Tremendous Trifles

On a Few Contradictions

The people who insist on "letting Terri die" confuse me with their own confusion. It seems weird that they would care about this case at all if what they say is sincere. They say that they want her to die because living on a bed and being fed through a tube must be a terrible way to live. Then they say that starving her is not a problem because she can't feel anything, is not aware of anything, and is in fact not even a person anymore. They say that in actuality she is already dead.

Does anybody else see all the contradictions here? If she is not really a she, but just an it that can't even feel pain anymore, then why should they feel so strongly about letting this particular "it's" bodily functions keep existing? If she can't feel the suffering of starving or dying of thirst, as they claim, then she can't feel any discomfort from her difficult condition either. So why would this matter to anybody so much as to protest about it and set up a whole lobby around it? If Terri is not a person, as they claim, and is just an empty shell, why would anybody particularly care that her family wants to keep this thing around to treat it as if it was a person?

I mean, given those beliefs, one might find such a desire odd, or even bizarre, but why would it be so tremendously controversial that someone would want to keep a specific "thing" around the house? And in case someone objects, while I agree that a person might have a concern for what is done with their body after they pass away, Terri's "body" (if we assume that is all that is left of her), is being treated with respect and great love. But of course, that is not the issue anyway--such matters are not the stuff that divides nations. No, if she really is not a person, as those who want to starve Terri claim, then I find no logical reason why such people should feel a strong need to voice their opinion. Well, perhaps there would be one, that of an altruistic desire for not letting her family waste their entire lives giving love to a "thing." But of course, no one that believes these things has said that.

If you think Terri is just a thing, a body devoid of a person, then there is no good reason why you should find it so terrible that some people who do think she is a person want to take care of her. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt, and let them do it, if after all according to what you think she is not feeling any sort of pain? On the other hand, if she is a person, and an innocent one at that, then how dare you ask that anyone withold from her the food and water we all need to live? How dare you impose death on her? That is not something one does to a person in a civilized world. Right?

posted by ertandberni @ 5:40 PM

The Da Vinci Hoax

The Da Vinci Code movie is on its way and if it is anything like the book, it is bringing with it a barrage of misinformation. I call it misinformation because although its supposed to be fiction, no one actually seems to realize this and many take the things said about the Catholic Church in it as true. I have even heard people use this book - one that can be found in the fiction section - as a basis for argument about history or religion. For this reason, I would like to point my readers to books such as The Da Vinci Hoax, which adequately distinguish factual claims from fictional ones, and which can be bought online directly from Ignatius Press or from Amazon.com. I encourage you to get the book, but in case you don't have time, are too lazy, or simply too cheap, you can still learn about some of the fictional elements that masquarade as fact in The Da Vinci Code by reading the following excerpts from a summary of Hoax that can be found in full on the Ignatius press website:

Facts vs. Fiction in The Da Vinci Code
By Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel

A frequent question asked by readers of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is “How much of the novel’s depiction of historical events, people, artwork, and institutions is correct.” The short answer is “Not much.” In fact, the only thing more amazing than Brown’s consistent misrepresentation of facts is a widespread acceptance of his claims, with both reviewers and readers praising the “research” and “knowledge” supposedly evident in his novel. The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code examines, in much detail, the lengthy list of claims made in the Code. Here is a brief look at just a few of the claims made in Brown’s novel and on his web site.

The Divinity of Jesus

Much attention has been given to The Da Vinci Code’s claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. But an even more audacious claim of the novel is that the divinity of Jesus was first raised and established at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, and that prior to that time, no one—not even Jesus’ followers—believed Jesus was anything more than a “mortal prophet” and great man. The fact that this has caused hardly a ripple among fans of the novel indicates a revealing (and hardly surprising) lack of knowledge about early Church history and belief.

There is plenty of evidence that the early Christians, dating back to Jesus’ time on earth, believed that Jesus of Nazareth was divine. In his seminal study, Early Christian Doctrines, noted scholar J.N.D. Kelly writes that “the all but universal Christian conviction in the [centuries prior to the Council of Nicaea] had been that Jesus Christ was divine as well as human. The most primitive confession had been ‘Jesus is Lord’ [Rom 10:9; Phil 2:11], and its import had been elaborated and deepened in the apostolic age.”

The Council of Nicaea did not define that Jesus, the Son of God, was divine (since that was accepted by all Christians) but addressed the issue of the exact relationship between the Son and the Father: Are they equal? One in substance? Two Persons? The Council specifically addressed and condemned the popular heresy of that time, called Arianism, which insisted that the Son was a lesser god, created by the Father at some point in time and not eternally existent.

The Real Jesus vs. the Gnostic Jesus

One of the more laughable claims of Brown’s novel is that the early Christians “literally” stole Jesus and shrouded his “human message . . . in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power”. The novel claims that the gnostic Jesus is far more human than the divinized Jesus of the four canonical Gospels contained in the Christian Bible.

That sounds fine—unless you actually read the so-called “gnostic gospels” and compare them to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Jesus of the gnostic writings is rarely recognizable as a Jewish carpenter, teacher, and prophet dwelling in first century Palestine; instead, he is often described as a phantom-like creature who lectures at length about the “deficiency of aeons”, “the mother”, “the Arrogant One”, and “the archons”—all terms that only the gnostic elite would comprehend, hence their secretive, gnostic character.

In reality, the “gnostic gospels” aren’t gospels at all in the sense of the four canonical gospels, which are filled with narrative, concrete details, historical figures, political activity, and details about social and religious life. On this point, as on others, Brown has it completely wrong and backwards.

Leonardo da Vinci

On a webpage titled “Bizarre True Facts from The Da Vinci Code . . .”, Brown writes that Leonardo was a “prankster and genius” who is “widely believed to have hidden secret messages within much of his artwork.” Widely believed by whom? It’s difficult to find any reputable art scholar or historian who would agree with that remark. But according to Brown, “most scholars agree that even Da Vinci's most famous pieces—works like The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and Madonna of the Rocks—contain startling anomalies that all seem to be whispering the same cryptic message.”

First, no scholar would ever refer to the great Italian artist as “Da Vinci” since his given name was “Leonardo”; “da Vinci” indicates the province he was from. Secondly, few, if any, scholars would concur with Brown’s dramatic assertion. Thirdly, there are no “startling anomalies” in any of the paintings Brown mentions. Any such anomalies can only be found in his novel and conspiracy-heavy books such as The Templar Revelation, which happens to be the source of almost all of Brown’s “research” into Leonardo. As for the cryptic message, which one is Brown referring to? He claims the Mona Lisa is an androgynous self-portrait, insists The Last Supper depicts Mary Magdalene at the right of Jesus, and claims Madonna of the Rocks (better known as The Virgin of the Rocks) depicts John the Baptist scandalously blessing the Christ-Child.

Brown’s site states that this cryptic message “hints at a shocking historical secret which allegedly has been guarded since 1099 by a European secret society known as the Priory of Sion.” Nevermind that the Priory of Sion was founded in the 1950s in France by a political radical, that its mysterious history is an admitted fabrication, and that it has been proven more than once to be a complete hoax. And yet the Priory of Sion is a central element in the plot and logic (so to speak) of The Da Vinci Code.

Opus Dei

One of Brown’s “bizarre true facts” is that Opus Dei exists and “has recently completed construction of a $47 million, 133,000-square-foot American Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.” Why this is considered bizarre is, well, bizarre. Far more bizarre than the existence of a personal prelature of the Catholic Church - erroneously described as “a church” in the Code - is the character of a murderous albino Opus Dei monk. Never mind that Opus Dei is not a religious order and that it consists of mostly lay people, with less than 2% of its members being priests. As others have noted, Brown’s mythical Opus Dei has simply taken the place of the Jesuits, an order commonly depicted as murderous, vile, and corrupt by anti-Catholics writing in the 1800s and well into the 1900s.

More Clear Facts About Muddy Fiction

The Da Vinci Code states that over a three hundred period in the medieval era, the Catholic Church was responsible for burning a total of five million women at the stake. That’s quite a bit off of the best current estimate of 30,000 to 50,000 of men and women killed during the four hundred years from 1400 to 1800—certainly a significant number, but not comparable to the Holocaust or Stalin’s purges. Many of those deaths didn’t involve burning. Witches were hanged, strangled, and beheaded as well. In addition, witch-hunting was not woman-hunting: at least twenty percent of all suspected witches were male. Despite what the novel clams, midwives were not especially targeted; nor were witches liquidated as obstacles to professionalized medicine and mechanistic science.

Another glaring error is found in character Robert Langdon’s explanation of the origin of the tetragrammaton—YHWH (pronounced as Yahweh)— the sacred name of God, which observant Jews believe should not be uttered. Langdon claims that YHWH comes from the name Jehovah, which he insists is an androgynous union between “the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah”. A quick trip to the encyclopedia (or theological dictionary, if you prefer) shows that Langdon is wildly off the mark. The name “Jehovah” didn’t even exist until the thirteenth century at the earliest (and wasn’t common until the sixteenth century), and is an English word. It was created by artificially combining the consonants of YHWH (or JHVH) and the vowels of Adonai (which means “Lord”), the name substituted for YHWH in the Old Testament by Jews. The Hebrew—not “pre-Hebraic”—word for Eve is hawwâ, (pronounced “havah”), which means “mother of all living”. There is absolutely nothing androgynous about any of this, but that dubious assertion is in keeping with the neognostic flavor of the novel.

Possibly Brown’s silliest mistake about the Templars is charging that Pope Clement V not only burnt hundreds of Templars but had their ashes “tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber River”. That the statement is put in the mouth of his “Royal Historian” character, Teabing, only adds to its irony. The largest burnings of Templars actually took place in Paris, with smaller holocausts in three other French cities and possibly Cyprus. There’s no record of Knights burnt at Rome. In any event, the pope couldn’t have dumped any remains in the Tiber since he resided at Avignon in southern France and not in Rome. Also, the Templars had nothing to do with gothic architecture, despite Brown’s claims that they had everything to do with it.

The Code claims that the Merovingians founded Paris. Nope. This is a mistake no educated Parisian would make, inasmuch as Paris was originally a Gallic village called Lutetia Parisiorum that was expanded into a city by the Romans.

On and on it goes, with faulty and often blatantly incorrect statements about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the Vatican, paganism, early Christianity, medieval Christianity, modern day Catholicism, the life and work of Leonardo, secret societies, the origins of the English language, Constantine, and much more. All of it is exposed in The Da Vinci Hoax, described by Francis Cardinal George as the “definitive debunking” of Dan Brown’s best-selling novel.

posted by ertandberni @ 7:59 PM

On Suffering

Sorry I've been so bad at updating recently, but things have been kind of hectic around here recently. In any case, given events such as what is going on with Terri Shiavo, the illness of the Pope, and of course, our remembrance of the Lord's Passion on this Good Friday, I think many of us have been giving a lot of thought to the question of suffering. I found an article by Peter Kreeft that deals precisely with that question, and I strongly encourage you to read it. Just click here.

posted by ertandberni @ 12:10 PM

A Visit With Terri Schiavo

The short hours are running out, and unless some legislative action is taken very soon, the process of starving Terri Schiavo to death will begin tomorrow (Friday, March 18). I strongly encourage you to read the article below, taken from the HLI website, which tells of a visit to Terri in her hospital room. It will give you a glimpse of the innocent person some are trying to kill.

It may still be possible to save her, however. Please immediately contact Congress at (202) 225-3671 to support the Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act. The HLI website tells us that:

US Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Melbourne) is working to introduce the Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act (first seen on nickqueen.com, and then on terrisfight.org). This would explicitly authorize and require the Federal court system to act upon Writs of Habeas Corpus for violations of civil rights cases.

Here's your chance to voice your support of this most crucial and timely Bill, revised for the case of Terri Schiavo.

The clock is running out.

A Visit With Terri Schiavo
Attorney Barbara Weller

This past Christmas Eve day, 2004, I went to visit Terri Schiavo with her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, her sister, her niece, and Attorney David Gibbs III. The visit took place at the Woodside Hospice for about 45 minutes just before noon.

When I knew I was going to visit Terri with her parents, I had no idea what to expect. I was prepared for the possibility that the Schindlers love their daughter and sister so much that they might imagine behaviors by Terri that aren't actually evident to others. The media and Mr. Schiavo clearly give the impression that Terri is in a coma or comatose state and engages only in non-purposeful and reflexive movements and responses. I am a mother and a grandmother, as well as one of the Schindlers’ attorneys, and I could understand how parents might imagine behavior and purposeful activity that is not really there. I was prepared to be as objective as I could be during this visit and not to be disappointed at anything I saw or experienced.

I was truly surprised at what I saw from the moment we entered the little room where Terri is confined. The room is a little wider than the width of two single beds and about as long as the average bedroom, with plenty of room for us to stand at the foot of her bed. Terri is on the first floor and there is a lovely view to the outside grounds of the facility. The room is entered by a short hallway, however, and there is no way for Terri to see out into the hallway or for anyone in the hallway to observe Terri.

From the moment we entered the room, my impression was that Terri was very purposeful and interactive and she seemed very curious about the presence of obvious strangers in her room. Terri was not in bed, but was in her chair, which has a lounge chair appearance and elevates her head at about a 30-degree angle. She was dressed and washed, her hair combed, and she was covered with a holiday blanket. There were no tubes of any kind attached to her body. She was completely free of any restraints that would have indicated any type of artificial life support. Not even her feeding tube was attached and functioning when we entered, as she is not fed 24 hours a day.

The thing that surprised me the most about Terri as I took my turn to greet her by the side of her chair was how beautiful she is. I would have expected to see someone with a sallow and gray complexion and a sick looking countenance. Instead, I saw a very pretty woman with a peaches and cream complexion and a lovely smile, which she even politely extended to me as I introduced myself to her. I was amazed that someone who had not been outside for so many years and who received such minimal health care could look so beautiful. She appeared to have an inner light radiating from her face. I was truly taken aback by her beauty, particularly under the adverse circumstances in which she has found herself for so many years.

Terri’s parents, sister, and niece went immediately to greet Terri when we entered the room and stood in turn directly beside her head, stroking her face, kissing her and talking quietly with her. When she heard their voices, and particularly her mother's voice, Terri instantly turned her head towards them and smiled. Terri established eye contact with her family, particularly with her mother, who spent the most time with her during our visit. It was obvious that she recognized the voices in the room with the exception of one. Although her mother was talking to her at the time, she obviously had heard a new voice and exhibited a curious demeanor. Attorney Gibbs was having a conversation near the door with Terri’s sister. His voice is very deep and resonant and Terri obviously picked it up. Her eyes widened as if to say, “What’s that new sound I hear?” She scanned the room with her eyes, even turning her head in his direction, until she found Attorney Gibbs and the location of the new voice and her eyes rested momentarily in his direction. She then returned to interacting with her mother.

When her mother was close to her, Terri’s whole face lit up. She smiled. She looked directly at her mother and she made all sorts of happy sounds. When her mother talked to her, Terri was quiet and obviously listening. When she stopped, Terri started vocalizing. The vocalizations seemed to be a pattern, not merely random or reflexive at all. There is definitely a pattern of Terri having a conversation with her mother as best she can manage. Initially, she used the vocalization of “uh’uh” but without seeming to mean it as a way of saying “no”, just as a repeated speech pattern. She then began to make purposeful grunts in response to her mother’s conversation. She made the same sorts of sound with her father and sister, but not to the same extent or as delightedly as with her mother. She made no verbal response to her niece or to Attorney Gibbs and myself, but she did appear to pay attention to our words to her.

The whole experience was rather moving. Terri definitely has a personality. Her whole demeanor definitely changes when her mother speaks with her. She lights up and appears to be delighted at the interaction. She has an entirely different reaction to her father who jokes with her and has several standing jokes that he uses when he enters and exits her presence. She appears to merely “tolerate” her father, as a child does when she says “stop” but really means, “this is fun.” When her father greets her, he always does the same thing. He says, “here comes the hug” and hugs her. He then says, “you know what’s coming next---the kiss.” Her father has a scratchy mustache and both times when he went through this little joke routine with her, she laughed in a way she did not do with anyone else. When her father is ready to plant the kiss on her cheek, she immediately makes a face her family calls the “lemon face.” She puckers her lips, screws up her whole face, and turns away from him, as if making ready for the scratchy assault on her cheek that she knows is coming. She did the exact same thing both times that her father initiated this little routine joke between the two of them.

The interactions with her family and our appearance in her room appeared to require some effort and exertion from Terri. From time to time, she would close her eyes as if to rest. This happened primarily when no one was paying particular attention to her, but we were talking among ourselves. After a few minutes or when one of the visitors approached her and started to talk directly to her again, Terri would open her eyes and begin her grunting sounds again in response to their conversations. Although I approached her, leaned close and stroked her arms and spoke to her, she did not verbally respond to me.

Terri’s hands are curled up around little soft cylinders that help her not to injure herself. I understand that these contractures are likely very painful, although there was a time when Terri was receiving simple motion therapy when her hands and arms relaxed and were no longer as constricted. When the therapy was discontinued by order of her guardian and the court, the contractures returned. These contractures would apparently be avoidable if Terri were given the simple range of motion therapy she previously received. It is very sad to observe firsthand these conditions that make her life more difficult, but that would be correctable with little effort.

When we were preparing to leave, the interactions with Terri changed. First, she went through the joke routine with her father and the “lemon face.” When her niece said goodbye to her, Terri did not react. Nor did she react to me or to Attorney Gibbs when we said our goodbyes to her. When her sister went to her to say goodbye, Terri’s verbalizations changed dramatically. Instead of the happy grunting and “uh uh” sounds she had been making throughout the visit, her verbalizations at these goodbyes changed to a very low and different sound that appeared to come from deep in her throat and was almost like a growl. She first made the sound when her sister said goodbye and then, amazingly to me, she made exactly the same sound when her mother said goodbye to her. It seemed Terri was visibly upset that they were leaving. She almost appeared to be trying to cling to them, although this impression came only from her changed facial expression and sounds, since her hands cannot move. It appeared like she did not want to be alone and knew they were leaving. It was definitely apparent in the short time I was there that her emotions changed—it was apparent when she was happy and enjoying herself, when she was amused, when she was resting from her exertion to communicate, and when she was sad at her guests leaving. It was readily apparent and surprising that her mood changed so often in a short 45-minute visit.

I was pleasantly surprised to observe Terri’s purposeful and varied behaviors with the various members of her family and with Attorney Gibbs and myself. I never imagined Terri would be so active, curious, and purposeful. She watched people intently, obviously was attempting to communicate with each one in various ways and with various facial expressions and sounds. She was definitely not in a coma, not even close. This visit certainly shed more light for me on why the Schindlers are fighting so hard to protect her, to get her medical care and rehabilitative assistance, and to spend all they have to protect her life.

I realize that Terri has good days and bad days. There are obviously days when she does not interact with her family, as they had previously told us. There are also apparently days when Terri is even more interactive and responsive to them than she was on the day I visited. Since this visit I am more convinced than ever that the Schindlers are not just parents who refuse to let go of their daughter. There really is a lot going on with their daughter and potentially, it seemed obvious to me, Terri could improve even more with appropriate care and 24 hour a day love that can only come from a dedicated family. As I watched her, my foremost thought was that on the next day, Christmas, Terri should not have been confined to her small room in a hospice center, nice as that room was, but that she should have been gathered around the Christmas dinner table enjoying the holiday with her family.

posted by ertandberni @ 12:59 AM

Spring Break Reflections

The two weeks of hibernation are over and Tremendous Trifles is back on the air! [crowd goes wild, fireworks shoot off into the sky, etc.]

Did you miss me? Good. I'd like to say I missed you too, but I was too busy having ridiculous amounts of fun in Bogotá, Colombia. Seriously speaking, it was a really great trip and I'm really thankful to God for it. I was able to spend some quality time with my maternal grandparents as well as my cousins, whom I hadn't seen in several years. Ahead are some random reflections from the trip:

- My family is freakin' awesome. Each one of them has something really special and interesting about them, starting with my grandfather. It was inspiring and really humbling to sit down and listen to his stories - it would seem like there is nothing this man has not done. I was especially amazed when he told me about a student strike that he led as a high school senior (when he was only eighteen), which eventually spread throughout the country, achieved its goal of abolishing a set of hated state exams, and even cost the minister of education his job. It also allowed him to meet political figures like Mariano Ospina Pérez and Alberto Lleras Camargo, whom all Colombian children learn about in their history textbooks. It kind of makes me feel silly that at twenty-one, getting good grades in class still rates among my most impressive accomplishments.

- People can surprise you. My aunt, who has a mental disorder and who I never really paid much attention to, is actually a pretty smart and rather interesting person. It turns out that despite her condition, she is a busy student of theology and amateur writer. She has already written a short book on Padre Pio, and is currently working on an anthology about the Blessed Virgin Mary as well as a novel. We had a few conversations, though it was difficult to communicate as one normally would because of the way her mind works. Still, I was very impressed and surprised.

- Colombia is a nice place, and Bogotá is a really interesting city. It really is a metropolis with a little bit of everything, from historic, colonial neighborhoods to modern business sectors. Clubs and the party scene in general are really enjoyable there. Within the same night, one can dance to very different styles of music including salsa, merengue, vallenato, pop, trance/techno, rock, and even (rather regrettably) reggeaton. Though there is certainly drinking involved, that is not the central part of the night, making the experience more dynamic and even joyful.

- On the negative side, the faith in Colombia seems to be in trouble among the youth. From what I could gather, the Church's beliefs are perceived as antiquated and even arbitrary among young members of the socioeconomic and intellectual elites. There may well be groups of young and educated Catholics standing up for their faith, but I don't know where they are. There is a great need for serious education about the faith, evangelization and apologetics among the youth. The Church can answer the challenges of the modern world, and we must help young people in Colombia (as well as everywhere else) become aware of this fact.

- Closely connected to this deterioration of the faith, I sensed a significant amount of moral, social and cultural corruption that I hadn't in the past (probably because I was not old enough to become aware of it). I was especially shocked to learn about what Colombians refer to as "Pre-paid" women, who are mid to upper social class university students, so concerned with leading a luxurious lifestyle, that they will prostitute themselves to affluent costumers. It seems that in today's world, some find designer clothing to be considerably more important than human dignity. Big surprise, huh?

- Abortion activists are working hard in Colombia and Latin America as a whole. My cousins were well acquainted with imported pro-choice rhetoric, although I was relieved to find out that they rejected such nonsense (even the ones that are not religious). Still Planned Parenthood has been pushing forth its agenda under an organization with the disturbingly ironic name of Pro-Familia, and many young people now consider legalized abortion to be the "progressive" option. Let's hope that Colombian pro-lifers will do their work and ensure that sanity remains the law of the land in regards to this issue.

- Back to more positive things, Colombian food is great, the people are warm and friendly, and the countryside is beautiful. I love mountains. I love Spanish colonial architecture. I love looking at faces that have something indescribable but uniquely Colombian about them. I love my family.

- I'm thinking that my love for the Church and Colombia might be connected in God's plan for my life, though I don't really know in what way. I have no clue in what part of the world I'll end up living, but I'm thinking that wherever that is, aiding people and the Church in Colombia ought to be among my top priorities.

- For the first time in a while, I experienced how it feels to have no pressing responsibilities. I have grown so unaccustomed to this feeling that I actually could not identify what it was until today when classes started again. It was almost like being in another world.

- There is nothing like seeing and old friend after a long time, and feeling like you had never gone away at all.

- What an awesome and needed break. Thank you God!

posted by ertandberni @ 9:00 PM