Basically all English language media report that Pussy Riot gut sentenced to two years in “prison”. All German media report two years in a “Straflager” (penal camp).
It’s outrageously excessive either way, but “Russian penal camp” makes me think of something much worse than “prison”.
I don’t have the Russian to get to the original sentence. I just don’t know.
So does anyone have thoughts on what the actual sentence might be or why the two translations are so widely divergent?
So when the Euro unravels and if it does so disorderedly, how much of the rest of European integration does it take down with it?
Back in January I had a post on some Dutch Euthanasia statistics that were making the rounds in the blogosphere at the time.
Basically the claim was that the rates of Euthanasia and assisted suicide in jurisdictions allowing them were flat which was supposed to disprove the idea of a slippery slope.
The main argument was that in the Netherlands Eutanasias made up the same percentage of deaths in 1990 and 2005. The 2010 report wasn’t out yet. I argued that the trend had a short interruption between 2001 and 2005, which is naturally explained by other factors, but that it had been upwards both before and after that interruption. For the rise since 2005 I relied on the officially reported numbers, which are known to be an undercount (which is why there are separate polls in the first place):
Now one might hope these advances have reversed the trend permanently, but a look at the official statistics shows it isn’t so. They have been rising again, and this time better reporting can’t be blamed alone. 2910 Euthanasias were officially reported in the year 2010, compared to the estimated 2325 for 2005 of which ca. 80% had been reported. Even in the best case, where reporting is now perfect, the euthanasia rate is up by a roughly a quarter since the 2005 result on which the idea of it having stabilized rested.
The update is that the results of the 2010 poll (pdf) are now out, and I was right except that we are not living in that best case. The reporting rate is actually slightly down (77% when it was 80% in 2005) and the Euthanasia rate rose from 1.7% in 2005 to 2.8% in 2010 which makes for a relative increase of almost 65% compared to the roughly 25% I called the best possible case. The decline between 2001 and 2005 is more than compensated for, making the 2010 result the highest rate ever. So as I said in January the rates aren’t flat.
I can’t say anything positive about the Secular Student Alliance. They are clearly not worthy of support.
Free speech, however, is worthy of support. Unfortunately some people seem to disagree with it. Recently, the SSA has been targeted by Distributed Denial of Service attacks. One of their employees reports that they have meanwhile installed effective defenses, but those cost money. I think it is reasonable for Christians to donate towards offsetting that cost so as to make clear we don’t approve of that kind of crime for which could easily have been committed by overzealous idiotic coreligionists. Basically it’s not about supporting them but about restoring the status quo ante.
To that end Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism is collecting money from Christians who would like to contribute without giving our contact info to the SSA. I think he can be trusted in that regard. I’ve embedded his chip in widget at the top of this blog’s sidebar (to the right) and I encourage you to contribute as I did.
After the circumcision judgment I mentioned about two weeks ago, the federal government has now announced it is committed to keep religious circumcision possible and restore the security of law rapidly and is presently investigating ways to to that including legislative solutions.
In plain language and accounting for some face-saving for our secularist minister of justice who had previously been dragging her feet, that means they are now writing the bill. The major opposition parties have announced they too would support such a bill. So it’s now virtually certain there will be a legislative fix.
I’m not quite happy yet, because some politicians are using the word “straffrei” (non-punishable). This is consistent with full legalization, but it could also mean the weird hybrid state we presently have for abortion, which is nominally illegal but the prohibition doesn’t carry any legal consequences. Often the state even pays for it and most Germans don’t even know it’s technically illegal. The distinction doesn’t have any practical consequences and I think of it as a sham on abortion, but symbolically I would strongly prefer making circumcision strictly legal. I guess I’ll have to wait for the actual bill to see where it’s going.
I think it is very unlikely anyone will be prosecuted before the new law goes into effect. The case would have to be dropped when it does and prosecutors know that too.
So, while there still is a risk of highly questionable symbolism, I’m happy to tell you the immediate danger for Jews and Muslims in Germany is over.
A reader wrote in to ask my opinion about Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who used to be the bishop of Regensburg and, a few days ago, was appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The background is that people on the Internet are claiming he is himself a heretic who denies transubstantiation and the perpetual virginity of Mary.
The first thing I must note is that, while I’m flattered to be asked about my opinion, I’m not really competent to answer the question. The way to tell if someones writings are heretic is presumably to read them and the truth is I haven’t read any of Müller’s works yet. The allegations are based on quotations from his textbook on dogmatics and a popular intro book on the mass. I have ordered both books and will blog on them once I have a clue what they actually say, but by then the general interest will probably have passed. So for now I have to rely on more feeble heuristics.
That being said, I’m fairly sure the allegations are false.
The most obvious reason to think so is that pope Benedict knows all about heretics and wouldn’t appoint one of them as head of the CDF. Benedict has previously praised Müller’s dogmatics textbook (one of the two books the critics are quoting from) as “a masterpiece” and has entrusted him with editing his collected works. So this is not a snap decision, there is clearly a history of reliability and trust here.
But there are also other reasons to be highly skeptical of these allegations.
One reason is their source. I know poisoning the well is a weak argument, but I think it is highly relevant that these allegations mainly come from SSPX circles and the SSPX has a previous conflict with bishop Müller. They have a seminar in his former diocese and, as he already was a member of the CDF, he also had business with them on a more global level. And he has taken a comparatively hard line, publicly calling the dialog with them “theological remedial instruction”, calling their priestly ordinations canonically illegal (which they are), emphasizing the accepting part more than the explaining part on the second Vatican council, stating that they are not fully Catholic, etc. The CDF supervises the SSPX talks and as prefect of the CDF Müller will also chair the commission Ecclesia Dei, which deals with the old mass more generally. Perhaps I’m diving too deep into tasseography, but I think there’s a good case to be made that this appointment means the pope no longer expects reconciliation with the SSPX. So basically the allegations come from people who have other issues with the archbishop and a history of making false allegations of heresy.
A second reason is that the usual suspects on the left are screaming just as loudly. If Hans Küng thinks Müller is a “bornierter Scharfmacher” (“blinkered stirrer”) and the SSPX thinks he’s a heretic, well chances are he’s about right. And this isn’t just the automatic reflex either, Müller actually has more of a history of conflict with the “we are church” folks than other German bishops. For example, he revoked a few canonical missions, and reformed some lay representative institutions in a way they didn’t agree with. He also picked some fights with the disobedient society donum vitae (Right now I can’t explain what they are about, but the short version is that it was founded specifically to continue a previous practice of the German Church that the pope had forbidden) and with some atheists, in the lattter case sometimes less diplomatically than I would have thought wise. So the German MSM consensus is that he’s a conservative hardliner and now I’m a little surprised the critics suddenly seem to come from the other side of the spectrum. This isn’t absolute proof, because he could be pugilistically orthodox on some issues and wrong on others, but at the very least he doesn’t fit the stereotype of the modernist theologian trying to muddle theology.
A third point is that more moderately conservative German Catholics (think like me or even a bit further to the right) aren’t complaining. Mostly they seem to think the quotes are taken out of context.
So all in all I haven’t read the stuff yet and I can’t tell you folks anything definitive. But from circumstantial evidence I think the allegations are very probably all bunk.
This post is the first of a series. Here’s an overview of everything posted in that series so far:
1. This post.
2. Archbishop Müller and the doctrine of the real presence.
3. …
You probably heard the news of a German court declaring circumcision illegal. As a German religion blogger blogging in English I probably should comment on that. So first I’ll explain what happened and then I’ll offer some commentary.
The abstract legal question has been under discussion for a while. The new part is not that a circumcision counts as bodily injury. German courts have always helt that basically every medical treatment is a “bodily injury” under section 223 of the criminal code. There are however legal justifications that make the act of bodily injury legal. The most important one is consent, which is why doctors are still in business.
Now the question is if parents can consent to their children’s circumcision. The general rule is that they can consent to medical procedures if they are in the child’s best interest. What exactly counts as the child’s best interest is not defined by statute and basically left to the courts. Most German legal scholars think circumcision is in the best interest of a child growing up in a religious setting that demands it, because in that context it’s an important part of socialization. A minority think it isn’t, because an irreversible damage is more important.
In this specific case a doctor had circumcised a four year old Muslim boy. Two days later there was some bleeding from the circumcision wound and the parents delivered the boy to a hospital. This wasn’t malpractice, it’s just something that can happen.
The doctor was prosecuted for bodily injury. In the first instance (the Amtsgericht) he was acquitted because the parent’s consent was deemed sufficient. The prosecution appealed. This part probably seams strange to American readers, but it’s entirely normal in the German legal system. On appeal (to the Cologne Landgericht) the doctor was acquitted again. But this time the reasoning was different. The court acquitted only because, this being a controversial legal question, the doctor couldn’t know he was committing a crime even with due diligence. Objectively though, the court says his action was criminal.
This specific case won’t go to any higher court. The doctor can’t appeal his own acquittal and the prosecution gave up after loosing in two instances.
Unlike common law systems, the German legal system doesn’t officially have binding precedents. So no new law has been created and any other court or theoretically even the same one could find different in different cases. But this specific court has made its opinion known and presumably would find child circumcision criminal in other appeals from its district.
I am ashamed for my country. Obviously a statute in need of interpretation should be interpreted in the light of the constitutional guarantee of religious liberty. And I think it’s pretty obvious that circumcision wins for every religion prescribing it.
But in this case it’s especially bad because of our national history with the Jews. A German court declaring it a crime to practice the Jewish religion is even more heinous than it “just” failing to get religious freedom. A week ago I would have thought this impossible and people in other countries are fully justified in downgrading their opinion of Germany.
Still, please keep your sense of proportion in the extent of how far you downgrade your opinion of Germany. Idiotic court rulings happen in all countries and the principles of this one will not stand.
I haven’t heard any reaction from the post-communists yet, but politicians of all other parties represented in parliament have denounced the ruling. Jewish organizations are now asking for a clarifying statute and I think they are fairly likely to get it.
And even if there is no legislative solution the judicial branch as a whole is quite capable of correcting itself. On cases of bodily injury the Landgericht is the last fact-finder, but if someone was actually convicted under their legal interpretation the question of law would be appealable to an even higher court (an Oberlandesgericht). Even if that court affirmed, there would still be the possibility of a complaint to the Federal Constitution Court (which does judicial review the other courts aren’t empowered with) and, after that, to the European Court for Human Rights.
So all in all, yes, this is a terrible decision, but no, it will not stand and Germany will almost certainly not end up outlawing Judaism.