Dave Armstrong's Blog, page 15

Has St. Peter's House in Capernaum Been Discovered?

Remains of the Byzantine octagonal church built over what is likely St. Peter's house in Capernaum
[portion of a chapter in my book, Footsteps that Echo Forever: My Holy Land Adventure of Archaeological and Spiritual Discovery]

It remains an indisputable fact of history, that Catholics from their earliest existence in the apostolic age, have commemorated important, holy sites in biblical and Catholic history: often by building churches or at least shrines of some sort where they happened. We know this is true, among many other reasons, because Catholics are frequently blasted for the supposed “idolatry” that (we are told) occurs I such places: whether it is a holy location or the relics of a saint.

Thus, archaeology (knowing this full well) often begins with the premise that the early Christians rememberedwhere important events having to do with their religion took place. This was perhaps most notably true in the case of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as we saw in another chapter. Archaeologists and historians largely agree that it encompasses the likely locations of Jesus' crucifixion and His tomb.  
The authenticity of this holiest of Christian churchesis accepted because the earliest churches built on the spot were based on the collective memory of the local tradition of Christians. These things don't proceed merely by happenstance or a good “guess.” They're based on legitimate memories and traditions passed down.

Many analogies to every day life easilybring this point home. For example, a family might revere a house or some property where its ancestorshad lived for hundreds of years. They generally don't forget where it was unless many hundreds of years pass.  
Americans know exactly where George Washington was born, or where Benjamin Franklin worked as an apprentice in a print shop in Philadelphia (I've been there). Those two things are at least 280 years ago. We know where the American nation began: Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 (I've been there, too). That's more than 400 years ago, but has not been forgotten at all. Why wouldit be? It's clear that very significant places will usually be remembered and documented.

It's not difficult to remember particulars over many generations. This applies to Christians and their own history, just as it does to anyone else. One person, after all, can live for a period encompassing parts of three generations. My 89-year-old mother can remember things from the late 1920s, which is now over 85 years ago, or more than two biblical generations.

In other instances, it should also be noted, some things seem to be lost to history, as I have argued elsewhere in this book was the cases with the location of Jesus' baptism and the Via Dolorosa. Yet the exceptions don't disprove the rule (the latter was a late tradition to begin with, and so more speculation was in play). Because some things were forgotten or lost track of in the mists of history doesn't mean that allthings are.

In the case of what many believe to beSt. Peter's house in Capernaum, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the argument is very straightforward: an ancient church was built over what was formerly a house. The simplest explanation is that the house must have had some great significance in Christian history. St. Peter's house fits that bill, and is the most reasonable explanation (though it remains unable to be proved – like nearly allthings in archaeology – beyond any doubt whatsoever).

To acknowledge this doesn't even require a personal Catholic belief. It's just history, and how things were done by Christians, and even a secular archaeologist has no trouble accepting it.

The Bible History Dailywebsite, from the Biblical Archaeology Society, provides a basic overview of the evidence involved here, in its article (3-29-11), “The House of Peter: The Home of Jesus in Capernaum?”:


It was here during the infancy of early Christianity that he began his ministry in the town synagogue (Mark 1:21), recruited his first disciples (Mark 1:16–20) and became renowned for his power to heal the sick and infirm (Mark 3:1–5).  
. . . Where was the house of Peter, which the Bible suggests was the home of Jesus in Capernaum (Matthew 8:14–16)?  
Italian excavators working in Capernaum may have actually uncovered the remnants of the humble house of Peter that Jesus called home while in Capernaum. . . .  
Buried beneath the remains of an octagonal Byzantine martyrium church, excavators found the ruins of a rather mundane dwelling dating to the first century B.C.

Octagonal martyria were built to commemorate an important site, such as the original house of Peter that once stood here. The inner sanctum of the octagonal building was built directly above the remains of the very room of the first-century house that had formed the central hall of the earlier church. 

. . . Were it not for its association with Jesus and Peter, why else would a run-of-the-mill first-century house in Capernaum have become a focal point of Christian worship and identity for centuries to come?


W. von Menden began the excavation of the remains of the octagonal church from 1906 to 1915. The Franciscan Gaudenzio Orfali continued this work from 1921 to 1925.Franciscan Fathers Virgilio Corbo and Stanislao Loffreda again excavated the area from 1968 to 1985. 
This is the house where Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law (Mk 1:29-34), cured theparalytic lowered down from above(Mk 2:1-4), as well as many others near the door (Mk 1:33), and preached to the crowds (Mt 12:46-50). It has immense significance in Christian history. In the nearby synagogue He taught many times, including his magnificent eucharistic discourse recorded in John 6 (see Jn 6:59). Historical attestation of a church being built over Peter's house also exists. The Spanish nun Egeria, wrote around 381 to 395:


And in Capernaum, what is more, the house of the prince of the apostles [Peter] has been transformed into a church, with its original walls still standing. Here the Lord healed the paralytic. There is also the synagogue where the Lord healed the man possessed by demons . . .


An unnamed pilgrim, writing around 560-570 noted the Byzantine basilica: “And so we came on to Capernaum to the house of Saint Peter, which is now a basilica.” 

Raymond E. Marley, writing in the Jerusalem Christian Review in 1998

An open area between the street and the doorway, leading to the courtyard, makes the building unique among others found in the vicinity. This open area would have allowed space for a large number of people to “gather at the door” of Peter's home to hear Jesus' preaching. (Mark 1:33; 2:1-3)

. . . Inside the building, numerous coins, pottery and oil-lamps dating to the first century were discovered, along with artifacts which included several fish hooks.
Archaeologists also unearthed evidence of memorials built by later Christian generations around Peter's home.

“Christians who lived in Capernaum during the second, third and fourth centuries highly venerated this site and showed great care not to destroy the house, but rather to add additional structures to it,” said Italian scholar, Virgilio Corbo, who excavated at the site.


Jesus regarded Capernaum as His home (Mt 9:1; Mk 2:1; 3:19; 10:10), and He likely lived in St. Peter's house. He performed many miracles in the town (Mt 4:18-22; Mk 1:34), and there He chose his first four disciples (Peter, Andrew, James, and John); later also enlisting the tax-collector Matthew (Mt 9:9; Mk 2:14; Lk 5:27). This is also where He healed the centurion's servant (Lk 7:1-10). His mother Mary visited (Mk 3:31). He explained His parables in greater depth to the disciples in Peter's house (Mk 7:17). Here He embraced the little child and taught about humility and servanthood (Mk 9:33-37).

James H. Charlesworth, professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, writing in the book he edited, Jesus and Archaeology

Archaeological evidence is almost always hotly debated. What, then, is clear? The “house church” in Capernaum that is celebrated as Peter's house may well be the house in which Jesus taught. It is certainly not a “synagogue,” but it seems to be Peter's house. Thus, I fully agree with J. Murphy-O'Connor, who is unusually well informed of data related to Jesus and archaeology and astutely critical; notice his judgment: “The most reasonable assumption is the one attested by the Byzantine pilgrims, namely, that it was the house of Peter in which Jesus may have lodged (Mt 5:20). Certainly nothing in the excavations contradicts this identification.

John J. Rousseau reiterates my original point above:


Ancient peoples tended to build new sanctuaries over preexisting ones, even if they were dedicated to a different god. In this case, the Byzantine octagonal church was built exactly over the ancient large room.

And more specifically, on the same page:


Artifacts discovered there (Herodian coins and lamps, fish hooks) show that the house was occupied as early as the first century B.C.E. and that people involved in fishing lived in or around the house.

. . . The excavators' conclusions are widely accepted today.


FOOTNOTES






* * * * *

The Locations of Jesus' Crucifixion, His Tomb, and the Route of the Via Dolorosa (Biblical Archaeology)

Is this the "pavement" where Pilate condemned Jesus?

['pre-trip" / archaeological portion of a chapter from my book, Footsteps that Echo Forever: My Holy Land Adventure of Archaeological and Spiritual Discovery ]


This is a fascinating topic, that has a lot more to do with deductive speculation, historical accounts, sacred tradition, and reckoning of historical geography and architecture than archaeology per se. But the overlap is obvious. Catholics and other Christians who are interested in the historical grounding of the Christian faith will, by nature, be curious about the facts of the matter: what we know with high certainty,and what is speculation to a more or less degree.   As I have done in other chapters, my aim is to present readers with a survey of what is believed to be known about these two sites. First, we shall examine the evidences for the location of Golgotha (“Place of the Skull”), or Calvary (Calvariæ Locus: the same name in Latin): the holy placeof Christ's crucifixion: where He redeemed the human race (those who accept by grace His free gift of mercy) from sin and opened the way for us to be saved and to go to heaven.
I'd like to first look (as a sort of counter-point) at a densely-argued treatment in favor of the site of the crucifixion in a spot otherthan where Catholic and Orthodox tradition hold it to be (within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Joan Taylor contended for this in her article, “Golgotha: A Reconsideration of the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus' Crucifixion and Burial.” She sites as her historical evidence (besides some semi-vague New Testament evidence), Melito of Sardis’ work, Peri Pascha (c. 160):
Melito writes poetically of the crucifixion taking place epi meses plateias kai en mesô poleôs. . ., “in the middle of a plateiaand in the ‘middle of a city.’” Elsewhere, he describes the murder of Jesus “in the middle of Jerusalem”. . . . What is clear is that a site in the middle of the city of Jerusalem was pointed out to him as the place where Jesus died. This would tally perfectly with the fact that the quarry was outside first century Jerusalem, but inside the city from the middle of the second century onwards.   . . . this places the site of the crucifixion in the middle of a main street, the Decumanus. . . . In common usage, plateiagenerally means “wide street” (usually colonnaded) . . . and would apply to either the Cardo Maximus or the Decumanus, which met the Cardo at a “T” intersection.
. . . While it is impossible on the basis of Melito’s remarks to say precisely which plateiais being referred to, what we can deduce is that his words would fit with our identification of the site of Jesus’ crucifixion on the basis of the New Testament, if Melito’s plateiais, in fact, the Decumanus.
She then points to what she sees as corroborating evidence:
More importantly, perhaps, is the evidence found in Eusebius’ Onomasticon,written late in the 3rd century or early in the fourth, some time before Constantine built his basilica on the site of the (destroyed) Temple of Venus. In his notes of various Biblical places he could still find in Palestine, Eusebius wrote of Golgotha: “Place of a Skull,” where the Christ was crucified, which is indeed pointed out in Aelia right beside (pros) the northern parts (tois boreiois) of Mount Zion.

By means of various arguments, far too complex to summarize presently, she deduces that this is consistent with Melito's observation, and concludes at length:
For those who are interested in the precise location of the proposed site of the crucifixion in today’s Old City, the spot marked with an “x” is a little to the southwest of where David Street meets Habad Street, but north of St. Mark Street. As the Decumanus is plotted with greater certainty, and excavations take place in this area, the localization may become more accurate.
This spot is almost due south of the site within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and slightly east: at a little less than 200 meters' distance.
Martin Biddle, professor of medieval archaeology at Oxford, whom Dr. Taylor cites several times in her article, disagrees. In his book, The Tomb of Christ A simpler view is that Melito is using plateia to mean 'open place, plaza, square' rather than 'street' in the strict sense, and is reflecting a rather precise tradition that in his time the site of the crucifixion was believed to lie in the centre of an open space in the middle of Aelia Capitolina. If so, Melito may here reflect the Jerusalem tradition which guided the search undertaken on Constantine's orders a hundred and fifty years later . . . (p. 62)
Dr. Taylor argued that Constantine moved the site of Golgotha northward (close to the tomb) to what was then a pagan temple, but Dr. Biddle, after sifting through the textual evidence of Eusebius, refers in passing (citing Dr. Taylor as the proponent in his footnotes), to “a whole new theory that Constantine shifted the traditional location of Golgotha northwards to the site of the temple [of Venus]. This will not do” (p. 64). He concludes:
The site chosen for the excavations of 325/6 remains, however, the decisive evidence for the survival of knowledge of the site of the crucifixion as a topographical location . . . (p. 64).
Referring to the 1998 article by Dr. Taylor, Dr. Biddle observes:
In a recent article Dr Taylor has maintained her view that the site of the crucifixion lay to the south of the traditional site of Golgotha . . . She now locates Golgotha 200 m away from the tomb, precisely in the middle of the supposed site of the main east-west street of Aelia, the Decumanus, no certain trace of which has yet been located . . . TheInternational Standard Bible Encyclopedia,For the traditional view it may be said that it seems highly improbable that so sacred a spot as this, particularly the empty tomb, could have been entirely forgotten. Although it is true that Jews and Christians were driven out of Jerusalem after the second great revolt (130-33 AD), yet Gentile Christians were free to return, and there was no break long enough to account for a site like this being entirely lost. Indeed there are traditions that this site was deliberately defiled by pagan buildings to annoy the Christians. Eusebius, at the time of Constantine, writes as if it were well known that a Temple of Aphrodite lay over the tomb.
He [Sir Charles W. Wilson] gives an account of the discovery of the spots still venerated as the Golgotha and the Tomb, and of the erection of churches in connection with them (Life of Constantine, III, 25-40). From the time of Constantine there has been no break in the reverence paid to these places. Of the earlier evidence Sir C. Wilson admits (loc. cit.) that “the tradition is so precarious and the evidence is undoubtedly so unsatisfactory as to raise serious doubts.”
. . . There is no insurmountable difficulty in believing that the site of the Crucifixion may be where tradition points out. As Sir C. Wilson says at the end of his book, “No objection urged against the sites (i.e. Golgotha and the Tomb) is of such a convincing nature that it need disturb the minds of those who accept, in all good faith, the authenticity of the places which are hallowed by the prayers of countless pilgrims since the days of Constantine” (loc. cit.).
The New Bible Dictionary[T]he one is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the other Gordon's Calvary, commonly known as the Garden Tomb . . .
The Garden Tomb was first pointed out in 1849; a rock formation there resembles a skull; and admittedly the site accords with the biblical data. But there is no tradition nor anything else to support its claim. The more ancient site is much more likely; but any identification must remain conjectural.
TheInternational Standard Bible Encyclopedia, in the article cited above, provided far more damaging counter-evidences to Gordon's Calvary:
The supposed resemblance to a human skull strikes many people, but it may be stated without hesitation that the most arresting points of the resemblance, the “eyeholes” and the rounded top, are not ancient; the former are due to artificial excavations going back perhaps a couple of centuries. Probably the whole formation of the hill, the sharp scarp to the South and the 10 or more feet of earth accumulated on the summit are both entirely new conditions since New Testament times.
The “Garden Tomb” associated with Gordon's Calvary is also given short shrift by Dr. Joan Taylor in her aforementioned article:
[S]cholarly endorsement of this locality has never been very strong. Generally, the current consensus holds that Golgotha was located in the vicinity of the traditional site, somewhere north of the first wall of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, and west of the second wall, though specificity is impossible . . . the traditional tomb of Jesus may very well be authentic.   Upon further consideration of this matter, it seems to me that the fact that the tomb was considered self-evidentis the one most important factor that points to the probable authenticity of the traditional site. The traditional view has one key element in its favor (though one that is usually completely ignored): it gives us a perfect reason why no physical proof or legitimating miracle was required for anyone to believe that the tomb was genuine. The reason it was genuine was that it was in precisely the right place, under the statue of Jupiter, as everyone in the Jerusalem church believed (though Eusebius of Caesarea may well have been more skeptical). People only had to remove the statue of Jupiter to find the perfect tomb just exactly underneath it. No further proof was required. It requires us to believe that Hadrian did indeed cover up the tomb purposely and placed a statue of Jupiter on top of it.   [Footnote 1] The Garden Tomb has been shown to dale from the Iron Age, and therefore cannot be genuine as the tomb of Jesus, see Gabriel Barkay. The Garden Tomb — Was Jesus buried here? Biblical Archaeology Review12/2 (March/April 1986) 40–53, 56–7.
Archaeologist Bargil Pixner summed up the evidence:
Today Catholic, Protestant and Israeli archaeologists all agree that the locations for the New Testament places are under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Regarding the authenticity of Gordon's Calvary, on the same page he informed his readers that “today no serious archaeologists shares this opinion.”   Moreover, he notedthat the present Via Dolorosa probably starts at a different place than the beginning of the actual route that Jesus took to the place of His crucifixion. Fr. Pixner provides further details:
It is now widely accepted that N. Avigad discovered the remains of the Gennath (Garden) Gate . . . This gate, by which Jesus was probably led from the city (cf. Heb 13:12), lay south of the crossingof today's Suk es-Zeit and King David Street. (p. 304)
Since that was where the gate of the city was, on the way to Golgotha outside the city, it is one distinct spot where the pilgrim can say with significant assurance: “Jesus carried His cross at this spot.” Fr. Pixner describes the beginning of the “historical Way of the Cross”:
. . . the Praetorium of Pilate, is far more difficult to locate . . . most researchers reject today for historical and archaeological reasons the belief that the Praetorium was in the fortress Antonia. . . . The present majority view for the location of the Praetorium of Pilate prefers instead the area of the Citadel near today's Jaffa Gate . . . (p. 308)
The last part of the procession route, from the Praetorium to Golgotha, is the oldest continuous commemoration for the Way of the Cross and goes back, as we can see, to the first part of the fifth century. . . . If we accept the beginning of this “Way section” within the range of the “archaeological garden,” in which are also the ruins of the German Crusader Church of St. Mary, then the route must have gone first north along today's Nisgav Ladach Road, then left through Chain Street, up to the Suk es-Zeit (the former Cardo Maximus) and from there to the Martyrion of the Anastasis basilica and onto the rock of Golgotha. . . . (p. 310)
Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson also opts for an “alternate” Via Dolorosa, based on the same assumption of a different starting point:
In a new book, titled “The Final Days of Jesus,” Gibson says he has found the location of Jesus’ trial, where Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, condemned him to death by crucifixion. Traditionally it is believed that the trial took place at the Antonia Fortress, outside the Temple Mount, near Lion’s Gate. But Gibson believes the trial was actually conducted in an area just outside what is now the western wall of the Old City. “You have a courtyard and a pavement and a rocky outcrop on one side,” he says of the site. “In the Gospel of John, you have a description of the trial taking place at the Lithostratus, Greek for pavement, at a place called Gabata, which is the word for an ancient hillock or a rocky outcrop, and this is what we have here.” So if the trial was outside the Old City, as Gibson believes, and not in the Antonia Fortress, then the traditional Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus took to his crucifixion, is wrong. I retraced with Gibson the route of his new Via Dolorosa, which begins in a nondescript parking lot in the Armenian Quarter. It skirts the Ottoman walls of the Old City, next to what is known as the Tower of David near Jaffa Gate, then heads toward the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Wikipedia article, “Via Dolorosa” provides a handy summary of recent findings and theories:
[A]rchaeological discoveries in the 20th century now indicate that the early route of the Via Dolorosa on the Western hill was actually a more realistic path.   The equation of the present Via Dolorosa with the biblical route is based on the assumption that the Praetorium was adjacent to the Antonia Fortress. However, like Philo, the late-first-century writer Josephus testifies that the Roman governors of Roman Judaea, who governed from Caesarea Maritima on the coast, stayed in Herod's palace while they were in Jerusalem, carried out their judgements on the pavement immediately outside it, and had those found guilty flogged there; Josephus indicates that Herod's palace is on the western hill, and it has recently (2001) been rediscovered under a corner of the Jaffa Gate citadel. Furthermore, it is now confirmed by archaeology that prior to Hadrian's 2nd-century alterations (see Aelia Capitolina), the area adjacent to the Antonia Fortress was a large open-air pool of water.   In 2009, Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson found the remains of a large paved courtyard south of the Jaffa Gate between two fortification walls with an outer gate and an inner one leading to a barracks. The courtyard contained a raised platform of around 2 square metres (22 sq ft). A survey of the ruins of the Praetorium, long thought to be the Roman barracks, indicated it was no more than a watchtower. These findings together “correspond perfectly” with the route as described in the Gospels and matched details found in other ancient writings.
Fellow archaeologist James D. Tabor enthusiastically described Gibson's findings in a reviewIn this review I want to concentrate on what I consider two of the most significant new contributions Gibson offers for our better understanding of Jesus and his last days and I will finish up with a few caveats and observations on the book overall.
The first has to do with the location of Jesus’ trial before the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate, the identification of the Praetorium, that is the headquarters of the governor, the “courtyard,” and more particularly, the “pavement” of the judgment seat, called lithostrotos in Greek or gabbatha in Aramaic (see John 18:28, 33; 19:9, 13, cf. Matt 27:27 and Mark 15:16). The traditional route Jesus took to the place of crucifixion, the Via Dolorosa, traced by pilgrims by the thousands on Good Friday, begins in the northeast of the city, at the Church of St Anne. Indeed this is the 1st Station of the Cross. This is based on the assumption that Jesus’ trial before Pilate was at the military barracks of the Antonio Fortress, located on a high rocky outcrop at the northwest corner of the Temple complex. Today there is a scholarly consensus that this location is incorrect, and that the Praetorium was located at Herod’s Palace, on the west side of the city. It has become clear that this magnificent palace was used by Pilate as his residence as well as the military and civic headquarters of Roman rule in Jerusalem. Gibson offers a full exposition of this correct location and why it has become preferred over the traditional site. 
. . . But he goes much further in details, having excavated with Magen Broshi along the outside of the western city wall in the 1970s. There a monumental gateway was revealed with the remains of a large courtyard and intact pavement between the fortification walls. Gibson, with maps and detailed drawings, makes a compelling case that this is indeed the very spot where the governor would have had his bema or judgment seat, and he shows in detail that the language of the Gospels, particularly in John, with Pilate going inside the palace, and back out again, and the crowds gathered outside below, fits the location we can see today perfectly. In fact, the steps, dating from the Herodian period, are now exposed, leading up to the remains of the gate and the platform or pavement. . . . Since Gibson first took me and my students to this site back in 2000 I have been back many times, studied it thoroughly, and I have become convinced it is indeed one of the most fascinating archaeological discoveries in the past 100 years related to the life of Jesus. The impact of Gibson’s identification is hard to overemphasize, as this would be the precise location, uncovered down to the pavement, of one of the most famous scenes in the life of Jesus, namely Pilate’s “Ecce Homo,” (“Behold the man” John 19:5) declaration.
Once again, it is striking how recentthese findings are. If legitimate (there are always other scholars who disagree), they are quite significant regarding the details of Christ's Passion.

On the other hand, apart from archaeological particulars that Gibson may have discovered, his opinion about the location of the Praetorium goes back at least to 1929, since The International Standard Bible Encyclopediaopines in its article on the topic (Vol. IV, 2428-2429, by E. W. G. Masterman):
pre-to'-ri-um praitorion, Mt 27:27 (the King James Version “common hall”); Mr 15:16; Joh 18:28,33; 19:9 (in all margins “palace,” and in the last three the King James Version “judgment hall”); Ac 23:35, (Herod's) “palace,” margin “Praetorium,” the King James Version “judgment hall”; Php 1:13, “praetorian guard” (margin “Greek 'in the whole Pretorium,'” the King James Version “palace,” margin “Caesar's court”):   The Pretorium was originally the headquarters of a Roman camp, but in the provinces the name became attached to the governor's official residence. In order to provide residences for their provincial governors, the Romans were accustomed to seize and appropriate the palaces which were formerly the homes of the princes or kings in conquered countries. Such a residence might sometimes be in a royal palace, as was probably the case in Caesarea, where the procurator used Herod's palace (Ac 23:35).   The Pretorium where Jesus was brought to trial has been traditionally located in the neighborhood of the present Turkish barracks where once stood the Antonia and where was stationed a large garrison (compare Ac 21:32-35), but the statements of Josephus make it almost certain that the headquarters of the procurator were at Herod's palace. This was a building whose magnificence Josephus can hardly sufficiently appraise (Wars, I, xxi, 1; V, iv, 4). It was in this palace that “Florus, the procurator took up his quarters, and having placed his tribunal in front of it, held his sessions and the chief priests, influential persons and notables of the city appeared before the tribunal” (Wars II, xiv, 8). Later on, “Florus .... brought such as were with him out of the king's palace, and would have compelled them to get as far as the citadel (Antonia); but his attempt failed” (II, xv, 5). The word translated "palace" here is aule, the same word as is translated "court" in Mr 15:16, “the soldiers led him away within the court (aule), which is the Pretorium.” There is no need to suppose that Herod Antipas was in the same palace (Lu 23:4 ff); it is more probable he went to the palace of the Hasmoneans which lay lower down on the eastern slope of this southwest hill, where at a later time Josephus expressly states that Herod Agrippa II and his sister Bernice were living (Wars, II, xvi, 3).   The palace of Herod occupied the highest part of the southwest hill near the northwest angle of the ancient city, now traditionally called Zion, and the actual site of the Pretorium cannot have been far removed from the Turkish barracks near the so-called “Tower of David.” It is interesting to note that the two stations of the Turkish garrison of Jerusalem today occupy the same spots as did the Roman garrison of Christ's time. It is needless to point out how greatly this view of the situation of the Pretorium must modify the traditional claims of the “Via Dolorosa,” the whole course of which depends on theory that the “Way of Sorrow” began at the Antonia, the Pretorium of late ecclesiastical tradition.
This line of thinking goes even further back than that. In 1893, A Dictionary of the Bible: Comprising Its Antiquities, Biography, Geography, and Natural History, Volume 1, Part 21. In John xviii. 28, 33, xix. 9, it is the residence which Pilate occupied when he visited Jerusalem;to which the Jews brought Jesus from the house of Caiaphas, and within which He was examined by Pilate, and scourged and mocked by the soldiers, while the Jews were waiting without in the neighbourhood of the judgment-seat (erected on the Pavement in front of the Praetorium), on which Pilate sat when he pronounced the final sentence. The Latin word praetorium originally signified . . . the general's tent in a Roman camp (Liv. xxviii. 27, &c.); and afterwards it had, among other significations, that of the palace in which a governor of a province lived and administered justice (Cic. Verr. ii. 4, § 28, &c.). The site of Pilate's praetorium in Jerusalem has given rise to much dispute, some supposing it to be the palace of king Herod, others the Tower of Antonia; but . . . the former was probably the Praetorium. . . . Pilate certainly lived there at one time (Philo, Leg. in Caium, 38, 39); and it is scarcely conceivable that the Roman Governor would have occupied any other palace than that which, with its three great towers, formed the citadel of the Upper City (Jos. B. J. ii. 3, § 2; v. 5, § 8). Herod, who, at the time of the trial of Christ, was at Jerusalem (Luke xxiii. 7), no doubt lived in the old palace of the Asmoneans, which stood above the Xystus, on the east side of the Upper City. . . . It appears from a passage of Josephus (B. J. ii. 14, § 8) that Gessius Florus not only resided in the palace, but set up his judgment-seat in front of it. Winer conjectures, with great probability, that the procurator, when in Jerusalem, resided with a body-guard in the palace of Herod (Jos. B. J. ii. 15, § 5), while the Roman garrison occupied Antonia.
In a 2011 joint volume with chapters from 13 scholars, The World of Jesusand the Early Church: Identity and Interpretation in the EarlyCommunities of Faith,It was here [at Herod's Palace] that the trial of Jesus took place, and on this matter there is almost unanimous agreement among scholars. But there is less agreement on whether the trial took place inside or adjacent to the praetorium. (p. 99)
Nowadays, a consensus of opinion exists among scholars that the trial of Jesus took place at Herod's palace.
It is highly unlikely that Jesus was tried at the Antonia, since it served primarily as a military observation tower (pyrgos) with a specific function: to keep an eye on the activities of the Jewish worshipers on the Temple Mount and to prevent rioting or demonstrations there. It was to this spot, one will remember, that Paul was later brought after having been saved from the temple mob (Acts 21:30-36). . . . it would appear that this fortress was no more than a very large and high tower . . . 
Herod's palace lay at the northwest angle of the Upper City, in the area spanning the distance between the present-day citadel, Kishle, and Armenian Garden. (p. 108)
Jesus was most likely . . . paraded down the streets of the Upper City to the Gennath Gate, where he was led out of the city to Golgotha. (p. 118)
This “consensus” data (if accepted), leads to the inexorable conclusion that the actual Via Dolorosa was completely different from the familiar one of tradition. Pious and venerable as that devotional tradition is, it doesn't seem to square with history and archaeology. 
The Catholic faith is not subverted in accepting the new proposed route. Christians, as always, have nothing to fear from new facts of history or archaeology being uncovered or further substantiated. What is non-negotiable is that there was a trial and that Jesus was condemned by Pontius Pilate, carried His cross to Golgotha, and was crucified. The exact locations of these events may be properly debated.

FOOTNOTES


Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers. A very helpful diagram showing the locations of the two competing theories of the Praetorium and Via Dolorosa, appears on p. 101: accessible on the Google Books page for this book. A reproduction of Herod's Palace is found on p. 111, and a photograph of the area today, on p. 105.

The Great Spanking (Oops, Forgot to Use the "PC" Hitting or Beating) Debate Revisited

 
These are my off-the-cuff comments on a Facebook thread of a friend. It was a private thread, so I can't cite others. I summarize a few of their comments, so my answer is better understood in context. It started out with an approving link of an article (CNN op-ed) entitled, "Spanking isn't parenting; it's child abuse." I chimed in a little after the discussion had begin. I've written about this previously.

* * * * *
I'm not scared to talk about this issue or any other.

The anti-spanking thing is simply a species of post-Christian, anti-traditional liberalism, based on the fallacious reasoning that if a thing is ever abused it must be everywhere and always wrong: obliterating the clear distinction between proper and excessive, or improper use.

The same sort of reasoning (not saying that anti-spankers are pro-aborts) was used to bring in legal abortion: "some women die from coat hanger abortions, therefore we need to change the entire law and make abortion legal." Same reasoning with "gay marriage": "homosexuals have been treated meanly, so therefore we ought to let them marry."

It's the old fallacy of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." Because some football player was a moron doesn't make me a child abuser, if I gave a two-year-old a swat on the butt. Sorry, I ain't buyin' it.
And I'll stack my four children up against any in the world.

[it was stated that if someone favored "hitting" that they could ignore the thread]
 
Why would I want to ignore a thread where legalistic falsehood is being promulgated? If a person disagrees, then they try to show why they do, and engage the people they disagree with (assuming discussion is possible).

This is simply another secular idea that is very common today: everything is self-evident, so there is no reason to even discuss anything. Those who disagree are the bad guys, and so they should just disappear and let "normal, compassionate" people dominate, with the accepted, "PC" perspective monopolizing the "conversation" so that all are happy and content as a pig in mud, safely away from the evil folk.

One tires of this sort of thing. We can't disagree civilly; the ones who dare to spank, as the Bible recommends, are now "child abusers." I don't have to demonize anti-spankers. I just think they are thoroughly incorrect on this issue, and victims of postmodernist / liberal / secular fallacious thinking.

Why does it have to be "either/or" [Name]? You act as if no parent who spanks could possibly be doing it with a loving motive. Both things are together. I always did both. Hence I wrote in my paper:

Almost always, after such a spanking, I will take the child on my lap in a loving, nurturing manner and tell them I love them, and that this was the reason they were spanked. I'll ask them to repeat why they think they were spanked, and if they don't know (or pretend to not know; parents know this routine!), then I carefully explain it to them and teach them that such discipline is to make them a better person, by preventing them from doing bad and sinful things that will make their life difficult in the future. So the act is grounded in love and explanation and, in the end, positive reinforcement.

So there are a lot of parents out there who can't control their anger, or use spanking as a controlling mechanism, or get some kind of [disordered] charge doing  it. That doesn't change a thing. Everything is and can be abused. We obviously can't get rid of everything, so our task is to reform and punish abuses. A guy who truly beats and abuses his child should get the book thrown at him. 

[Someone claimed that corporal punishment was "always wrong."]

You can't say that, [Name], without disbelieving in the infallibility and inspiration of Scripture. Which is it? Scripture or postmodern secularism, that rejects the wisdom of Scripture and moral tradition? 

The point is not that we are God, but that what He does is our example. Paul told us to imitate him, as he in turn imitates Christ, and Jesus (Who is God) is said to be our example. The Bible often refers to God chastising or disciplining us for our own good, and how painful that is. I've often used these passages to prove the principle of purgatory.

Now, what the anti-spanking mentality does is say that this sort of painful discipline is great when God does it (since He can't sin and is always loving), yet the exact same sort of thing, following the example of God, applied by a mother or father to a child, is now intrinsically evil and wicked and can't possibly be loving. That makes no sense. It's moral schizophrenia; literally nonsense.

Do you believe that the Bible is inspired revelation, [Name], or do you believe (as all dissidents do) that you can pick-and-choose what you like from it and reject what you don't like? 

Sometimes discipline can't be done in non-physical ways, with some young children. They're too young to reason with; something like grounding is incomprehensible until they are older. With very young children, sometimes only the raw conditioning of getting a little swat on the butt is all that will make them stop doing something wrong. Children have different temperaments. If one is mild and wants to please (phlegmatic temperament), spanking may very well not be necessary. But with a strong-willed stubborn child, it's very different. 

The Bible does indeed refer to physical discipline, and recommends it for the sake of the child's soul. Therefore, what inspired Scripture teaches, you are condemning and saying is a wicked thing, and never right:

Proverbs 13:24 (RSV) He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Proverbs 23:13-14 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. If you beat him with the rod you will save his life from Sheol.

Proverbs 29:15, 17 The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. . . . Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.

Please interpret. I'm all ears. What do you do, spiritualize away "rod" as non-physical? You can read those passages and not see anything physical there? A "rod" is not a stick? It isn't used to "beat"? . . . that's flat-out amazing.I haven't "added" anything. It's the plain meaning, and throughout all of Christian history it was understood. You have eisegeted and pretended that what is there is not there, because you don't like it, coming in . . .

Here is the best commentary on the OT (Keil & Delitzsch), on Proverbs 23:13-14 (bolding added):

Verse 13-14

13 Withhold not correction from the child;

For thou will beat him with the rod, and he will not die.
14 Thou beatest him with the rod,

And with it deliverest his soul from hell.

The exhortation, 13a, presupposes that education by word and deed is a duty devolving on the father and the teacher with regard to the child. In 13b, כּי is in any case the relative conjunction. The conclusion does not mean: so will he not fall under death (destruction), as Luther also would have it, after Deuteronomy 19:21, for this thought certainly follows Proverbs 23:14; nor after Proverbs 19:18: so may the stroke not be one whereof he dies, for then the author ought to have written אל־תּמיתנּוּ; but: he will not die of it, i.e., only strike if he has deserved it, thou needest not fear; the bitter medicine will be beneficial to him, not deadly. The אתּה standing before the double clause, Proverbs 23:14, means that he who administers corporal chastisement to the child, saves him spiritually; for שׁאול does not refer to death in general, but to death falling upon a man before his time, and in his sins, vid., Proverbs 15:24, cf. Proverbs 8:26.

See also CCC 2223:

Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones." Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:

He who loves his son will not spare the rod. . . . He who disciplines his son will profit by him.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

[someone said that quoting Bible passages wasn't "relevant"]

It certainly is for Catholics and other Christians, when claims are being made that something is intrinsically wicked, that God and the Bible recommend. Something ain't connecting there, and we must make our choice.

[someone asked if the New Testament referred to "the rod"]

No, but there is about discipline and chastisement, which in Proverbs is connected with physical punishment, so indirectly it does condone it. The OT is Scripture, too, so we can't just dismiss it as irrelevant. I quoted the Bible to contradict claims that spanking is wicked. The Bible says it is righteous. That's a stark contrast. But you simply spiritualize the passage away, in time-honored fashion. 

It's not a matter of commanding it, but rather, whether it is a moral method of discipline. The Bible says it is. Game, set, match. 

For Scripture to say, "Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. If you beat him with the rod you will save his life from Sheol" (Proverbs 23:13-14) is almost a command, since what good parent doesn't want to save his child's life from Sheol (by implication, also hell, which was a far less developed doctrine in Solomon's time)?

I never said it was a command. What I argued was that Scripture shows corporal punishment as moral; therefore, those who claim it is intrinsically immoral (for those of us who believe in faith in the inspiration of Scripture) are dead-wrong.

Your side claimed that it was self-evident from the beginning, and that there was no other side. But I have Scripture and longstanding moral tradition on my side and you don't.  

[one person said she was "free" to not spank]

Absolutely. And I am also free from being classified as a child abuser because I follow biblical recommendations in the raising of children.

[one person said she didn't call me a "child abuser"]  

First of all, I said, "classified as a child abuser"; not called one.

You endorsed the article at the top; the title of which is "Spanking isn't parenting; it's child abuse." Therefore, by straightforward deduction you implied that spankers are child abusers.

I didn't see any anti-spanking person make a disclaimer over against the article: that they didn't agree it was child abuse: what wicked people like me and [Name] do (may have missed it tho, since I didn't read every comment). 

"Hitting" has the connotation (I think) of being struck on the head, whereas "spanking" clearly has the connotation of "butt."

Thus, when you are trying to overturn longstanding tradition, you use words that have connotations that you wish to get across for the purpose of your goal: to delegitimize the practice. "Hitting" sounds violent; sounds like wife abuse, etc.

Movements always do this. The pro-aborts did; the pro-"gay marriage" manipulates language with silly terms like "homophobe" (which means, absurdly, "fear of sameness").

The first goal of any movement is to control the terminology and language. That is more than half the battle won, right there, because people more often respond impulsively and emotionally (based on associations), rather than reflectively and reasonably. Serious dialogue tries to get beyond slogans and stereotypes and manipulation of language, to the substance.

[a person said she was a teacher and heard many stories of kids being "hit" or abused, etc.]  

Yes, and you're naturally gonna hear the horror stories. It's just human nature. You're gonna hear a hundred stories about "my dad beat me" (where it is clearly abuse: hit on the head, etc.). You're not gonna hear nearly as much the success stories: "my parents loved me enough to swat my behind once in a while and then explain it was for my good, for discipline."

Therefore, since you hear mostly horror stories, you fallaciously conclude that all spanking is a species of abuse, and oppose it.

It's the demonization of opponents that ends all constructive discussion. I don't demonize anti-spanking advocates (anymore than I would, say, a pacifist, who is also mistaken). They have the best of intentions and mean well. I sincerely disagree with them and think they are dead-wrong, for reasons I have explained. Doesn't make them wicked; makes them (I believe) wrong on this issue.

I think a factor in this that is important to recognize is that many of us struggle a lot with things like a temper, anger, a controlling nature, passion, impatience. Or we may have been truly abused as a child (beaten, not merely spanked on the butt). Those things make it tough to spank in the right way.

In my paper on the topic I made it clear that if one struggled with any of those and couldn't spank in the proper way, that they shouldn't do it at all. Let the other parent do it. If the other parent has the same problems, then better to not do it (because it will likely be done wrongly) and to find an alternative.

But none of that means no one can do it. Human nature is such that there will be so many people who can't do certain things. Some men are womanizers; doesn't mean all men are. Some women are "loose" etc. Doesn't mean all women are. Some people hate homosexuals. Doesn't mean that every person who thinks homosexual acts are sinful hates them as people.

Thus, some folks don't know how to spank properly (with control and love and only the best of motives). The solution to that is not to conclude that all spanking is wicked because some don't know how to do it. It is to advise the particular folks who can't do it, to not do it.

I don't think this is rocket science at all. But it has become such an emotional issue, with all the hot-button associations of wicked or alcoholic fathers, etc. or people like this football payer, that it is hardly able to be discussed rationally anymore. 

[someone argued that spanking was never necessary ever. She brought forward as evidence, her 12yo who is wonderful, etc. and claimed that this is because she was never spanked. Then she contended that spanking is a manifestation of power and domination, and equated it with spousal abuse.]

It's just more fallacies. If a child is "gentle, kind, obedient" it is most likely due to prior temperament (the type that doesn't require spanking in the first place). I know, because we had one like that, and three who were not like that (i.e., as small kids). It's the different temperaments. The strong-willed two-year-old likely won't respond to much else, in cases of outright obstinacy.

Like I said, I'll stack my four kids (now 23, 21, almost 18 and almost 13) up against anyone's in the world. Well-behaved, polite, considerate of others, serve others in many ways, active in church and youth groups, completely orthodox, never got in any trouble with the law, never drank, never did drugs, don't swear, don't look at pornography or watch garbage movies or listen to filthy lyrics in music, treat women with respect, great work ethic, chaste before marriage, go on mission trips all the time, great grades in school (my son in college has gotten all A's over two years). Everyone testifies to it.

They are that way because they were loved and taught the right values and morals. A rare swat on the butt has absolutely nothing to do with anything, except for the discipline needed at the time. And they were nurtured with love right afterwards to make sure that they understood this was loving discipline, not some sort of idiotic retribution or domination or the parents' tantrum. 

It doesn't [equate with "aggressiveness" and "overpowering" behavior] if it is explained at the time (as we always did). We didn't sit there and say, "you know, I just spanked you because I'm a mean bastard who likes to see children cry and suffer and likes to get my way by violence and force." We explained, "do you know why you were spanked? You did x wrong, and left us no other recourse. We did it because we love you and don't want you to go down a wrong path and suffer for it in your life." And hugs and reassurance with that . . .

If that is "aggressive and overpowering" then we speak two different languages and have vastly different definitions of many things.

I absolutely hated to spank. It was used only as the absolute last resort for young kids below the age of reason (up to maybe 5 or 6). As soon as they had sufficient reason we used other punishments like deprivation of a toy or grounding or not going outside, etc.

I did it because I thought it was right and necessary, not because I loved it and got some charge of being powerful and dominating. These stereotypes are highly insulting and equally absurd. 

[it was said that the thread was merely about sharing alternatives to spanking, and that PMs were coming in, resonating with that message]

Some parents do do the bad things, of course. No one is denying that; only denying that it is intrinsically wicked and that all who use it are these moral and mental morons.

It's not just about alternatives because of the sweeping, insulting language being used. If it was just about that, you wouldn't have to condemn those of us who use it: starting with the idiotic article at the top: equating all of us with child abusers.

I agree with alternatives in most cases: above the age of reason; in cases of non-obstinacy, in cases where the parent can't control their anger or were abused as a child (where it is known that they tend to pass that one) . . . there is significant agreement here, but it's the legalism and condemnation that is unacceptable.

We spanked only very rarely: maybe 5-6 times for each child in their entire life. I think with our most compliant child it was only once or twice.  

[a person said she was happy no one used the "pejoratives" I used ("moral and mental morons") ] 

What's worse? Calling someone a moron or a child abuser? I'd much rather be called a moron. Being called a child abuser is one of the two or three absolute worst things I can imagine anyone being called or classified as.

Yes, the PMs are (I highly suspect) mostly from folks who did it wrong in the first place. I don't have the slightest regret or guilt about it, because we did it the right way. I said in my paper that one time in my whole life as a parent I lost my temper and spanked when I probably shouldn't have, and I apologized for it. I'm not perfect. But that is my record.  

[I was told that I didn't have to feel bad about being called a "child abuser" if I know that it isn't true]

So you stand by the article and insist (by implication, by linking to something with an outrageous title like that) that someone who spanks is automatically (by definition) the equivalent of a child abuser? This is slander. It's a lie.

Yeah, I know it doesn't hurt me, because it's wrong; it's untrue. What it does is hurt those of you who believe that we are child abusers, and it poisons discourse. That's not worthy of you.

You can still disagree and argue your point of view without having the baggage of demonizing those who disagree. Just retract that and continue on with your thoroughly fallacious argument.

There is actually much middle ground to be had here, where all can meet. I've staked out some of that. But more extreme language from your side undermines any such mutual understanding by continuing to make out that it is this "us vs. them" sort of issue: black-and-white; the good guys with the white hats, who wouldn't hurt a flea, and us abusive mean spankers with the black hats . . .

I've been called evil many times over: because I'm a pro-lifer and supposedly hate women, because I'm Catholic and supposedly hate Protestants; because I'm politically conservative, or because I think sodomy is a grave sin; I'm a racist because I criticize Obama. I hate women because I criticize radical feminism. Now I'm (along with many millions of others) a child abuser because I believe in spanking in rare cases, because the Bible plainly teaches it. [it was said that I called anti-spankers "pro-aborts" and "liberals"]

I didn't describe them as that at all. What I said was that the outlook derives from liberal assumptions. It doesn't follow that a person with the belief is a liberal; only that he or she has been influenced by the tidal wave of secularist thought. This is true on many issues, such as, e.g., contraception or cohabitation or 80% of young people favoring "gay marriage.".

What I wrote specifically was: "The same sort of reasoning (not saying that anti-spankers are pro-aborts) was used to bring in legal abortion:"

So now you say I was calling non-spankers "pro-aborts." Nice try. Later I also observed that the modification of language for a cause was also a pro-abort tactic (as we all know); not that using the tactic makes one a pro-abort. I was talking about the incessant use of "hit" in this thread rather than "spank."

But the article at the top undeniably classifies us spankers in a sweeping way as child abusers.

[a person denied being a "modernist" or given to fads and trends because of being a certain age]

Age has nothing to do with being influenced by current fashions of secularism and liberalism (which are as ancient as the hills). But I was speaking broadly. There could be many such reasons for non-spanking policies. Some people are too gentle to do it, because it's difficult. As I said, I hated it myself. I did it because I felt that it was right and necessary in a tiny amount of cases. If I was a far more gentle soul than I am, I can see that I would have decided to never do it. But that would have nothing to do with reason. There are parents who discipline hardly at all, so we would expect them not to spank. Lots of reasons. But my generalization remains true. It is a non-traditional tenet of liberal secularism: one of many being forced upon us in terms of more and more laws. It's already to the point where you don't dare spank in public.[a person said she is in a group that discusses "gentle discipline."]

I agree with you in 99% of the cases of disciple. It was only in the worst cases of obstinacy and rebellion that we ever spanked, and we can count on one hand the total times for each of our four children. That's why I was saying that there is a lot of common ground here. 99% of the time! We can all agree and talk about methods in those cases. But you guys won't allow the 1%!

[she said she never condemned spankers]

I appreciate that. But what you did do was use highly charged words like "aggressive" and "overpower" that create this image of the spankers as somehow these terrible people who are trying to dominate children because we have more strength, etc. Maybe even that was not your intention. But in context, perhaps you'll excuse my interpretation . . .
 
[she denied using the term "child abuser".]

My remark wasn't directed at at you or even at [Name; owner of the combox]. But look at the title of the article at the top of this thread and tell us whether you think that is highly offensive to anyone who thinks it is part of discipline to occasionally spank. [Name] won't retract the implications there (which shocks me).

If I had actually said that a non-spanker was a pro-abort (as you mistakenly believed I did), then you would be offended. Your very reply proves that. But when we're called child abusers no one on your "side" sees the outrageous slander in that? Has anyone renounced it yet?

[the webmaster said that she stands by the lead article and that no one called names.]

Flat-out amazing . . . you think you can have the stupid article at the top with its hyper-polemical title and main thesis and just separate yourself from it . . .

[agreeing with someone else]  I totally agree, as I have said. I said that if you have a temper, or anger problem, or have been abused, never do it. There is no disagreement in that regard.

[someone inquired in a friendly manner about the talk after the spanking, asking why it couldn't be done minus the spanking, if it works so well]

Good question. I think that this is what is called a "false dilemma" though. The fact was that the spanking had occurred in the first place as an absolutely last resort. Reasoning wasn't working. The behavior wasn't stopping. We always try to talk to our kids. Therefore, the spanking was necessary, so to say that the talking was "better" . . . yes it was, if they would only have received it.

After spanking, they do receive it. We showed love. This was especially true with my daughter, because of the special nature of the father-daughter thing. She was rebelling, being a total pill (the last time I spanked her). Then I held her for a long time, was as tender as I could be, explaining that I loved her and had to stop the bad behavior, that it was for her good.

Then it worked. It wouldn't have before the spanking because she was neither listening nor behaving, but being a total defiant rebel. And there was a total behavior change afterward. The line was clearly drawn, and that is the whole point.

[then this person asked about some kids getting spanked more than others, because of more rebellion, and how that makes them feel] 

Sometimes they resent it because that is human nature. I said above that we had one compliant child and three very strong-willed ones. We have simply explained that we had to discipline as parents when someone did wrong (and this extended well beyond spanking, to all discipline, that was resented), because that's our job.

We explain that it doesn't mean one child is "better" than another, but that God made different temperaments for His purposes, and all have a purpose and a calling in His kingdom, and all have faults. If they are better in this way, then surely they will be worse than the other child in some other respect.

I'm very stubborn and strong-willed myself (I almost have to be that in this line of work and all that it entails). I understand how that works.

[I was asked what kind of behavior was "last resort" and deserved a spanking]
Usually it is absolute rebellion, as I said: a total refusal to do what they are told, combined with a contempt for parental authority, talking back, etc. That's against the natural order of things, and so is well-qualified for serious punishment. If they are below the age of reason, spanking. Older kids: serious grounding or other deprivation to bring home the seriousness of total rebellion against authority as God ordained it.

[I was asked how spanking even changes behavior]

It's simple. The bad thing produced an immediate negative reinforcement: spanking. Therefore, below the age of reason a child seeks to avoid the negative thing by avoiding the bad behavior that brought it about.

When they can reason, then being grounded or whatever is such a frightful, dreadful spectre that it keeps them in line. God does the same thing with all of us. When we stray, He disciplines us, as the Bible says several dozen times. 

I'm glad you brought up running in the street, because there a life could very well literally be saved. That's nothing to fool around with. The parent has no time to endure ten, twenty times of such disobedience. If a car comes during one of those times, there could be a dead child. Very clear-cut and concrete . . .

So love dictates a very harsh punishment (spanking), to make absolutely sure that they don't do it and endanger their lives. Spanking is absolutely the most loving and merciful thing to be done in that situation. 

We're not saying it only takes one time, either. It depends on how strong-willed the child is. And of course there are other ways. In a small number of situations, spanking is by far the most effective way to stop the sin. The sooner it stops, the better for the child. 

The wisdom of spanking in discipline (where necessary) is that often it'll stop the behavior flat and be a deterrent for all or most of the potential violations in the future, because then the threat is almost as effective as the actual thing. These sorts of things used to be instinctively understood by almost all people. But secularism has so undermined traditional Christian values, that now we actually have to discuss what for many of us is (and through history was) almost self-evident. 

It's the same with contraception, too. It used to be instinctively understood (especially by women). Children are blessings, and the primary purpose of marriage. Now even those things are questioned. And so we are engaged in the Great Liberal Death Wish (as Malcolm Muggeridge called it) and see decreasing populations around the world in formerly Christian countries, and the explosion of Islam, because they still have lots of kids.

[my friend denied that secularism had anything to do with her not spanking; it was, rather, "Do unto others . . ."]

As for alternate methods, I have agreed that we can agree on that 99% of the time. We used all "alternate"  methods above the age of 6 or 7.

You may not be affected by secularism. But the larger culture undeniably is, and this is part of it. I know what secularism is and how it works. I majored in sociology, love the history of ideas and am well-read in that, love history, and philosophy as well. We can have that discussion all night if someone wants to.

If you quote Dr. Greg Popcak, we can just as well cite Dr. James Dobson or Dr. Ray Guarendi (sort of the Catholic Dobson and an acquaintance of mine).

I sure do "do unto others." I don't want my child to be hit and killed by a car, just as I wouldn't want to be (nor want to be the parent of a dead child or make my mother the grandmother of one or my other kids the sibling of one). So I make damned sure that I stop the behavior that could end that way: a decisive swat on the butt, where the fat is, so there is no lasting damage: just a temporary pain that has a marvelous capacity for concentrating the mind on obedience (and in this instance, quite possibly saving a child's life).

I hated spanking, as I have said. I'm as tender with, and love children as much as anyone. Ask anyone who knows me. I adore them. Spanking is very difficult. But it's necessary out of love, and life involves doing things at times that are not easy. The fruit is there. I have four fantastic kids, and they are blessing us every day by how wonderful they are. 

 

* * * * *

 
 

Exchange on Capital Punishment and the Current "Mind" of the Church (vs. Cat Clark and Mark Shea)

[from a public thread on Mark Shea's Facebook page. His words will be in green; Cat's in blue. It had a remarkably sour ending, even by today's rock-bottom standards of Internet discourse. For this reason I refuse to call it a "dialogue" or even a "debate". Views were exchanged and discussed, but there was no meeting of minds here, as occurs in a legitimate debate or dialogue. And that is because (at least in Cat's case) of personal derision: plainly expressed at the end, which always derails constructive dialogue.]
* * * * *

[original meme at the top: "Should we bring back the death penalty for child killers and paedophiles? Comment below. Yes / No."]
No. I think it should be reserved for terrorists and serial killers.

Of course, a death penalty should require profound eyewitness evidence and many other indisputable evidences. Cut-and-dried.

I think my categories qualify. The Church has not denied states the prerogative to impose the death penalty. Indeed, all policemen can shoot people on the spot in hostage scenarios, etc., in order to save innocent lives.

Pope Benedict XVI, in the year (2004) before he became pope, wrote, as Cardinal Ratzinger:

3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

(Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion -- General Principles)

I'm expressing that "legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics" and no one can condemn me for it, since it's not an absolute prohibition in the first place (as abortion is).

CCC 2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

That is the teaching of the Church, to which we are to submit ourselves with docility unless there is a damn good reason not to. The reasons put forward by American death penalty advocates are crap [see, Death Penalty: Magisterium vs. Left and Right]  

"legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty" is NOT equal to "legitimate diversity of opinion about the moral principles governing applying the death penalty," such as the principle that "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person."

If all that's available to restrain an aggressor is a bamboo cage, we can have a legitimate diversity of opinion among ourselves regarding whether the cage is sufficient to defend human lives. What we can't disagree about is the moral principle that if the cage is sufficient we may not execute.

Exactly. "The Church says not to kill unless absolutely necessary, but I say kill the bastard whenever you hate him bad enough to just want to see the son of a bitch dead whether it is necessary or not" is not "legitimate diversity of opinion". It's dissent.

Why must we attribute the worst possible motives to folks we disagree with? Believe it or not, It is possible to have an opinion on a permissible death penalty in extreme cases without being Attila the Hun or the devil incarnate, or in possession of a bloodthirsty "kill all the filthy bastards" mentality.

I allow merely two instances of an allowable death penalty, and the Church allows this. No matter how hard you try, you can't turn into an absolute something that is not.

Until the Church turns officially pacifist (which is essentially impossible, given just war theory) and starts saying that police cannot impose lethal force, it will remain that way.

Dave: The simple fact is the Church teaches "Don't kill unless you absolutely have to in order to protect innocent human life". What this meme asks is "When do we get to kill?" It seeks to find some specimen of criminal so repulsive that, whether it is necessary or not, pro-death penalty Christians can have the satisfaction of calling for death despite the fact that it is not really necessary to kill them. It predicates death, not on the necessity of preventing further bloodshed, but on the satisfaction of putting this vile son of a bitch to death because, dammit, he has it coming. It is a form of dissent from the Church's actual teaching on the death penalty.

I agreed with [your take of] the meme in my first comment. I favor capital punishment for serial killers and terrorists only: "extreme" cases": just as Cardinal Dulles and the US bishops have made clear [see below] is permissible and fully in accord with Church teaching. Therefore, I am not a dissenter at all.

But if someone claims I am, they are engaging in hyper-legalistic pharisaism in applying the Mind of the Church (which I fully concur with, as far as I am aware).

Now, if someone took the position in affirmation of what the meme was driving at, then you would have a legitimate argument against him or her, based on what the Church has been saying on the issue.

Avery Cardinal Dulles wrote an excellent article in First Things on the topic ["Catholicism and Capital Punishment"]:

In the New Testament the right of the State to put criminals to death seems to be taken for granted. Jesus himself refrains from using violence. He rebukes his disciples for wishing to call down fire from heaven to punish the Samaritans for their lack of hospitality (Luke 9:55). Later he admonishes Peter to put his sword in the scabbard rather than resist arrest (Matthew 26:52). At no point, however, does Jesus deny that the State has authority to exact capital punishment. In his debates with the Pharisees, Jesus cites with approval the apparently harsh commandment, "He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die" (Matthew 15:4; Mark 7:10, referring to Exodus 2l:17; cf. Leviticus 20:9). When Pilate calls attention to his authority to crucify him, Jesus points out that Pilate's power comes to him from above — that is to say, from God (John 19:11). Jesus commends the good thief on the cross next to him, who has admitted that he and his fellow thief are receiving the due reward of their deeds (Luke 23:41).

The early Christians evidently had nothing against the death penalty. They approve of the divine punishment meted out to Ananias and Sapphira when they are rebuked by Peter for their fraudulent action (Acts 5:1-11). The Letter to the Hebrews makes an argument from the fact that "a man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses" (10:28). Paul repeatedly refers to the connection between sin and death. He writes to the Romans, with an apparent reference to the death penalty, that the magistrate who holds authority "does not bear the sword in vain; for he is the servant of God to execute His wrath on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:4). No passage in the New Testament disapproves of the death penalty. . . .

The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty. I know of no official statement from popes or bishops, whether in the past or in the present, that denies the right of the State to execute offenders at least in certain extreme cases. The United States bishops, in their majority statement on capital punishment, conceded that "Catholic teaching has accepted the principle that the State has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime." . . .

Pope John Paul II spoke for the whole Catholic tradition when he proclaimed in Evangelium Vitae (1995) that "the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral." But he wisely included in that statement the word "innocent." He has never said that every criminal has a right to live nor has he denied that the State has the right in some cases to execute the guilty."

"certain extreme cases"; "extremely serious crime": exactly my position: terrorists and serial killers only.

If the choice is between Mark Shea and his adoring minions' opinion and Avery Cardinal Dulles' and the US bishops' interpretation of Church teaching, sorry (nothing personal), I go with them. That's how Church teaching works, after all: the bishops and cardinals are way above we lay apologists.

"legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty" is NOT equal to "legitimate diversity of opinion about the moral principles governing applying the death penalty," such as the principle that "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person." 

Nothing Cardinal Dulles could possibly say will change that.

I can read, Cat. :-) Most of that you already wrote above. Writing it again doesn't make it any more true. But, E for effort . . .

The Church either allows it in "extreme" cases or it does not. Cardinal Dulles and the US bishops (and overwhelming Catholic and biblical moral tradition, which has usually gone much further) say yes. You and Mark say no.

I submit to them, not you, because they are my authorities. Otherwise we have the Protestant principle of private judgment: everyone considers his or her own opinions the final say.

Been there done that . . . now I am a Catholic and the bishops (here magisterially interpreting what popes have taught) are my authorities. I submit to them unless and until they say that "Here in this instance you are free to believe as you wish . . ."

"Writing it again doesn't make it any more true." Correct. That it's Magisterial teaching, however, requires that we owe the pope's moral teaching on this subject, including the quoted principle, "religious submission of mind and will."

Cardinal Dulles, no matter how much you may like him, simply does not and will never have more authority than the pope.

I'm not saying he does. What I'm saying is that he and the bishops (and also Pope Benedict XVI, writing a year before he became pope) authoritatively interpret the Church's teachings in its totality. What you want to do is take one sentence of the pope's and consider it out of context. As already noted, Pope St. John Paul II did not deny all rights of the state to exercise capital punishment.

What you are arguing is a legalistic extreme that would in effect make the Catholic position one of complete pacifism: the state can never ever execute anyone. It's just not the case.

The argument is here because of interpretation. You and Mark and who knows how many others who hang on his every word here want to interpret in one way. I am showing, I think, that very high-placed folks in the Church interpret another way.

So this is what Catholics do: in cases of disagreement, we go to the bishops and popes to get the proper interpretation, and bow to them. You don't appear to give a fig about what Cardinal Ratzinger, or the US bishops in their statement on the matter, or Cardinal Dulles think. You know better.

That is (at least potentially, or the starting kernel of) the spirit of dissent and of Martin Luther: placing your own opinions above that of the magisterium, and if they disagree with you, then to Hades with them: who cares what they think?! 

Not remotely. He said that, and many other things based on that, many times, in numerous places and ways, making his mind and will abundantly manifest. Cardinal Ratzinger, contrary to your fallacious claims, did not write otherwise, and Cardinal Dulles' personal opinions cannot make the teaching other than it is. You are the one misrepresenting Cardinal Ratzinger, Dave. Cardinal Ratzinger never allowed disagreement on the moral principles, only the application of those principles.

Archbishop Charles Chaput also wrote:

The Church’s critique of capital punishment is not an evasion of justice. Victims and their survivors have a right to redress, and the state has a right to enforce that redress and impose grave punishment for grave crimes. It is not an absolute rejection of lethal force by the state. The death penalty is not intrinsically evil. Both Scripture and long Christian tradition acknowledge the legitimacy of capital punishment under certain circumstances. The Church cannot repudiate that without repudiating her own identity.

("Justice, Mercy, and Capital Punishment," by the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., March 2005, USCC)

Dr. Jeff Mirus wrote another helpful article: "Capital Punishment: Drawing the Line Between Doctrine and Opinion":

Traditional Doctrine Affirmed . . .

The first step in properly interpreting these developments is to note again that the Church’s traditional teaching on the death penalty has been upheld. It is unnecessary to reiterate the applicable texts of the Old and New Testaments, the Fathers, prior Popes and Councils, because the Catechism still begins its discussion by upholding this teaching. In fact, in EV [Evangelium Vitae] 55, just before making the two points cited above, the Pope reaffirmed and explained the traditional doctrine:

Moreover, “legitimate defence can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life, the common good of the family or of the State". Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason."

In so acknowledging, the pope has already accepted the more extreme case of de facto "capital punishment": use of lethal force by the state, in which a split-second judgment is made to take someone's life to protect innocent people he is threatening.

Thus, if that is permissible, it is hardly sensible to say that the death penalty for a terrorist or serial killer after a full jury trial is ruled out, since the other scenario is already accepted as permissible and it involves a lot less "proof" and evidentiary factors than the latter.

So... while I was away, Dave Armstrong quoted a passage from a non-Magisterial source (Jeff Mirus) that quotes Pope St. John Paul II. The Pope's own statement, "Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life," is clearly consistent with the moral principle (which the pope himself makes explicit) that "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person." In both statements, execution is only allowed as a necessary means of protecting other people. Similarly, in the same passage: "the nature and extent of the punishment.... ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society." The pope never suggested in the quoted passage that execution is acceptable in other circumstances. (And this is something Mirus also admits, though Dave does not: "It is no longer a recommendation but a requirement to use bloodless means when they are sufficient to the purpose.")

Evil may never be done, and when execution is done in circumstances in which it's not "absolutely necessary" "to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm ... when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society ... to protect public order and the safety of persons," execution is evil. We can debate whether a particular execution is absolutely necessary for that purpose (e.g. the above question whether our means really are sufficient to contain the aggressor), but we may not debate whether this moral principle must be upheld. The teaching is manifest and Catholics owe the pope's teaching religious submission of mind and will.

Cat,

If indeed there is never a scenario where the state can execute, then Pope St. John Paul II could have simply said that and make it an absolute position. But he didn't do so.

That means there are times when it can execute. What would be an example of such a case, in your opinion? Is there ever a case of capital punishment that fits into your take of what Pope St. John Paul II said about necessity, etc.?

Oh, you're beating a straw man. By all means, carry on then. I'm sure he deserves it. Having read things you've written in the past, I believe you're capable of reading what I've written in this thread.

Please tell me (minus the derision) of a hypothetical scenario where the state can legitimately execute a prisoner.

I'm quite capable of reading and also of honestly disagreeing. I had assumed (and was of the opinion) that you are also capable of engaging in calm and rational dialogue with those you disagree with. So will you answer my sincere question or not?


If you're "quite capable of reading" you'd see that the question was answered long ago.

[looking through her past replies, since she refused to direct me to one, the closest I see to answering my question is this: "If all that's available to restrain an aggressor is a bamboo cage, we can have a legitimate diversity of opinion among ourselves regarding whether the cage is sufficient to defend human lives".] 

Can you remind me of what the answer was? Thanks. I do do other things besides wrangling in comboxes. 

I think you're capable of doing this yourself and not wasting my time.

I am capable. I'm asking you, to save my time, since you know the answer already.

Dave says, "I think I'm important, so you should do my reading comprehension for me."

Alright. I guess dialogue with you has become impossible. I'm the wascally wascal and to be treated as such. Sad . . .

You precluded dialogue by refusing to carry your own weight and do your own work. Grow up, Dave.

I will try to grow up and be as smart as you, with your prayers and sterling example. Be well.


* * * * * 


 

Books by Dave Armstrong: Orthodoxy and Catholicism: A Comparison (Second Edition)

[First Edition completed in July 2004; published by Lulu in August 2007; Second Edition (heavily revised), with additional contributions from Eastern Catholics Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier and Pete Vere, JCL, was completed on 13 September 2014; 383 pages]  ----- To purchase, go to the bottom of the page -----
 Front and back cover designs by Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier
 My Book, Orthodoxy and Catholicism: A Comparison, to be Read by Bishops and Priests in the Czech Republic  

Descriptive Blurb of Second Edition It has been my strong desire for some time now to revise my book in order to emphasize ecumenism and unity proportionately a lot more than in the first (2004) edition. I'm much more interested in finding common ground. I've also learned a thing or two about Orthodoxy over the past decade. I wanted this volume to be able to read by Orthodox and also Eastern Catholics, without having seizures or going into apoplectic fits (caused by my ignorance or overly polemical or biased writing). I exaggerate, of course, but perhaps not by much! Toward that end I have enlisted two very qualified Eastern Catholic friends to participate in the revised edition: Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier and Pete Vere, JCL. The revision remains an apologetic for Catholicism and respectful critique of Orthodoxy, but now it also includes friendly ecumenical discussion and dialogue: feedback and input from the Eastern theological perspective. The overall tone, tenor, and goal is considerably different. Unity is stressed as much as apologetics.
 Table of Contents[revised second edition]

Dedication
Additional Contributors to the Revised 2014 Edition
Preface to the Revised 2014 Edition [read online]
1. Introduction [read Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier's reply and my response online]
2. Reflections on the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 and Lesser-Known Byzantine Atrocities
3. Development of Doctrine in Orthodoxy and Catholicism: Different in Essence?
4. Is Purgatory a “Place” or “Condition” (or Both)?: Misconceptions About the Catholic View
5. Do St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Other Catholic Thinkers Adopt an Unbiblical “Rationalism” Leading to a “Remote” or "Impersonal" God?
6. Theological Opinions on the Papacy Prior to 1054 [read Dave's two counter-replies online]

7. The Filioqueand the Eastern Church Fathers

8. Orthodoxy and Divorce

9. Orthodoxy and Contraception

10. Original Sin: Caricatures and Commonalities

11. Theosis / Deification in Western Spirituality

12. Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the Face of Christ

13. Pete Vere, JCL: Eucharistic Ecclesiology: The Key to Restoring Communion Between Catholicism and Orthodoxy?

Back Cover

 
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Last revised on 13 September 2014.

 ***

The Papacy & Conciliarity (or, Collegiality): How Popes Routinely Consult & Involve Bishops, Priests, & Laity Prior to Momentous Decrees

Blessed Pope Pius IX

[my two counter-replies from Chapter Six of the heavily revised Second Edition of Orthodoxy and Catholicism: A Comparison ]

First Counter-Reply
I fully, wholeheartedly agree with my friend, Fr. Deacon Daniel's words in his superb reply. Perhaps that may surprise some. It shouldn't (for anyone familiar with my past work). I've always been as concerned with genuine, authentic ecumenism as I have been with apologetics.
Especially notable is his emphasis on “the manner of [the papacy's]exercise” often historically being a problem. That's most unfortunate, but the good news is that recent popes seem to “get” it. We see this particularly in the profound ecumenical efforts of Ven. Pope Paul VI, Pope St. John Paul II (I'm a hugefan of his ecumenical encyclicals), and Pope Benedict XVI. The way forward is clear and already manifest, and it's exciting and heartening to observe.
The emphasis on collegiality in the Second Vatican Council was noted above. In my understanding, this council stressed the infallibility of ecumenical councils in a way more explicit and highly developed than had ever been seen before. This might be seen also as a bolstering of collegiality, insofar as the authority of such councils (gatherings of bishops) is raised to a higher level.
This vision of conciliarism is, of course, one in which bishops and the pope are united and in harmony, with the pope as the head. Historically, during the high Middle Ages, conciliarism got off-track in the sense of false notions of councils being higherin the authority than the pope. The truly Catholic vision of authority and collegiality, most highly developed in Vatican II, is seen in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church(Lumen Gentium): 21 November 1964:
22. Just as in the Gospel, the Lord so disposing, St. Peter and the other apostles constitute one apostolic college, so in a similar way the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are joined together. Indeed, the very ancient practice whereby bishops duly established in all parts of the world were in communion with one another and with the Bishop of Rome in a bond of unity, charity and peace, and also the councils assembled together, in which more profound issues were settled in common, the opinion of the many having been prudently considered, both of these factors are already an indication of the collegiate character and aspect of the episcopal order; and the ecumenical councils held in the course of centuries are also manifest proof of that same character. And it is intimated also in the practice, introduced in ancient times, of summoning several bishops to take part in the elevation of the newly elected to the ministry of the high priesthood. Hence, one is constituted a member of the episcopal body in virtue of sacramental consecration and hierarchical communion with the head and members of the body.
. . . The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head. This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. For our Lord placed Simon alone as the rock and the bearer of the keys of the Church, and made him shepherd of the whole flock; it is evident, however, that the power of binding and loosing, which was given to Peter, was granted also to the college of apostles, joined with their head. This college, insofar as it is composed of many, expresses the variety and universality of the People of God, but insofar as it is assembled under one head, it expresses the unity of the flock of Christ. In it, the bishops, faithfully recognizing the primacy and pre-eminence of their head, exercise their own authority for the good of their own faithful, and indeed of the whole Church, the Holy Spirit supporting its organic structure and harmony with moderation. The supreme power in the universal Church, which this college enjoys, is exercised in a solemn way in an ecumenical council. (ch. 3, section 22; footnote numbers excised; Latin translated by the Holy See; from the EWTN Internet posting)
Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. my mentor, wrote some interesting things about collegiality in his book, The Catholic Catechism(Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1975, 219-221):
[A] new dimension has entered the picture in the past century, or rather an always present dimension received new emphasis and raises some new, even startling, implications for the future. Collegiality must now be seen as an aspect of apostolicity. It is the Church's apostolicity seen from the standpoint of her social or collective, hence collegial, character.
. . . the apostles were not only called individually . . . they were also a collegial community . . . We see them acting as a body during the novena of waiting for the spirit after Christ's Ascension, when, on Peter's initiative, they chose Matthias to replace Judas. We see them doing the same at the council in Jerusalem to settle the thorny problem of whether Christian converts had to follow the Jewish laws. . . .
For more than sixteen centuries, these forms of collegiality-in-practice were commonplace in the Church, yet the doctrine itself was only partially realized until the midtwentieth century and formalized under John XXIII and Paul VI. Several reasons may account for this, but one contributing factor was the dawn of the communications age . . .
Finally, I would like to note the historical fact of input to the pope in the matters of the two dogmatic definitions of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1854) and her Bodily Assumption (or Dormition, as the East refers to it, in 1950). In no way were these merely “top-down” (some would say, arbitrary) decrees. The two popes (Blessed Pope Pius IX and Ven. Pope Pius XII) took into consideration the desires of not only bishops, but also priests and laypeople (sensus fidelium). Thus, in the widest sense of the term, these proclamations may be regarded as collegial in nature (though I'm sure our Eastern friends would note that the East was inadequately representedin the “polling”). Catholic theologian Alan Schreck observed:
In the hundred years before Pope Pius' declaration, the popes had received petitions from 113 cardinals, 250 bishops, 32,000 priests and religious brothers, 50,000 religious women, and 8 million lay people, all requesting that the Assumption be recognized officially as a Catholic teaching. Apparently, the pope discerned that the Holy Spirit was speaking through the people of God on this matter. (Catholic and Christian, Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1984, 180)
Likewise in an article in the Catholic apologetics magazine This Rock (“Assumptions About Mary”, May/June 1992, 12-18; quote from p. 18), T. L. Frazier noted of the bishops consulted by Ven. Pope Pius XII:
[O]nly 22 replied negatively. Of the 22, only six doubted that the Assumption was a divinely revealed truth, the rest feeling that the time was not yet appropriate for such a definition.
Blessed Pope Pius IX, in his Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, (8 December 1854) in which he defined ex cathedrathe dogma of the Immaculate Conception, noted the sought-after (overwhelming) consensus of the bishops
Although we knew the mind of the bishops from the petitions which we had received from them, namely, that the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin be finally defined, nevertheless, on February 2, 1849, we sent an Encyclical Letter from Gaeta to all our venerable brethren, the bishops of the Catholic world, that they should offer prayers to God and then tell us in writing what the piety an devotion of their faithful was in regard to the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. We likewise inquired what the bishops themselves thought about defining this doctrine and what their wishes were in regard to making known with all possible solemnity our supreme judgment.
We were certainly filled with the greatest consolation when the replies of our venerable brethren came to us. For, replying to us with a most enthusiastic joy, exultation and zeal, they not only again confirmed their own singular piety toward the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin, and that of the secular and religious clergy and of the faithful, but with one voice they even entreated us to define our supreme judgment and authority the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. In the meantime we were indeed filled with no less joy when, after a diligent examination, our venerable brethren, the cardinals of the special congregation and the theologians chosen by us as counselors (whom we mentioned above), asked with the same enthusiasm and fervor for the definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God.
Consequently, following the examples of our predecessors, and desiring to proceed in the traditional manner, we announced and held a consistory, in which we addressed our brethren, the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. It was the greatest spiritual joy for us when we heard them ask us to promulgate the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God. Therefore, having full trust in the Lord that the opportune time had come for defining the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, which Holy Scripture, venerable Tradition, the constant mind of the Church, the desire of Catholic bishops and the faithful, and the memorable Acts and Constitutions of our predecessors, wonderfully illustrate and proclaim, and having most diligently considered all things, as we poured forth to God ceaseless and fervent prayers, we concluded that we should no longer delay in decreeing and defining by our supreme authority the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. (from the posting on EWTN; footnote numbers excised). After consulting theologians Bl. Pope Pius IX had consulted 603 bishops and 546 (91%) had responded affirmatively. Four or five thought it couldn't be defined, 24 were “inopportunists” (i.e., believed that the time was not right, independently of the truth of the doctrine), and ten wanted a more indirect definition.
It stands to reason then, in light of this existing strong collegiality, even in cases of the “highest” exercise of papal prerogatives (going back at least to the 1840s), and in light of the expressed desire for reunion, that in a reunited Church, Eastern bishops or patriarchs would be able to fully participate in this collegiality, under the headship of the Bishop of Rome, the pope. Being ecclesiologically or formally separate from Rome does not further that desired end on both sides. Reunion would then, I submit, greatly foster collegiality and a profound harmony of East and West in a way that has not been seen since the patristic age.
Second Counter-Reply
Blessed Pope Pius IX might be the third-biggest “whipping-boy” of the Orthodox after St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine: largely (so a cynic might opine) because he was in office when the decree of papal infallibility was declared, so that he has become a sort of “symbol” of the thing that is so opposed.
Fr. Deacon Daniel has already cleared him of the ludicrous legend of his supposedly putting his foot on Patriarch Gregory's head. How did that myth and fairy-tale begin, one wonders? Orthodox might say (if they grant that it is a myth) that it was because of his “imperious” demeanor or what-not. But Catholics could just as well say that the legend arose from the rancid soil of centuries-long Eastern prejudices against Latins, Rome, and her popes. The bottom-line is that it isn't true, and this is what is so endlessly repeated and believed. I saw it several times in looking up some potential sources for use in this reply.
One tires of these myths that contain an element of personal attack against some notable Catholic figure. St. Thomas Aquinas is supposedly a Mr. Spock-like hyper-rationalistic machine, when in fact he was a deeply spiritual and even mystical person as well as philosopher and theologian, who combined the rational and non-rational aspects of Christianity in an extraordinary way.
His Confessions reveal St. Augustine's deep personal piety. So what do we know of the personof Blessed Pope Pius IX? What made him tick? Was it a lust for raw power and a domineering, arrogant spirit? Even Baptist historian Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote the following about him:
[H]is convictions in the main were in accord with what was eventually decided . . . he favored the ultramontane elements. That in doing so he was gratifying a personal desire for power is by no means so certain. He was a man of deep and genuine piety who had a quiet confidence in God, who scrupulously observed his daily meditations, who delighted in saying his breviary on his knees, and who spent much time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. As one sympathetic observer said, he was not a saint: he had his weaknesses, among them a quick temper. But that he sought to fulfil conscientiously what he conceived to be the duties of his high office appears to be undebatable.
(Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, Vol. 1 of 5: The Nineteenth Century in Europe: Background and the Roman Catholic Phase, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958, 283)
It occurred to me while writing this reply, that there is a huge ironyindeed running right through the Orthodox (and sometimes Eastern Catholic) objection to papal infallibility (or – a different thing – how it is exercised for better or worse). That irony is the following: the dogmatic proclamation of the infallibility of the pope was itself a conciliar decree; not a papal decree.
Blessed Pope Pius IX could have made the decree himself, just as he had proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception 16 years earlier. And even if he haddone so, it would have been in deep consultation with bishops and priests, as was the case with the dogmatic, ex cathedra decree that he didmake (as shown in my previous reply). But he didn't do so. It was the council that did it. Now, if he was so power-hungry and arrogant, why is it that he didn't merely proclaim the thing and grant himself all this power that he supposedly so desired (in a selfish, self-centered sort of way)?
Fr. Deacon Daniel stressed “conciliarity” over and over in his reply, and it is clearly the primary modus operandiof the East. Very well, then, papal infallibility was a conciliar decree. So where is the beef about that? Many people don't like it, or even if they accept it as a dogma they do so plugging their nose or with a grimace. They don't resonate with it; it's not intuitive to them. It's not accepted wholeheartedly or enthusiastically.
I understand some of that firsthand. I know how it rankles many people and irks them to no end. Papal infallibility was my single biggest gripe against the Catholic Church before I was received into it: by far: infinitely more than Marian doctrines, which I didn't find difficult to believe at all, when properly explained to me. I fought it vigorously for many months. I thought it was the most self-evidently ridiculous thing in the world. And in defendingit over the past 24 years as an apologist, I have heard (believe me) every imaginable objection to it.
But if we want to be serious about being conciliar (understood in the Catholic sense of the pope having “veto power”), we have to submit to what these councils proclaim. We can reject them because the decrees were not to our own personalliking. But then that is the spirit of Martin Luther and pick-and-choose, “cafeteria Catholic” dissent: going our own way; disbelieving that the Holy Spirit works corporately through his bishops and the pope, solemnly assembled.
The council decided that the pope was infallible, making this a dogma (at the highest level) of the Catholic Church. That's conciliar; that's the expressed will of the bishops in solemn, magisterial assembly. Think for a moment of the contrary (let's do a thought-experiment here).
We can be assured that if it had gone the other way: the heretical (from the Catholic perspective) sort of conciliarism, whereby the Ecumenical Council is the highest, most supreme authority, above the pope (which in fact almost happened in the Middle Ages), that the Orthodox would then be trumpeting this and shouting it from the rooftops as the expressed will of the people, the sensus fidelium. That wouldn't have been questioned for a second.
We know this also because we know the reaction the Orthodox (at least more ecumenical ones) have had to Vatican II: which stressed collegiality in an effort to further develop papal infallibility “in context” and Church authority in general. My two friends have repeatedly emphasized their admiration for the Second Vatican Council, which is fine with me, because I love and admire it as much as they do, and my hero (Cardinal Newman) is considered the “father” of it and in large part, the inspiration for it.
But because the council proclaimed that the pope was infallible (under certain specific conditions, as laid out), all of a sudden it is hyper-controversial and Pope Pius IX becomes the boogeyman and “bad guy.”
Bottom line: if we claim to follow the authority of councils and to be conciliar, then we have to accept in faith that God was working in those councils, to produce the right and true results. If we, on the other hand, want to selectively reject conciliar decisions (agreed-to by popes), then we have forsaken the Catholic rule of faith (and the Orthodox as well, in a somewhat different sense) and have adopted Protestant private judgment. The choices in this respect really are very few.
Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote some extraordinary things about papal infallibility, in relation to conciliarism. This is in turn fascinating, because the myth is that he was opposedto papal infallibility. He was notat all (he had held the doctrine himself for over 25 years, as he expressly stated); Newman was an inopportunistas to its timing and fully accepted and defended it when it was decreed. He wrote, after the definition was made by the council:
When you became a Catholic, you ought to have understood that the voice of the Church is the voice of God. The Church defines nothing that was not given to the Apostles in the beginning, but that sacred deposit cannot be fully brought forward and dispensed except in the course of ages. It is not any argument against the Pope’s Infallibility, that it was not defined as a truth till the 19thcentury. Don’t set yourself against the doctrine. Very little was passed, much less than its advocates wished – they are disappointed. Nothing is defined as to what acts are ex cathedra, nor to what things infallibility extends. Some people think the decree lessens the Pope’s actual power. (Letters and Diaries, vol. xxv, 216; Letter to Mrs. Margaret A. Wilson, 20 October 1870)
The Church is the Mother of high and low, of the rulers as well as of the ruled. Securus judicat orbis terrarum. If she declares by her various voices that the Pope is infallible in certain matters, in those matters infallible he is. What Bishops and people say all over the earth, that is the truth, whatever complaint we may have against certain ecclesiastical proceedings. Let us not oppose ourselves to the universal voice. (Letter to Père Hyacinthe, 24 November 1870) For myself, I see the doctrine implied in the conduct of the Roman See, nay of the Catholic Church, from the first, . . . The dogma seems to me as mildly framed as it could be—or nearly so. That the Pope was infallible in General Council, or when speaking with the Church, all admitted, even Gallicans. (Letter to Sir William Henry Cope, 10 December 1871)
I would say that you are quite right in saying that ‘the Church cannot delegate her magisterium to another’, and therefore cannot make the Pope infallible. The Council has done nothing of the kind – no Council does more than declarethe Apostolic truth. The early Councils declared that it was true that Almighty God was a Trinity in Unity – they did not makethe Trinity in Unity – and the Vatican Council does not makethe Pope infallible but declares that, when he teaches the revealed doctrine, God from the beginning has made him infallible. . . . It has been his pleasure to protect his own revelation, by committing the true teaching of it to the Church and to the Pope. They are infallible when they teach, because God made them so – they are not infallible except when they teach because God has not given them that gift at other times. (Letters and Diaries, vol. xxxii, 348; Letter to Henry Stacke, 9 February 1875)
. . . the great object of a Council being in some way or other to declare the judgment of the Church. . . . There are those who have no belief in the authority of Councils at all, and feel no call upon them to discriminate between one Council and another; but Anglicans, who are so fierce against the Vatican, and so respectful towards the Ephesine, should consider what good reason they have for swallowing the third Council, while they strain out the nineteenth. (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, ch. 8, 1875)
There were circumstances in the mode of conducting the Vatican Council which I could not like, but its definition of the Pope’s Infallibility was nothing short of the upshot of numberless historical facts looking that way, and of the multitudinous mind of theologians acting upon them. (Letters and Diaries, vol. xxix, 118; Letter to William Froude, 29 April 1879)
Of course the Vatican Council has distinctly adopted as de fide what from the beginning was taught in the Church, though not defined. (Letters and Diaries, vol. xxx, 101; Letter to Henry Bittleston [2], 14 June 1882)
Cardinal Newman was also quite personally fond of Blessed Pope Pius IX, as was obvious, as I read many of his letters, in preparing my two quotations books of his utterances.
In conclusion, I would stress once again the conciliar nature of the dogma of papal infallibility, and the fact that it came about by majority vote, according to how councils have worked from the beginning. Church historian Latourette gives us some numbers to ponder:
On the preliminary vote of the question of approval of the declaration of infallibility, 451, or three-fourths, were in favour; 88, between a sixth and a seventh, were flatly opposed; and 62, slightly more than a tenth, approved with reservations. Ninety-one bishops abstained from voting. (Ibid., 282)
By my math, that is 692 bishops. 65% were totally in favour. If we add “approval with reservations,” the total “yay” vote is 513 out of 692, or 74%. Those “flatly opposed” were only 13% of the whole. This is the “voice of the bishops” and the “Mind of the Church”. If, theoretically, say, 400 Orthodox bishops had also been present, in a truly universal council, and all voted “no”; the ayes still would have had it, 513 to 488. So what would the response have been: to reject the council out of hand until they got the result they wanted? That's not how Christian, apostolic authority works. But it is how dissidence and schism have always worked.
Lastly, how was the proclamation received? Was it regarded as an autocratic, “top-down” decision or was it perceived to be the will of the people? Latourette (no Catholic partisan) again provides an excellent overview:
It must be said, moreover, that the decisions of the Vatican Council, especially those which stressed the administrative authority and the infallibility of the Pope, represented the convictions of the large majority of those Roman Catholics who were sincerely committed to the faith. Like the majority of the council, they believed that here was nothing new, but only what had always been implicit in the deposit of the faith entrusted to the Church.
. . . Few serious protests came from any Latin country. They were not even widespread in France, where liberal Catholicism had been strong. (Ibid., 283-284)
He goes on to inform his readers of where opposition didcome from: England, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. What else is new? Some things never change, do they? These are the very same countries where dissident, liberal modernist Catholics (real or in name only) thrive to this day: 144 years later. It's also notable that, with the exception of Austria, they are all Protestant-majority countries or of a mixed nature. Germany today has almost equal numbers of Lutherans and Catholics, while Switzerland has slightly more Catholics.
Thus it is no coincidence at all that the ideas of Protestantism (some of them false) filter-down into the thoughts of Catholics, when the two groups mix. That was true in 1870 and remains very much true today.

Satire on Anti-Catholic Polemicist James Swan's Banning Policies: A Must to Avoid

 
Recently [one / two], I have commented on anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant polemicist James Swan's humorous and highly entertaining banning policies. I'm not allowed to set foot on his blog, Boors All (or his Facebook page); nor is anyone even allowed to mention my name in either place. My my! We can't be too careful, can we?

Ironically, he was himself "suspended" from the Catholic Answers Forum last night. Further irony (but really not, for those who know me well), I've already stated in comments on my Facebook page earlier today:

I think it's quite possible that there might have been some unfairness here. I don't know. . . . Nor do I see any disregard of the rules in his recent posts there that look like sufficient reason for a suspension. I agree with him that he played by their rules, at least by appearances.

I gave my theory as to why he may have been suspended. In any event, it's high time to subject the inanities and abject silliness of his banning of me and forbidding my very name, to satire. It came to me last night in a burst of inspiration. Our "guide-song" will be A Must to Avoid [link to lyrics] the old Herman's Hermits song [link to You Tube recording] from December 1965 (I know; I'm a baby boomer . . . ). 

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He's a must to avoid
A complete impossibility
He's a must to avoid
Better take it from me

I treated him nice but he lied (Nice but he lied)
So take my advice, go and hide (Just go and hide)
He's nothin' but trouble; better cut out on the double
Before he wounds your ego and pride

He's a must to avoid
A complete impossibility
He's a must to avoid
Better take it from me

He's full of himself in his eyes (In his own eyes)
I've long since seen through his disguise (Through his disguise)
Don't try to engage him, or you'll end up quite enraged;
And caught up in the web of your own lies

He's a must to avoid
A complete impossibility
He's a must to avoid
Better take it from me

His case looks inviting, it's true (Oh, yes, that's true)
Lots of anti-Catholics felt it too (Have felt it too)
You'll think that you have won, but when the debate's done
That's when your temper turns you to goo

He's a must to avoid
A complete impossibility
He's a must to avoid
Better take it from me


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Day 9: 2014 3rd Annual Fundraiser for Dave Armstrong's Full-time Apologetics Apostolate ($5000 goal)

With wife Judy and third son Matthew in February 1997: the month that I began my website, "Biblical Evidence for Catholicism."

$1546 or 31% of the goal raised so far.

For today's entry ("My Blog / Website, Part II") see the public Facebook post. Please prayerfully consider generously supporting this apostolate, especially if you yourself have been helped by it.

Every little bit helps: $10, $20; whatever you think you can set aside for the good cause of apologetics, evangelism, and spreading the word of the joyful, inspiring fullness of the Catholic faith.

Monthly support is especially important in creating stability and predictability for my meager income. PayPal allows a convenient "recurring payment" option. Thanks!

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Day 5: 2014 3rd Annual Fundraiser for Dave Armstrong's Full-time Apologetics Apostolate ($5000 goal)

My website front page, March 2000. I had already won the "Catholic website of the year" award from Envoy Magazine two years earlier.
$1175 or 24% of the goal raised so far.

For today's entry ("My Blog / Website, Part I") see the public Facebook post. Please prayerfully consider generously supporting this apostolate, especially if you yourself have been helped by it. Every little bit helps: $10, $20; whatever you think you can set aside for the good cause of apologetics, evangelism, and spreading the word of the joyful, inspiring fullness of the Catholic faith. Thanks!

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Day 4: 2014 3rd Annual Fundraiser for Dave Armstrong's Full-time Apologetics Apostolate ($5000 goal)

Armstrong Family: December 2012 
$675 or 14% of the total, has been raised so far.

For today's entry about recommendations and endorsements of my work from leading apologetics and otherwise Catholic figures, see the public Facebook post. Please consider generously supporting this apostolate, especially if you yourself have been helped by it. Thanks!

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