Charting a moral course: Popes, presidents and politics

"Pope Leo should stick to his lane. President Trump has said it. Vice President Vance is so convinced of it that he tried to school the pontiff on just war theory. Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon staff called the papal nuncio on the carpet to make it clear. What is the Pope’s proper purview?"

Frankly, I don't recognize much of my Catholic faith in the pronouncements emanating from the White House. And sometimes I get annoyed enough to make a public stand. I suppose I could stand outside the White House with a bullhorn and read from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or the documents of Vatican II, but instead I write. I am grateful for the Philadelphia Inquirer who has given me a space to do that.

"I hear this administration saying that our morals are supposed to be detached from our everyday lives. That our beliefs — or our unbeliefs — are an entirely private matter. If we aren’t making our choices based on our own well-formed consciences, whatever tradition has formed them, then are they our choices at all?

Faith and morals are precisely what inform my politics, what guide my thinking about economics and social policy and climate change...Are there any decisions I make where my faith doesn’t play a role? Sure. Do I want mango or lemon water ice at Rita’s? But for the rest of it, I want my moral compass to help me navigate these challenging times.

Conscience isn’t a lane; it is the map that lets us find our way through all the lanes. Pope Leo is reminding us to not leave it behind."

Know where you stand and stand there, said Daniel Berrigan SJ. I know where I stand and I will stand there as long as I can and as long as it is necessary. 

Read the whole thing at the Inquirer. And yes, I enjoyed some alliterative moments...

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For the record, the proper choice is mango!

For non-Philadelphians: Rita's is a purveyor of frozen confections, particularly "water ice" (pronounced "wodder ice"). Water ice (also called Italian ice) is more crystalline than a sorbet or gelato, but not as crystalline as a snow cone. 

Hobbies

Five more lectures to go.  On solids and X-ray crystallography. A short tour through nuclear chemistry, aware that these 100 or so minutes might be all they get on the topic in their chemistry degree. Memories of my own undergraduate training surface, where we got to use the nuclear reactor to do neutron activation analysis of milk samples. Can I find a photo of the reactor to show them?

Chatting with a colleague in the hall about my plans to write: "It's good to have a hobby," he offers. I bristle a bit.  I'm not sure that I would classify my writing under "hobbies." Sketching is a hobby, knitting is a hobby, fly fishing is a hobby. (Which two of these do I do?) A hobby feels too casual a classification, bearing a frisson of frivolousness. Writing for me carries weight, sometimes serious weight. So is it a job? an avocation? a vocation?

What does the OED have to say? A hobby is "An activity or interest pursued regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure." Or an avocation:  "an activity or line of work for which one has special talent or affinity; one's calling." Vocation, it  tells me,  derives from a summoning.

Writing is (mostly) a pleasure for me. Some of it is done in my "off-hours" from my paid job. This blog is probably a hobby. Regardless of the box I might drop it into, my writing is an integral part of who I am. The words call, and I cannot help but pick them up and start dragging them into place.

Qapla!

Qapla! Success! My latest column in Nature Chemistry came out last week. It opens and closes with Klingon — which may be a first for a publication in a scientific journal. 

Se'vIr lIngDI' tamlertej, tlhIngan Hol QaQ law' DIvI' Hol QaQ puS jatlh Michelle Francl. (More or less translates as "Should chemists publish in Klingon rather than English wonders Michelle Francl")

and 

TlhIngan Hol ghojlu'meH QaQ jajvam. (Today is a good day to learn Klingon.) 

Writing this piece I learned a bunch about synthetic languages beginning with Hildegard of Bingen's lingua ignota to Nobel prize winning chemist Wilhelm Ostwald's literal investment in Ido (an offshoot of Esperanto). He gave half of his prize monies to promote use of the language by scientists. Also  I was introduced to Volapük, which sounds like it could be Klingon, but is actually the name of another 19th century synthetic language.

The essay isn't about Klingon per se but rather tackles the issue of auxiliary languages and science. If English is the lingua franca of science, what is the cost to scientists who do not speak it as their mother tongue? Time? Visibility? Surely, but the ultimate cost is the work that doesn't get done as a result, or gets done more slowly. It costs us all.

So, a Gedanken experiment...would it level the playing field if we all had to publish in Klingon? Could you squeeze more science into a 15 minute talk if you did it in Klingon? Chaq!

Read the whole thing here.

One last time

 

We have a mature thunder plum out front, which blossoms every spring and shades the driveway in the depths of summer. It leans out from under the protection of the great oak, which is 75 years old. A youngster by comparison. Last year I noticed it had developed a fungus, black crusts on a few branches. I've seen this before and I knew what it meant. Soon all the branches would be covered. There would be a last bloom and then the tree would have to become something else. 

I'm down to the last 8 classes of my teaching career, one last season to bloom as a teacher, then I, too, will be something else. (Though thankfully not covered with a fungus!) 

I will learn to say when asked what I do, "I write."

An adulterated Bible

In 1631 a typesetting error resulted in copies of the King James Bible where the 6th commandment (or 7th, depending on how you count) in Exodus 20:14 is rendered “Thou shalt commit adultery.” It was a scandal, the printers were fined (though in the end they didn’t have to pay), and most of the copies of what would become known as the Wicked Bible were destroyed. 

I have started to wonder if Hegseth and Trump have a similarly adulterated version of the Gospels, where the beatitudes in Matthew have been misprinted:

Blessed are those who mourn, for clearly they deserved what they got

Blessed are the strongmen, for who wants to be WEAK?

Blessed are those who show no mercy, nor quarter to the enemy either

Blessed are those who are sure that they know better than God what is righteous, for their morality should be enough for you

Blessed are the warmongers, for obviously this is God’s war and the rest of you ought to get down on your knees and pray for victory

All amid a steady chant of be afraid, be afraid, be afraid.