but it's important to scrub the entire length.
When things look good from up above, climb down and go inside. Remove the cloth from the fireplace opening. Be sure there's a cloth on the hearth and the floor where you're working. Use the stiff-bristled brush to scrub the damper assembly and the sides of the firebox.
When you're done, sweep or vacuum up all ashes and other residue. Be sure to check behind the damper and around the smoke shelf for pieces of creosote. If you're cleaning a stovepipe, check all elbows or T connections. Clean your equipment with kerosene to remove creosote residue, and store it away for the next time.
Using creosote prevention products inside the firebox on a regular basis between cleanings will help keep creosote levels down. However, they won't remove existing creosote, so don't substitute them for regular cleaning.
More on: Home Improvements
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Common Household Disasters © 2005 by Paul Hayman and Sonia Weiss. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit Amazon's web site or call 1-800-253-6476.


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The Office of Alumni & Development serves to advance Davenport University's students, faculty, facilities, programs and services. Through fundraising, friendraising and alumni relations, opportunities are available to make a difference at Davenport University.
We host a variety of events from the annual Excellence in Business Dinner Gala each May to the Davenport Scholarship Golf Classic each August and several social, athletic and professional development programs for our alumni and friends.
We provide a variety of ways to support students through scholarships, internships and mentorships; to support facilities through naming opportunities on our campuses; and to support academic and athletic programs through The Davenport Fund and The Panther Athletic Fund.
Together, we can make a great impact on the future by investing in the present!
"Get Where the World is Going" and get involved today!


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| HP News
Dow's CEO Andrew Liveris says the cutbacks demonstrate a resolve to tightly manage operations, particularly in Europe, while mitigating the impact of a "slow-growth environment". With the moves, Dow expects to save $500 million in annual operating costs by the end of 2014.
Dow Chemical plans to close 20 plants and cut 2,400 jobs
as part of a global cost-cutting program over the next two
years, the company said on Wednesday.
The 2,400 layoffs amount to 5% of Dow's global workforce.
With the moves, Dow expects to save $500 million in annual
operating costs by the end of 2014.
"The reality is we are operating in a slow-growth environment in the near-term and,
while these actions are difficult, they demonstrate our resolve
to tightly manage operations particularly in Europe and mitigate the
impact of current market dynamics, said Andrew N.
Liveris, Dow CEO.
Dow says it also plans to further reduce capital spending and
investments for certain unspecified growth programs.
Those measures are expected to save the company an additional
$500 million in cash.
Earlier this year we announced targeted actions
levers we planned to pull to reduce costs and protect our
earnings growth path," said Liveris. "The interventions we are
announcing today represent the next phase in our path to
driving efficiency and prioritizing our growth programs.
"Importantly, we will continue funding projects where differentiation is
rewarded even in this environment and where margin expansion opportunities are clear
for example in Dow AgroSciences, Dow Electronic
Materials, and our Sadara and US Gulf Coast investments."
Plants to be shut down include a high-density polyethylene
(HDPE) facility in Tessenderlo, Belgium, and a sodium
borhidrate plant in Delfzijl, the Netherlands.
Moreover, a number of performance materials manufacturing facilities will be closed, including
an automotive systems diesel particulate filters manufacturing
facility in Midland, Michigan; formulated systems manufacturing
facilities in Ribaforada, Spain,
Birch Vale, United Kingdom and Solon, Ohio; and an epoxy resins
facility in Kina Ura, Japan.
Additionally, Dow says it will record an impairment
charge related to the write-down of Dow Kokam's assets,
reflecting weak global demand for lithium-ion batteries; and
will consolidate certain assets in its oxygenated solvents
business, as well as shut down a number of other small
manufacturing facilities. These actions are
expected to take place over the next two years.
Dow said it plans to involve local stakeholders as
defined in each country and in compliance with relevant
information and consultation processes.
All comments are subject to editorial review.
All fields are compulsory.
HazMat Experts and Firefighters petition Dow Chemical and Union Pacific for safe rail tank cars transporting gas chlorine. Secondary containment is a necessary improvement that must be implemented. See--PETITION C KIT for First Responders Comments.
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Engineers and designers are highly skilled individuals. Forcing them to enter design changes using tables, forms and spreadsheets is unproductive and uneconomical, and it increases the likelihood of human error—this is the way that most instrumentation software systems currently work. For too long, software vendors have denied engineers and designers the simple practicality of a graphical visual engineering interface with "drag and drop" capability and inbuilt intelligence, ensuring changes are automatically replicated into all the associated data and databases.
Is 2016 the peak for US gasoline demand?
Too soon to tell
July 2016


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Partners in+care. What is Viral Suppression?
Partners in+care. What is Viral Suppression?
Event Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm EDT
Dr. Moupali Das of the San Francisco Department of Health will describe viral suppression for a non-clinical audience. The presentation will include a discussion of why viral suppression is the ultimate goal of the in+care Campaign and will drill down to what that means to individuals living with HIV. Treatment as prevention, community viral load and other topic areas will also be covered. As always, there will be a panel discussion including people with HIV, NQC quality coaches and Campaign staff to provide additional context related to our important work with in+care.
If you have any specific questions you would like to have addressed, please send them in advance of the webinar to [email protected]ter.org. No pre-registration is needed, just enter the room as a guest at the time of this webinar.
Dial-in#: 866.394.2346
Participant Code: 397 154 6368 #
Webinar time: ET