Monday's Open Forum
War Crimes and Genocide in Gaza?
Back in May 2024, the question was posed: Has Israel lost the war against Hamas? To recap: Israel’s original intention for counter attacking Hamas - its “jus ad bellum,” - i.e. the conditions under which states resort to war - was to recue the hostages and also to eliminate Hamas because of its ongoing threat to Israel. It was not revenge for the horrors of October 7 th , 2023, although that was the immediate cause. It was about the damage that Hamas could do in the future given it stated intent to annihilate Israel. Is Israel aiming for a realistic, achievable goals? Rescuing hostages is a clear and potentially achievable end. But is eliminating Hamas possible? How do you reduce civilian casualties in the face of Hamas tactics? Is her present strategy producing more chaos? Is her approach encouraging future terrorist attacks on her. Is there an alternative approach? As the war goes on and civilian deaths rise, questions increasingly surface about Israel’s conduct ...
Two questions from my recent travels:
ReplyDelete1. Is it morally right to display human remains in museums?
2. Should we return the Elgin Marbles to Greece?
1. Yes
Delete2. No
If we’re going to have museums at all, it’s logical to put things in them that convey interesting and important information about the chosen subject. If ancient burial customs, for instance, fall within the field of interest of a particular museum, then to make a proper job of it you’re probably going to need to display a skeleton or two that archaeologists have dug up somewhere
I’m not so sure about the second question but on the whole I’m inclined to say that the first step is to ask, Are they being taken good care of where they are at the moment? If the answer is “Yes”, then that settles it. On the other hand, though, I don’t really know anything much about Elgin himself and how he came to find himself in possession of them.
But the technology exists to create replicas of skeletons. I wonder if it degrades human dignity to display actual bodies, especially in the way that some museums do it, where it's little more than a curio.
DeleteLord Elgin (Thomas Bruce) stated that he was given permission to remove the marbles by the Ottoman authorities, who occupied Greece at the time. This claim has been disputed, and no official record of the firman - the official edict - has ever been found. I think this complicates the matter in inasmuch as these were not the Sultan's to give away. It would be like saying that Polish treasures sold by the Nazis were legitimately obtained. The removal was considered controversial even at the time, most famously by Lord Byron who (in a very British way) penned a strongly worded poem about it.
No
DeleteYes.
This article covers most points about your first question.
In Happy Jack's opinion, it is contradictory. It opens with:
Respect for human mortal remains is not only a Christian duty but a universal one … The Catholic Church grounds its teaching on respect for human remains on faith in the resurrection and on the intrinsic value of persons. We respect the bodies of the dead as a witness to the Christian hope in the resurrection of the body. We also treat dead bodies with respect as a way of symbolically honoring the memory of the persons whose remains were once their bodily expression. Finally, we respectfully bury the dead as a corporal work of mercy.
It then equivocates around the issues and ends up supporting the practice of opening tombs and displaying human remains because, material remains are no longer the body of any person, nor do they possess any intrinsic personal value. They do have instrumental value inasmuch as they benefit the living for things such as bereavement, respect for memory or medical training, and concludes, So, No, examining and displaying mortal remains of citizens of past civilizations is not necessarily disrespectful, adding, Dead ancient Egyptians cannot have any present-day claim, and There are also educational reasons. Studying the mortal remains of a once-existing civilization advances knowledge on how ancient people lived and died, worshipped, worked, recreated, etc,and Examining and displaying human remains in museums gives the community tangible access to humanity’s heritage. What we learn about our past can assist us to make better decisions in the present.
I don't see it as contradictory, Jack, The author starts off by comparing the merits first of one side of the argument and then the other. Having done that, he goes on to give his reasons for coming down on the Yes side.
DeleteThanks for the link, Jack. It's true that the remains are no longer a person and that the body is of no material value, being as it is simply made of dust and returning to dust. We are warned about the dangers of over valuing the physical body and told not to fear its destruction, because the part of us which is immortal is what really matters.
DeleteBut Christianity is unique in being a religion of physical resurrection. The body isn't simply a shell that we cast off and ascend to a higher realm. It's something that we will be one day reunited with and something that will be glorified. When Christ rose from the tomb, he rose in his same physical body (albeit it transformed). This is the reason why Christianity honours the body of the deceased instead of simply disposing of it as a vacated husk, as some faiths do, and why cremation was forbidden upon until fairly recently (and still is in the Orthodox Church). The Catholic Church, although allowing cremation, forbids the practice of scattering remains, dividing them up as keepsakes and so on, because bodily integrity should be preserved, even in cremation
So, for Christians, there is still an intrinsic dignity in mortal remains, which I don't believe is preserved by putting them on display.
Interesting story from Germany. "Hate speech" laws are bad enough in the Anglosphere, but the Germans are seriously reverting to type. All national stereotype jokes aside, is there a problem with the German national character?
ReplyDeletehttps://gript.ie/the-man-facing-jail-time-for-criticising-facemasks/?fbclid=IwAR1sGS9axIAIYRodGJJC_4SohSlqyvp0nE_5nW6sb4ZS3_IS_vTkg0TXuTE
I followed your link, but it's not at all clear to me what he's rattling on about. What was C.J. Hopkins put on trial for? Was it for the illustration on the cover of his book? Where and when did the trial take place?
DeleteI'm sorry, Bell, but whoever wrote this long rant comes across as a muddleheaded windbag. What are the facts of the case, and why is he concealing them?
This gives a bit more information:
Deletehttps://www.freefunder.com/campaign/cj-hopkins-legal-fund
German law prohibits a range of personal insults, from malicious gossip against private citizens to defamation against politicians. It also bans the use of “flags, insignia, uniforms, slogans” belonging to political parties and organizations that have been deemed unconstitutional, such as Nazis and neo-Nazis.
In effect, he displayed a Nazi insignia and defamed the Health Minister.
If Hopkins’ crime was being the author of a book whose publisher put a swastika on the cover, how did William Shirer manage to stay out of jail, year after year?
DeleteI suspect that Hopkins’ more serious offence, in the view of the German court, was his libellous (slanderous? defamatory?) remark about a minister in the present-day German government. But who is this unnamed minister? Is it Karl Lauterbach, the current Health Minister? And what did Hopkins accuse him of? Or is that still a secret?
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich/dp/B000NYPMV0/ref=sr_1_4?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=27&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=15&qid=1695240921&refinements=p_27%3Ashirer%2Cp_28%3Arise+and+fall+of+the+third+reich&s=books&sr=1-4&unfiltered=1
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/20/st-ives-cornwall-priest-desecration-beer-pumps-church/
ReplyDeleteI can't criticise this 😁 it gets my vote.
Pay Wall ...
DeleteHere's the Daily Mail article for free:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12539813/Holy-orders-Worshippers-blast-vicar-installing-beer-pumps-600-year-old-church-saying-desecration.html
If you're allowing your church to be used as a venue for your town's two-week music and arts festival, then ....
HJ liked this comment: "Churches will do anything and everything to get money. Jesus threw out the money makers from the church."
One of my local Anglican churches hosts an annual beer festival...
DeleteI like contrast in headlines here.
Telegraph: Priest accused of desecration after installing beer pumps in 600-year-old church
Daily Mail: Holy orders! Worshippers blast vicar for installing beer pumps in their 600-year-old church, saying move is a 'desecration'
The Mail missing out on 'Holy last orders' is a pity. Maybe they're saving that headline for when he's made to remove them.
The local Catholic church holds one here.
DeleteIn the Church or in the Church Hall?
DeleteIn the church here, along with a monthly market and jumble sales and concerts. There's even one of those 'Cash for Gold' stands setting up there in a few weeks, an invite to sell your old gold went through every door. Talk about the tables of the money changers.
DeleteChurch hall.
DeleteFrom Mursley, Bucks:
DeleteThe Church Arms - Diocese of Oxford
(read about this in a letter to the Telegraph.
Meanwhile, back at the museum ...
ReplyDeletehttps://global.discourse-cdn.com/business7/uploads/stisidoreslounge/original/3X/d/e/de0cadf82c04e73485edc51e8ae826128600bb05.jpeg
That's about right 😂
DeleteVery good, Ray!
DeleteSunak wants to push back the drive to return us to the 1700s - where we all freeze and walk everywhere, while our betters trundle past in the electric coaches - by five years. Starmer has pledged to impoverish us immediately if elected.
ReplyDeleteWhat a depressing prospect the next GE makes. It's like being asked to choose whether you'd rather be slapped in the face with a bunch of nettles using the right and or the left hand.
Last week it was in all the papers that Lucy Letby was lodging an appeal against her conviction. We don't seem to have heard any more about it since then, have we? What arguments have her lawyers found, I wonder?
ReplyDeleteThis from Peter Hitchens
Deletehttps://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2023/09/could-lucy-letby-be-innocent-.html
Thank you, Bell! Hitchens certainly argues his case very cogently. I’d never really made much of an effort to look behind the headlines in this case, and I had the impression there was no room for any serious doubt.
DeleteNevertheless, those babies all died. Can all the deaths have been from natural causes? If not, that would mean there’s a murderer still at large who was clever enough not to have attracted the slightest suspicion, even for a moment. Is that where we are now?
All the evidence was circumstantial but was considerable. It was a long trial. In such cases, there's room for doubt but the jury didn't think so. Too many "coincidences".
DeleteI came across this on The Conservative Woman:
ReplyDeleteThe Roman Catholic Church is in thrall to St Greta
I noticed this: “Catholic social teaching ... contained in, for example, Rerum Novarum by Leo XIII and even Laborem Exercens by the much less impressive John Paul II (which dealt with work, the nature of work and the dignity of work) ...”
What do folks here make of the “much less impressive”?
One notes the usual high standard of erudite discussion on TCW.
DeleteAs for "the much less impressive John Paul II," one simply noted this in passing.
I had never heard nor seen the name Roger Watson until this moment. He describes himself as a professor of nursing. No doubt nursing is a subject he knows a lot about, and anything he says about nursing is to be taken seriously. But the popes? Why would it matter whether Roger Watson finds Pope A more impressive or less impressive than Pope B? His opinions about popes carry no more weight than his opinions about football teams or rock groups or whether he prefers Star Trek to Doctor Who or vice versa.
DeleteJohn Paul II was certainly much less impressive than Leo XIII, but in fairness to him, the Papacy had one magnificent run between 1846 and 1950, with six of the greatest popes in the history of the Church back to back. Of them, only Pius X was more impressive than Leo, and it would take an awful lot for John Paul to match up to either of them. John Paul was not a bad pope -- certainly not in comparison to Francis -- but he was no Leo XIII, that's for sure.
Delete@ Ray
DeleteAh, but he's a Catholic.
@ Bell
"Horses for courses". Each Pope has to be judged according to the times they occupy the papacy. John Paul excelled in opposing moral consequentialism. Leo's brilliance was responding to the evils of both unrestrained capitalism and atheistic communism.
I think Jack is thinking a little too much like a Jesuit. The whole point of Catholicism is that we don't do "according to the times." The message is what it is, and if you don't like it, you can, in a very literal sense, go to hell. If that means the Church withers and dies because it can't attract converts and priests -- and that is a speculation, not by any means an absolute certainty, and one with which I do not agree; if you build it, they will come -- then so be it. God has provided a channel of Grace to mankind. If mankind flips Him the finger, on mankind's head be it.
DeleteLike a Catholic, Bell
DeleteLeo XIII wrote to defend private property and the rights of workers during rapid industrialisation which saw workers exploited and the rise of revolution. Pious X wrote against the rise of modernism. John Paul II, against the ;culture of death' and 'structures of sin', Francis is writing about our 'throw away culture' and lack of concern about our planet. All according to the 'signs of the times'. It's a very Catholic concept.
The times change, the message doesn't; it just gets interpreted relevant to the time we live in. Leo XIII was a great pope. John Paul was a good one. Both interpreted the message of the Church. There's a difference between interpreting the message and giving an entirely new one.
DeleteVandalism hits a new low. What's the point?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britains-famous-sycamore-gap-tree-deliberately-felled-2023-09-28/
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-66947040
Shocking.
DeleteSmart comment from the police: "The famous tree at Sycamore Gap has come down over night. We have reason to believe it has been deliberately felled." As if it could have been accidental.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/descent-into-hell-an-alleged-rupnik-victim-speaks-out
ReplyDeleteThis is an interview in English with "Sister Anna", one of the victims of Jesuit preditor and artist Marko Rupnik. I came upon it in a link from the article below, which is also worth reading. I have said before that Francis is a dreadful pope. I see no reason to resile from that position. I also think it worthwhile to point out that the idea that the Holy Spirit chooses the pope is a very modern, post-Vatican I notion. It has no dogmatic foundation. If it did, it would mean the Holy Spirit chose John XII and Alexander VI. Francis became pope by the machinations of the Jesuits and the St Gallen Mafia. This is the result.
https://unherd.com/2023/09/can-the-pope-survive-the-rupnik-scandal/
Yes, Jack read that and other articles on this. Francis' direct involvement is speculation at the moment. There are also suggestions he's being pressured in some way to support Rupnik.
DeleteDoes anyone believe the Holy Spirit directly chooses a pope? All we can say is that the Church is protected and guided by God and that, ultimately, He brings good from evil.
I think a lot of people actually DO believe the Holy Spirit chooses the pope, and that mistaken belief has allowed certain unscrupulous men in the hierarchy to peddle the fiction that every word from a reigning pope's mouth carries the same weight as a magisterial statement.
DeleteYou see Bell...this is what I find astonishing. What kind of Catholic education is happening where Catholics think the Holy Spirit chooses the Pope and every word he utters is ex cathedra.?....It is not possible. Is the voting secret by the Cardinals? Are we privy to the numbers of the winning candidate and the runner up? As far as I am concerned it does not mat.....ter who the Pope is because every Catholic should know if the Pope is out of sync with Church teaching. It's not complicated but it is unchanging and cannot be tweaked to suit various political positions. Everyone knows the truth no matter who says what......Cressida
Deletehttps://seachurn.blogspot.com/2014/06/4 i-did-it-my-way.html Found this old poem....Cressida
ReplyDeletehttps://seachurn.blogspot.com/2014/06/i-did-it-my-way.html
ReplyDelete