Cherry-picking sin

Recently my facebook news feed seems to have been filling up with little red equals signs, mostly among my those of my cousins who fall into one of the following two groups: in their 40s or American. (I could do a nice little Venn diagram.) This morning one of them, who descibes herself as 'Catholic....sort of?', shared the Atheist Quote of the Day:

Homosexuality is not a sin. Atheism is not a sin. Belonging to the wrong religion is not a sin. You know why? Because sin is an imaginary disease invented to sell you an imaginary cure.

                                                                                                                  John Allen

A quick google tells me there are rather a lot of people called John Allen. I don't know which one of these he is or how exactly he arrived at his conclusions. Leaving aside the fact that a self-proclaimed Catholic (even if only self-proclaiming as 'sort of') is displaying support for same-sex marriage and showing appreciation for the Atheist Quote of the Day page, leaving aside the rejection of God and the downright relativism in the first half of said quote, the part which interests me particularly is the bit about sin being an imaginary disease and its complementary imaginary cure.

I recently blogged about the loss of the sense of sin, which Pius XII identified as the sin of the century, speaking in the USA in 1946. I and my fellow catechist also recently had a complaint from the parent of one of the members of our confirmation group. The underlying issue was that we had spoken regularly about sin and apparently we were supposed to be 'affirming' the young people and not 'making them feel bad about themselves'. Yes, we have talked about sin. Yes, we have talked about the devil. Yes, we have strongly encouraged them to go to confession. (No, we have not greatly succeeded in this and if anyone has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.) But I think I can put my hand on my heart and say that when we have talked about sin, we have always, invariably, talked about the love and mercy of God who is always waiting for us to come back to him.

John Allen is right about one thing: without the disease there is no need for a cure. Take away sin and God is worse than imaginary: he is irrelevant and unecesssary. Take away sin and the immeasurable gift of reconciliation is tossed aside as meaningless. (Of course it works both ways: take away God, take away the absolute and we immediately begin to drown in a mire of relativism without the compass of right and wrong.) If I do not recognise my own sinfulness and brokenness, I have no need of God, no need of reconciliation. Without recognising this I cannot recognise the immense love which God lavishes on me, God who made me for love and out of an overabundance of love, and who holds me in being at every moment. As the Exsultet proclaims:

Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed.
O wonder of your humble care for us! O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
O truly blessed night, worthy alone to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the underworld!

Sin is not an imaginary disease, it is a reality which each one of us allows into the world because while we may like to count ourselves as 'OK' or 'better' on the basis that we are not murderers, there are no good sins. It is the root of injustice, poverty, famine, persecution, war, suffering... There are many ways of coming to know God, and I do not think that recognising evil can teach us the existence of abosulte good, but the knowledge of sin and our own sinfulness can help us to know how very much God loves us. 

The Song at the Scaffold - Gertrud von le Fort

This book was recommended to me by a friend who is a consecrated laywoman (a consecrated laywoman friend?) and shares my passion for books. I bought it to read during my recent visit to Ampleforth for the Triduum Retreat, believing that when on retreat it is wise not to distract yourself unnecessarily with unrelated bedtime reading. Having left my shopping rather late I was delighted to discover that it was available for ereaders from Ignatius Press. The book, which is shorter than I expected, tells the story of a group of Carmelite nuns at the time of the French Revolution. Written in the form of a letter, the account focuses mainly on one of the novices, and her fear.

I think this is a book I need to digest and revisit, because while I enjoyed the book, it was something of a 'Titanic experience' in that the fate of all concerned is known from the beginning, although their paths to that point are not. However, while the story is predictable enough in its way, it is the character of Blanche, the novice, which merits further reflection. For me, it brought me back to the Bible passage which I kept coming back to over the course of the retreat: For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1Cor 1:22-25) Blanche is afraid of everything, but so am I. Whilst my fears may not be as extreme and all-consuming they are still as real and as foolish as some of hers. I have put my trust in God (supposedly) and I have had the priviledge to say to him twice, and I know with certainty that his plan is the best plan. Yet still I worry.

The other aspect which interests me is the narrator's response to the events recounted. Without wishing to reveal the ending, I would ask myself two questions:

Do I look for God's presence in my life?

When faced with challenging events, how do I respond? Do I ignore, avoid or hide, or do I meet them on my feet, grounded in faith?

Not in my name

Whilst I try to mainly limit myself to writing about healthcare-related issues, one of the reasons I started blogging was because I was fed up with people telling me that as an [educated] woman there were things I should want (sex, drugs and the ordination of women) and things I shouldn't want (marriage, children, self-respect, and the right not to sing Shine, Jesus, Shine) and I was especially fed up with being told this by nominally Catholic women claiming to speak on behalf of all Catholics. I am therefore delighted to discover that I am not the only person who believes in, strives to live by and supports the teaching of the Church. Catholic Women Rising is 'a place for practicing Catholic women who support the Church’s teaching on sexuality, contraception, abortion, marriage and the ordination of women, to stand up and be counted.'

While I'm on the subject, I should just take this opportunity to plug the vastly improved website of the Women's Section of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. This is definitely a website with something for everyone, from philosophy to book reviews (and probably philosophical book reviews as well), from current affairs to anthropology.

No-blame culture and the loss of the sense of sin

When I was last working in a hospital (probably this would be a good point at which to say that I am a pharmacist) I was informed that we operated under a 'no-blame culture'. The idea was that if mistakes were made then it was important to be honest about them so that steps could be taken to reduce the causes of error. The rationale is obvious: a dispensing error can have serious consequences, but if you are afraid that you (or one of your colleagues) might lose your job (or be sued) over it you are unlikely to report near-misses.

 

To a certain extent, this makes sense. By encouraging reporting of near-misses you can look at the systems involved and take steps to reduce errors. The pharmacy I worked in was, like most hospital pharmacies, badly laid-out (usually because clinical pharmacy services have expanded rapidly in the last 20 to 25 years and most hospitals are older than that) and extremely busy. We provided pharmacy services to the equivalent of 3 hospitals and effectively needed to employ one person full time just to answer the phone for non-clinical enquiries (not helped when the town council once made a typo in some communication and we started getting all their phone enquiries as well!). Errors are bound to creep in with a turnover of this size, and it is important that systems do not faciliate them. By reporting near-misses you can take steps such as keeping all your high-risk (to the patient) medicines such as methotrexate and warfarin on a separate shelf; separate out the 6 types of Sinemet tablets and the 5 variations on Epilim instead of sticking to strict alphabetical order; check, double-check and triple check everything, and stick massive posters in your fridge so that everyone is careful to quadruple check the insulin. Manufacturers usually help by making the packs different colours (although it must be confessed that some of them appear to be more concerned with brand identity than patient safety). So far, so good.

 

But a no-blame culture can only go so far. Sometimes an individual is at fault. It is easy to mix up your Sinemet, true, but it is easier still if you are talking whilst checking, thinking about something else, have already been shouted at by a consultant that morning, rely on your memory when you aren't really sure, or were out the night before. A chief pharmacist I know once went a delivered an official reprimand to a cupboard (in another department) because whoever had filled in the incident form had stated that the error was 'the fault of the cupboard for being untidy'.

 

Pope Pius XII said that the 'sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin'. We are all too ready to blame systems, or cupboards, or the fact that we weren't concentrating on the consultant who shouted at us, or the workload. No-blame culture may help improve patient safety, but it doesn't address the need to take responsibility for our actions. Often, when a patient is waiting to go home, it is 'pharmacy' who is blamed for the fact that they can't leave yet. Leaving aside the many occasions when actually the doctor hasn't written the discharge prescription yet, and the times when the medicines have been dispensed and delivered to the ward and carefully locked in a the medicines cupboard, if 'pharmacy' as a whole is to blame, then whose fault is it? The chief pharmacist? The ward pharmacist? The ward technician? The dispensary manager? The pharmacy rececptionist? The administrator who approved too much annual leave at once?

 

Following the Francis report there have been complaints that no-one at Stafford hospital lost their job. This situation is not quite the same as a dispensing error which is a genuine mistake, because a long-term, widespread cover-up of abuse is not a mistake. But in both cases, somebody must be responsible; there is a perpetrator (or more than one). Whether or not that person should be sued, or sacked, or strung up is another issue. The point is that we all need to recognise that we aren't perfect, we make mistakes, we choose badly, sometimes deliberately; we need to look at ourselves and admit that some circumstances are not beyond our control. And we need to start doing this on the small scale because some of us have jobs where errors are a matter of life and death. Some of us don't, but stop and think about the last time you broke a plate and whether or not you said 'the plate broke' or the 'the plate got broken' rather than 'I dropped it'. The truth will set you free: trust me, I'm a pharmacist.

A Sunday morning rant

There are some things that really get on my nerves, and this morning there were rather a lot of them all in the same place. So, just to get this off my chest:

• Christmas is over. It is Lent, vestments are purple, the tabernacle is covered with purple. The altar and the ambo are adorned with purple. But for some reason there are Christmas banner things (white, with star and manger) hanging up, half way down the church.
• Electric guitars do not belong in mass. I can just about tolerate acoustic guitars (although to be honest if the organist is away I think I'd rather we just didn't have hymns) but not pink acoustic guitars and definitely not electric guitars.
• Go the mass is ended is a terrible hymn. If you're on the fence about it you've obviously never lived in the West Midlands.
• Children as old as 13 leaving mass to attend the Children's Liturgy. They leave before the Penitential Rite.
• Bidding prayers which focus almost exclusively on what is in the news this week. Pope Emeritus Benedict did get a mention this week, for the first time ever. I'm not saying that we shouldn't pray for the people who died in the hot air balloon crash, but it would be good if we also prayed for the Church, the clergy, vocations, our conversion, our government, the protection of marriage and the family...but don't worry, we have got the horsemeat scandal covered.
• Children coming back from their liturgy in the middle during the offertory and then, when the priest has already started the Eucharistic prayer, interrupting the mass to 'share' what they have learned about this morning. At least there were no notices given at this point today.
• EMHCs being given pieces of the host and standing there holding them while the priest continues and then all consuming the host when the priest does. If you aren't a fan of EMHCs you should skim the next couple of points because in my parish we suffer from a severe confusion of the respective roles of the clergy and the laity.
• EMHCs giving blessings to those who don't receive Holy Communion.
• Priests sitting in the congregation and not celebrating mass. And if there's another priest there we really don't need 5 EMHCs. But if I hadn't been introduced to him I wouldn't have known he was a priest.
• Cherrypicking from the new translation. The word is not 'all', it's 'many'. And we no longer 'go in peace to love and serve the Lord'.
• People staying in church for a natter after mass. Some kind volunteers are serving tea and coffee, and even biscuits, in another building: it's not as if you have nowhere to go!
• Incaica vestments. You know, stripey, woven, Latin American stoles.

I think that's enough to be going on with - I do feel better now. I hope I haven't ruined anyone's day. I will attempt to hold my tongue for the next 12 months or so.

Where were you when Pope Benedict resigned?

Yesterday morning I was coming home from mass and I discovered a message on my phone. A friend who works in an office in Rome wanted some help translating something and when I got home could I please connect to skype. I got home, connected to skype, and there was no sign of her. I emailed her, and got on with reading my emails. Suddenly, she appeared. El papa acaba de renunciar, said the message. The Pope just resigned? I must have misunderstood. My Spanish has been going downhill fast lately through lack of practice, and that didn't make the slightest bit of sense. But a quick check of the BBC website and there was the headline, without even a picture, the news was so unexpected. The Pope had indeed just resigned.

 

The years of Benedict's papacy have been important ones for me. I was worried when he was elected. Worried, but mostly ignorant. All I knew about this Ratzinger was what I had heard from some cousins in Munich, and the BBC, none of whom were particularly keen. But after that came an important retreat, conversion, a pilgrimage to Rome, questioning my vocation, discernment, 3 years in community, more discernment, and whatever it is that I'm living now. These years have been filled with Pope Benedict's writings: I devoured Jesus of Nazareth, skipped through The Ratzinger Report, struggled through In the Beginning. I read encyclicals for the first time in my life, reflected on homilies and discussed general audiences. And when he came to the UK I didn't sleep for three days between Westminster Cathedral, Hyde Park and Cofton Park (which due to the bizarre travel arrangements required travelling up and down the country twice, but least said, soonest mended). From the other side of the world, I watched all of his addresses during World Youth Day 2012. I would not lay claim to being his actual no. 1 fan (that accolade definitely belongs to another friend who not only predicted his election (easy call) but also that he would take the name Benedict) but I love this Pope. There are only three books on my Amazon wish list: Jesus of Nazareth, volumes 1, 2 and 3. I am constantly amazed by the way he can speak so simply and humbly about such complex and profound truths. And in recent attacks on the Church, on Marriage, on life and humanity itself, as well as hate and vitriol directed at him personally, Pope Benedict XVI has been there, taking it all, and strengthening the rest of us.

 

I am glad that everyone has been shocked by this news. I trust the Holy Father, he is not one to shrug off responsibilities, and he is a man of prayer. If he says that he is not strong enough, then he is not strong enough, and it is a decision he has made in the silence of prayer and in the light of God's plan. The reason I am glad to be shocked is that such a momentous decision should not be leaked out, speculated on, guessed at, should not be known until such time as the Pope himself chooses to announce it. And this is the Year of Faith. What better time to put absolute trust in God than in this year and at this time, and what more evidence do we need that faith is what God is asking of his Church right now? So, let us ignore the speculation, the assessment and re-assessment of Church teachings, the calls for a young/old/liberal/conservative/African/politically correct Cardinal to take his place, and get on with praying for Pope Benedict XVI in the last fortnight of his papacy, and also for the holiness of his successor.

Going under the knife

Considering (or perhaps because of) the amount of time I have spent working in hospitals I am still rather squeamish when it comes to surgery. I think it's amazing that it's possible to drill a hole in a bone and then tie a tendon or ligament through it or whatever it is they do, replace worn out ear drums using skin from behind the ears, or reconstruct a breast using tissue from another part of the body, but I don't much want to talk about it and I definitely don't want to watch. The idea of having unnecessary surgery is as incomprehensible to me as playing 'chicken' on a busy road, especially when I've trawled through enough medical notes to know that those wielding the knife don't appear to have the fine motor skills required to use a mere pen. Cosmetic surgery I find frankly icky (technical term, as I'm sure you can appreciate), especially the type where they suck fat out of one place in order to put it into another. Consequently I was surprised to read that this is on the increase.

 

This morning I was reflecting on the Holy Father's message for World Communications Day and I was initially surprised at how positively he spoke about social networks. I have read and heard a lot of comments about the evils of facebook, twitter et al which destroy interpersonal relationships, as individuals seek virtual relationships in which they can pretend to be whoever they want to be. However, as usual, Pope Benedict is right: social networks are neutral in themselves, it is how we use them which makes them positive or negative, good or bad. (I know I look like I've gone off topic: bear with me!) Similarly, plastic surgery is not intrinsically bad. There are many good uses to which it can be put, such as reconstruction following accidents or surgery or to correct physical abnormalities which present health risks in themselves. I am glad to see from the BBC report, though, that the number of 'man boob' operations has decreased because people are going to the gym instead. The operation, whilst superficially resolving a problem, does nothing to address the underlying cause, whereas going to the gym requires commitment and taking responsibility for oneself. At root it recognises that our actions have consequences.

 

When I say that there are good uses to which plastic surgery can be put, I don't know that think that all the others are bad. What concerns me is why people feel the need to have surgery to alter their appearance. In the same way that we can create an alter ego online, we can also project a different image by changing our physical appearance. We all constantly use 'masks' to hide our fears and insecurities, to make ourselves more likeable, or employable, or attractive (on whatever level). In other words, we take steps which we think will make us happier. In the drastic case of cosmetic surgery, it would seem that many people think that looking younger, or thinner, or having a certain body shape, will have consequences which in turn will lead to happiness. I question whether this is true. If a life is built on something which isn't real, can it lead to real happiness? And wouldn't our time and efforts be better spent on trying to be more like the One in whose image we are made, rather than attempting to alter our exterior to conform with any other image?