The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, says that the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Funes says that such a notion “doesn’t contradict our faith” because aliens would still be God’s creatures.

The interview was headlined “The extraterrestrial is my brother.” Funes said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be like “putting limits” on God’s creative freedom.

What a relief. And here I thought that admitting the existence of aliens would be an admission that the human race was not the most important thing in creation. Not sure about this whole “brother” thing, though…

I’ll post a link to the interview once it comes through in English; here it is in Italian.

The decision overturns a lower court ruling by a lower court, which said the state need not recognise conversions from Islam because of a religious ban.

Translation: Islam forbids apostasy, and many countries impose the death penalty if Muslims convert to any other religion (though see this recent article in the Guardian for a very interesting perspective on recent religious permissiveness in Egypt). However, it is very important to note that what is making the apostasy of these twelve Christians in Egypt possible is the fact that they were originally Christians before they converted to Islam:

This suggests that Egyptians born Muslim will still be unable to convert to other faiths and have those conversions recognised on their identity cards. Many Muslims believe that converting from Islam is wrong, and some believe it is punishable by death.

What a shame. It should be one’s own decision what religion to profess, if one wants to profess any at all, and the state has no business denying people the right to change their minds—and especially should not be allowed to execute them if they do. This issue goes to the heart of free speech and freedom of belief. This particular ruling is worthy of congratulation, but it is worth very little if total freedom of belief is denied.

Pullum’s key opinion is that Dr. Williams is an unsuitable leader for the Anglican church because he cannot ‘do the demanding job of holding this figurehead position without causing his church to fall apart in social and political discord.’ He further points out that Dr. Williams also took a number of positions on homosexuality that caused dissension in various sizable wings of the church. ‘The people who say he lacks the leadership skills for his job are basically right,’ says Pullum:

Dr Williams is a gentle, learned, brilliant, scholarly man, and a bit of a public relations doofus. I hate to say it, but the calls for his resignation are not unjustified. He should be the holder of an endowed Professorship of Theology and Law at some top-ranking university. He should not be a prominent church administrator, and certainly not the Archbishop of Canterbury. Someone duller, more political, less original, and less intelligent must be found for that job.

Absolutely true, but I have a few caveats to add: First, would there really be no controversy if Dr. Williams were a professor somewhere, and not the Primate of all England? Just think of Ward Churchill and the media furor that surfaces whenever he opens his mouth. Furthermore, is it the case that religious leaders should not voice their political opinions? In other words, is it appropriate for a religious leader to use his religious pulpit as a political bully pulpit? (I have a very strong personal bias against this, but from a conceptual point of view I’m not sure what the answer is.)

But finally, this doesn’t address the underlying issue: to what extent should the secular state accommodate religious law? Back in 2004 there was a controversy in Ontario in which it was proposed to include shari’ah law in the Arbitration Act, which would make decisions rendered by shari’ah courts regarding private disputes legally binding. This had some Muslims, notably the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, worried that this would create a ’slippery slope’ and end up hurting Muslims more than it helped them. What do you do, for example, to prevent people—notably women—from being ‘coerced’ into using a system in which they might run the risk of unfair treatment? And what do you do when your religious law comes into conflict with established civil law? (And it is important to note that this is not just a Muslim concern; Jews, especially of the more Orthodox varieties, have many of the same problems with their own shadow court system, especially with the agunah problem).

Of course, there are no easy answers here: after all, this is one of the central post-Enlightenment questions in the Western world. But hopefully the current case of Dr. Williams can provide another data point and perspective in the current conversation, if we can get past the stupidity and sensationalism brought about by the media.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay;
Remember that our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day.

Wikipedia lists this as an ‘alternate version’ and seems to believe that the proper version goes something like ‘upon this day’ rather than ‘on Christmas Day’, which obviates the problem I am about to outline. But if we do not accept this emendation, we are faced with a somewhat incredible tautology: of course the day on which Jesus was born would have to be Christmas Day, given that it was the day on which Jesus was born! Regardless of the date—the end of December or the middle of July or whenever—the birthday of Jesus would have to, of necessity, be Christmas. Therefore the exhortation and justification provided don’t really make much sense, do they, given that the date is completely arbitrary and only of necessity is Christmas Day?

I’m certain I’m not the first person ever to have realised this. I don’t know why this is making me so excited. Maybe it’s the snow.