Banned in Canada?

Definitely won't hear that joke nowadays.

Catholicism Is Awesome

Pretty amazing post over at the New Liturgical Movement.

Pope: Protestants Going to Hell

That was the title of an article in yesterday's Wisconsin State Journal on the release of the Vatican's document reasserting the primacy of the Roman Catholic church.

How woefully ignorant of the editing staff of the WSJ. The story was an AP piece, but they chose to use that title. (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran the same story under a different title.)

If they actually bothered to read the document, it would be fairly clear that the pope isn't asserting that all protestants are going to hell. But I suppose that's too much to ask of a major newspaper with a staff numbering in the hundreds.

Big Jim, any thoughts on this?

The suburbs rule

The complaints Penalver raises against suburban living apply just as much, if not more so, to rural living. Living on a farm makes one even more dependent on the car and "isolates" people even more from one another. Surely we don't all need to live in squalid cities to observe Catholic Social Teaching?

While I agree with his environmental criticism, the communitarian and justice aspects are just silly. The poor are unquestionably more burdened in the city, where the cost of living is usually significantly higher. As for separating people from one another, I'd rather wave to my neighbor living 500 feet away than be afraid to make eye contact with the guy in the apartment next door.

At this point in my life, I can't even imagine trying to raise a family in urban Milwaukee.

Living in Sin

I find myself reflexively disagreeing with the Eduardo Penalver (at the very least in spirit if not in fact); however, there's little to disagree with in his condemnation of suburban living:

But, aside from perceptions of authenticity, I also think there's a moral case to be made against suburban living on grounds of justice, community, and the environment. I think all three objections revolve around the car-dependence that suburban patterns of development literally mandate. Car-dependence separates people from one another, isolates the very young and very old, burdens the poor and harms the environment. The justice and communitarian objections to the suburban lifestyle resonate strongly with traditional themes of CST. The environment, on the other hand, has been something of an ugly stepchild within CST. The Church has had things to say about the environment from time to time, though, and I think (or at least hope) it will have much more to say about it in the future.

CST = Catholic Social Teaching.

Yes, I live in the suburbs both at home and at school.

Well Obviously It's Not Meant To Be Taken Literally . . .

It Refers to Any Manufacturers of Dairy Products

Rico, I'll attempt to answer you based on my rather sporadic knowledge of Catholicism and no research.

I think the important fact to keep before you is that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. I don't think anyone pretends to know the complete ramifications of this claim, but we can at least begin to answer your question.

John, who has the highest Christology of the Evangelists, has Jesus weep outside the tomb of Lazarus (11: 35), and Matthew, Mark, and Luke portray a very real struggle in the Garden of Gathsemane. Now, these examples are obviously after Jesus reached maturity, but the adult Jesus of Gospels seems to have very real human limitations along with his awesome power. I think that attributing all knowledge to Jesus in utero takes away from the awful mystery of the Incarnation. An overemphasis of the divine element in Christ risks minimizing both the Incarnation and the Crucifixion. Regarding your mention of the 12 year old Jesus, I'll just point out that, while he obviously knows he's special, his actions are very childlike.

As I said in the beginning of this post, a definite answer is unknowable; however, dwelling on the problem cane certainly be spiritually fruitful.

And now for something completely different...

I'm a faithful Catholic, but my knowledge of church doctrine is lacking compared to Big Jim. So I'm going to pose this completely random question to him (and to anyone else who may happen to stumble across this).

Is there an official position on when Jesus became "self-aware" (for lack of a better word)? Did he know when he was in the womb that he was the divine Son of God? Or did he learn/realize this at a later time? And if so, when and how? Presumably, it would be before he was teaching "in (His) father's house" at the age of 12.

I don't even know if there is an official position, or if there some obvious one that I just don't know.